The decade that shaped my life…

I know I am a couple of days late in penning down the thoughts that swarmed my head on 31^st night as the world and along with it I moved into the years where the third digit in the year part of the date will never be zero. The reasons for this tardiness can be many but plain laziness that has described me over the last 2 and a half decades would be the biggest culprit for this delay.

2 days ago it was the end of 2010 and along with it the end of the decade 2001-2010. The decade which formed my life, which shaped it, which distorted it, which convoluted it and which all with its negatives and positives will remain with me for whatever number of decades I live on from now on. Start of 2001 I was in school, about to write the final school exams of my life, wondering at nights and worrying at days as to if I would be able to make something out of my ordinary life. Everything, if not everything then at least most of it, was to be decided in the next 6 months with me about to see if I can land up at a good institute for graduation. In 2000 I did not know there is a thing called IIT that exists and in 2001 I failed to get into one. I still do not know why I did my engineering and what I learnt from it technically. But looking back at those 4 years, I can surely say I learnt a lot and started becoming who I am today. I made my first best friends, stayed for the first time in a hostel, shared a room for the first time, had a fight with him from the first time, worked in an organization for the first time as a trainee, bunked classes for the first time and did not end up being in the top 2 ranks for the first time. 2004 December was the last time I asked my father for money to spend on myself and 2005 January was the first time I bought my parents a gift from my own first stipend. That was also the first time someone superior complemented me for a job well done and made an ever-standing job offer which I can take even today if I want to work with him again. I had my first remember able crush in 2004 in college (albeit I am pretty sure there were many before that, just that I don’t remember them). And 2004 August was the first time when I had 3 high paying jobs in my hand, the sum total of which was the highest in the institute at that time.

Joined my first full-time job in 2005 at a company whose name my mother still cannot spell or pronounce and whose work stream I got to know only after my first project. Analytics as a word was never in my dictionary then and it never really mattered since the job was in Delhi and paid 25K as the starting salary which was enough for me then. Years passed by and 2006 was the year I first went out of the country and it was also the fateful year I fell in love for the first time. People do crazy things in love and I was no different though I just don’t remember most of the crazy things I did. Maybe I should have done more of them. Anyways, 2007 was the first time of the second time I wrote CAT that I got interview calls and it was also the last time I had to write CAT. 2007 was the year I had my scariest accident, the scars and memories of which still send shivers down my spine. It was also the year where I returned being among the top 2 ranks and it was also the year I got my summer internship with the employer I still work for. 2008 was the year I went to Europe for the first time (of the many more times to come) and it was also the year world came falling in October. It was the year that crushed many a dream and brought many a people back to earth. 2009 was the first time I worried about my future. But the year and the morbid start to it were not able to make me compromise on too many things. 2009 was the year I finished my formal education and it was the first time I felt some part of me was left behind at the place I lived for the last 2 years. When I got my gold medal in front of 500 people, it was the first time I saw pride in my parents’ eyes, a pride that compounded when Director of the institute and Chairman of BHEL stood up to shake their hands and congratulated them. It was the first time when I realized that I may have done something good with my life.

2009 was also the start of my unending professional life and it was the first time I lived in Bangalore. It was also the first time I saw a formula 1 race live and watching the live race was the first things to be ticked off my bucket list. As the months passed by, I for the second time was worried about my future and first time worried that I may have messed up the IIM degree and the gold medal. 2010 came unannounced and I just hoped that the last year of the decade brings some joy to my life. It did and that too in the very first week of the very first month of the year. March was the month I came back to Delhi. Life seemed back on track. 2010 was the year I got my first car and it was the year we moved into a bigger house. The year did play some tricks though and it was the year I finally said good-bye to the only person I ever fell in love with. Life moved on with its own funny ways with me being in an airplane almost every week. The year ended appropriately with me on a plane destined to Delhi on the night of 30^th of December.

Looking beyond the events and anti-events, the hits and the flops and the fast flipping pages of the calendar, I wonder how I have changed over all these years. How have my expectations changed, evolved, got distorted? How have the things that mattered to me 10 years back changed? And most importantly how have the things that did not matter to me 10 years back suddenly became so important? 10 years back all I expected was to get into a good engineering college and hoped for getting a job that would pay me 2-3 lakh annually. Last year I was earning half of that much in a month. 10 years back I would have been happy with this money, last year I was not. No, it wasn’t about the money. 10 years back I would not have got up at 5 AM on a cold December morning and ride a bike in the pitch darkness fighting the cold winds, all the way to railway station just to meet someone for 10 minutes. I did that in 2008. 10 years back I would not have called my classmates mediocre and would not commented on their way of thinking. I did that in 2008. 10 years back I would not have spent 30K for watching a car race, I did that in 2009. 10 years back I would have married any girl my parents selected for me. I could not do that in 2010. 10 years back I would have asked my parents for advice, I don’t do that anymore. 10 years back they would offer me an advice, they don’t do that anymore. 10 years back I had horrible English and could not have written an article. Today, my blog has more than 12000 hits and 200 comments. 10 years back I did not know what love was; today I am scared of falling in love.

