The Chronicles of a Happy Life

I haven’t been blogging for a really long time. The reasons are long and varied. For one, it’s a little disconcerting to post something that could be read by my dad, my future boss and of course, my old and new friends.

Another problem is that I just don’t feel as confident and sure of myself as before. In my attempt to be polite and modest, I feel that I’ve reduced my self-esteem which is harmful because after all, nobody trusts people who don’t trust themselves. I need to stop feeling inferior each time I realize that somebody is good at something. I need to get used to having good people around me and understand that I’m also good, though not necessarily at the same things.

Nappy updated his tag post recently and now I’m thinking that I should update mine too. I’ve changed a lot since I last posted that. For instance, (only close friends would truly understand this), I watched Wall Street for the second time yesterday and now I feel that I like it better than Matrix! :D

I got rejected at both the clubs (Beta (Finance club) and Entre) that I had applied to (In IIMA, club selections are serious business with people applying with forms and club co-ordinators conducting semi-formal interactions). This hurt. I can’t blame the co-ords though, after all, I was practically non-existent on the extra-curricular scene in my entire stay here – a big contrast from my IIIT days.

I have become used to the constant ‘fear’ of quizzes, nay, I have become numbed to them. The gods of marks (gods were invented so that men have someone to attribute things that they don’t understand, right?) seem to be playing a game with me. On one hand, Marketing is the subject that I’m least passionate about and I totally cracked the Marketing quiz (scored highest across sections). On the other hand, I got licked like India in an India-Aus cricket match (I even crack sports jokes now!) in the Finance quiz which is a subject I deeply love.

Yesterday, I got my first bumps for after-class CP (class participation). In IIMA, for the greater common good, it’s a generally accepted rule that if anybody causes the professor to exceed the lecture time limit by putting CP, he or she will be given bumps. I completely support this rule too! Anyhoo, the eco prof. was explaining some very complicated concept that most of the class had given up trying to understand and was almost asleep. I was part of the remaining minority. In my complete involvement in the discussion, I lost track of the time and asked a question, one minute after the end of the class. In the next instant, I heard the class give a collective sigh and I realized that I was going to get ‘hurt real bad’ (Ref Russel Peters video) in the next few minutes. The prof answered, I listened and then after the class ended, I got several hard kicks to the rear :(

A high-point of my day is the one hour or so that I spend in the gym. I had been doing only cardio exercises till very recently, but now I’ve started doing weights too. The feeling of pumping iron is simply unmatchable :) I hope to be able to continue this in my job too.

As for the title, that’s an album by Collective Soul (I’ve been listening to a lot of Collective Soul and U2 these days and practically no Linkin Park (yet another change in me!)). Also, in some ways, it represents my state of mind over the past several days.

1) Went on a fundoo batch trip. Thanks to Pranav, Rama (no, I don’t blame you for all those delays), Ravishankar and others for organizing this.

2) Gave a party to some juniors.

3) Got a party from juniors – Alankar (I don’t call him any other name :|), Grawl, Mangla, Jaiswal, Maachis – thank you for showing that Escape could be recreated in IIIT(just realized that you could probably ask your juniors to have music when your time comes to make it even better)

4) The official farewell function got over a few days ago.

5) Got in touch with quite a few friends through orkut.

6) Wrote testimonials for a lot of people in the yearbook that Shiben put up. Writing stuff about somebody can be either very hard or very easy and this is sometimes irrespective of whether you hang out with that person a lot or not. If there is one piece of uncertain advice that I can give my juniors, it would be that you better start filling the yearbook way ahead of time.

7) A lot of people wrote testimonials for me and I was like - ‘Awwww’ - with a stupid goofy smile when I read each and every one of them. Oh! The pure bliss of narcissism :D

8) Was coerced into agreeing that Neal and Nikki is a bad movie. My defense that it was a sweet story about a girl who’s a control freak and that it showed how the ‘greater independence’ and ‘liberal mindset’ of modern times was actually making things more difficult instead of easier was brutally hushed :(. ;)

9) After watching this, I’m having second thoughts about my dream career ;)

10) Finished a century of blog posts.

