My charming luck

Someone in bank directed me towards counter number four. I turned towards counter four and saw a girl busy in managing papers spread on her desk. I put my form on her desk to get my demand draft for JMET.

She looked at my form, raised her head up and asked with voice full of vigour - ‘Hey, are you going to IISc?’

Her sweet voice and beautiful face made me speechless and for a moment I landed in the dream world as I am submitting the admission letter at IISc, until I heard her voice again - ‘Excuse me!’

Eww, was I staring to her for so long !

I couldn’t think of any thing and I answered - I hope ! (Was that stupid answer!!)

Anyways, after that she told me all about his cousin who passed out from IISc, placed in BARC and now into making missiles. And all this time I was staring at her, gauging the source of her excitement. I was again in dream world for a moment asking her out for coffee. Well, I am among those 99 people who can’t ask a girl for coffee.

When she ended her cousin’s glorified story, I told her about the management course I am applying to and that her cousin did bachelors from IISc. We did bit more chit-chat after which she wished me lots of luck and asked - Sir, please wait for few minutes, take your seat. Sir!, Oh! that was painful. And why the hell I was standing till now. I felt so embarrassed.

Those few minutes flee in moments and my draft was ready. I thanked her and move towards out gate. I endured but forced myself not to turn back and look at her again. I thought that would be another blooper.

I ignited my bike and suddenly this thought popped on my mind - Can’t I have doubts on draft?

I was back to her desk again, asking about the DD number and all. She wished me luck again with same fervor. This time I was out, all smiling and again in my dream world - I am out with her and IISc admission letter in my hand.

I am thinking..

I still remember that I was at my friend’s home where I saw the twin towers getting hit by planes. I was in class 11th then and it didn’t matter to me whatever it was. It didn’t matter to me what followed after that in Afghanistan. All I knew was that they attacked America and now it’s america who was taking revenge. I remember there were talks in India that time about America’s boldness and India’s feebleness - This is how America treat their enemies, does India have power to attack its enemies; enemies such as Pakistan who prepare terrorist against India. Well ! whatever, it didn’t matter to me.

Today I visited Afghanistan with Khaled Hosseini. The journey lasted 300 hundred pages which I traveled at a stretch. My longest journey till now which I experienced with ‘A thousand Splendid Suns’.

This journey has left me with myriad questions; questions about life, questions about death, questions about love, questions about freedom, questions about hope, questions about faith and questions about God. And I am sure that there are no answers to most of them. If there are they are all subjective answers, not objective.

Somehow I am feeling luckier today not to be born in few thousand kilometers west of where I am. Somehow I am cherishing the freedom which I exercise here in India and somehow I am thanking all those who made India what it is today. Somehow I am questioning God! (It’s too subjective about God, so I won’t write anything. I am not valorous like Bhagat Singh to pen down my thoughts about the Supreme)

I was aware about the pathetic situation in Afghanistan, about the Taliban’s brutal rules, but in this journey I saw Afghanistan through the people’s eyes. People who loved, people who made promises, people who dreamed, people who laughed, so what if missiles were penetrating in neighborhood, so what if the next time it could penetrate their own house, so what if life was all about fulfilling the basic necessity for survival. A paragon of Hope. I realized, hope gives purpose in life and strength to endure.

Huuhh.. so many thoughts are clashing in my mind and I am not able to write anything. Suddenly I am longing to see my family, to talk to them. And in such times I hate being so far from my family.

I am thankful to CAT because I started reading to prepare for this exam. I am learning so much about life. I really am!

To Let or To-i-Let

Sounds Intriguing? Read on

It took two days for me to pronounce this word - Illustration; and that also when my cousin told me how to pronounce it. I was troubled thinking how can a word be pronounced which has 3 I’s as first three letter.

My elder sister had influenced me to study in Science stream instead of commerce after my 10th graduation. She asked me to give it a try and assured me that if I would not able to cop up with the English language, I can switch to Commerce. I felt the blow on the first day itself in mathematics text book with the above word, and there were other subjects also.

Textbooks for all the subjects were available in Hindi also, so I got in tune with studies in a year. Only text book which was not available in Hindi was of English and that also English as Higher language subject. I always passed this subject with grace marks in all the term exams. So what happened in Board exam? Miracle - The invigilator was sitting on my desk during 2 hours of exam but I sensed a tacit approval to cheat. So my classmate passed her supplement to me and I copied complete grammar section. I passed in English and scored decent marks in other subjects.

Do you believe in Miracle?

I didn’t speak much in English until I started preparing for my campus interview. I was going with my college friends and I saw a small board hanging on the balcony of fourth floor in an apartment. The board read - ‘TO LET’ (Only that much). I burst out laughing and told my friend to check the board. I told them that how stupid a person can be, who forgot to put ‘I’ and also, Is anyone going to run till forth floor to use public toilet especially in urgency!!

