In The Shadow Of The Alps

One more semester has flown by and I find myself precariously close to passing out of college to start and endure a "real life". With rumours that the employment scene in the country is unhealthy, the mood in the college is pensive. Everyone seems to be spending a huge chunk of their time trying to imagine themselves actually doing something serious in life. Like a job maybe? Trying to picture themselves going for interviews and GD's. But this is not the case with everyone. You see, you can loosely segregate everyone in college into a few different categories.

The first major category are people who have an idea of where they want to be. Now this could be anything from "I-Am-Going-To-Germany-Bitches" to "Family-Business-Yo!". All that matters is that half your mental burden is done with because you have an idea of where to be and what to do to get there. These people will usually be dealing in extremes, either completely chilled out or stressing about the stuff they have to do. Again, I am just generalizing. I also know people who work towards their goal in a calm and composed fashion but those people belong in the next category.

The next category is like a sub-category of the last one. These people are those who seem like "Its-All-Sorted-Bro!". They would have already enrolled themselves in one or two classes for GRE, GMAT, GATE, CAT, XAT, BAT, MAT, RAT or something like these. Instead of Angry Birds and Stick Cricket, you would find "Painless GRE" and "Barron's word list" apps installed on their phones. Do not fret if they show sudden growth spurts in their vocabulary (Which they will no doubt flaunt), they are paying by the thousands for it. You can find them trying to win over professors for that gold nugget of a Letter of Recommendation or to maybe even co-author a research paper. Don't get me wrong, these people are real hard-workers. If you wish to spot these people, look out for those who make you think along the lines of, "What am I doing in college again?".

There is another category of people who, even in such times of economic chaos, dares to dream of jobs which pay lakhs per. annum. Now these are the people who fight tooth and nail for that extra half mark, who can tell you their GPA faster than their age. Probably because it's a GPA worth sharing with others. Now for these guys, life is about building a resume. It all boils down to what you can add into that one file or folder which they present during their job interview. Now this is a very functional approach and an effective one no doubt. How do you spot them? That's easy. Organize a workshop for some technical crap. Midway through the workshop announce that you will not be distributing certificates later. Now take a seat and wait for them to come for your head.

And finally there is a last category. These people have no fricking clue about the journey they will embark on after college. But the best part, they are completely chilled out about the whole deal. They play football during the exams, make fun of the 9-pointers and study just enough to hit average. Now you must be wondering, "What a bunch of cocky idiots!". Now there are two ways to look at this. Some of them genuinely live with the principle of going where life leads them. They spend time on things that they love doing and it makes no difference to them if that activity may not contribute to them earning millions in the near future. But there are others who are simply wasting their time with no clear goal, passion or interest in life. They are just happy to knock the ball around for few singles and keep the strike.

Now that was college in a nutshell from my point of view. You are probably wondering what category I belong in. All I could think off during my exams was writing some crap or the other. Here I am doing that as soon as my exams are done. Writing my blog. Making fun of other people. Do the math now.

I would like to romance with the idea that I am part of a group of people who enjoy the liberty of dreaming excessively. And one such lifelong dream of mine is to settle down in some quiet country side with a Labrador (Preferably in the shadow of the Alps) and keep writing for a living. Ruskin Bond-esque, I know. It wouldn't be much of a living for sure, but it would do. Or maybe open up a shack in some small fishing town on the Atlantic coast and cook (Yes, I do that reasonably well) for a living. Then I realized, most people have already thought of this. Some dismiss it as wayward thinking while others chew on it for a while before eventually spitting it out on their journey of life. Only a handful of people dare to hang on to the dream long enough to eventually get there. I am still chewing.

But amidst all this rush to sort out our future, somewhere down the line, we are letting go of the present. We have all been brought up with the mentality that to achieve something in the future, you must give up something in the present. Study for your 12th boards they said. Work hard for a GPA they said. I have a bad feeling that this is all that people will keep saying. When does this cycle end? When do we finally reap the fruits of all this effort? And if you cannot understand what these fruits are, why bother with the effort anyways.

