If only I knew it as a kid..

"Vroom Vroom" the kid went as he swiftly rode a scooter. His father followed him awkwardly on a skate board. What struck me as amusing was the impeccable technique and confidence with which the little kid rode, while his father struggled to keep up pace. 

We meet a few people everyday in our routine, they might be strangers, yet we see them everyday and without ever realizing it, they get us thinking. I see the father son duo every morning as I walk to college. The kid, a curious little fellow is always in for a bit of early morning enlightenment as he shoots his father with numerous questions, innocent but intelligent questions, questions to which we have long stopped probing answers. Of course the father doesn't have all the answers but he has patience, and a lot of it.

Why am I writing all this ? There is a reason. There always is. I talk about the kid's scooter driving competence, his curiosity and enthusiasm- qualities which we lose out slowly as we keep growing. A certain financial and moral responsibility keeps weighing us down, insecurities keep us on guard, so much so that we are a pretense half of the time except for among a tiny fraction of the people we absolutely trust. Sometimes, we find ourselves short of our skill, the skill that we took pride in all our life, slowly waning as other priorities suddenly reach the top of our mind. 

I miss being a kid, the security of it, like the little boy under the aegis of his father, I see every morning. I miss doing all that I want, without care or fear. I do not want success or failure to affect me, my confidence. I do not want to run a filter in my mind every time I speak. If only I knew the truth as a kid, I wouldn't have perhaps wished so earnestly to reach here so soon.

That evening in windy Chicago

A glass of coffee and a half bitten piece of croissant lay on my table. While the wind blew ever so lightly on my face, a helicopter circled the Will's tower that stood behind me. The skydeck where I stood a few days ago, appeared now like a little matchbox protruding out from the skyscraper. In spite of all the noise, it was comforting to sit there on a Friday evening when people walked back home in weekend cheer. I could see two people dressed in suits, presumably business associates discussing animatedly at a table father away, one of whom was an Indian. He took a quick glance at me and I saw a certain flicker of recognition in his eyes, he smiled and I smiled back in acknowledgement.

I was still enamored with the Art Museum I just visited, it had made quite an impact on me. While Vincet Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir were just names that I had heard of previously, I never thought art had such immense power of expression. It was when I saw Seurat's painting "A Sunday afternoon on the island of La Grande Jatte" that my trip was complete. I stood there for long admiring the work, absorbing all that my eyes could, much like the scene from Ferris Bueller's day off, only I was more fascinated by the landscape and Seurat's portrayal of shadow than the little girl under the umbrella. I was also immediately taken by the concept of portraying a woman along with her modern dressing style at the Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity exhibition for a woman is not just her body or beauty but also the way she carries herself - a fact so well expressed by the 19th century French painters.

The walk to the Bank of America Theatre which was playing "The Book of Mormon" was long yet pleasant. The shade of the skyscrapers and the occasional iron bridges brought a touch of serenity to the bustling city. It was my first theater experience, the setting was almost royal. Watching television is great but nothing can beat the experience of an actor performing live; so open, vulnerable and alive that the effort and money to watch it is all worth it. From the creators of South Park, this vile comedy was a stark contrast to the decent setting in which we were placed with everyone dressed in expensive suits. A hilarious account on Mormon missionaries, the play in spite of all the filth actually makes you think about religion, its rigidity and the way we interpret it.

It was the last day well spent in Chicago for every moment was special, infused with either awe, humor, admiration or motivation. It also marked a new beginning, the enthusiasm to start an independent grown up life, the life of a graduate student.

Do all good things begin at the end ?

It’s a question I have been asking myself for the past 2 weeks and even as I sat this morning pausing to hit send, my resignation letter that I had written. It was evident, all decided, yet I felt strange. It is indeed strange to know that you will have to leave your home of 15 years never to return back, to know that you will never go back to the office that you have been going to everyday for an year, to know that you will never again go back home late at night to find your mom waiting up with hot food.

My hands trembled, I suddenly found my eyes moist as my mind contemplated weighing different things. Big opportunities lay ahead that excited me, at the same time to throw away all that I had was difficult. It had all begun a few weeks ago, I found a change in myself, I explored my office campus and I started loving it, I also suddenly started loving my work more than before, I started feeling the curtains and bedspreads at my home realizing after a very long time, the warmth and comfort they carried, the smell of my mom’s cotton sari, from the food I loved to the streets that I called home, I started loving it all more than ever.

Why was this happening? I asked myself repeatedly, “Do all good things begin at the end?” The friends I made, the opportunities at work, realizing the comfort of staying at home. My thoughts were too heavy to be weighed in a 6 by 7 feet cubicle. I went out with a belief that a solitary walk would clear my head. I walked along the street, the same street that I had been walking for an year, why then did it seem all the more glorious now, I waved to some of my friends, why then did they seem all the more special now. And then I knew, it was not the place, it was the time, the circumstance. When life is stripped of monotony, it gets interesting. When you walk a road with the realization that you will never again walk on it, you would want to experience it all, to take in everything it has to offer which otherwise you would have tossed away from your mind as any other trivial road. Same with people, you realize their value only when you have to leave them. It was one of those weird situations where taking a step ahead was as painful as not taking the step at all especially when you have dreamt about the step ahead all your life.