I need not write what followed after that. You can guess what happens in college when someone commit such a blooper. It happened when I was in first year. Few people still remember me because of this incident

The journey with English seems to be life long. I keep on making mistake and I keep on learning. Few months back while in office, my colleague pinged me to inform me that, she has ordered Samosa for the team. After few minutes I pinged her back - “Hey when is Samosa wala coming, my mouth is littering” . She walked to my desk instead of replying my chat and told me it is supposed to be ‘watering’. I gave my team a reason to laugh while enjoying the delicious Samosas. But I am blessed with the caring colleagues who always appreciate me by saying - At least you keep trying. HO HO HO

In general, I face trouble in pronouncing the word starting with ‘S’ and followed by ‘I’. However hard I try, I always utter ‘Shinger’ instead of ‘Singer’

With time I made bit improvement which was noticed by my manager. So I was asked to impart a session on Effective E-mail communication to the team. I prepared hard for this presentation. And revised the content many times. The session happened a month ago and the best compliment I received was - Is it the same Vivek who joined this team two years back?

We should celebrate the small achievement. I celebrated that night

The next day, my manager asked me if I would be able to give the same session to other teams. (There are 4 different team in my project working on different business. We hardly interact with other teams) . I told him that it’s an opportunity for me.

I was bit nervous during my second presentation because the expectation was set to the audience that session will be worth their time. If 15 people are attending one hour session, it’s 15 billable hours which is being invested and that accounts for huge amount. I was indeed nervous during session. While hearing the session recording I realized that I had used ‘So’, ‘The thing is’, and ‘now’ in almost all the sentence I spoke. It was so embarrassing.

Third session : It turned out to be much better relative to previous two. I rectified the mistake I did earlier and added few extra points which I got as feedback from previous session. I received appreciation note from manager of that team and also from leaders of the complete project. I have heard the recordings several times till now.. all of one hour duration..

I partied hard that night. Dedicated to all who laughed at me, Dedicated to all who then corrected me, Dedicated to my colleague who sits beside me and bear all my bad usage of words and Dedicated to Toastmasters.

“Either I do things correctly or I learn”. This belief helps me keeping my ‘mistake’ dairy blank. And as there is nothing in my ‘mistake’ list, I always be confident for the new learnings.

Happy PAST Gloomy PRESENT

Why do people always long for past? Why do they always think that time that has passed was better than what they are going through now? I was thinking about this few days ago and I did find some reasoning for that. Here it goes -

Think of an event when you were most depressed. When you thought of being completely lonely in this world. When you thought if it would have been my last day on earth. There would be at least one such event in everyone’s life.

Once you recollect those moments, try to feel the pain. Pain which you would have endured that time. Try hard to feel the same pain again. Ask yourself, if you can feel the slightest of the that pain now. I think answer would be ‘NO’.

On the contrary, now think of a moment when you were happy. When the world around looked pouring with colors and sweetness. Once you think about the happy moment, check if you are smiling. I think ‘Yes’, you would be.

I think you got my point. A beautiful gift to human being. We can’t feel the pain of trauma and hardship we felt in past though we can always cherish the happy moments we experienced in past. So when we look back, we can see only happy days, and the present looks gloomy than past.

Keep Smiling

Is your path clear!

Ha Ha! you may think it will be a motivational sermon as the blog title indicate, but it’s not !

Since I bought my Pulser on 22nd nov 2006, I have roamed whooping 30000 kilometer only in Hyderabad in just 3 years. Yes, though I am not ‘Roddie’ I love riding on my bike. So in last 3 years, I have encroached into every corner of so callled new Secunderabad and old Hyderabad.

This year, my bike’s third anniversary and IIFT exam was on same day. The venue of examination was same as last year and the path to reach there was lucidly clear on my mind. I started at 8:30 AM in the morning for about 8 kilometer ride from my home to the venue. I faced first roadblock on my way when I saw traffic police had closed one of the road to reach there. I immediately took alternate path and after travelling a kilometer saw another main road being closed by traffic police. On inquiring the reason, they pointed towards a billboard which said - ‘Run Hyderabad on 22nd November’ .

I went numb. It was Hyderabad Marathon and the only road to reach to venue (from my place) was completely closed. With frustration I asked traffic police to guide me to reach Hanuman Vyamsala school (my venue). He guided me with many left - right direction and I couldn’t understand any ! Luckily, one uncle in scooter heard me and offered help. He was going on same direction and asked me to follow. While following him, I traveled many new alleys and mud road which I never crossed in last 3 years. Amidst the mounting tension of exam these dazzling path caused my heart beats beating at higher rate.

That uncle left me somewhere close to the venue and directed me with few left-rights to reach the venue. With the help of many pan-walas and auto-walas I reached the venue exactly on time. You can guess, I was almost exhausted but relieved on reaching venue.

CAT is starting from tomorrow. Make sure your path is clear even though you have traveled on that path many times.

Best wishes to all

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with triumph and disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And - which is more - you’ll be a Man my son!

- Rudyard Kipling

*Rudyard Kipling was a British author who won noble prize in literature. His notable work include 'The jungle book'

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