I have shared some of the most memorable moments of my life talking, playing and messing around with my friends in my hostel. And all I am saying, if I am saying anything at all, is that I am not willing to disconnect myself from all of that for a possibly fruitful, near utopian future that I could have. Like my economics sir used to say, "Look at the cost benefit ratio". I urge you to not spoil your numbered days in college worrying, rather panicking, about your future. I am not saying don't prepare yourself or don't work at all. All I am saying, is just "Chill out, Bro!". And make hay while the sun shines. Because as far as I see it, "There is a storm coming". (Batman reference intended) 

(Picture Credits: Pinterest)

Of Beef Curry and Hot Dosas

It's just been a few years since I passed out from school. Most of my classmates are spread around the country, some even abroad. In the age of Facebook, Whatsapp and decent ISD call rates, it's not that hard to keep in touch with those who you care about. We have a group on Facebook which died out in a few months, a group on Whatsapp which is active only in random spurts and the moments that we usually share are during someone's birthday. The only reassurance is that this is probably your story too. The story of every other batch of teenagers passing out from school expecting an American Pie like life in college (Isn't it obvious that we don't 'do' pies in India. Pun intended).

College broadens what you can do with your life, presents you with endless possibilities. And this is different for different people. Robert Frost wrote about a fork in the road; in this case imagine a junction of half a dozen roads leading in different directions. In such a journey, most of us rarely find time to look back at the people we have left behind or those who chose a different path. Friendships are forgotten, memories fade away and relations become stretched. Its natural; a modern way of life.

Whenever I am in town, I do my best to get in touch with my old school friends. We meet up somewhere in the city during those rare pockets of time when everyone is actually 'free'. A  jovial gathering where we discuss how much all of us have changed or not while at the same time remembering all the fun memories we had in school. Brilliant times all right. Under usual circumstances, I would describe this as a perfect moment of nostalgia. What could be better, I used to wonder! But walking out on the reflection of a life I once had years ago, a conversation lasting a few minutes, I felt like I took nothing back from it. Sure, it made me happy about the 'good old times' but was that it? The much glorified feeling of nostalgia was nothing but an hour's worth of recollecting good moments. A part of my soul felt let down.

Having 2 major vacations in the space of 6 months, I usually take time out to visit my old school when I am home. Since I spent 13 wonderful years in those hallowed halls, it is of no surprise that I have fond memories of my school and the times that I have spent there. During my school days, I remember my seniors would come back to school to meet their beloved teachers and doting juniors. They would spend hours chatting about their new lives with the teachers, often interrupting our classes. We used to look at them with starry eyes and wonder when we would get to do the same. Come back to school with heads held high, look at our juniors with a knowing smile and sit around till we get bored of remembering the good times.

Well, we tried living the dream. My friends and I used to go to school during our holidays and sometimes even more than once. At first, the teachers were excited in knowing which colleges we joined, the life we had there and how we had changed. After a few visits they started asking me how much free time I had during the holidays. I realized that they had moved on to the next batch of students they had to teach, motivate and guide so that those kids could stand where I was standing right now. Of course, they still loved us but it wouldn't be right to go back each time to demand their attention when we already had our share. The grounds, the buildings, everything was changing. They were being modified, rebuilt or extended. It was hard to go back and piece out our memories in locations that were seeming to be alien to us. For the first time I felt the opposite of what every kid feels during school. I felt as if I wanted to go to school when the school didn't want me to be there.

The human mind is capable of adjusting and adapting continuously. A never ending process of building an illusion of familiarity and comfort around our fragile minds. Subconsciously, we all start detaching ourselves from our school and our life of old even before we embrace our new life. And hence, in my journey of finding the blissful feeling of true nostalgia, it seemed that I had fallen short yet again. Discontent was evident.

