The Self OutCast

Delusions of Grandeur

2011-11-13T13:11:00.001+05:30

It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than

To persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
- Carl Sagan

Delusion is the first gift we recieve as we step into this world. The moment a child arrives in the world, the world around is filled with celebration - which is the first delusion for the child. The first impression created on the fresh mind of the infant is that he/she is the most important person in the world - the world which the infant sees around itself. The poor little child doesn't know that the world is a far bigger place than the few people around. The infant seems the centre-of-attraction of it's own world; the king of it's own kingdom - the Lilliputian kingdom - too minuscule for the giant universe around. Every movement of the child is monitored and its every wishes satisfied even before wished. Thus started our story with delusions of grandeur.

Soon the Lilliputian king realises that the kingdom it thought its own is actually somebody else's - when it's shifted back home. Soon the infant's kingdom gets demolished when it realizes that it is just part of a family with many others like it. This is the first strike of reality for the infant. As life moves ahead, as the child grows into a boy/girl and then into a man/woman, delusions are struck down slowly when faced with reality. The kid enters school and it realizes that its just another one - among a few hundreds in the class. Then comes the college life, where the attention it recieves dwindles further. This dwindling of delusions of grandeur continues till the death-bed where man/woman realizes the ultimate vanity of his/her own life. It is this truth which we pretend not to be aware and keep running away from through-out the course of life.

There is nothing worse than the feeling

That no one cares whether we exist or not

That no one is interested in what we have to say about life

And that the world can continue turning without our awkward presence.

- Paulo Coelho (Zahir)

Ends don't justify the Means!

2011-08-26T01:31:00.002+05:30

No matter what the end is, it doesn't justify the means to achieve the same. Especially when the end is a promised outcome, the means matter a lot more than the end.

In the context of the ongoing fast by Anna Hazare, the lines above mean a lot. As I understand, the fast is to get the Jan Lokpal Bill passed through the parliament. The end result of this fast is a promise - curtailing corruption. We need to understand that passing the Jan Lokpal Bill in itself doesn't serve any purpose to the citizens of this country. The expectation of the citizens is to curtail corruption, which is the promised outcome of passing the Jan Lokpal Bill.

Whether the Jan Lokpal Bill is going to achieve the expected outcome or not is a question only time can answer. Considering the fact that the outcome is unsure at the current moment, the means used to get this bill need to be looked at with more care.

In this sense, I personally don't agree with the tactics used by Team Anna. Fast until death is the means used by Anna Hazare, which clearly seems an act of coercion and non-cooperation. Often the fasting here is compared with that ofGandhiji. We need to note the significant difference between the two. While most of Gandhiji's fasts were against the British government in a pre-independent India, Anna Hazare's fasting is against a freely elected government in a parliamentary democracy. So it wouldn't be right to put both these on the same plane.

Another point worth pondering is the fact that the ultimate expected outcome - curtailing corruption - is accepted by all; even by the government, if not by heart at-least in paper. The difference lies only in the means to achieve the same. So the point of contention here is on the means and means alone. So according to me, supporting Anna Hazare means simply that the means we choose is the Jan Lokpal Bill; and not supporting Anna Hazare doesn't mean supporting corruption. However Team Anna has somehow distorted this fact to mean that not supporting Anna Hazare means that you not part of the fight against corruption. Or rather, if not Anna's side one is deemed as part of corruption's side. Considering that there are other people with genuine difference of opinion, this seems to me as clear distortion of fact.

Also the demand by Team Anna needs to be critically reviewed. They virtually demand that all the provisions of Jan Lokpal Bill to be present in the final bill. No matter how good the intentions behind the Jan Lokpal Bill are, their intolerance to differing views seems clearly unacceptable to me. In a democracy, all voices need to be heard. There are other voices with differing opinions, with different versions of the bill which also deserve equal consideration, irrespective of whether it is better or worse - e.g., Aruna Roy and her organization have their own version of the Lokpal Bill. In this aspect, I feel Team Anna is clearly undemocratic in their demands.

To sum up, though the proclaimed cause behind the fast by Anna Hazare seems promising, I feel the means handled are not equally good. As they say, the ends don't justify the means!