Some things still haven’t changed. 10 years back I was in top 2 of my class. 2009 I was back there. 10 years back I lived happily with my parents in Delhi. Today again I am enjoying the chill of Delhi sipping a cup of tea made by my mother. For the rest unchanged things, I don’t remember them since they never changed.

10 years surely is a long time but in some measures its nothing. Some things never change, some do and some maybe will. Who knows where I or you will be at the end of this decade. What will change and what will not. Doesn’t really matter since there is nothing we can do about it. Just pray that things that should not change don’t change and things that should change do not take a decade to change. Amen!!

Many firsts many lasts..

The date of 16 February 2009, Monday would remain etched in my memories for many reasons. It was a day of many firsts and many lasts in my life, more specifically my academic career. This was the day when I officially attended the last class of my studies, finished MBA (barring exams J), made my last ppt etc. There were various firsts as well which were a perfect ending to the various things I have done over the last 2 years here.

Firsts

• First time a professor slept through my presentation. He was sitting on the first desk and a mere distance of 5 feet separated his resting body and my restless soul
• First time I had or more specifically I attended a class at 8 AM in the morning. Funnily, this had to be on my last class as if the class scheduler was waiting with me to give this final blow
• First time I have seen a person sleeping over in a one-to-one conversation. Sleeping in a class listening to a ppt is fine but asking a question and then sleeping is a thing I realised is possible only today
• First time we went to write a quiz after a whiskey shot. The shot was a toast in celebration for a friend who got a job an hour before the quiz. Nothing could come between our traditional shot-for-job celebration and us
• First time I saw a guy using a camcorder in the class. He even made a video of me presenting the case to the sleepy professor with funny images of mine getting flustered at the obvious mockery of my night’s sleep and hard work

The various lasts that happened that day were:

• Last class of my academic career, at least for a long time to come
• Last academic presentation, a random case was an apt end to the stride of presentations I have delivered here
• Last quiz of my academic career
• Last exams of my academic career for a long time to come

The last day did not come without its glitches; I had to work till late night to prepare the case, a thing which I did only in the very first days here around 1.5 years back. It was almost an academic night out, a thing which happened only in first year. The case reminded me of the very first case given by the OB professor when all of us were perplexed as to how to analyse the case, here it was a bit different, I was alone but was equally perplexed nonetheless.

Looking at the last day and the first day, I believe a normal curve would fit in the description. However, it would have to be a really skewed normal curve as far as effort put in is concerned. The start was with a huge amount of effort which tapered with the time spent here. My earlier post on “Life as exponential functions” would summarise most of it. Nonetheless, my MBA is over now and I am all set to move beyond academics, into the real world where case presentations are not so fraud, where audience generally does not sleep in the presentations. Let’s see how it turns out…

Adios 2007

One more year passes by itself. One more eventful year will soon be past. It would be remembered and mentioned to as last year, something as a part of the history of everyone’s life. Many things happened this year, to many people, people I know and people I don’t know. I would not write about things that happened to me here since this a public forum. That, is a part of my life and remains in my diary, for me and only me.

The year started off with children being killed by a pedophile in some village near Delhi again showing the true face of the intelligent and sensible species called homo-sapiens. Nothing could match the barbarism of the act, I believe it was more gruesome than Gujarat riots since over there some people could still argue about “Who started it” but here there is nothing like that. Poor innocent children were sodomised/raped and killed brutally. Look at the beauty of the system, the case hasn’t even started its trial and the accused may even go scot-free. The only possible way for people like these is the way adopted by villagers in Bihar where they simply killed the accused themselves. No point in waiting for monsters like these to be given a chance to go away. This may be termed as lawlessness in itself but I guess that is the only possible way out.