Life moved on and during one boring vacation away from college, a few of us made spur of the moment plan to go for the first show of a Malayalam movie. It had been running in the theaters for a while and was supposed to be a really good movie (Usthad Hotel , if you are that curious). It was a rainy day and we reached the theater a few minutes before the movie and grabbed some seats. Now this theater wasn't an expensive multiplex like those that have suddenly sprouted all over the city. It was an old theater, which had cheap tickets, seats without cushion but a guaranteed crazy movie experience attached with each show that was packed with movie crazy Malayalees. The movie was a coming of age story of a young chap sprinkled with humor and life lessons.

Coming out of the theater, we crossed the road and made our way into a small roadside eatery, all the while discussing the movie with great excitement. The stall was basically a small roadside stand with a few stools and a tarpaulin sheet over our heads. There was a stove where hot dosas and porottas were being made and the side dishes were already prepared. We ordered our usually beef curry (You don't just eat from a roadside "Thattukada" without ordering beef) with hot dosas and sat down to talk. Surprisingly the conversation switched from the movie to how each of us had grown. No, there wasn't any recollection of the golden days nor was there any deep insights into our future. It was more of a knowing chuckle that we shared while we gorged down hot dosas, realizing that life has this ability to trigger moments that bring out emotions that we thought had died. We had our fill, squabbled over the money and waited for a bus to take us back home. In the cold night air, we leaned on the railing of the side walk staring at the remains of the late night traffic. A few drops of rain was splattering down, but it wasn't bothersome. I speak for my friends when I say that those moments that we spent together were more comforting and blissful than any other in recent times. The reassurance that the relations, that you thought were strained, and the moments, that you thought were long gone, can still be recreated is amazing. It might sound silly if I try explaining it, so I will leave it for you to experience.

Nostalgia is commonly defined as " a sentimental term for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations..". I disagree. Nostalgia is nothing sort of an emotion. A feeling. It can be described as the warmth in your heart when you relive the emotions and recreate the state of mind you enjoyed in the past. It is not something you can trigger by recollecting memories. It is an involuntary response to reliving those memories. You may all claim to experience nostalgia when sitting in your offices thousands of miles away from each other or when you meet up for a planned yearly get together with your school mates. To truly experience nostalgia, you have to relive those moments that you cannot recollect and feel the emotions of times you can't even remember. And then you will feel content and satisfied like I did. And since that day, I haven't felt like going back to my old school...

A Diorama of Social Networking

Looking back, I keep wondering why it took me 6 months to actually start writing this blog entry after my last one in December. The usual excuses pop into my mind but the blatant truth is that I have been plain lazy to incorporate writing into my string of daily activities. Or it could be the fact that it usually takes a long train journey of introspection and reflecting on my thoughts to convince myself to put finger-on-keyboard (Read as "pen-to-paper").  My recent procrastinating nature (Ok, maybe not so recent) encouraged me to conduct a post mortem of how I actually spend my free time and I was shocked to find the amount of time I actually spend on social networking sites. And since I realized this, I am starting to connect everything around me to social networking and its after effects. It's a plague I tell you!!

We have all read countless articles on how technology have corrupted the youth, making them stare at their laptops or handheld screens for hours and in effect corrupting their childhood and all that. So I won't get into all that. The picture I would like to paint is to portray how social networking is ruling our minds these days and everyone, including me, is or have been a part of this picture some time or the other.

Gone are the times when people used Facebook to simply connect with people and maintain existing relationships alone. It has become much more than that. I realised this when my 11 year old cousin sent me friend request (What did I do when  I was 11 I wonder?). Facebook has now become your identity. What was intended as a window for people to share more about their life has now become life itself for many people. In short, Facebook is an ongoing, never ending popularity contest. And each and every one of us is participating as well as judging each other. I grin every time somebody asks me to like their profile picture. In such cases I remember an initiative where you could donate 1 rupee for a charity while booking movie tickets online. The "like" button transforms in my mind into the photo of a poor, attention seeking child holding out a carton for "likes", with a hyperlink saying "donate a like". And like a good Samaritan, I oblige.