Cut the Foot, Fit the Shoe!

2010-11-05T14:06:00.002+05:30

Manzilon se raahein dhoondti chali
Aur kho gayi hai manzil kahin raahon mein
- Javed Akhtar

The lines above match my reflection of the world I'm living in today. In the world of today, I often get confused between the means and the ends. Life today is encapsulated to unimaginable levels that I find it difficult to know the basic necessities of life. We created system to suit our needs, which over time creates new needs instead of serving the needs.

Man built houses to make his life comfortable. It was intended to be a means to better life. Today man's life ends pursuing the means. Most people's life ends in the pursuit of a house; or in paying the EMI for the house they bought. The work I do - testing a software - is the best analogy I can find for the world I see around. We create a software product to make things easy for us. In the process, we test the product and to do that we create another software. And I'm here fixing bugs in that. No matter how many bugs I fix or how much reliability I add it is very hard for me impact the actual product. Today's world is also in the same condition. We create things to help us. In the process, we end up forgetting why we created them.

One more funny example I can quote will be the idea of social networking. The idea behind these sites should be to share things with your friends. It seems a nice idea - I'd be glad to know what my friends are doing. However, after a certain point, these sites start demanding an update from us. There have been moments I've felt odd that I've nothing to share/update in Facebook - though very transient. Now I got one :)

The problem today is not just that it is tough to differentiate the means and ends. Instead, the means have started shaping our needs. We formed the society; we created the money; we framed the laws. All for our own well-being. But today, all these cost me my life. They start telling me where I can go, what I can do, when I should sleep and everything. It seems somehow ridiculous to me - the state I'm living in, the same state all of us are living in. I'm not trying to judge anything here. I'm just portraying my reflections. And they ask me to cut my feet because they don't fit the shoe! I simply don't like this!

Path to Happiness

2010-03-28T18:37:00.001+05:30

The blind follow the blind
The dumb follow the fool - but
Very few follow their heart!

Rightly said! Most part of my life, I have always treaded the path already well paved and well lit. I’ve always been afraid to go in the dark – into the unknown. Right from birth, I’m so conditioned to never doubt certain ubiquitous truths; to learn from others, rather than experiencing myself. I’m not against learning from the mistakes of others. I’m not a proponent of reinventing the wheel. But when you are not convinced of what others say, its always better to go by your convictions instead of following blindly others. Who knows… what if the others too follow some others blindly?

Right through the history of mankind, certain path-breaking events happened because few people dared to doubt or rather dared to believe in their convictions. To be more precise, they treaded a path never travelled before, instead of following the trails of others. Importantly, they went into the unknown, unaware what lies ahead. They broke the established path and conceived something which became path-breaking! So the most intriguing question becomes “What is the right way of life?” I would say - The question is totally irrelevant. There is no such thing as a right path to follow. If so, our lives wouldn’t be much different from those of machines.

I imagine the world to be an infinitely large web (like that of a Spider’s web, created by ???) with the links hidden in the dark and the whole web is well sandboxed all around. Each person walks through this web in his life. The first person to walk through a path unravels the unknown in the path. He goes through the unknown dark, stumbles, but gets up with little pain because the web is sandboxed all around. Every time he unravels a new link in the web, he becomes ecstatic. Every successive person has some known safe paths (unravelled by his predecessors) and a lot of unknown space to explore. Every person has the option to choose his own path and shape his own life.

We live in the world where _A bird in hand is worth two in the bush_. We are nurtured not to take risks in life. To Fall means To Fail. And To Fail means To Be Branded Failure and To Never Come Back. But in truth, To Fall means To Learn. If we can learn from other’s mistakes, why not from one’s own? Comebacks have become such a difficult thing in today’s world. It takes more than just a bike to come back in the journey of life, as Lance Armstrong showed to the world. But he also proved one more important thing - it is still possible in today’s world.

The path that gave happiness to one may not give happiness for the one who follows. Creating fire for me is just a flick of my hand. I can never feel the same way as the first man in the stone age felt when he turned the spark from flint into fire. The stone age man might have felt more happy than even CERN, when CERN succeeds (if at all) in its anti-matter research. This tells another point – that happiness can never be measured based on the magnitude of success. In fact, success can’t be measured or compared, at-least not very easily.

