What do you call problems......
How long does it take to touch a chord with some one? A moment, a minute or eternity? There are some people you instantly fall in love/sync with. You become comfortable with each other as if you had known each other for a long time. This is not going where you are thinking .... but this is about one of my swedish friends. He is twenty, tall and this lovable character. He wishes to be a doctor one day, gives half as many re-exams as the exams, sucks at flowers, though loves biology in general. One of those easy go lucky guys. We hit off together the first day we met. Why am i talking about him? cause he coined one of the amazing terms I have ever heard.
We were having dinner together and he started telling me how he had problems deciding whether he should go to hungary next year for prep school or he should stay in Sweden to study by himself and save some moolah. Also he said he was having problems deciding if he should go with his friends to Italy this weekend . Then he started smiling and said that "Do you know what my father said when I told him all these problems . He said, what you have my son are not problems, they are LUXURY problems." How very true?
Do I have any major problems in life. I do not have to think where my next meal is going to come from, I do not have to work in pitiable conditions and not getting paid for it enough like many people in India. I have so many friends and lots of love in life. Then why the hell do I think that I am having an unhappy problematic life most of the times and only some times I feel really excited and happy.
I do not have any problems with my life from this day onwards. But you could say that I have been bitten by the bug of luxury problems and it itches some times.
Thanx Darius for giving me those words.
A notice!
It is quite remarkable that if we start noticing something new and our alert most of the time how we start coming across that thing. It has happened to me that when I look up a word in dictionary , magically I come across that word in something different I am reading. It is the same with with my thoughts, a thought comes in my head ( waise do you come up with a thought or the thoughts come to you??) I see the same thought across in many writings or in a movie. It can not be purely coincidental. And while I was thinking about it, I remembered something some one told me long ago (and yes he is same some one as the last time ;-) )
"
If you give importance to little things in life they begin to grow. Its upto you to decide which things you want to grow and which things you want to remove like weeds from the field when they are tiny".
Now how did this thought come into my head, I had gone shopping today for gifts and souveniers for friends and family and it was a tough job . First it is difficult to find things that you can carry easily back home and then when you find them they are so freakingly expensive. I saw this amazing piece of swedish crystal and immediately fell in love with it. But I was momentarily stunned when I saw the price . 5000 Kronas. That is nearly 30,000 rupees. For a piece of rock. And that made me think about money in life. I have never felt the need to have too much money, partly coz my parents can provide for more than the basic needs . It is not important to have obnoxious amounts of money in life to be happy, you must know how to spend it on right things. Sometimes a 5 rupee flower can touch more than an expensive necklace/ipod/watch/(______ fill up anything you like). Really like the
mastercard advertisement"There are some things in life money can not buy. "
I have to remember never to let the thought of having lots of money grow on me.
Now what was amazing was, once I came back and resumed my internet hopping, I came to
this article ("A path of glory" ) which some of you might have already read. There are some people who struggle all their lives just to get a decent standard of living. The big dreams which people used to have, they have become of little importance with globalization and time. Earlier it was owning a car, now it has been replaced by having a Mercedes. The simple pleasures have been taken away.
I have also made one more observation, that only a few people in Europe realize that they are the same as all the people in the world, except that they were LUCKY enough to be born in a developed nation. Actually it was not an observation i made, but something pointed out to me by one of my sedish friends. A human being in Sweden is no different from human being in Africa, so why the prejudices.
Be aware of the fact that you are one of the lucky ones and utilize the opportunity. I also had one more quesiton in my head about which I may or may not write. Sometimes I feel that why do we have to pay in life for being born in a particular country . Do not take it to be that I regret being an Indian, I am proud to be an Indian but the country has still a long way to go. It is so ironic that you do not even decide how and where you begin your life. I am beginning to believe in destiny. Here I come..........
The Art of Estimation
I have noticed lately how bad I am at setting estimates for finishing a particular task. It is the only case where I should take the worst case time and plan for my schedule accordingly but I take the best time and then do it. I always think on a surface level that this task should not take me more than 'xxx' (just for the fun it, using 'x' as a variable is so boring) hours when I know deep down that it would take me more than that.
