A yearly start...

It’s amazing how little time you get to introspect. The end of a year offers a good opportunity to do just that. 2009 is over and done with. Every 31st, I like to look back at the year that has gone by. Why is a calendar year important? Because you need to have a certain time frame to think about what you have done. Or haven’t. If you suddenly look back at your entire life, it might overwhelm you. So many rights, so many wrongs. So many regrets, so many feel-good moments. So we divide our life into years. Its easier one at a time.

There are always a few years that stand out. I remember 1997 when I joined Fergusson. 2004-05 when I was an intern. 2009 joins this list.

It’s been an eventful year. For the first three-four months I was practically at home, cramming for my Masters exam. I remember the late nights, which got longer with every passing day. How I disconnected my cable connection, and missed the entire IPL2. I passed my Masters exam in June this year. The process drained me emotionally and physically. The last time I was this vulnerable was a long time ago. Hopefully the next time will be a longer time away. It was the last formal academic exam of my life and finally after 27 years, I was out looking for a job.

July had me making the biggest career decision of my life. Hopefully i have made the right one.

2009 also saw me on my third weight loss program. I had succumbed to gluttony earlier in the year and I had to do something about it. After my exams I lost more than 10 kgs over the next 3 months. I lost craving for junk food. And I removed the mental block I had against walking.

2009 was the worst year for Hindi Cinema. Time and again I went to see a movie and came away disappointed and frustrated. Now I am fast losing interest in hindi movies. At the same time, I developed an addiction to English TV shows. This year saw me polishing off Prison Break, Heroes, Wonder Years, 24, How I Met your Mother, Lost, Entourage and The Big Bang theory. They keep getting better.

This year I bought my first car with my own money. They say you can never forget your first car. Time will tell…

There were also a few things I could not do this year. Go to Goa for the first time. Visit my school. Do some charity. Start reading novels again. Publish a book of my nano stories.

Hopefully when I write this piece next year, I will have done all of them.

Happy new year!

e = mc 2

Most things in life are relative. So is intelligence. In my two years of Fergusson College, due to my mother's foresight, I was undeservedly bumped up to the offfical Business Class of FC, a.ka. Division C. You had to get more than 88% in your 10th standard exams to make the grade and I had 80%. By logical deduction, I was the dumbest student in my class of 144 students. No exagerration, no bullshit.

I remember the panic attacks durng the exams, the blacking out, the lies and the cheating. I remember not coming to collge the day the marks would be displayed and the papers discussed.Of course, I would get the least marks in my group and in my class. I scraped through 11th standard using questionable methods. Some of my friends got dumped to other divisions. I felt pretty rotten about it for a while.

The next year was no different. And not that I tried. I put in an honest effort whenerever required. The regular blood,sweat and tears.But the impact of being the dumbest student in class stayed with me.

Then, everything changed.

In BVU Dental College and Hospital, I witnessed a whole new world. There was no scrambling to get the first row seats. If you didnt land a perfect score, it was actualy pardonable. And, miraculously, I suddenly emerged to the fore as a clever student. I barely made the top ten in my first year, but no one seemed to notice. I was still given the tag of a topper.

Even more surprisngly, I rose in the ranks for the following two years. And trust me, I was exactly the same person, giving the same priority to studies, with the same intensity of concentration.

So what was the difference? Not to be impolite, my company wasnt as illustrous as FC Division C. Relatively, I was suddenly very intelligent.

A parallel story can be told about my oration. Throughout my 8 years in dental college, I was considered as one of the best orators in college. In my years in Loyola High School, I wouldnt have even made the top 15.

Does that speak not-too-highly of my college? Yes, maybe. There were other talents in abundance though.

If you can look at your skills and talents from an outside frame, from a exterior perspective,comparing yourself with a larger group of people, you realize really how good (or average) you are. Try it.

e= mc2 ? Not quite, but then I guess Eisntein would have been a genius in any class.

One step at a time...

When you are travelling by a vehicle, you miss a lot of unimportant things. Everyday, you zoom by on the same roads you take everyday. You take a lot of things for granted. The pavement, the signals, the little shops lining the roads, and of course the people.

Try taking a walk on the same road. You will be amazed at the amount of things you notice and remember. Yesterday, I took a walk down one of the most popular roads in my city. I started at one end, and went down the entire length of the road. it was a route that i must have traveled a million times, especially since I studied for two years in a very famous college on the same road.

The walk brought back some great memories.I walked past the bookstore, where I had bought all my school books,for 10 years straight. I remembered coming there in the rain, dashing from the car to the safety of the shop. Passing on the list to the same person who used to be there year after year. I remembered the distinct smell of the newly opened text books. Wrapping them in bags and running to the car, hoping them stay dry. I looked up at the shop now. It had a strange, new name and a couple of youngsters standing outside were smoking. I walked on.


A few hundred feet later, I passed the coffee shop, and I remembered being there the first day it had opened. I was in the long queue, jostling amongst the crowd. Coffee was 25 Rs a cup, a significant dent in the weekly savings in those days. After we had managed a table, I remember the smirks on our faces, looking at the surging crowd below. We were there, we had made it. As I passed it, there were just a few tables occupied and the window panes looked as if they hadnt been washed for weeks. Of course, there were at least 2 such coffee shops on every road now. I somehow didnt feel like going in.

A little later I reached the main gate of my college. It was a late hour of the day and there was no sign of life. I remembered vividly walking in through that very gate for the first time in 1997. I didn't know at that point, that the next two years inside that gate would change my life forever.

As I walked back home, I thought about how all these places had changed so much. About why some things couldn't stay exactly the way you remembered them. I wondered why change was so inevitable.

I didn't have the answers. But I was glad I had taken that walk.