360 Degree

I used to love this Justin Timberlake song when I was in teens. "What goes around comes back around". With that song playing at the back of my mind, here I am in "Amrika" blogging my first post ever since my life turned around into something I had never imagined it would. I still remember the day I got my CMU admit for masters.. Feb 24th I believe. I just opened my gmail account and there was a decision mail sitting in my inbox. I was shivering with excitement as I read "congratulations You ...." I never read a word after that. I was jumping in the air and celebrating my best and most ambitious university admit. I had made it to my dream university!! (Even though it costs me at least 1.5 times of some other university). After months of changing and re-changing mind, I finally decided Carnegie Mellon University is going to be my destination. Background check -- What had I done in life till then? Uhmm difficult .. Err.. I guess I had survived engineering and thats that. Fast forward to the day I was leaving Bangalore. My family was in tears and I was a little emo myself. But the moment I reached airport, all i was worried was how would I push a 23*3 Kg trolley!!! I was so busy with my luggage that I never realized it was going to be a long journey away from home. A hard one where I had to cook my own food, wash my clothes, wax and shape my friggin eye brows myself because it is too expensive!! Oh and I almost forgot. I had classes to attend, a grad student's life to live!
I woke up today morning at 6:00 am and almost dizzy with mixed emotions.I had a dream; A sweet dream where my family was here in Pittsburgh to visit me. I was so tranquil and happy. But when I woke up to the rude reality that I was sleeping in some creepy corner of my room with books all around and my laptop was open with a million assignments staring at me. I was so miffed that wanted to stamp my laptop into pieces and go back to my dream. But, like they say all good things come to an end! My morning was screwed up with emotions. I wanted India. I wanted to be in my room at my home in Bangalore. I wanted my noisy neighbor playing tappanguchi Kannada songs loudly and pissing me off! I wanted to wear a salwar kameez without a triple layer of sweaters and jackets over it. As I was lost in a trance of my thoughts, my flat mate knocked at the bathroom door reminding me that I had a class to attend in 30 minutes! Sigh. Those were the days when I used to wake up at 8:00 am for a 8:30 class!! Now I get up at 7:00 for a 8:30 class because I have to clean-make-pack my own lunch. My classmates from BNMIT will be surprised to hear this.. I am hardly ever late to any class here! All this minus my scooty.
Unlike my bunking days in engineering I stay back in university till midnight and sometimes even late finishing my assignments and homeworks!! LoL.. Call it peer pressure,, call it responsibility.. call it fate.. call it mistake. Students here literally "live" on campus and go home once in a while to sleep and eat. For me the transition was really hard. From what it was in India to what it is here, I have come a full circle. Back to the studious school days when I used to study to be on top. Now I study to survive! Everyday is a new battle with a new project or a new challenging home work. I feel the clock in pittsburgh ticks faster!!!
Finally shivering in the cold windy night I come home at 1:00 am and make some salad out of the left over vegetables and mayonnaise. I introspect my life and sit down to blog after a long time. Is this what i expected? Hell no.. Is this what I enjoy? Hell Yeah... I finally get to LEARN something new.My life is not perfect (which you can figure out easily when I tell you i eat cold salad for dinner.. ) But I am happy! A new prospective to life..That's a 360 degree turn.. isnt it?

Why do all good things come to an end

Life - Such a wonderful journey. Now that the real-fun part of it is almost coming to an end, it is an engineer's habit to document everything in the end (Especially late at night). Heard from my classmate that our send off from engineering is on 14th of this month. I was speculating the thought of send off.. It actually meant the eventful four years of journey had almost come to an end.

I remember my first day, first semester. I was late to class. (Have always been since that day). Walked into a class full of strange faces. Sat next to a pretty girl. Within a matter of two semesters I had a wonderful group. In the beginning, I remember feeling terrible for scoring less in my internal tests. It seems so funny now that someone can be upset about something as trivial as marks. So naive and immature, I used to think I would apply to Harvard for MBA immediately after my engineering. (LoL)
I even mailed them asking the criteria. They said having 3 years minimum work experience was mandatory. I was so heart broken. I asked them if they could make an exception for me! What was I thinking.