What happened to the times when renowned personalities judged competitions? Nowadays the winner is the one who gets more number of likes on Facebook. The organizers must live in this Utopian society where they perceive that the contestants will put up their work for display, like in an art gallery, and the public will just stroll by appreciating every ones work and "liking" the ones which they feel should win. What really happens is a well planned campaign that involves the contestants calling on every single relative, friend and acquaintance since kindergarten and practically guilt tripping them to "like" their work on Facebook. Did I mention you have no option to even review the work of other contestants? I must have forgotten that when I add a friend on Facebook I agreed to the terms that I would chose to "like" all of their work, i.e. swear my unconditional allegiance to them till my dying breath.

Amidst all this, there is a huge group of people who have benefited from Facebook personally. Like those who realized that their true skill lie behind the lens of an expensive camera. Hey, I am not complaining. We all know how important it is to have that one friend who owns DSLR in every group of friends (I am talking new display pictures. Every. Week). Last time I went to a cultural fest, I saw a booth were photographers were offering to click potential display pictures against a nice back drop for a reasonable price. 15 rupees for a DP. They are, no doubt, inspired by Joker from Dark Knight as he famously says, "If you are good at something, never do it for free". Throw them a tip and they would probably Google for an awe-inspiring quote or wise saying to add as the tag line for the picture. We see them all around Facebook every day, but it's all so common now, we just scroll-on.

 I recently heard an anchor for some event use the word "troll" as a verb for something that happened on stage. It is a funny how a collection of cartoon like 'memes' govern how we react to situations on a daily basis. I myself have often used now common phrases like "bitch please" and "you don't say" to express myself, leaving 'normal people', like my mother for instance, completely clueless and sometimes offended. This is when I realized that most of us "browse through Facebook like we keep checking our fridge even when we are not hungry" (Read this line, ironically, on a "troll page"). Not only that, we pounce on any opportunity to pull our friends down, embarrass them with something downright silly and cruelly "troll" them. Apologies for sounding like them 'Grammar Nazis' but as a true Harry Potter fan, I keep imagining a huge ogre like monster beating the crap of a guy when I hear someone has been "trolled".

In times where new social networking sites keep popping up on a weekly basis, it must be quite hard to keep track of what to do and what not to do on each of them. I admit, when I was initially not on Twitter, I had no idea what a hash tag did. After repeatedly observing people using these hash tags on Facebook, I believed that the hash sign with a message written next to it was a way of explaining what you wrote. I assumed its literal meaning to be 'with reference to' and I still use it at times when one my posts are hard to understand or an internal joke or something. After a while, when I joined twitter I realized it has a function built into the Twitter platform. Strangely though, loads of people still mark their 15 word long posts, on Facebook mind you, with half a dozen hash tags ranging from "cute" to "funny". Makes me feel like studio audiences who sit in for the shot of TV shows who are forced to laugh (Or in this case, feel something) whenever someone holds up a sign saying "Laughter".

In similar fashion, the idea for making an anonymous setup where people could post their spiced up confessions for the world to see was probably the biggest development on Facebook in recent times. It was surprising to note how the promise of anonymity empowers the common man. A mask, like Batman says, makes all the difference. (Hey, it worked for Fernando Torres) After a while, when the posts started making people wonder how uninteresting their lives are or when the pages become a huge bitching fest, the fad slowly died down. Those that didn't, were shut down by universities.

 Our lives have been sown together with social networking. Every generation had something to be known by, something crazy to call their own. From lava lamps and bell bottoms, we have come a long way. And like everything in the past, social networking will die a slow death when something new, better and more interesting comes by (Remember Orkut anyone?). Till then, we will continue to like, re-tweet and '+1' our time away.

Some of you are probably wondering whether to stop social networking under the influence this article has had on you (Yeah, fat chance). If you are, then brilliant. I am glad that I could inspire such a thought. But I am sure as you think it over, you would  be chatting with an old friend on Facebook or following a celebrity on twitter. Meanwhile, I will be in the process of sharing this article with my friends on Facebook as well. I remember the iconic song 'Hotel California' by Eagles which ended with the lines, "..You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave...". Never leave indeed!