P.S. Khurana, thanks for the links :D

No, not the city. I’m missing IIIT Hyderabad. I had the A interview on 1st March. It was ok. No stress. No acads. A few questions on math (after all I was the TA), some on blogging and the rest, bas idhar udhar ke question - like political situation in andhra pradesh, entrepreneurship in iiit, patents, etc.

I’ve the Indore interview tommorrow. Going back to Hyd and coming back didn’t make sense for such a short duration so decided to stay here. The rooms at IIMB are awesome. And the PCs in their computer centre are mind-blowing - AMD Athlon64, 1 GBps LAN, Black monitors with thin black CPUs… beautiful!

Initially, it was fun being alone. I read the Wodehouse (Jill the Reckless) that I had brought along. In ‘A Suitable Boy’, a character said that it was impossible to be sad while reading Wodehouse - perfectly true. I realized that if I had been back at Hyd, I would’ve been forced to stand with my project. Bechara gautam is doing that now. Sorry buddy, will make it upto you.

But now after four days, I’m really missing iiit. My friends.. DC++.. My PC.. Elisha Cuthbert on my wallpaper.. :((

Thanks to all my friends who helped cheer me up, especially Divya ;) meebo is an awesome site. It enables you to chat without downloading any client. Thanks also to Abhinav for writing his blog. I read all his archives except 3-4 months today. The guy writes really well.

A few more hours and then I can go back to iiit sweet iiit. Waiting desperately.

For the first time in ten years, I forgot to wish my parents on their marriage anniversary. Felt terrible. Told my grandparents that I wouldn’t be going to Delhi as planned and that like last summer, this time too I wouldn’t be able to meet them. Felt disgusted with myself. Then, had to tell the same thing to my parents. The disappointment in their voice showed clearly. I’ve never felt this guilty in my life.

Some of my friends crib that they need a (longer) break. Some say that they are feeling homesick. Others say that they are lonely with most of their friends gone. I envy them. My problem is not that I’m homesick but that I’m NOT homesick. My problem is not that I’m lonely, but that very often, I find myself avoiding company. The guilt stays all the time, everywhere.

Nothing of this sort happened in Bangalore. I don’t know how to get out of this mess. Throwing myself into work does help. It prevents me from thinking about all this weird stuff. That Microsoft is an amazing place to work really helps. Sitcoms are also a good opium. Bronzebeard, I owe you one.

I had hoped that writing all of this down would make things better. It has not made the slightest difference.

A few days ago, a friend decided to write a series of controversial posts describing people he knew. For some reason, I was his first subject. Thankfully, it contained more good things than bad (unfortunately, for another friend who was the subject of his next post, his didn’t). Unfortunately, the post showed that he does not know me very well. This is not surprising since for various reasons, we have not interacted much through these three years we’ve been classmates. To be fair, I don’t think anybody I know, knows me fully. While some friends do know about the girls in my life (questions about whom are apparently the standard content in emails-from-old-friends-to-guy-in-new-college!), not many know how much I really study (or don’t study?!). What everybody (at least my friends in IIIT) knows is that I happen to have a high CGPA and presto - they form a preconceived notion of me. It’s not that I feel wronged or even disappointed, it’s just the way things are on this planet. After all, even I have some preconceived notions about people which are not fully justified.

In some ways, I feel good about the whole thing. It certainly made my day when I read stuff like “he is one of those fellows whom God has created to look upon and feel jealous of . He makes you feel what a waste of human efficiency we all are.” It also gave me a glimpse of what people generally think of me which is always good as even the greatest amongst us (not that I’m one of them) would do well to pay attention to feedback from his peers. Thank you, Lu.