Then came the second year. By now we were all set within ourselves. The fun part was just kicking start. Now we were 6-7 girls making the most of our engineering lives. We used to chat for hours together sitting in the hostel bunker beds (Oh by the way visitors are not allowed in the hostel :P)
Fishing had just started in a big way. For the innocent ones wondering what is fishing, it means checking out the male population in college. For one fact my college had a pond . A stale and dirty pond full of dead fishes, tadpoles and frogs. Arrggh! Poor us. . . Nevertheless standing in the corridor during breaks, fishing.. How endlessly we made fun of our poor teachers. Of course who can forget the favorite gossip topic. Relationships!! Who is going out with whom? Who ditched whom? We could have been script writers for Channel Zoom !! That was one of the juiciest topics back then. Wonder where those days went.

Student life is beautiful. In spite of its ups and downs. Of course we are all not angels but at the end of the day we are great friends. Of course we fought with each other but don't remember the reasons. Nor do we remember how we patched up because all that mattered was the friendship. The special bonds we built over four years is probably among the best relationships in our lives. I still remember how we all got suspended together and celebrated suspensions by putting up the pictures of our suspension on Orkut. How we all cried in unison after a fucked up Software Architecture paper. Not to forget , how the bum of the poor birthday boy always goes for a toss in the name of Birthday 'bum'ps, the cruel fun practice we enjoy!

Like they say all good things come to an end. Engineering comes to an end, leaving many such sweet memories in the sands of time. Orkut has been killed by Facebook. Classroom fun no more exists because there are no more classes. No more attendance shortages for bunking. No gossip, no suspensions, no birthday treats, no more fishing in the rotten pond. (This surely is a relief though). A whole lot of "no"s there. But lets hope it opens door to a more exciting life to come. May be we will all meet in each other wedding after we leave college and talk about the good ol days.. Sigh..
Flames to dust, lovers to friends, why do all good things come to an end?

This blog is dedicated to all my classmates and friends in engineering who made life so enjoyable.
Love you all people. This journey wouldn't have been what it is without you all.. You really mean a lot to me.

Leading a spoon's life

Disclaimer: I don't intend this blog at any person I know or any event. This blog is out of pure experience with human nature so please do not take offense because it is generic.

Results out as usual! Everyone is happy, smiling. Who beat whom? Who got what? Did i beat the shit out of that XYZ? If so then by how many marks? Pheww. Taking a break from that,
One of my favorite subhashita in Sanskrit goes like this

yasya nAsti svayaM prajnA kevalaM tu bahushrutaH ।
na sa jAnAti shAstra arthaM darvI sUparasAn iva ॥

Meaning, a wise man who lacks self-understanding can only be called well read.
He who can not understand the deeper meaning of any book is – just like a spoon which does not know the taste of the dish it serves. Similar to our career. Here we pass out of every semester with distinctions but ask us if we know at least one subject in detail. Silence.

So what is the point I am making? The point is, why are we always dancing around marks? When will we think of actually acquiring knowledge? Every student will say that he/she loves a subject. But, ask them a question, they fumble around the very basics of the subject. Because in our curriculum we are trained to know only 5 units! Rest can go to hell..
It is how we are expected to learn. When we were in school parents said score well. When we went to college, lecturers said score well. Then we went to engineering, we told ourselves to score well. In this whole process what happened to learning? Why didn't anyone say "learn well". Isn't learning what matters the most?

The pathetic state of affairs of Indian students is the fact that all our student lives which should have been a learning process has been made into a scoring process. parents feel happy with a high scoring kid but they fail to understand the kid cannot survive even a slightly tricky question in subject he/she scored 100!

Then there is this argument that scoring well gets you jobs in good companies and stuff like that. Well, having gone through the placement process, I can tell one thing. A very average score like 60 is enough to qualify you to the entrance test. Rest depends on your aptitude, knowledge and confidence. Bottom line is text book studies can't win the battle for you. It's you knowledge and attitude that matters if you need to be placed in a great job.
So the question again pops up, if a top scoring student and an average 60-65% student can get placed in the same company with the same salary why were we told all our lives that we should be on the top to deserve something better than the lesser ones? Something wrong with the theory!I'm not supporting low scores, but it isn't so hard to maintain a decent score after all. So work hard enough for that and with that include "learning the depth" as a part.