Next big thing was the hoola-boo regarding OBC reservations in IIMs/IITs for this academic session. Doctors protested to prevent their interests, were given some consolations by the vote hungry politicians, but all it resulted in was delayed results for almost all entrance exams keeping thousands of aspirants waiting. Nothing happened in the end, no reservations and the sanctity of these institutes of excellence was preserved for one more year. People died in Rajasthan, some demanding for ST status and some stopping these people. Funny, isn’t it, it’s only in India where we see a race amongst people to show poorer and more helpless and deprived than others. Development is a curse, for it may result in removal of the stigma or shall I call “blessing” of being in a reserved category.

India did sign the nuclear deal with US. I don’t know whether it is good or bad for Indian interests, all I know is that it attracted too much attention than it deserved. Everyone became an expert on nuclear issues overnight and believed himself to be the only sane person around. I believe hungry peasants committing suicides are more important than a nuclear deal. People were brutally massacred in the name of SEZ development. Ironic enough this happened in the state with the strongest leftist connection. And that is why I believe CPI was and is quite over this otherwise they have a habit of crying their hearts out at even an itch in their groins, claiming it to be either communal or capitalistic or if nothing else anti-people incident. While people were being murdered there, our sensible politicians were busy debating about the authenticity of Ram Setu and the possible wrath perpetrated by all the Gods if someone touched it. Again, it doesn’t matter whether it is real or not, what matters is the usage of it today. If it can save millions of dollars every year for our country, Lord Rama would be more than happy to destruct it himself, but the issue became an issue of Hindus versus the rest, a communal issue which refuses to die.

Modi won again in Gujarat, this time on the tide of development though. Heartening to see people voting for development and rising beyond caste and communal politics. The biggest surprise was the win of Mayawati in UP. I don’t know after how many years, a single party will rule the heartland of India but it again is heartening. She may have won on caste politics, but at least the state has a stable government. Congress now needs something different than to yield the Nehru-Gandhi name every time they see an election, begging for people to vote for nothing but their name. Doesn’t happen this way, not anymore Mrs Gandhi. Politics showed its dirty and opportunistic face in Karnataka where support changed more frequently than moods of a pretty lady. Someone please give some lectures on ethics to these men.

India lost out badly in cricket world cup, failed to clear even the first stage after losing to Bangladesh. But we won the 20-20 world cup, touted by some as a planned tactic to encourage the game in the biggest economy of world cricket for all the commercial reasons. Don’t know if that is true, may be or maybe not, but it really pumped up everyone’s adrenaline for almost 3 weeks. India won against Pakistan in the home test series but is currently struggling against Australia down under.

Ash got married to Abhishek, a story covered with grandeur by all news channels 24 X 7 for days. They covered everything, I think except the honeymoon details. A new pretty lady came on screen in the name of Deepika Padukone and Kareena finally had some success. Shahrukh returned twice only to shock people both times, once for his character and acting in the movie Chak De and once for his artificial 6 pack and nude dance in OSO. The movie gave the best dialogue of the year, “Ek chutki sindoor ki keemat tum kya jaano Ramesh babu……”

Going global, US subprime mortgage crises was proved to be much bigger and worse than everyone expected. US economy would most likely go into recession and with it possibly Indian too. Rising rupee has already wrecked many industries looking to be ominously strong going forward. Pakistan finally going to have elections, how fair would they be is a different issue altogether. Bush not ready to accept his mistakes, in fact, escalating the commitment in Iraq. Other mundane issues like global warming, terrorism and communal violence remain like they always have been.

It has been quite an eventful year, filled with both good and not so good memories and happenings all around each one of us. Hopefully next year would be better with a higher proportion of happy ending than the heart wrenches. As Shahrukh said, till the time there isn’t a happy ending, the movie is not over my friend…

My Farewell, 3 weeks before my actual last day !!

Well, it cannot get more weird than this. Yesterday after reaching office i suddenly got a mail from the HR asking me to attend my farewell from the organisation. This came as a shock since my last day in office is still 3 weeks away. After asking for the reasons for this advance farewell, I got some even more weird replies. This all came with the usual emotional stuff that its your company, we would love to have you aroung as long as you wish, please come back after your MBA, blah blah.

So here I was,  waiting for my farewell and preparing a project plan for the next 3 weeks to train 2 new people on a project. At 5 in the evening, it happened. I was handed over a bouquet with all the “All the best and congratulations” messages. Funniest part, was asked to say something for the occassion. Now you cannot expect somebody to give an emotional speech 3 weeks before he actually parts away from an organisation. I sure feel very sentimental about Inductis, will miss all my friends here, will miss all the parties and  nightouts, will miss all the gossip and cribbing about life and work being so unfare etc etc. But wasnt able to say anything. Guess will have to organise my own farewell to say all this.

 Till then, I am working in Inductis after being given an official farewell.