The fear of failure applies the brakes on our dreams. To dream itself is lost these days, let alone pursuing them. What we end up doing is treading the trails of others. But what we don’t understand is that it will never give happiness. Happiness will remain a pursuit forever. The risk involved in going into the unknown, pursuing the dreams, abandoning everything else, is worth it because of the happiness you will achieve – not in reaching the summit, but throughout the journey. Hope soon I will gather the courage to take the risk! And there will be many more to accompany me!

Disclaimer: The ideas are totally un-thought & un-taught and subject to change anytime !

Live the Moment

2010-02-05T17:49:00.004+05:30

Life is so strange - for me. At times least expected, I have had moments to cherish for lifetime. May be its the unexpected-ness that crowned the moment. When experiencing such moments, I never felt the value. Those moments just pass by like a breeze, whose gentleness lingers past the moment. Often those memories strike back like a lightning in the dark corners of mind. When it happens, a sharp pain (if sharpness can be attributed to pain) passes through. My physical world is unaware of that pain and hence I remain helpless unable to explain - even to myself. No matter how much I try to recreate the moment, I never succeed. A moment is impossible to reclaim. Had I known then that this moment will become so cherishable, I would have lived it more passionately. You never know what this moment holds. So.... Live the moment!!!

Like a flowing river

2009-11-07T04:38:00.005+05:30

Live like a flowing river - oblivious to changes in life. In the course of human life, we stick (or get attached) to everything that comes across or rather we try to stick everything to us. Whenever we like something, we want to carry it with us - forever. I always feel - My mobile, my friend, my love - everything very personal. I don't like to share anything I like. I like to own everything exclusively. I like to carry everything I like with me forever. Like few others out here, atleast!

Our fault seems to lie here. I feel, it is beyond human power to own anything exclusively - except one's own soul. We know this fact; but we forget this often or rather pretend to have forgotten this - just for our own sake. By not accepting the truth, we create nothing but misery for ourselves. It is this attitude which causes the pain of loss. By imbibing the truth that we can own nothing, we can escape the pain of loss.

Here's something to think about... On his way home, an artist sees a beautiful rose flower - the one of a kind which he has never come across in his life. Being an artist, he wants to capture the beauty of the flower. He is left with two choices - either to prick the flower and take it with him or to leave it there itself. By taking the flower with him, he can enjoy its beauty more personally. But in due course he might have to see the flower fading out, losing all its beauty. Instead if he just leaves it there, the flower will always remain beautiful - in his mind. For him, in his mind, the flower will always remain beautiful - just like the little girl who never grows up in _The Beautiful Mind_. We are often left with the same choices in our life. And the choice is OURS!!!

In our life, we should try to be like the flowing river. The flowing river is unaware from where it originated and is unmindful of where it is going to end. It never stops. It enjoys every moment of its course. After all, the journey is all that is left for it. The path is sometimes rough and rocky and sometimes smooth and sandy. It neither slows to enjoy the smoothness nor does it run fast to escape the roughness. It never wants to carry anything with it; and by choosing that it carries everything in its fullness. The moment it stops, it gets stagnated and becomes polluted. Wish I can have a life like the flowing river - without trying to hold on to anything - without any pain of loss!!!

The Wounded Dog

2009-06-20T02:00:00.006+05:30

It was another silent night - perfect for a lonely walk. Everything seemed serene, except for my heart - which always gets troubled contemplating such peacefulness. I was having the usual walk around the MS campus - if there is one thing that I like the most about this campus, it is the lonely walk late at night with a hot cup of coffee @ hand. I simply love it.

I just came across a dog - which is a common sight @ our campus. It was a wounded dog, this time - it had lost one of its limbs. Somehow, the sight struck me and I just stopped when it crossed me. I just stared into its eyes and it just revealed a whole new world - Welcome to the dog world!

The dog's eyes looked ferocious - though a pierce into it showed something else. It felt indeed very weak. Just to hide its weakness, it masked itself with an angry, threatening look. It felt so alone that there is no one in the world to give a helping hand in time of need. It was just acting strong to survive in the world.