We have lecturers coming in every semester till now telling us, this subject is easy to score, this subject is hard, so study well in advance. But not one comes to say, learn and understand this subject well (in short Fuck marks). Do projects, write papers! Why doesn't anyone tell us that? When there is so much ready guidance on marks scoring techniques why not on techniques to improve our knowledge? There are hardly any of us who will say, I know this 1 subject very well. I can take as many questions as you want on this subject. Because we were all busy learning only 5 units!

Now as a student who wants to pursue Masters I look at myself and I feel that I wasted away my precious 4 yrs doing nothing. Because all I ever wanted was marks! Luckily I did change my attitude a year ago when maturity started sinking in and the reality of not knowing anything started striking me hard. But I can promise there are still many of us who can never break the marks jinx. Many of us live to impress our teachers, friends and family. But when will we actually make some good use of the abundant knowledge available? Blame is partially on us for not respecting our time, partially on the education system. The education system has so deeply rooted the concept of scores in us, students, that all our lives we believe marks defines us, our personality. Where as it isn't anything that is even close!

So then,when will we look at studies as a learning period? So what if we get 40 in a subject. Is our knowledge at least 80? How many times have we tried to create something new? These questions linger in my mind, no answers yet. But personally I hope at least I can learn one subject well, so that when I leave engineering at least I will have some respect for myself. I hope masters in a different education system can at least let me understand what I missed here for sixteen years. Hope the spoon's life stops with this.

A little love

I am normally a hyper active human being and hardly sober. In fact many who know me suspect if I even sleep peacefully or if I'm chattering away in my dreams. But somehow today (right now as I blog) I was wondering what happiness meant to me. Somewhere six months back when I dreamt of going abroad for doing Masters, I not only saw it as a wonderful opportunity to study further but probably as a challenge of my abilities and skills. I thought I would be the happiest person if I could crack the exam with a good score. Luckily I did get a great score and I was on cloud nine. But fifteen days after that it sounded like a silly definition of happiness.

How could one dream of great score to be key to happiness? Then I thought the if I do go abroad then probably the sense of accomplishment would give me happiness. But three months since such thoughts gripped up in my mind, I don't see myself feeling all that happy about it either. Then came January 21st when it my little brother's birthday. I bought him his favorite chocolates and a wallet as gift. I could see he was genuinely very happy about it. After gifting him I fell asleep on the couch as I had a tired day. In my semi conscious state I realized he kissed my forehead before going off to his room. It was like a lightning spark. I probably said eureka in my trance. When I woke up I was recollecting his gesture and then it struck to me. Love. We, human beings, love to love and being loved. Gesture of love in family and friends, relatives and even strangers makes us happy! Affection touches us like nothing else can. We all dream of being happy. But we always believe a Rolls Royce with a sack of money in it is an ideal happy dream. In reality though, we always cherish those wonderful moments we spend with our loved ones on a pav bhaji or the day we shared a single cup of coffee because we were too broke to buy one cup each ! These are unforgettable sweet moments which fill our hearts with joy.

So then what would be my ideal happiness then? Probably spending the rest of my life with everyone I love and who loves me back. Then the nagging feeling pricks me. Then what about my higher studies? What about going out of the country for at least three long years? I wonder if I am on the right path sometimes. Is it worth spending three youthful and probably very colorful years of my life away from my dear ones? I already feel homesick. My country, my people this is my world. The affection, the warmth which is my key to happiness in life is actually here. But my journey is headed elsewhere. All I will have there is a bunch of sweet memories, photographs and facebook! Is that my dream paradise? How do I make this nagging feeling of being wrong go away?

So, now I have started reorganizing my thoughts. I think I will embark the journey to grow more in love with my roots. To miss my loved ones so that when I come back I will never want to leave them and go. Distance makes heart grow fonder. May be this journey is worth taking for all the happiness and joy my return back will bring me and I hope some experiences will teach me to love my folks in spite of the distance. But the whole thought of going away has made me realize one thing. Happiness is never materialistic. It is about the life we lead, the people we love and the precious little moments spent with a smile. No amount of money or degrees can every buy happiness. A little love is all we need.

