The Mole concept

Ok, maybe some of you have gone through what I am going through, or probably something even worse, but being sick for long really kicks out the life out of you. During our ever so busy lives, we sometimes think about getting sick so that we can relax a little and utilize those sick days the company gives us so generously every year. We think we would call in sick, everybody would immediately be understanding and supportive, and there would be lots of sitting around the house not doing anything but watch matinee TV. Well, that was what atleast I thought. First of all, TV programming during day time is I think the reason most people show up at the office in the first place. Its full of the repeats of what you watched the previous evening mostly and the only 'fresh' content during daytime are the soaps, which obviously are not an option unless you want a slow and very painful death. Second, the benefits of falling sick last only like a week or so, after which the things tha...

Sometimes you get the feeling, that you are not worth anything. That all you have inside you is just a blank canvas in front. You have the pallet ready, filled with the basic colors, ready to paint what your heart desires. Maybe I paint a fountain, maybe a hill, maybe some people, with smiles and grins. You look at the canvas, you see it unfulfilled, you see the absurdness, and you look at your quill. Maybe I make an outline, with some hills and some fountains, or people laughing, sun shimmering through the mountains. Then you think of the picture, and you suddenly get depressed, for it not be the one that one set. How can I paint, with such a limited pallet, I must have it, much more expanded. You think of painting the perfect picture, but can thy paint, that is the question. Maybe the palet, maybe the image, maybe the brush and the quill. You think of it all, while the canvas remains empty, adding to your feeling.

I have always wondered about myself, if engineering was the right path for me or would I have been happier and more satisfied being a DU student. There are several reasons why this question surfaces again and again, and for no good reason rattles me by painting a very different "what-if" kind of picture. One of the first reason is my current job and the people I meet in my company. If there is anything I like about my present organisation is that it is so diverse and full of so many kinds of people, that one ends up getting exposed to new perspectives on a continuous basis. In my student life, my perspectives however rich or 'bright' were more or less similar from what I would get from the very next person on the campus. In my office however, there is such multiplicity of opinion, such range of thought and thought processes, such diversity in analyzing a problem, that one truly ponders as to which side I belong to. If it is to be believed that all wisdom is nothi...

Take a moment to think about the best period in your life so far. I am not talking about moments, but a period of life which you feel, you were generally happy. My guess is, that barring childhood of course, it would have been a period where you were most busy. Busy doing work maybe, busy organizing things, busy managing people in your life, or anything else for that matter. But it would never be the period when you have had nothing to do. And believe me I am not saying that you were happy because you were so busy, all I am saying is that you were happy because maybe, just maybe, you could steal time. Steal time to do things you could not manage to do while you were busy. Something you wanted to do but never could afford to because of the time constraints and leading you to steal time from whatever that was keeping you busy and being happy for a while. Atleast I remember my best times in life, have not been when I had nothing to do. They in fact have been the worst to be honest. I thin...

Its here again, another birthday. I never thought I would be this old this soon! But oh well!! It feels quite empty from inside when you think that you are now 23 and you are yet to do something worthwhile in your life. When you feel that there is something yet to come that it will ignite hidden passion in you, give a purpose to your life. So far you have only focussed on searching for it, and in the meanwhile being prepared when it hits you. You have toiled (supposedly) sometimes to be the best prepared amongst them. All for what? You still don't really know. My mother always used to tell me, when I acted lazy, that Akbar took the command of his empire at the age of 13, what have you done? Now being 10 years older than Akbar's age of coronation, I still don't know where to take the command. I am still unsure on whether I would be able to handle the kingdom well. I still believe it is out there, waiting for its emperor to come and rule. My experiences so far have told me th...

This play was an experiment for me and all others involved. It was my last semester and I was determined to do a play, a last play at IIT. I always wanted to do a play with my friends and my sophies prod experience was also very nice. I literally begged the Insti Dram secy for a slot in the annual prod and finally when he gave me a 10 minute slot, I prepared my play accordingly. From producing a great play, my focus went into producing a different one. I appreciate the level to which we have risen as far as dramatics at IIT Bombay is concerned. There is however a pattern to what we show in our plays, it is mostly some old man or a lunatic as one of the leading characters. In the annual prod itself, the two most appreciated plays had almost the same plotline. They both had chess as the common ground for the leading characters and both were basically comedies trying to hint at a larger issue. I have nothing against anybody and I applaud every effort by everyone, infact I was quite surpri...

If anyone comes up to me and says that he achieved everything he had hoped for in IIT, I would not believed him. We all had been blinded by the imagery created by the coaching centers, the media, and especially the uncle and aunties about our beloved institute. The expectations from the institute, the professors, the infrastructure and everyone around us was so high that no-one could do anything to match up to them. The expectations met reality when we saw our hostel rooms for the first time. The dingy corners in which we were to reside for the next four years, possibly with another fellow barging in on that little space we had. It was only later that we fell in love with the same quarters and never looked back at them the way we first saw them. The next jolt to the expectations was the first lecture. I for one, like countless others in this institute, had a fairly good academic life in my school, and like a good and disciplined student I had never felt the urge to fall asleep when I w...