I was wondering how am I able to read what's going inside a dog! On one hand, I can assume that even dogs have souls and souls do communicate directly; but the idea didn't fit properly. Just then I realized what I was going through. It was not the world of the dog. I was just reflecting on my world through the dog's eyes.

Yes, indeed it's true. Sometimes I do pretend to be strong, just to hide my weakness. Weakness is not accepted and understood correctly by us; instead it gets exploited. I guess, there are a few more wounded dogs around there in search of a place to rest - where they can be what they are; where they can freely ask they need help without the fear of getting exploited. Let's hope all such wounded souls get some place to rest in peace - right in this world!

Be a Rebel

2009-05-12T18:41:00.006+05:30

Rebel
noun - somebody unconventional: somebody who rejects the codes and conventions of society
verb - refuse to conform: to refuse to conform to the usual codes and conventions of society

Be a Rebel. When needed, don't think twice. Being a rebel, just for the sake of being different is not what I mean here. Sometimes when you really feel to act differently from the so-called _established conventions_ of the society, just don't hesitate to be a rebel.

Majority always wins? Atleast this is what we have been taught. I'm not cynical in questioning that. It could be true. But it is never said that Majority is always right. We often forget this. Or rather pretend to have forgotten this. There are times, when one is expected to stand out of the majority and stand for what one believes as right.

Throughout human history, there have been few people who stood out and against the society. The society termed them as _rebels_ and often ridiculed in what they believed. Still they stuck to their stand. They paid their price too. Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi are some examples worth quoting here. This list is very small though.

If only few people are rebels, what do the rest of us do? We just conform. We get ourselves manipulated by others. Instead of believing in ourselves, we rather choose to go with the rest - the majority. Some of us might not agree with me. We think that we are not just one among the herd. But it seems most of us are indeed part of that herd - the one that conforms. Atleast that's what the conclusions of Asch's experiments - the famous Asch's Conformity Experiment. Check out the video below.

The results from Asch's Conformity Experiment are quite shocking. If we can't believe in what is so obvious to our naked eyes but instead go with what most others think, then how can we pursue on something that is not quite obvious? It's hard to believe but it's true that we could also be one among this.

Be a Roman when you are in Rome is an old saying. Be yourself wherever you go is what we need today. We may not be right always and indeed we do make mistakes sometimes. But that shouldn't stop us from pursuing what we believe. In short, when there is a need, we should be a rebel.

The Onion Man

2009-04-22T00:04:00.006+05:30

In the course of life, we come across different people - each unique in their own way. I believe each one of us is unique and it doesn't make much sense to compare one with the other. Still each of us possess a set of traits/behaviours, which often Personality Psychologists use to classify people. There are infinite traits and hence there can be innumerable classifications - like Introvert/Extrovert, Optimist/Pessimist etc. All these different traits coexist in the world within and around us. And then I came across an interesting friend _Onion Man_*. I'm sure there are a few Onion Men around or within you - all you need is to look inside.

Whoz this Onion Man actually? He is - the successful executive with a white collar; the gentle-manly friend to anyone who approaches; the ideal husband a gal can think of; the perfect Dad who never missed his kid's birthday; and he is all these together. In addition, deep inside, where no one touches, he is the torn-apart person; always feeling like a jigsaw puzzle with the little piece of life missing.

In short, the Onion Man is the multi-layered person of today - whose layers often mask the actual core. He gets lost himself feeling the burden of all the layers he's carrying; feeling insecure to come out of the shell (or rather the layers). Often he needs the right person to go beyond the layers and touch the core to get a peek into the world buried under - and thus help in finding himself back. He needs someone to help him fix the jigsaw puzzle - the one who fills the missing piece in his life.

The Onion Man is there - within and around us - like the kaala bandhar. We often look out searching for him and fail; rather we should look inside - within us; and he'll be right there looking desperate to get the tender care he deserves. Free him and feel the magic in your life.

*The term Onion Man & the core are the The Gift from the magical world of Cecilia Ahern

To Love Or To Be Loved?

