Great Learning Experience : Past 4 months

Life is a learning experience and for me it has been a sharp learning curve in these recent months.

Taking up first, I have learned how to behave or to say how to react to difficult situations that one faces in life. I learned that everyone eventually comes out of those bad times that they may face, but the way he/she comes out of it is what matters, one needs to be calm and composed and face it with courage, just moaning over the problems would not help, but to work on it and get going to solve it with smile while keeping faith in oneself is the key to come out of it UNAFFECTED.

One more thing I have learned is that there has to be a strong push each day from within which gets you a step closer to your goal in life. We all have certain goals in life and we all want them to get fulfilled sooner or later, but despite having a clear goal, one may find it difficult to achieve, the reason for this is that we do not push ourselves each day towards it, we leave it for tomorrow or day after or day after and this goes on. One thing I promised myself after this realization is that I must do some work or something that gets me atleast a mm closer to my goal, it could be small task or a big one, but has to be done the same day it is intended to do.

Coming to my family, while I kept myself busy planning my future and building up for the same, I missed out on enjoying with my family and caring for them. I believed that I have rest of my life to do so, but then life is unpredictable, who knows what happens when. I realized that winning an award in academic life or professional life, or getting praises from the world over is not enough for the family to be proud of oneself, what they need apart from that is ones time, a few words of concern, and importantly mental support more than the financial one. They require ones presence in crisis rather than ones money. Believe me, a 5 minute chat of concerns with family members can just get that smile on their face which one might be waiting for since years…

At work, I have learned how same things have to be done in different ways at different times. Working with a good pace is a good attribute, but there are times, where in one should think and then act, I found my pace of work getting acknowledged some times but on the other hand I did find the same pace of work creating problems too. Every job done should be on its merit, if it requires immediate action do it other wise think and act. Same goes with my way of communication to others, i usually speak fast when I know the subject at hand, but I miss out on whether the person whom I am talking is getting what I am saying, so speaking with ease and at gentle pace is what I have been practicing since then.

Next, the most important lesson I got to learn is Patience, I would say I am learning it yet or should I say practicing it. I realized that I used to be pushy about things to be done, and people used to get irritated with this attitude, I realized that things come at their own pace no matter how long one waits for them. Agreed some people are laidback and need to be pushed but that can be done in a cool and calm way rather than getting hyper about it. I realized certain things come to us at the right time, until then patience is required. But with people it may be a different case, they work at their own will, so one needs to find an alternate way to get things done from such kind human beings. So, Patience holds one up in this case for all to be done smoothly.

Apart from all these I still need to learn a lot and that is not to be stubborn and short-tempered.

All of you who read this might be wondering how did I realize about what I need to learn and how did I learn all this and how did I know what I need to learn?

The answer to all these questions is Ms. J.K., she is the one who has been the first one to criticize me if I was wrong somewhere, even at the smallest of places and she was also the happiest person to see me being praised at the smallest of good thing I do. She kept on checking my patience level, each day or rather I should say each hour!!!! She has been the person responsible for all that I have mentioned in this blog!!!! So, if I am wrong somewhere, you know who to catch hold of (hehehehehe), but on a serious note, I would not thank you Ms. J.K., for all that you did for me and are continuing till date, as it would be your insult if I do so and also I cant think there can be anything that could be done by me to thank you, aur haa waise bhi your role in my life is not over yet and will never be!!!

Coming back to the topic, in these past few months, I realized the true meaning when they say “Life is a learning experience and Success is a journey and not a destination”. You learn each day, each hour, each minute, each moment …..and work towards your goal !!!!!!!

LIFE : A BLESSING

Well, there has been many a times where i see myself sit and think as to why things go wrong despite no fault of mine. Its like at times we do become victim of situations and there cannot be anyone to be blamed for it, and its at this point in time we crib about our lives and crib about everything around, we spend efforts to crib rather than to come out of that state of mind. Certain situations did happen to me in past and still happening when i think this and as a way to self-motivate and get out of that negative state of mind, i wrote the following poem then, which still drives me in a positive manner:

LIFE : A BLESSING

LIFE IS JUST LIKE A RIVER,

FLOWING WITH NO BARRIER.