(This article is a reflection of my wayward perspectives and is not intended to hurt anybody's sentiments. The article is to be read in the tone of, "WHAT has this world come to?!".) 

Musings of a Touched Soul

How does an event qualify as interesting? Probably when it attracts your attention for a considerable period of time. If so, how do you define a memorable event. Could be when the said period of time is considerably larger. So what is a life changing event? According to me, it is when an event lingers in your mind for such a long time that it actually starts altering your daily lifestyle or thought process. Such events are of course rare if not almost nonexistent in an average person's life.

What is queer is the fact that an event which is life changing to one person may not even qualify to be interesting to another. It might be something he has already witnessed or experienced or something which doesn't concern his life at all. You are wondering where I am going with this. What is all this blabbering about? Well let me narrate a story to u.

I was once sitting in the college canteen (Back in the time when it was actually kind of good) with a couple of friends and complaining about the poor quality of Chinese food being served to us. Of course most of us were expecting the food to be of top quality while forgetting that a dish used to cost us just 40 rupees. Anyways, I noticed that the table next to us was occupied by a father and a son. It was obvious that the father was a construction worker, one among the hundreds that work on our campus and his son also seemed to be a child laborer (Or maybe just used to help his dad) of sorts from his attire. They were both enjoying a meager meal of white rice, sambhar and a few accompaniments. And I use the word enjoy because u could see how happy the child was from the way his eyes were lit up. He was so happy and proud of his dad and he felt special to have a meal from our canteen rather than from his usual labor camp.

That day I saw something which I rarely see in this college. The child was content. He was truly happy and moreover satisfied with his life. Human nature is really weird. We are all confused and tricked into believing what we want in life is money, fame, a good job and what not. But what a human soul actually yearns for, is satisfaction. To be content in whatever field and in general be satisfied.

I couldn't sleep well that night. My mind returned to the scenes of that afternoon and I couldn't help but wonder, what have I done which makes me better than that boy. Why is it that my family has money to educate me whilst his family doesn't. It's not on the basis of his or my achievements obviously for he would most probably be more hardworking than me. What have I done to entitle me such a comfortable and blessed life?

I called up my mom (Childish maybe but trust me she is good at all this) and told her the whole story. She told me that in life there was a certain amount of luck. I was born into an affluent family while he wasn't. She said that our ancestor tried to explain this occurrence as a result of our doings in our previous life's. Karma you could call it I guess!

Ah! Another variable. The doings of our previous life. It's as if god devised a fail proof program. He declared a variable "past" as an integer and assigned it to zero. After each life a value would be added or subtracted to this variable and in the next run of the iteration the value of the variable will be checked and appropriate conditions would be applied to that life. It seemed to be simple and it kind of explained everything.As good as the program seemed to be, I wasn't entirely convinced. That sort of an evaluation seemed unlikely. God wouldn't be that mercilessly judgmental (Ironical, yes). There had to be another explanation for everything.

I pondered on this for days at a stretch and finally a solution dawned on me. A sort of an explanation. What if I was given all of this wealth, comfort and education not because of the actions of my previous life, but as a promise for the actions in my current life. Let me put it in an easier term. I would like to call it, "A student loan from God". God blesses me with everything a young child could hope for, gives me education, a good job and all that because he wants me to use it. And by using it I mean repay him by giving my wealth and doing service to help those who in turn were not that blessed by god.

Yes, it is a convoluted cycle but it actually made sense to me. If all our actions were revolved around paying back our debt to god by helping the lesser fortunate, imagine how nice the world would be. People would actually start helping each other without expecting anything in return(Yes, it does sound like a Nickelback song). So that night, I slept peacefully!

Now you remember how I started off. This incident was the closest to life changing than any other in my life. My perspectives on service, satisfaction and the true goal of life have changed. You have heard my story now, but I don't expect you to feel like I do. This was not one of those inspiring stories which would set into motion a rapid chain of world changing actions. This was nothing but a simple thought, but a thought I felt deserved to be shared.  All I know is that as long as I live, I will try to keep that small boy as my role model and the plate of white rice he enjoyed and the content smile on his face as my goals in life!