2009-03-20T16:26:00.011+05:30

To Love & To Be Loved - As closely related they sound just as much they differ from one another. Atleast this is what I feel at this moment. Quite often, we fail to feel the difference between the two, leading to unexpected consequences. After so much of self-introspection, I now feel a bit relieved to get some answers right from the heart – often the answers are inside us; we have to really ask ourselves the right questions. I asked my heart – What do you really want? To Love or To Be Loved?

To Love is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever known. To love means sharing your heart without demanding anything in return. You are free to love anyone. But often I find myself saying “Why do I not have anyone to shower my love?”. When there is a whole world in front of me, why do I really feel this way? I can share the love with everyone around me. It means that I don’t really want to love someone.

What do I really want then? I want to be loved – someone to love me. Both of them sound related just because of the similarity in lingual characteristics. Otherwise, they hold as much difference that they can never co-exist ideally.

The feeling of To be loved, is manifestation of selfishness, which is quite opposite to the selfless nature of love. As Khalil Gibran says, “Love possesses not nor would it be possessed. For love is sufficient unto love”. But the basic trait seen in today’s world of lovers is possessiveness. This is an addiction induced by the feeling of To be loved.

The To be loved addict (referred as lover) is no different from any other addict. The lover needs to be loved by his/her object of love. Time goes fine, when the object of love is able to meet the demand of the lover. When the object of love retracts, the lover pushes hard. The more the lover pushes, the more the object retracts - in turn creating the Withdrawal effects. At this point, the lover is ready to do anything for the slightest feeling of being loved by the object of love – leading ultimately to even self-destruction. This explains the reason behind the so-called DevD effect on so-called failed lovers (though there is nothing called failure in love).

To finish up, let me quote the wise sayings about love from Khalil Gibran.

If in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the season-less world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

- Khalil Gibran (The Prophet)

Fantasy Nights In The Sin City…

2009-03-11T00:51:00.006+05:30

What happens in Las Vegas?

It was just a movie name for me, until recently. Simply put, it looked an alien planet to me altogether. Alien in the way that the city rises when the Sun sets and sleeps when the Sun rises. It has a whole different set of rules. It’s a world of casinos ‘n bars ‘n clubs ‘n … everything to quench one’s fantasy. In the city of gambling, a different sort of cards are also sold free all through the Strip. No doubt, it’s rightly called The Sin City.

It’s definitely the place to realize some of one’s darkest dreams; thereby realizing self. Setting afoot in the sin city, I roamed The Strip – the aorta (or probably some vein?) of Las Vegas, where the major casinos are located – along with my friends. Bellagio, Paris, New York New York, Mirage, Caesar’s Palace are some of the casinos we touched. We stayed at The Luxor – the pyramidal Egyptian style one with a Xenon light that is told to be visible upto 250 miles.

With trams connecting the casinos, Roller coaster ride screaming on top of New York – New York, everything is pure luxury. The Dolphin’s habitat and the tigers were the sole remnants of nature over there. Climate was good enough for night-life – roads filled with pedestrians and cars stuck in jam at 2 AM are rare sights to watch otherwise in any city.

Whether it is matching cheeks with Penelope or the white fairy Marilyn Monroe or with the bar dancer, Madame Tussauds provided the star attraction. I was disappointed though for not finding Britney Spears, Natalie Portman and a few others

We X-Screamed over the top of Stratosphere – 866 feet above the ground. But everything has a cost here – a big one though. One thing that is good here is that the food is not as costly as one would expect – Thanks to McD, it has always played a great role in my life :) And of course Starbucks – it’s life for me.

Casinos require dollars. While I had to restrict myself to some confusing boring game, my friend tried his hand at Roulette. It’s true that gambling is enticing and that every game has a beginner’s luck. We too had our beginner’s luck and got enticed by the game too; but not quite much to stake our return tickets.

Relaxation from the game is provided by drinks ‘n smoke. I love the style of people smoking and throwing the chips – that’s how they call money in gambling. If you want more, reLax yourself at the thump of the club music and the night-life. They have professional rules for relaxation – I donno how it makes sense. And there are even better ways to relax and feed your Fantasy – Itz Vegas, man!

