The Chronicles of a Happy Life

The heat and pressure were intense. Several times, he had thought that he would be crushed, or that he would break down but the pressure had only increased further and he had remained standing. After a point, he noticed that he had changed. This was no incremental, gradual shift from what he was before. He was now fundamentally different from those around him – right down to his atomic structure. (Some said that the difference had always been there but was only now visible). He hardly even felt the pressure now though it was higher than ever.

He looked for those like him. At first, he thought that there were more than a million of them. But when he looked at them a little more carefully, he saw that he was mostly alone.

All his life, he had magically known that the world outside offered two broad choices for someone like him. He could sit in the tiara of a beautiful woman – a glorious diamond that was the envy of everybody around him – or he could become an industrial diamond – carrying out the will of men that was as strong as his own. If he chose the first option, all would know him but if he were to replaced by a cheap imitation, none but few would know the difference. In the second option, few would even know he existed but he would know that only he and others like him would be able to do what he was doing.

Of course, many said that the gods had not ordained this to be his choice at all! One day, he felt the pressure being suddenly lifted. He was filtered out, carefully selected and thrust into the open. What would be the diamond’s fate?

P.S. I feel arrogant today. I hope that this is only a phase.

He tried to convince them but couldn’t. He wanted to make the system simple, elegant, mathematically perfect. However, this involved the coding of a module that according to most, was impossible. He tried very hard. Some say that he succeeded. That once upon a time the system worked perfectly with the module in place but then gradually the system became unstable. Others say that no ideal system ever existed, that it was only a hypothetical construct like a hypercube. Of course, everyone agrees that no ideal system exists today. After his attempt, another hotshot coder was assigned the system. He decided to introduce special code to handle all the exceptions. The system became unstable and unpredictable. However, it didn’t crash and continued to run. It has run non-stop since then. The first coder, people called him Codd, hated the inelegance of the solution. He decided to introduce a virus that he hoped would change the system, would complete the Guided Organo-Other Duality module that he had been unsuccessful in creating. That day is still celebrated as a national holiday by a south asian peninsular country. Some say he succeeded. Some say he failed. Others say that though the system apparently follows the properties of the Entirely Variable Idealism Loop most of the time, some of the old code is still there… and that the battle between GOOD and EVIL is not lost and will continue for millenia.

- inspired from ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’ which is the best movie to watch to mark the end of a very hectic three months. Just two more terms to go before freedom and a one year vacation :)

All of us have constraints - strong boundaries in our heads separating things we can and cannot do; things we can tolerate, and things which we cannot. Some of us can't eat meat, some can't not eat meat! Some people die in battle while others find the idea of giving up their lives for a mere idea ridiculous. In most (all?) cases there is no logic to these constraints - they just are. Sometimes I think that one should strive to remove each of one's constraints so that the function of happiness (or any other function for that matter) can be further optimized (as any student of linear programming and even anybody else with some common sense will reason). At other times, I wonder that if these are part of what make us unique and special; does it make sense to sacrifice them?

I woke up today morning at around 8. I usually go to breakfast after washing.. but the newspaperwala hadn’t arrived yet and eating breakfast without ET is so.. I-dont-know-what.

So, I settiled down to read a book I had started reading long ago but couldn’t manage to find the time to finish it. Microserfs, by Douglas Coupland is an amazing book. It’s about this group of programmers who quit Microsoft to work on a startup in Silicon Valley in the 90s. The cool part is that this book is written exactly like a blog (Weird fact 1: A few days ago, Shiben said on the mess table that I was a blog geek and everybody agreed) - Each chapter title is the Day / Date. Dan (the character narrating the story) his friends, memorable / arbit experiences, falling in love (not in a gooey way. Oh, btw check out this link.) and also techie-thoughts… For example, there is this character, Michael who says, “We’ve reached a critical mass point where the amount of memory we have externalized in books and databases (to name but a few sources) now exceeds the amount of memory contained within our collective biological bodies. In other words, there is more memory ‘out there’ than exists inside ‘all of us’. We’ve peripheralized our essence. Given this new situation, the presumption of the existence of the notion of ‘history’ becomes not necessarily dead but somewhat beside the point. Access to memory replaces historical knowledge as a way for our species to process its past. Memory has replaced history - and this is not bad news. On the contrarym it is excellent news because it means we’re no longer doomed to repeat our mistakes; we can edit ourselves as we go along, like an on-screen document…”