Diagnosis of Pandemonium

­Last minute studies, photocopying notes, enquiring about the syllabus and pulling off all nighters! Yup, we have all done it. Looking back, it always seems so easy. Chugging down mugs of coffee and gobbling up bowls of maggi seemed to give us all the strength to get through it. Our academic life can roughly be divided into the time we have fun and the times we pay the price for the fun we have had. And for people like me, who spent the bulk of each semester dwindling their time on everything other than studies, there is always that one moment before each semester exam which we can never forget. It's that one moment, late into the night before your exam when you are still far away from covering that syllabus, when it strikes you that the war is nothing but lost. That moment when you turn to your best bud and say, "Dude, this time we are screwed man!". But surprisingly it's not fear that follows. It is peace, a deep understanding which I would audaciously like to compare with holiness. Knowing that your actions can have little or maybe no effect on your life tomorrow, yeah that is pretty deep stuff.

Underneath all the chaos of our college education system lie two pillars. They are the foundation of all the misery and frustration of thousands of students. Of course, the two pillars are but metaphors for two words which brings out nightmares for college goers. Relative grading!


 I find relative grading ironical in today's world. The whole world is so hung up on eradicating discrimination and ensuring that people are not judgmental of others on the basis of their religion, color or caste. And what do we have here? We take a look at all the students in a class and imagine an "ideal student" (Also known as class average) and put this student up on a pedestal. We then call upon every student and size him up next that guy and declare him a failure or as fit to continue. Doesn't seem so nice when you think of it this way eh?  

What is funny is that relative grading is actually a cannibalistic cycle. When someone actually does score way below the class average and flunks, others in the class benefit because his marks also count in the average and eventually brings it down, helping the other students get better grades. The next semester, the average is higher because the poorer students were left behind and now the same students who survived because they were just above the line last time, suffer from poorer grades (Yes, I did use the verb "suffer". If you are a student, you know why!). The system slowly and steadily removes these underlying layers, feeding the bigger cannibals on the top. And eventually after 8 semesters, the ones who are left are the big fat cannibals!  

The biggest fear of a student before an exam, is NOT what he or she hasn't studied or gone through. They only fear what others in their class have studied! It is a cruel and painful torture for one to sleep at night knowing his peers are staying up and studying. People who claim that they can stay up all night before an exam and study, they do it because they don't have another option. They just can't fall sleep and you can't blame them for that!

People are hasty in branding peer pressure as agents which force children to drink, smoke and do what not. We forget how it extends to studies and much more. After around a year and a half in an engineering college, most students get, what I would like to call the "internship epidemic". It suddenly strikes them that working in a company for a month or two and adding that to their resume is much easier than getting a good GPA. A rumor spreads that a good internship almost certainly guarantees a fat pay check and that this practical work you do counts more than your GPA. If you have ever played the game Chinese Whisper, you know the scenario! This takes me back to Dark Knight Rises, when Bane delivers Batman to his own personal prison and says, "There is a reason why this is hell on earth; it gives you hope of escape". Everyone manages to hang on to this glimmer of hope, that the internships will actually save them from the plight caused by their marks.

Calls are made, acquaintances contacted and family friends notified. An all out effort is made to procure an internship in a top notch company. The company offer more of a silent observer job rather than the traditional hands on experience role an internship is supposed to provide, but hey all of us still take it! And after a few weeks the company readily award us a certificate stating we worked for them diligently for months, possibly quite happy to get rid of the responsibility of having interns in their midst.

Every year, lakhs of students join engineering colleges, each of them harboring their own hopes and dreams. A large number of students pass out from colleges every year too. How all of them get employed is mathematical equation I haven't been able to work out. It is a crazy experience, with its share of ups and downs. But I am sure that these moments will become memories worth laughing and sharing a few years down the line. Then, looking back, it would all seem worth it. All the time we worried, would look silly and the good times, too short! Although, it would be nice if all of us had a job then!! So, "may the force be with us all" !