How i got my Passport

Hey guys! Have been away for ages now! Yeah.. I must tell you my bloody career planning kept me off all these days. So now I thought let me tell you guys something about what the past 6 months of my life has all been about.

I had dreams of waking up in the morning and suddenly realizing that I saw too many white stuff around. On closer examination I realised I was in America.. I couldn't believe it.. I was walking up to a lecture class just when I realised I was under dressed. Oh Shit ! Did i forget to put on my clothes? I look down in horror and realise I've been sleeping in my pajamas in the comfy of my bed, here in India. Pretty dramatic eh? I don't think so.

Pass-the-f***ing-port

Now I knew in order to make dream come true, one needs to first get the initial license. So whats the license to do Masters in US? Well, first and foremost, a Passport.
Now here in Bangalore, if you want your passport in less than 1 month, you have 2 ways
1)Kiss the lord Almighty's back till you see a miracle(the easy way out)
2)Walk into Passport Seva Kendra(PSK) near Urvashi theater, get a form, apply. (The real hard way)

Now I am never the luckiest person, so I had to take the hard way out. Go to the Kendra and fill up the form and then comes the roller coaster baby!!

Step 1: Fill the form online (if the website is ever up and the server is working fine) else get a paper form , fill it and book for an appointment.

Step 2: The appointment -- The hardest thing to come by any season. You can book an online appointment which will be given to you almost 1 month from the booked date (pretty late) or you can do what I did.. Lose sleep (and mind), stand in a queue in front of the PSK at 5:40 am in the morning. (Yeah that's right). Mind you by then there will already be a queue of around 8-10 people.

Step 3: wait for people to join the queue (feel smug about late comers.. stick your tongue at them and shout losers.. all at your own risk). At some time around 8:15 the security dude opens the gate. So with utmost civility move in the queue and wait for token to be issued. One you have your token number called, get an appointment time,return to PSK at that time with all your documents for data entry. (If you see some cool guys in the queue may be talk to them/exchange numbers.. LoL)

Step 4: Just when you start feeling happy that your work is being done pretty fast you realise that your document verification will be 1 month from today! What the fish man!! All this standing in queue for nothing? Then you don't loose heart. You say you have all your documents in order and can get it verified today. You walk into the verification place. Tell them your passport is tatkal(in case u need it in 15-20 days). Pay the additional fee, take the documents and move on the next stage.

Step 5: Then you wait endlessly till your name is called at the first level. Once you go in there, you smile in front of the camera, get your details checked and you get out.

Step 6: Wait in an infinite loop till your name is called the second time. When you go the verification officer and hey makes sure you are who you seem to be. Checks consistency of name and address in all your documents and if everything is perfect you go to the next level. (Make some friends if you can. One cool friend I made bought me a strawberry milk shake..! Sweet ain't it?)

Step 7: The Granting officer, Now let me tell you, so far it was quite bearable, by now the time is 4.30pm. I've been dying in PSK for past 10 hrs and still my work is not done yet! I take all my documents and some special documents especially for tatkal applicants. I produce my birth certificate to this officer and he sees it and says where is your name? I'm like wtf! Name on birth certificate? Mine was issued on the day I was born so you expect the baby to have a name 21 years ago? On the day it was born? I bark all this in my mind. I produce him another ID proof. The college ID card. And then he says "How do I know if you attend the college or not?". Now this is seriously not his business. I loose my temper and exchange some harsh words. Then he asks me to get a bonafide certificate from college tomorrow!

Step 8: Curse, let the frustration out. Shout aaarrghh. It helps.

Step 9: Next day go to college get a bonafide and return to PSK. No need of any tokens now. File is on hold, just enter. Wait in an elaborate loop till your name is called. Go to the Granting Officer directly, (throw the bonafide on his face along with a brick ) Produce your bonafide. By 1:00 pm yipeee! Passport granted!

Step 10: Say naaaa nana naah naah to all those people waiting in endless queues and zoom away happily.

Thats Me.. I'm not running the race.