A few days ago, in some restaurant, we were having this discussion on whether the Matrix was real or not and Nappy said that he thinks that the Matrix exists because he thinks there are only a few true originals of people units and everybody else are just copies. True… in a non-scary sort of way. I didn’t agree with him then.. but yesterday, I told him how I understood that he was such a big fan of Abhinav because both of them are practically the same people - same homecity, same type of humor, same ideas on love, same experiences with love (I guess!), same ideas on work-life balance, same performance in college, same attitude towards comp sc, the same drive for iims.. Even their experiences with campus placements are the same!

A few people ask me for advice these days.. and I feel so inadequate giving it. I mean, there is no universal pre-requisite to success.. at anything, anywhere. I cannot tell them to get a good CGPA (there are so many examples of people who’ve done well - good b-school / us univ / job without having a good CGPA. I cannot tell them to focus on only one thing at a time - I feel Su is the best example of doing everything, extra-curriculars, hanging out with friends, working on his project (he must have done sth to get Dr. Sangal to give him such a good reco), preparing for gre, cat, job.. and he’s succeeded in everything too - good us univ, good job.. CAT mein chot ho gayi.. but that was just chance. I can’t even tell them to plan ahead - I’m sure Mux didn’t think he’ll be going to an IIM and all his previous ‘chot’s will not matter at all! Any advice on how to give advice?

Another thing.. I realized that spending too much time reading great blogs can actually be demoralizing and demotivating to write a post - because you feel you will never be able to measure up to their level. So, from now on, I’ll first post and only then check out bloglines. Shiben was right. I am a blog geek.

(copied from here)

They call it the “Quarter-life Crisis.” It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are many things about yourself that you didn’t know and may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.

You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren’t exactly the greatest people you have ever met, and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you don’t recognize is that they are realizing that too, and aren’t really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.

You look at your job… and it is not even close to what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are looking for a job and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and that scares you. Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and are constantly adding things to your list of what is acceptable and what isn’t. One minute, you are insecure and then the next, secure. You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly, change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life, but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward. You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you. Or you lie in bed and wonder why you can’t meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know better. Or maybe you love someone but love someone else too and cannot figure out why you are doing this because you know that you aren’t a bad person.

One night stands and random hook ups start to look cheap. Getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic. You go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself… and while winning the race would be great, right now you’d just like to be a contender!

What you may not realize is that everyone reading this relates to it. We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out. Send this to your twenty something friends…. maybe it will help someone feel like they aren’t alone in their state of confusion…..

GOOD LUCK TO ALL OF US :)

- Brenda Della Casa

Landing my first job.
Being called a ‘bada aadmi’ / CEO by friends, especially when they are ‘bade aadmi’ themselves.
Hearing my parents’ voices light up when I tell them I’m coming home for an unscheduled vacation.
An unscheduled vacation.
Sipping ‘Cool Blue’ in CCD, chatting away for hours with old friends.
Having a large family get-together after years.
Having cousins who pooled in their year’s pocket money savings to buy me a birthday gift.
Being fussed over by a mother, 2 aunts and a grandmother.
Getting a perfect BLACKI.
Finding out that my friends have gotten a lot of IIM calls too.
Calling up a very old friend who I hadn’t spoken to in years, to wish him a Happy Birthday.
Being called up by a very old friend (different guy) who I hadn’t spoken to in years, for being wished a Happy Birthday.
Having several people who I don’t even know, say to me - “So you are Sagar Rastogi, I’ve heard so much about you”.

Touch wood.