Hoover Dam is one different thing we covered. Actually the trip to Grand Canyon got stripped to Hoover Dam due to the freezing traffic along the mountains. The drive to the dam was what can be called picturesque and scenic beauty. Overall the Thanksgiving trip to the Sin City is a quite unexpected experience :)

Quest For Life

2009-02-19T20:36:00.002+05:30

Human life seems just to be a string of infinite Quests (Ignore the influence of Computer languages!) - Quest for knowledge, Quest for job, Quest for status, position, power, recognition, fame etc... - wherein each Quest once attained leads to another Quest. Till which Quest one reaches is upto one's own thirst for meaningfullness.

Till a point, everyone follows these never-ending quests. Gets exhausted. Ultimately, everyone comes to think of the meaning or the purpose of these quests. Which in turn boils down to the meaning of life. What is the meaning of life? This interesting thought unfortunately hasn't been anwered clearly yet. That's why it's still interesting may be .

Meaning of life - A search in Wikipedia yields a big list of ideologists and their idea about life; nothing concrete or universally accepted. If I sit back and think about what I'm doing all through the day, I dont see any meaning in any of them. Human beings are said to have life (I've been told so. Don't argue.. Let's assume!). All through the day I've been conversating with them (Homo Sapiens, I mean). But I couldn't find even traces of life there.

The only point when I think there is life indeed is when I hear some voice inside me (I'm not nuts. I'm using the term voice just to refer to the so-called thoughts). I may seem crazy to confuse the brain's activity with life. May be true. But if at all there is some trace of life I could experience, then it would definitely be those thoughts Thought may not be the right word, though. But I'm limited to human language for expression. If I name the life inside me as Soul, then as Paulo Coelho rightly says, we need to understand the language of the soul to discuss about life. For the time being, let's limit ourselves to human language - English - as the medium.

Let's assume that everyone has life inside us and let us call it the Soul. If so, in our day-to-day life when two persons converse, is it really the souls that are conversing? I'm pretty sure not. Then when and how do the souls communicate? If I ask Paulo Coelho, then he would probably give me a copy of his book Eleven Minutes instantly. May be he's right But I'm surprised that without even knowing about our soul or life, what are we persevering for? Still worse is that even we dont try to understand the same. If at all one thinks about it, then it's almost timeout - at the death bed. Or is it the vice versa - The Quest for the meaning of life brings one to the death-bed? Can't be. Just joking!

I donno how to to end this blog bcos I've just started treading the path to the Quest. Without this Quest for Life, Life seems to be just a Vanity Fair to me!

Obnoxiously… Single Male!!!

2009-02-17T00:23:00.002+05:30

Are we really living in a male chauvinistic society? Yes. Few experiences of mine sometimes throws some doubt to this quite obvious answer.

In the world of today, women are on par with men in most of the things (at-least that’s what the media proclaim). This is really true to some extent. But still I believe our society is male chauvinistic a lot of times – I have no doubt about that. We don’t crush women; but we don’t treat them equal. We treat them to be the weaker sex. Ah… here comes the point… weaker sex. Treating them to be weaker sex and in the process of empowering them, I feel, we sometimes end up squeezing the the other sex - men.

Men are often looked up with contempt – without any reason. The common perception of people on a gang of college boys is simple – These are the examples of prodigal sons who waste their time and their Dad’s money; with their own son alone being the exception. I don’t really understand why they can’t see other boys just as normal as their son.

The situation grows worse when a boy reaches the twenties – when he’s attributed as guy. A guy can be a brilliant engineer or a doctor or even a scientist in profession. But when he puts off the professional coat, as a person, most of the times he doesn’t get the deserved respect. Sometimes the reason for this drops down to the answer to the simple question – Are you single?

I don’t really understand the funda behind this. Take any public place – like an auto, theatre… these are places where I’ve experienced this quite often. Even you’d have! When some gal (be single or with her partner) sits beside you, you can’t miss the chance of an obnoxious look from the gal, which just asks the same question – Are you single?

The look says a lot. The looks give an irritation that you feel like some untouchable. I don’t understand the logic why gals think like this of a single guy and not a guy who comes with a female partner – be it friend or anyone. If it is because that a guy who already has a gal with him wont try his trick with you, then you’re wrong my dear! A guy who can trick a gal will always try the next too – given it is worth going for. If the gal thinks that the single guy might be interesting to try her own trick, then again you are wrong! If the guy can’t really come with a gal, then itz most likely that either he’s not interested or he’s incapable. Be it either way, he’s not the one for you.