Today (3-may-2010 time:1:05 am) as i blog I was wondering if i really had to do this 8 hours before my lab internals(so you know what to say about my studies! lol) however I thought this would be one unique blog because I'm intending to be serious this one time.
No No I didn't break up or make up or flunk or thrown out of the house or something! I'm still ticking on my normal hectic life. However this is something off a soul. A few words which i speak to myself often. Its about truth!
I don't mean to say this blog is "My experiments with truth" but this blog is about why half the time we are scared to be true to our own self.Why is it half the time we are not ready to accept what we are. (Its an open question :P)


On a serious note a friend of mine once said to me she is more comfortable in English and Hindi than Kannada(mother tongue) because of some reasons she is not aware off! I am not starting off a language debate here. But come to think of it people are just not happy about the very own roots! Why are we all so insecure when it comes to our personality? The want to be a mukesh/Anil, the want to be a priyanka/katrina but then who will be Apoorva/Pooja/Kiran/Varun if everyone wants to be someone else?I'd rather make my name a household name than have a role model.


Then we compare. comparison starts since the day you were born. Doesn't he look like his mom/dad. And then we go to school and we have a million n one guys out off which we must turn out to be the best. But the question is "Is there really something called best?" Lets put Indira Nooyi/Sachin Tendulkar/S P Bala/Amitabh all in the same row and now take a call. Who is the best? Difficult isn't it? You might choose someone of your personal interest to be your pick but there is no universal best.right?Then why do we try so hard all our lives to be better than a classmate/spouse/neighbor/cousin/friend? The fact being we are as different as an apple is from orange.

Life keeps slipping away. When you look back someday, in spite of all that one may have achieved if you just think who have i been all this time? I might have been a good daughter/sister/wife/granny but have i enjoyed my life being me?

Accepting our own drawbacks,facts that someone might be a better gifted person than we are doesn't take away anything from us. Our life runs on a constant nagging wheel that if someone is better than us makes us inferior to them. But the fact is a sweet orange can only be a sweet orange and never substitute the refreshing lemon even if lemon is sour.

Life is at its best when mind is at peace. People run away on holiday hoping they can relax their time away from the normal busy world. But all we need to do is start being ourselves. Let the guard down. If someone is moving ahead of you so be it! Why compete with someone and insult ourselves? Imagine I start running behind fame- so does a Rakhi Sawant! So imagine what kind of an insult that is!Not only that but I'm also putting a limit on all that i can be when my actual limit is the SKY!

I guess that's a good note to finish on. When we can be ourselves accept what we are make peace with our body and soul, the guaranteed peace of mind is something which even the richest people cannot buy.I guess success will come to those who work on their own terms and not run behind it!

All izz well

Back after a long time isn't it? well I'm having a tough 6 months ahead and apologize all my readers for this break but trust me there are a few OK blogs u can visit! :P hehe.. Missed me?No i am not confident enough to wait for the answer so I'll assume u did.. hehe

Oh so by the way aal izz well eh? Chetan Bhagat sells a little more and Aamir mints a million more. so hell, all must be well! Unlike me who is waiting with bated breath for 5th semester results over this weekend and patting my big tummy saying all izz well.(Oh stop u sleazy mind. I'm just trying to push back this obese tummy that makes me frown every morning in the mirror.Thanks to junk food)

But the kick in the ass was IPL season 3! Pakis were shown the right way. The way to home. A lesson which the handy central govt couldn't give for ages. Imagine even Odimba Lodakude Kurkure would be selected but not a Pakistani!Music to ears and delight to Indians. But I heard some Cartoon-shook Khan cried foul about this to promote his crap-thy-name-is-khan movie! Aal izz well because jokers are making poor jokes everyday!!

(a personal one this) for some nosy female relative of mine who thought this post on my blog was mush Well, all izz well because relatives are being at their bitchy best! All must be well :-/

Cut over to the other side of the globe.
I guess Shahid Afridi would be saying the same patting his ball (oh I mean the one he bit on the field! you guys didn't see?) poor ball you know. He was already tweaked on, salivated but being smelt literally by Afridi's dental obstructions?I'm
serious guys. Not sleazy in the slightest sense.No wonder they put Afridi out for 2 matches,May be he would be singing to himself now
ball is well?