It was then I had mustered enough courage to get back and hit send, however is this the right decision, only time will tell J

If my mind were a data structure ...

Microsoft has been wonderful till now. My companions throughout the day are WCF services, SQL Databases and C# with the cool JavaScript hanging out with us at times. In the evenings, I find some solace with stimulating discussions and debates about implementing ideas with real people. It is this time that truly rejuvenates me, the whiteboard filling up with several different approaches to a problem, and number of coffee mugs increasing on the table as the time progresses. As I recall the many discussions, it was for one of the applications that we were considering using a hash table with chaining to resolve collisions. The call taken and everyone having approved on it, we decided to discuss the performance aspects the next evening.

The next day I decided to drive to work. It was a solitary drive of 45 kms, the empty road inviting me to push the accelerator a little harder and the radio playing some real good songs. At one song I stopped to listen, pausing my complicated thought process that usually comes to me only when I am on the high road. That song reminded me of my internship days. How I would travel two hours by local transport to get to ISRO, how I would spend my evenings in the ISRO library stacked with the latest books and journals, the light green walls and high ceiling with just the right amount of light, making the environment conducive to read, the long waiting for my Java code to process thousands of records, my 20^th birthday around the same time. I found it intriguing how just one song had brought about so much information, so many memories back to me. The reason was that I used to listen to the same song every morning during my journey to the internship. In its most basic form, I found my mind working like a hash table. In my case the song was the key, however it could be anything, even something as small as a smile, a feather, a toy and all you have to do is iterate through all the memories associated to that key to bring out nostalgia in bouts.

The memories, they are all there in the corner of the mind somewhere, and it needs a certain stimulus to remember them. The bad memories when still fresh in the mind, a stab in the heart every time you remember them, but as time passes by they are buried under the stack of newer and better ones. A dull feeling of sorrow is still associated with them but it will pass and after many years, perhaps the bad memories would also bring a smile on your face reminding you of your naivety.  

That one moment in life

I was more than sure, what I wanted to do. The course of events were so perfectly laid out in my mind that not even once did I doubt their occurrence. As always, back to my belief, what you think will happen for sure, will definitely not happen and yes, my course did take a minor detour !
Microsoft, every software engineer's dream was something I hadn't even thought about. With my goal of acquiring a Masters degree in the USA so strong and unperturbed, I had no intention of working so soon in life. The carefree life of a student without any responsibility was what I desired the most. Yet, I appeared for the written test only because my friend persuaded me to do so. Along with him, I studied for a mere two days, and wrote the test. After the test, I was only too sure that I would not clear it and was happy that what I had planned for the past five long years was still intact.
A month later, I got the news that I got through the written test and the interview was the very next day which meant very little or no preparation at all. Even after three rounds of interviews, I was sure I wouldn't make it. Exhausted by the events of the day, I wearily got into an auto after 45 minutes of bargaining. It was a long way from Gachibowli to LB Nagar. Along mid way, I received a call from my father saying someone had informed him that I got through. I couldn't believe it and thought that it was a prank which one of my many mischievous classmates were playing. For the first time in the day, I sensed some excitation in my mind. In the next few minutes, I received a swarm of congratulatory messages, only then was I certain that I was recruited into one of the most coveted companies in the world !
One thing that this experience taught me was that an interview does not depend on a weeks preparation or even that of four years, it depends on your entire lifetime, the experiences that taught you, gave you ideas, the sleepless nights during your projects, the essay writing and elocution competitions in school, every small thing that the 20 odd years of your life taught you.
Another important thing that I learnt is that no decision is concrete until done. Ideas, plans even decisions although the word carries an amount of definiteness in it, are virtual. One moment holds in it the power of changing the decisions of a lifetime !

Adilabad- Travelling back in time !

    2012 had been rough till then. It was only March but the year disappointed me in every way that it possibly could. Suddenly my parents were planning to visit Adilabad, my home town. We had an old house there, almost 150 years old. The very idea of visiting such an old house, thinking about my ancestors who had lived all their lives there, fascinated me. Perhaps I could re-live some of their memories !!

    What followed then was packing clothes for the two night stay, a one night train journey and we landed in Adilabad, early in the morning. I spotted a huge difference between this small town and the bustling city almost immediately, right from the fresh cool air I was breathing to the vast lands used for cultivating crop. As soon as I entered the house I saw a huge Aangan with several small houses surrounding it. Our house was to the right. At the entrance there lay a weathered nameplate belonging to my grandfather in greeting. A small gate lead to a tiny room which I assumed was for entertaining not so close guests, followed by another gate and a door carved in the Old Persian style. This door opened to yet another Aangan which had a well at one end, two entrances to the main house and a narrow passage to another set of houses. All the wall space in the living room of the main house had been occupied by photographs, framed and arranged in order by my grandfather. The most magnificent of them were the three huge oil paintings of my great great great grandfather, his son and daughter in law. Almost everything in that house that I laid my eyes upon interested me a great deal. Once I captured in my camera all the photographs, I decided to explore the other parts of the house. In an old storage room, I found a rifle that was used to hunt birds and a device to pick up things dropped in the well which my mother called "Pathala gadiyaal". It was made of iron and spiked so that things like bangles, utensils could hook on to the spikes and be brought out. How times had changed!