Not just gals. Everyone has this perception – obnoxious single male. Adding to this, guys always go supporting a gal – I can understand this but. I’d say it as biological rather than illogical. Ultimately the single male stands single!

Technorati Tags: Single Male,Life

The Road To Microsoft

2009-02-13T00:13:00.001+05:30

It's about a journey... My own journey from the hamlet of Nazareth to the IT giant Microsoft.

Nazareth...
A village primarily developed by the Christian missionaries - with schools and hospital holding light for almost a century. There's nothing scenic about the place; still it's the place of my birth; it's where I roamed, till my age clock ticked past 17 and the +2 results came surprising everyone including me. Those are days to remember... My family - Mom, Akka & Annan at home and Dad overseas - gave me everything; more than what I could have asked for. Having a doctor and an engineer as your siblings is more a blessing than a curse - blessing bcos you have the footsteps to follow and curse bcos there is expectation. I fared quite well, I'd say.

College of Engineering, Guindy...
A premier institution for engineering studies in Chennai; it was atleast, may be till the day I joined! It was a childhood dream for me to become a Computer Science Engineer. So itz my dream come true to join BE (CSE) @ CEG. The tougher part with CEG, as it seemed initially, was the stay at hostel - Being away from home and the lack of proper amenities. But itz all just for a month or so. After that... Guys, my strict advice is to stay in hostels for the bachelors degree. Otherwise you are missing something in life. It's a never come again experience.

In the hostel, rooms shared by four in the first year and to be alone at the time of course completion. At either end, the heart longed for what is not there. In the library, reading IEEE papers without even understanding seemed to be a fashion statement for geeks. Pulling the semester books from the library sucessfully (before anyone else takes) is another trick vested solely with day scholars. We, hostellers, lived in the copies of notes from them. The xerox shop filled with hostellers the day before the exams is a sight to watch. With horrible food served in the mess, canteen became the second home for us. The birthday mini-treats in canteen - where hot chola pooris getting digested before the plate even touches the table - are hard to erase memories. For me (and of course a few of my friends), Sathyam cinemas is kinda third home. Not to mention, the night walks all the way from Satyam back to hostel and the fights with the auto-walas.

Ah...How can I not mention about the Saturday Nights @ Besant Nagar beach... The bike stunts... The view of beach from Barrista... And of course the comments on the so-called "lovers" in the beach... Some things money cant buy!

Donno what I really learnt from the campus, but I got placed in Microsoft (Thatz a crazy story worth writing a separate blog). And the treats that followed placements... The Final Year Project... And finally the last day... I still remember the last night at my hostel room. Very few guys were there in the hostel. We were watching movies in my room. And then finally when I bid adieu to all of them; and also taking with me in my heart all of them - as memories.

Microsoft, Hyderabad...
Microsoft - The name doesn't demand an intro. Being one of the firsts from Nazareth to be in Microsoft, I was highly elated. My first travel in flight was made horrible though with the Deccan flight getting cancelled. How can I forget the Taj Banjara experience with my Dad & Mom! How can I forget the spoiler, dragging my Mom & Dad back home! The woes just started back then. From college to Microsoft, the transition was smooth though. Thanks to the awesome team I - along with Madhan - got into. The first treat @ Our Place and the subsequent, frequent treats... The trips to Nagarjuna Sagar, Orissa & Vizag... The very often treats @ Barrista... Altogether our team was an envy for all others in Microsoft, especially WinSE. Still I miss those first days of Microsoft. Days rolled on... with each day resembling the previous and it became a routine...

Today, looking back at all these, I feel, my journey so far has been quite amazing! Reading through these pages from the book of my life itself gives a great feeling of reliving them. It feels nostalgic. At the same, it triggers hope out of nothing. Who knows what tomorrow has in store for me! It is with this hope, I go to bed every night. It is with the same hope, I face the sun every morning! (I dont often get to see the morning sun since I joined Microsoft, to be honest).