I keep snoozing my mobile until the last moment in the morning. I could get up 10 minutes early and not rush through everything. But I always estimate the best times, 30 min to get dressed up, 15 min to make lunch and have breakfast and so on and so forth. And I have noticed how even when that particular task is not finished I start planning for 4 more things. I feel so excited to start a thing but it takes a lot out of me psychologically to finish it. Guess i was never good at finshing stuff, one of the many mortal ills I have. But I have noticed that Indians are very optimistic when we estimate something. As if we have this temporary gift of optimism when we are planning. 'xxx' activity should not take more that this much and 'yyy' not more that so I should have my evening free and watch a delightful movie. If I am wrong, please GOD give me the answer to why I am like this. And if you do, I promise I will start believing in you apart from not doing the above mentioned thing.
The second thing that is that I have received 'comments' (or as I see them compliments) ( first from shivam da and lately some of my closest friends) that I was not this person when I was back home and they find it hard to relate this blog to me. I think there are many reasons ( read
this). I admit that it I have become more vocal, but my thoughts have not been dramatically changed by this stay but I have come out with the thoughts that I had in my head for almost an year now. I no longer wear a mask to pretend that I am sure of what I am doing at IIT and where my life is heading(as one of my friends put it). Some people are looking forward to meet this new me ( thanx tote for the talk that day) and I am thinking that I may have not changed that much to really surprise them. As I always say, your imagination can make you expect things which are not really possible and that can leave you sometimes a little disappointed.
gosh, this IIT!
It does not rain but it pours. That is what happened to me when I read
this at
phoenix blog and the rest of the links, bombarded with the news of the suicide of an IIT guy. I am too lazy to link upto all of them but I think phoenix does a pretty good job. I feel sorry for the IIT guy though, ending his life when it could have begin in another year atmost.
I can not tell about all IIT so everything I say will be my exeprience at IITD and of other IITs generally. The point is there are some over-hyped notions prevailing of IIT(s) in this world. And we IITians ( did I mention how it pains me every time I use this word) are partly responsible for it. Do not we sometimes use the name to our advantage even though we know that we have nothing special except doing well for a change in one stupid test. The problem is always the same , demand and supply, if you have little of some product the prices go up. So is the case with IITs. Have more institutes of the same quality and then the stress would certainly go out.
Second thing is that people(IITians) do not know which branch they really want to do except for a few. The answer is still the same that if you had to stand in a queue to get a bowl of rice in a time of famine , you do not complain if it is basmati or not. You just eat . The thing is that most of us give up on a few things we like to do for a matter of 2 years to get into this institutes and then we want to do them again when we finally enter them.
But i was startled at reading this at
varun's post
"
The stress on an IITian can get even worse. Back at home they are hailed as if they came down from planet Krypton. Parents, relatives & peers expect them to keep outperforming just as they did in school or in IIT-JEE exam, what they don't consider that here the competition is many times tougher. Such expectations put a student under immense stress. For most of the students in IITs, IIT is the first place where they are challenged academically. Till then, during school, they were among the toppers - without breaking a sweat"
The thing that bugs me is that we do not stop competing with others once we get into IIT. Should not these institutes cultivate an environment in which emphasis is on majority of people doing something good instead of some people doing something exceptional. It is the system that claims to select only the exceptional people RIGHT? So should not we be helping each other out and trying to learn in a group. The thing I have seen here and realized is that we Indians are always trying to prove ourselves all the time, showing that we are better than the rest around us . Asking a question to which you already know the answer to!! We are not taught how to work together in a group. We may be better individually, but always remember that sum can be greater than its parts.
This is the primary reason that Indian companies are not doing stupendous jobs, cause we keep the ideas to our selves in the fear that our colleagues may take credit for it. In IIT , you do not have to be challenged academically, you have to be stimulated academically. We get into this trap of scoring a GPA that we forget that sometimes it is more important to learn that to score.
Regarding the attendance thing, I can not comment cause my department never has any attendance requirements so I am not entitled to comment. But there is one thing an IIT prof told me in my first year, (paraphrasing ofcourse) "
If I teach something in 14 weeks and you claim that you can learn all of it in a day, then that does not speak highly of the way I teach. So learning is a continuous process "
There are some people who are great teachers even if they know do not know everything and there are people who can not be great teachers no matter how much they know. We always complain that we do not have great teachers, but how many of us think of becoming teachers/professors as a profession. You can miss a class but can a teacher miss preparing for a class?? One of the problems is that professors have their own research to carry on, teaching is a demanding and time comsuming profession. So respect it.