…that makes it most inappropriate for big news. Kitty once told me about this blogger who wrote a hundred-line post on what he had done throughout the day (tech-related) and at the end added a line, ‘I also got married today’.

I fully understand that now. After all, one’s personal blog is mostly read by friends who already know the big news. So what’s the point of telling it to them again? On the other hand, it’s only rarely that one writes something that is not plain BC (another colorful piece of IIIT lingo - it means, talking without logical purpose - a favorite pastime of most IIITians) and so big news deserves a post.

So here it is.. I got placed in Adobe. It was the first dream (actual term used by the IIIT placement policy) company to visit the campus and I was the only B.Tech to get in. So, I’m feeling extremely lucky, not to mention exhilirated. Thanks to Mrs. Padmaja, our placement officer, my teachers in IIIT who taught me and my friends who encouraged and believed in me throughout. Doston, feel free to bug me about any interview-related or non-interview-related query you might have. I also owe you all a big treat :)

It’s been a helluva ride. We’ve been together for ages now. I can’t even remember the first time we met. They’ve been very nice to me as I try to be to them. I’ve been late for our meetings once in a while and of late, I’ve been leaving before our time is up, but I hope they understand.

Of course, we’ve had our share of tiffs and misunderstandings but we always make up (sometimes their close relatives, ‘the results’ help, and sometimes they don’t). After all, I can’t do without them, can I?

They’ve been extra-nice to me since the past three and a half years. I guess they wanted to make up for that one big misunderstanding we had) Obviously, it’s all forgiven and forgotten now), or maybe it’s because of the greater numbers of ‘Best of Lucks’ that I get.

I just realized that tomorrow’s date will determine if we continue to see each other, in the near future. I, for one, would like to do so. Hope they do too.

Mani : ‘ML :)’ (Machine Learning for the non-iiitian :D)

Dharam : ‘What matters is Metaaaaaa wins or not :))’ (long story, will explain later ;))

Keerthi Kiran : ‘In the End {Sems}; it doesn’t even matter’ (how true!)

Rama : ‘looking arnd for an fyp’ (if only you knew the whole story :D)

Ravishankar : ‘Corporate Social Responsibility… why has it become my responsibility :(’ (We have a ‘Industry and Society’ test sometime soon. The worst part is: I have taken that course too!)

Shiben : Ring + Matrix = FEAR! How? play the game! i finished it (Shiben is a true gamer :D)

Kesu : ‘Oh! Sympathy, Where have you gone? I’m getting older, I need something to rely on…’ (I’ve given up trying to understand this guy’s status messages. Ever since, he has become a rock star, he has risen above us mere mortals)

Venkat : ‘Quix at 8:30 :(’ (Some solace in finding that it’s not only the iiitians that have endsems!)

Rao : ” (It’s a pity Rao has stopped putting on his trademark status messages… Dunno what’s the matter with him).

..when as soon as he wants to blog about something, he discovers that somebody else has already blogged about it. I wanted to write posts about Soft skills, the pre-placement talks and bitch about the placement date and each time, Khurana got there before me.

Then, I thought that I’ll write a general post about life in general - a post titled ‘stuff‘ or one titled ‘things that make my day‘… Nah! no can do - the links work, don’t they? Sid beat me to the punch both times.

I discovered that I can’t even talk about the weather and still feel original!

I could write about the book that I’m reading. But, Selective Memory by Shobha De is something so indescribable (given the constraints of space and time) that I don’t even want to attempt it. All I can say is that she really seems like a person that I would like to have know personally.

Now, you are probably thinking that I should write a post about not finding the time to write a decent post with the pressures of CAT, FYP and placement prep. At least that will be original, you smugly suggest. Nope, no-can-do. CoolCat (I don’t like the name that she calls herself nowadays) already did that.

Oh and before you suggest me to write a post about being confused about the future, check out Ranjith’s blog.

I give up. So that’s all for now and guys (again as Rao has already said) gl and hf for the placements and CAT.