Wake up!

By now, we’ve all finished considerable amount of coursework in this college. So, we’re all well into the brand “NITT”. So, give yourself a pat on the back for getting through the rat race of getting into one of the best colleges in the country for technical education.

Before going any further, just stop and think. Think where you’re headed. Think what you’re doing. Most importantly, think if you’re happy. While definition of happiness changes from person to person, it is important that we keep revaluating our happiness quotient in this increasingly changing world.

We need to go through a thought process called “waking up to oneself”. When it’s really quite simple on the outset, the challenge is to take the elementary ideas farther and form a complex picture of ourselves, a picture that extends far beyond the simple boundaries of the education system.

We all need to start this thought process not by routine or asking ourselves a questionnaire but by realizing the presence of ourselves in a world where there are at least a thousand other people who have the same resume as you do. This is where we need to extend ourselves beyond resumes and grades and try reaching a greater height in what people call “personal satisfaction”.

When having a college degree and a rich resume helps one fetch jobs and set a career, very few of us dare to think beyond the idea of a “stepping stone”. The sad truth is that in the process of getting ‘educated’, we marginalize the importance we should be giving to ourselves and our uniqueness. Most of us have actually changed the idea of what we think is important to us through the process of ‘standardized education’.

Looking back at the time we spent in college, one must see a development of character and more importantly, the development of an idea of what one actually wants to do in life. The decision about the future should happen more out of choice than out of compulsion. While it is disheartening to see that more people “shift lanes” after completing engineering, it should be seen as an indicator the sense of “cluelessness” that people are in when they make major career choices.

While the fact remains that an engineering degree at NITT offers you’re a great chance of ending up at a high paying job, the sad truth is that most of the people who go through the process of “educating” themselves, lose themselves more than they can imagine.

It is not even in the hour of death after one gets “offer letters” that one is able to wake up to oneself and find what he actually wants. However easy it may sound, it is impossible to wake up to oneself overnight or settle down happily to the idea of working at a company that picked you from 200 other people because you suit their job better than the others. The most important thing from a personal point of view has to be whether the job suits you more than the million other career paths that you could choose.

So, if you’re still in your early days and haven’t really decided where to go after NITT, start thinking already. Because “waking up to oneself” is a process and not a decision to be made. It needs time. So, give it a thought.
ps : It is true that "survival" plays a major role in life decisions, but at least open your eyes to things and pursue them as a hobby if not anything else. The most important thing here is "self satisfaction" :-)

Paper planes

Please watch with complete attention. This short film is metaphorical representation of the process of reaching God. Like my dad always said.. It is important to keep three things in mind when trying to reach God. 

 

 

The little thing called 'ME'

Finally, a blog post after a loooooong time! I have been having a recent self realization! I haven't really talked to anyone about it... I call it the realization of myself.

Honestly, this realization should have happened ages ago! This isn't about how good or bad or how awesome or stupid or negligent I am.. It's about how significant I am... And in effect, how significant each one of us are...

There are like two things that drove me to this realization, these two are supposed to be the same, but yeah, they are different experiences because they let me to entirely contrasting conclusions...

The first one is 'Chandni Chowk'. Getting out of the metro station at Chandni Chowk, I saw an elevator that would take you up three levels on a single stretch. And it was FULL of people. Once I got out of the station, I was in a street about 2 to 3 metres wide where there were a million platform shops. And that street was FULL of people. And walking into the unimaginably crowded "gali"s of Old Delhi, it finally hit me. I'm one among 1.2 Billion people... "WOW" was the exact feeling. "Is that how insignificant I am?" I thought. "Maybe... Maybe not! I don't live like the other people, do I? I can still make my life significant." I thought... And with that optimism, I swallowed "Garmaaa Garam Gulab Jamun" and dived into my holiday in North India.

The next one is "CMBT". Back home, I visited our very own Chennai Mofussel Bus Terminus, CMBT (koyambedu). As we had gone on a motorbike, my friend and I decided to park it in the parking lot of the bus station. And we entered the 3 level deep parking lot, to find only a small slot available in the bottom most basement level. And around us- above us, beside us, in front of us and behind us, there were like a million versions of one thing - motorbikes. It made me realize how insignificant my friend's bike was among the multiple thousands of others. And flashing back to the first time I saw his bike and how proud he was, made me realize how each and every bike there has a similar story. "It is pointless", I thought. "I am no different! No matter how significant I think I am, there are people who have reached my stage and been as significant as me! And so," I thought, "the only significant thing you can ever do in this world is to live a happy life that satisfies your heart and mind to the fullest"

The beauty about the realization is that for me, it has happened in what I think is a very crucial phase of my life. It makes me realize that I can have dreams of being happy, but not dreams of being something nobody else has ever been before.

Happiness and success are not written in stone, they are written on brain cells.

US Return!

I was sitting on one of the two hot chairs, wondering how to make my hair-cutting session less boring. I was unwilling to listen to the lame attempt at a spoof on Sun TV while looking at the wall and posing for my hair-dresser. Just then, I saw the mirror and a balding sixty-odd year old man wearing a loose green polo and a pair of cargo shorts filled the hot seat next to mine. His hair had grown wildly and he obviously hadn't visited the barbers' for months.

“Welcome sir! Short? Or Medium?” enquired the other hair-dresser who had been in my locality for well over 10 years now and knew me by my name and even knew where I was studying. A jolly fellow he was and he was entertaining his customer with perfect hospitality. He seemed to know him too.

“When did you return from the US, sir?” he asked.

Modern Righteousness

"I would consider water service to be a better option" said the guy in the black t-shirt who just walked into the tea stall.

The worker in the tea stall was washing the bike there with water and a soft cloth, the owner of the stall (and bike) behind the counter, fetching his customer some cigarettes and small-talking.

"Water service? Water service once a week will cost much more than an hour of Dilip's time" said the owner.

Dilip seemed to be unimpressed by his owner's comment as he frowned at him, squeezing the water out of the cloth, into the bucket of dirty water. He then dropped the cloth and took the bucket in his hand with much difficulty. "It should be tough on an 8 year old boy" I thought.

So, I kept the tea glass on the ground, walked swiftly to the bike, got on and rode it away, rock music playing in my head and adrenaline pumping through my veins. Hearing screaming voices of the owner and the sound of the thrown stones, largely muffled by the "wrrrrroom" of the 4 stroke bike and the pulsing blood in my ears.