There is a thing that we regard medicine and engineering as only professions worth going to (the old indian mentality some people call it). You have to be stable first in life, have roti, kapda and makaan. Will somebody who makes ends meet with difficulty try to make a living by being a swimmer or a tennis player. These professions of medicine and engineering are our symbols of stability and respect. That is the thing. Do not complain about them just coz you are more privileged than your previous generation. Think about it, how many of us would be where we are if our parents were not in the position they are now? Yes some of our next generation may surely take deep sea diving as a way of living, but then we have to pass them the baton in the reac of life where they can run this distance.
Always remeber, there is something good going for you even if you do not know it.
First Time Charm!
I have seen snowfall for the first time in my life and like many other things in nature it has made me realize the importance of something someone said long ago( whenever I say this I speak only of one man ;-) ).
A little digression. The snowfall is amazing and I am extremely tired from the snow fight , so this will not be coherent for I have slept only 7 hours a day this week (poor me !!) .
The thing is that only people who had not seen snowfall before had come out to ENJOY it. NO swedes of my age, no germans and they were giving the facial expression of .."Where do all these crazy guys/gals come from". But then there were two Swedish children having a gala time in the snow. I believe they were around 5 and 8 and hence this was not there first snow.
Which gets to me the important saying "
Learn to enjoy the little(routine) things in life". Actually it should go only as "Enjoy the little things in life" and Learn that you need to follow this rule. The child can enjoy as many times. But when you are a little old, something called the first time charm kicks in. The thrill of doing the things in life for the first time. Why is not we do everything with the same enthusiasm as we did it the first time? We are losing out something if we are not following this.
People can argue that at some tasks you get better over time and then it would be like starting over from scratch but I am not talking about expert tasks. It is about enjoying the walk from the insti to the hostel no matter how much work you have. It is about being aware of the surroundings as you walk by it. I have noticed it in me. During my first month here, I used to go WOW everytime I saw a different colour on the trees. But in the second month, the WOW's came less frequently, It had to be extremely something spectacular to draw attention towards it . It is like addiction may be at some levels. I became so habitual to it that i needed it more for it to work. But why do we have to have this habit. Can not we enjoy it as if it was "first time".
I am completely aware of another thing that goes " That you can not step into the same river twice coz the river itself has changed during that time". But can not we step into the river each time with the feeling to experience the experience of stepping in completely. That should make us happier maybe. I think this post is getting self -contradictory in parts or I am too tired.
Second thing that confused me was me reading on some blog (sorry i do not remember whose, I am too tired) that you do not learn from your mistakes or you have to relearn the lesson many times before it becomes internalized and becomes a part of you. So this is what i was also thinking about.
Finally read it some where
"I would like to do everything in life atleast twice. For maybe the first time , I may be a bit nervous"
A toast!
But surely in all irony of history or in the history of irony, there has been nothing so strange as the tribute of dynamite to the peace of world.I went to the Nobel Museum recently. Though I was disappointed by the size of it ( it is very small :-( and it is more about Einstein coz they are celebrating the centennial celebrations of the year 1905) it turned out to be quite good food for thought. I do not know what most of them got there prizes for but I would give them for a few lines some of them said. Though no photgraphs were allowed, I remember the text and will reproduce it.
I search not , I find . - Pablo PicassoHappiness hates the timid, so does sceince - Eugene o Neill.We haven't the money, so we got to think. - Ernest Rutherford.I could go on and on but I have to come to
Robert B. Laughlin's speech. It is nice to read and even better to hear. Listening his speech made me remember what I had planned to write some long time back.
It is about my behaviour of taking the people who are close to me for granted. The people I love, my family, my best friends I really miss them when I am away from all of them. But I have this monster inside of me, the same devil with the red horns who comes out and makes Tom do all the crazy things in Tom and Jerry ( Yes , I still watch the show :-) ) . I turn it into this obnoxious mean beast who wants to show that I do not need them. I can survive by myself in this ghastly world. I try to show that I really do not care about them and so they should stop caring about me. When actually I care, When actually I know I need all of them and I would not be here without them. How my mom used to look forward to having me each weekend home and I used to go back and sleep and I had more important work to do. Something more important than five minutes undivided attention to my mom. How when my father used to call, I always was busy. Cause that was when I used to care what people around me used to think about me. 2 min for the two most important people of my life, I did not use to take them out.
