Tag Archive for 'musing'

Things were so simple in the past when my father used to make all my decisions. Well, most of the time I disagreed with him, but still, atleast I wasn’t burdened with distinguishing one choice over the other. Back then, I was just a robot doing what my father wanted of me.

I remember, we were studying NP problems. Our professor introduced a function – choose(), which would choose a solution, and all we next had to do was to verify if the chosen solution is correct or not in polynomial time. Life would have so much easier if we had such a choose() method. Alas !

The joy of growing up and becoming independent comes with the pain of having to choose yourself. The responsibility of weighing one choice over the other now rests on you yourself. And my years of experience, however less might it be, has taught me that more motivated and clear your goal is, easier the task of choosing becomes.

Normally I am quite motivated. I know my goals. I have a very-long-term expectations and the path is vaguely defined. I am proud to say that usually my brain makes all the decisions, curbing whatever desires I might have had. I try to suppress my feelings and always think twice before making a decision. I try my best not to get carried away by the petty emotional attachments that I might have.

Yet, I am but a human. And just like any one else, I too am biased. At times it becomes too difficult to think clearly. The choice of path does not seem as intuitive. My actions tend to maximise local happiness, rather than the global happiness. Suddenly the control of my mind seems to waver a little, giving in to the temptations.

At these times I can actually hear my brain speaking out to myself. The brain tries to remind me how useless the temptation is, and how important the other goals are. But at these times it becomes a challenge to make the right call. What do I want ?

I have tried convincing myself that I have worked hard to be who I am today, and therefore, do deserve to enjoy the moment. And yet, this very thought reminds me that the work is not yet done. Its a long life out there, and a lot yet to be achieved. I remind myself that I am not the person I aspire to be, atleast not yet. The temptations, the fleeting happiness, the greedy solutions always tend to throw me off the track.

But come what may, I always manage to find my way back. And I think this is more significant. Though distracted, I fight hard to get back into the battle.

A similar dilemma greets me now. I have a good job with a decent salary in the city of Bangalore. An awesome team, some great new friends and a few of my best friends from college – I have everything I wanted from my first job. There is indeed a tendency for me to get carried away, to become complacent, to lose my focus.

Which is why I have written this post. This shall serve as a reminder to me that the life has just begun, that there are a lot of things to achieve. Now shall be the true test of my character, of my mental strength. I need to curb my complacency tendencies and set myself challenging targets. Yes, I shall talk to Navin and make sure that the half-yearly goals we set for me are tough to achieve.

Despite what I have written, I am confident that my mind shall win over heart, that I shall continue to be as focussed as I was just before the JEE. And whenever I shall feel my faith waiver, I shall read this post to remind myself who I truly am and what my goals are.

Why ? Why ? Sab kuch isi saal kyun hona tha … I hate being a final year student this year, now that the  market scenario is so grim.

Had it been a normal year, abhi tak sabki job lag gayi hoti thi and we would be having lots of fun. I had been dreaming about this one carefree semester, jab hum apne aane waale salon ke sapne dekhte, maze karte and live a bindaas life jo seniors ki hoti thi. We would go out almost every other day knowing that we are the studs who cracked the best jobs in India,  and that in four months we shall be earning lot more than a normal erson would do as a fresher. Studying at an IIT and watching all the seniors land up with high paying jobs gives you the illusion that all is well and that a few years down the line you could have an extravagent life style.

Alas ! Things went all wrong for us this year. The markets crashed in August and everything became chaotic. Companies like Google, ITC, P&G cancelled their campus recruitment. If that was not all, the first day top companies drastically reduced their intake. Last year Microsoft had recruited 6 from IIT Kgp, and this year only 3. McKinsey, Morgan Stanley, Yahoo and a few more selected just single students. Just one from an IIT ! Amazon went without any ! The indications were clear – it was going to be tough landing up a job this time.

Luckily, I got selected at Fair Isaac. I had even better luck of being offered a profile I very much wanted – the RnD position. It allows you to do something innovative and try something new – to think out of the box. Others have not been so lucky. And this is what worsens the situation.

The dilemma is how to present yourself among your friends. You cannot be all happy and bragging about your job. You cannot throw parties and celebrate the occasion. Heck, its my first job and I haven’t yet given a treat to my closest friends at kharagpur – my wingmates, the people I really care about.

Today the CAT results were declared. One of them got a call from all the IIM’s and three others got none. Worse, ek ka percentile 99.32 hai, and yet no call, while people with lesser percentiles have got calls from 2 to 3 IIMs. I hate this disparity. I just want to get out of here, to let the things cool down a bit.

I think, I want my life fast forwarded three years into the future when things will have become better. It pains to know that you cannot help your friends, not always. There are a few battles that you have to fight alone, a few demons that only you alone must get rid of. I hate feeling so helpless. I wish there was something I could do to make things better.

I have been watching a lot of Scrubs lately. JD is the narrator and main character of the story. He provides voice-over to the series which fills the roles of his internal thoughts and an overall narration in the show.

JD’s most prominently featured quirk is his habit of daydreaming. When this happens, he tilts his head back and to the left, blankly looking upwards. The sequences played out in his daydreams are of surreal scenarios and situations that have just been mentioned or wondered about, often in an exaggerated manner.

JD made me realise how much I like to introspect and daydream. Its really simple. You just need to shut out the sounds and fly away to a fantasy world of yours. Over the years I have improved a lot in my technique. Earlier I had to close my eyes to cut out the real world and dream, but now I don’t need to.

If you ever find me lost in a conversation, not talking at all, you can be almost sure that I am only physically present. Mentally, I am in my own beautiful world. I dream about a lot of things – cars, F1, then a few of my favourite movies, either replaying the or wondering what could have happened if things turned out the otherway, what I would like to do in future, holidaying at some scenic location, almost always New Zealand, then of course Lord of the Rings, else flying the Millenium Falcon, and the list goes on.

And this is a good habbit I have developed. It helps a lot in class. Few people like to sleep, a few grunt, complain about having to attend classes while I enjoy dreaming.  The only side effect is that your facial expression tends to become blank. As you are not aware of what people are talking about, you do not know if you need to smile or be serious. I generally try to imitate group’s facial expression. So if someone laughs out, its a cue for me to do so as well. There’s always a time lag though, and sometimes I have landed in trouble because of it, but most of the time it works out pretty well.

I have got bored of writing already. A recent study found that the average concentration span of human beings is just 5 minutes 7 seconds. I need a break now. I am off to my dream world.

Update: I improved my skill to include dreaming while conversing. Intelligible and sensible replies are not expected, but I am able to say something which adds to the conversation while at the same time also dreaming – multi tasking.