They say that music is a great communicator - sth that can really express feeling. It really is. For me, music is a dear pal to celebrate success with, the best way to cheer up when I’m down, the only way to cool off anger with… Then, there are the other times when you just can’t seem to find the right song for what you are feeling. For example, what song does one listen to when one is in grief - not the sharp, numbing pain that is the subject of innumerable rock songs, esp Linkin park (rock purists who cringe at this point, can go to hell), but the slow, viscous feeling of sadness caused due to many small bad things. Then, which song would be most suitable when you are filled with the feeling of fighting against all odds, with your last ounce of strength.. the kind which in film would feature a blood-stained, half-dead soldier in great pain, who gets up with great difficulty, picks up his gun that has only one bullet in it, aims it at the head of a 10000-strong army of his enemies and fires… Or the feeling of achievement when he finds that, that bullet did hit its mark and that he can now die in peace.. Any answers?

Don't know why but today I suddenly remembered…

Sports day back in school. I never won a prize. It's not that I had a problem with sports. Sports and I had a very good relationship. I didn't bother it and it didn't bother me. I've have fond memories of sports day though. The best part about it was the holiday. We got a holiday on that day and one after that for celebration! Then there were all those weeks of preparation, when some, if not all the classes were cancelled for sports day practice. As a kid I hated attending class. I either knew everything beforehand or had absolutely no interest of knowing even a little about that subject. Thus, eventhough some hated standing in the hot sun and doing stupid actions with their arms and legs, I loved the time outside the class.

In class 7, I joined the school band. We were the cool guys. We would play music in a shady corner at the back of the ground while the entire school sweated, marched and did contortionist physical exercises in the hot sun! The teachers would consider us talented ones. Every year, the princi (principal) would come and scream at everybody - the teachers for not maintaining enough order, the house captains for not making their house listen to them, the houses for not listening to their house captains.. but for us he only had the highest praise. He considered us to be the talented ones and hence to be treated with respect. And oh, at the end of the day, we got a prize too. After all, the band was a monopoly. I always pitied the announcer! "And this years band trophy goes to….", the princi would annouce, "the Sulonia school band!". The band would play a victory tune while the band captain went forward to collect the prize, while the newcomers would be scratching their heads and looking at each other. It was the standing school joke!

With such great advantages, you would think that there would be tremendous competition to get into it. No such thing. I guess, most people were too innocent and foolish at that time. Even I got into it by fluke. (One fine day at the beginning of class 7, we were all called into the assembly hall and asked to choose an elective amongst music, band, technical drawing and some other crappy thing). I was terrified of the music teacher and his bunch of classical songs. None of my close friends were taking technical drawing and I didn't even know what it was and so I chose band. I now regard that as one of my smartest decisions ever!)

I played the flute. I can still remember a few tunes. I could play the drum 3*3 roll I guess.. but not anthing else. I really admired the buglers. However, it required too much work and they were closest to the big drums which was really loud. Plus, the flute was more sophisticated, so I stayed in the front rows.

In class 8, I digressed to join the military unit. We were a bunch of around 30 kids who were given actual military training by a retired army general. That including rifle shooting, various army signals, karate and lots of other things. I had to wake up at 6 for that blasted thing, every Sunday morning. We did get to go on exciting camps though. In fact, I was introduced to rock and roll for the first time in one of these camps! A friend of mine was totally crazy about the music. It was a very old tune.. don't even remember it now. I do remember thinking that my friend was just being phony to pull my leg! I guess it took me the 'pain' of engineering, to truly appreciate it.

Speaking of camps, my fondest memory of a camp would be the one where I went with Hemanshu, Parth, etc. It was the first time I left my parents. For the first time, I cooked! One day, all the children were divided into three groups amd were given the responsibility for preparing one meal for all of us. We were given the responsibility of making soup, sandwiches and custard respectively. We also had to make sure that our dish gets finished. As would become a familiar experience in later life, most people ran off and I was one of the few left in the team. But I really enjoyed making tomato soup. With no TV, no phone, often nothing to do but think, one would think that a child would get bored. I did get a little bored but overall it was a lot of fun. I only regret that I didn't go to more of these camps.

Oh! What is life if full of care,
with no time to stand and stare.
Wordsworth couldn't have been more right!
It's a pity that childhood's gone
and life is no longer so fair.