The first part of killing the monster is realizing that you have a monster residing inside of you. I know the people who know me still like me for what I am. They know my moods and send what I say in my moments of anger, madness directly out of the system. But how precarious is my situation. What if I lost them in fit of temporary insanity, for that is what it is. No better still , it is recurring insanity. It is amazing that how careless I can get with the people who care most about me.
That brings me to my second conclusion, Multitasking is not that good a skill to have for a mortal. It is too hard to learn in its true sense. The ability to give undivided attention to one thing at a time is a trait I would like to have. That's what makes a person a good listener, isn't it? I will start practising this art from this moment onwards. So no more multi chats and no more doing some thing else while talking on the phone. You can save loads of time they claim but I have enough I think.
Finally, as Laughlin, this post is a toast to parents. I would not be here but for my parents. And I have never ever thanked them for this. We thank everybody who helps us out even a little bit in trouble but we never thank our parents, our brothers and sisters. It is an English concept I know and I hate borrowing it but why do we hold it back. When all of us are grateful to our parents, Why do not we show it? We should mean it finally. We do not show our emotions that often. Why the need to hold off your emotions most of the time.
When was the last time you actually said to your parents that you loved them? I have not said it for a long time and so I say it here : Love you Mom and Dad, and You too Sis and thanx for everything.
Lastly
Born originals, how comes it to pass, that we die copies? - Edward Young
arigato!
From '
Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi'
Nothing that happens, is ever forgotten, even if you can't remember it.
I am so happy right now that it feels like that I am like a child again.
When You were growing up..... ?
When I came here I was surprised when people could guess correctly what i studied. You are an Indian so you must be studying IT/computers. I was amazed in the beginning but on thinking back I am surprised now that I was surprised. But one of the most difficult question to explain is why IT? You have to explain the whole system to explain that one did not have any real choice. The JEE forces the people who do well to choose between computers and electrical and the less unfortunate to hope that the get the course of their choice. We never choose what we want to do and once we realize what we really want to do , few of us have the courage to chuck away what we have achieved so far to start afresh.
The longest I have taken to answer any question was when I was asked by a girl in my corridor
What did you want to be when you were a kid?. Now I was like, woh, what do I say to this awesome unexpected question. I wanted to say that I do not know what I want know, how can I tell you what I wanted as a kid. I was thinking for two minutes, the two slowest minutes of my life, what did I want to be when I was growing up. Blank, Blank, Blank, that is what my mind kept on coming with. I finally said that I wanted to be a construction worker who build houses. I used to build houses with my blocks all the time when I was kid so may be that is why I said this as my option. I did not even know what an engineer was when I was a kid. But the more I have been thinking about this question , the more it troubles me. I have forgotten what it was like to be a kid. I have lost my childhood in the maddening rush-hour traffic.
What i can remember most about my life is the last two years of IIT. The remaining of my life seem hazy. Is this the part of growing up, to forget your childhood, your past. I wish the mind had USB add ons for extra capacity hard drives. I want to store every feeling, every thought and have them sorted, categorized so that I could look back on life with surity. Then my two years of engineering would be of any use. I look back on life like a hazy picture, best described in terms of certain major points which decided my course of journey. I wish I could see the small steps I took to reach where I am today.
I wish I remembered what I wanted to be when I was a kid. Sometimes I wish i was a kid again with no worries for the past and the future, just enjoying the present. My child hood is lost and I am searching for it. Some body show me the light.
I wish I knew !
I wish I knew all the answers in this world.
I wish I knew the right questions to the above answers .
I wish I knew why I am the way I am.
I wish I knew why the others behave with me the way they do.
I wish I knew why I am good at things I am good at.
I wish I knew why I mess up things I mess up.
I wish I knew what to cook each day.
I wish I knew how I feel right now.
I wish I knew where I am heading with my life..
I wish I knew
something or anything at all.