That night after a delicious dinner made of farm fresh vegetables by Gangu, our family maid, (as her family had been serving ours for several generations) I went to the terrace to take some solace from the stars. The view of the Bada Talaab behind our house gleaming in the moonlight was splendid. I had heard that this terrace was a bonding spot for many a newly married couple. Just sitting there with the view of the lake and talking to the love of one's life was indeed very romantic. “How sweet and simple life was back then”, I wondered. After spending a long time, brooding over various issues on the terrace, I resigned myself to some sleep!

Bada Talaab

        The next day, we had to make it to a lot of temples. The first was the Pendrada Hanuman temple with a massive orange coloured statue of Lord Hanuman. Next came the beautiful black stone temple of Jainnat- a temple of Lord Vishnu. There, I spotted a construction of black stone under which is believed to be buried immense wealth! Last came Kelapur, a temple of Amba Bhavani! All these temples shared a common quality of peace and calm giving me a truly spiritual experience. The positive energy that I gained from them was inspiring, putting all my worries to rest. After this we returned home for a quick lunch and a nap. Later, early in the evening we set out to visit the local bazaar.

Door to library 

There was still one thing left to do. Have a look at the library bungalow that stood right near the entrance, a two storey structure that held its old form which had not been renovated at all. No one had lived in it for very long. The ancient looking door invited me, so I took the keys from Gangu and opened the door. The cobweb infested room was small and empty; all the books were donated to the district library. It had steps on the side to the room above. I mounted the steps making my way through the dust and cobwebs to see a pleasantly ventilated room on the top. Just standing there on the steps, I could imagine my great grandfather probably reading one of his favourite books. I had never seen him, yet the room held in it the power to transport me 100 years back in time. It was when I captured that moment in my memory that my trip was totally complete.

       

      This trip made me realize that there was a lesson or two to be learnt from the ever so helping and warm people there. A lesson to take it slow at times, a lesson not to have over expectations on anything which is not in our power, a lesson to sometimes leave it to the higher order, a lesson to keep it simple and finally, a lesson to actually live life, not a race!

A little snow, a skid and a memorable experience !

After a hectic day of shopping in the narrow streets of the beautiful Mall Road, Shimla, we set out the next day on our bus journey to Kullu. The snow fall of the day before had stopped and we saw the sun slowly making an appearance from the clouds. It was a pure delight to finally feel the rays of the Sun in a frigid -2 degrees Celsius. Having somehow pushed our luggage from the hotel to the bus which was connected with a steep ramp layered with a thin sheet of ice, we almost mountaineered our way back safely to the bus without any major skid and fall accidents. However, in retrospect our bus did not share the same good luck.

Mall Road, Shimla

The bus driver was not so sure to carry out the long bus journey. He waited an awful two hours at the entrance of the ghat road for the ice to settle down. Not wanting to miss out any of the places on the schedule, we pushed him to drive forward. We received mixed responses from people whom we asked about the road ahead. One lorry driver said, "clear ho gaya he", another said, "bahut bura haal he" and yet another youngster replied by hurling a snow ball on our bus window ! That we took as a yes and proceeded forward.


One thing I understood was that the Ghat roads of Shimla are only for professional drivers. Without as much as a barrier between the road bends and the deep valley on the other side, it seemed a nightmare for drivers not accustomed to that terrain. It was at one such bend that our bus stopped to let a vehicle on the other side pass through the narrow road. We sensed a jittery movement in the bus when someone yelled, "It's skidding !". What followed was a moment of panic and chaos. We could see the bus inching towards the valley and our only concern was to jump off the bus which we did. The driver managed to reverse the vehicle onto safer grounds, a little far away from the edge. Shaken by the incident, we were in a state of blankness not understanding what to do next. People who forgot to bring their wallets got on the bus when it started to skid again. Yes, it was then that we realized we were in a predicament. We had to walk in the freezing temperatures, how long no one knew ! Although civilization was not totally extinct in that region, it still seemed to us not a very pleasant endeavor. By then, people had gathered and work of layering the road with soil to provide some friction had started.

Shimla Highway

Holding hands, we formed a chain and moved forward in one line taking care not to let our feet slip into the snow pits. We had walked about a kilometer, with numbed feet when our bus started coming slowly behind us. The snowy Ghat had mostly ended and we boarded the bus, still unsure. The driver instilled some confidence in us and we confided in his experience. After this incident, it was smooth sailing and we enjoyed the rest of our trip !