HAVING IT’S OWN TWISTS AND TURNS

AND MANY UPS AND DOWNS

BUT AS THE MAN PROGRESSED,

MEANING OF LIFE DIGRESSED.

WE TERM IT A CURSE,

MOMENT THE CONDITIONS BECOME WORSE.

WE BLAME IT FOR OUR LOSSES,

BUT FORGET IT FOR THE WINS.

STOP COMPLAINING, STOP CRIBBING

AS IT WILL YIELD NOTHING

WELCOME THE SAD MOMENTS TOO WITH A SMILE

AND THEY WILL GO AWAY IN A WHILE

WIDEN THE BOUNDARIES OF YOUR COURAGE,

AND FACE EACH SITUATION AS A CHALLENGE

PUSH UP THE LIMITS OF YOUR PATIENCE,

AND MAKE LIFE FEEL YOUR PRESENCE.

BE PROUD TO BE HUMAN,

AND HAPPILY FIGHT EACH AND EVERY SITUATION.

SO, ONE DAY WE CAN PROVE LIFE’S TRUE MEANING,

WHICH IS NOT A CURSE BUT A BLESSING.

Did I see the future?

Well, Diwali has just gone and we friends celebrated in a grand style, visiting few of our friends’ places who are in US right now. We had all the blast and fun that we never thought of, but in the end the day just made us reminisce those years of engineering!!! I reminisced those good old days which I talked earlier in one of my previous blogs!!!

While, I was just living in the same mood of nostalgia, sitting in train, I saw a guy sitting opposite to me, and his phone rings, he goes on to say “hey ramesh, how are you, long time, what you have been doing and all” later in his conversation (sorry I over heard what I could), I realized he was BE in Computers back in 2000 and 7 years later the entire group of his is in different parts of world some female of his group married a doctor, other a business man and having a son, other guy heading a national dept for his company, then other permanently settled in UK. This all conversation went for like 15-20 minutes, before he got off the train, still talking. From whatever I could hear, I felt as if they have not been in touch since years after engineering

Needless to say, I felt or rather questioned myself, that is this what is going to happen to me n my friends too? Is this the future of a relation that has given me so much love, recognition and affection? Am I going to be so busy with my own self that I would not have time for my friends or would not know about their whereabouts?

These questions kept on running across my mind and I was not able to find a definite answer because when I felt to answer in an optimistic way, I found a definite “NO” to all these questions and thinking pessimistically I found a “YES” and while answering in a practical way, I got an answer as “This could be possible only if I do not take efforts to be in touch with them, this could be the future, if I want it, and if I don’t want this to happen to me and my friends, I would have to take efforts and that extra amount of time from however busy I may be, to be in touch with all of them"

At one instance in time, while thinking I thought, if future would be my wish, then I would not ever wish the same things to happen to my group that happened to the group in reference.

This incident taught me that there are certain questions to which there is no answer at a given point in time, but the answer comes along as and when time passes and the situation really arises, and if you want answer to that question to be in your favour, then you need to work hard on it, rather than moaning at the end of it.

But whatever may be the case with me later, whatever may be the situation, or however busy I am going to be, one thing that I promise to myself is that I am going to be in touch with all of them who mean world to me!!!!

And alas, after deciding what I need to do and finding a solution to those puzzling questions, I took a sigh of relief saying, Thank God, I did not see the future!!!!

Humanity

Back in late 2005, after my exams and during the organisiation of an IV, i sat down to write this poem, just out of frustration and hunger to speak it all out, i think that was the first time, i would have put my thoughts to paper, and today when i read that poem, i thought, have i written this???
anyways here it goes, the poem's name is Humanity, you all can think what frame of mind i would have been then when i wrote this one.

HUMANITY

LIFE IS ONE OF THE LARGEST CREATION,
THAT GOD HAS CREATED WITH HIS POWERFUL IMAGINATION.
LIVE TODAY AS IF THERE IS NO TOMORROW,
SHARE THE HAPPINESS AND DIVIDE THE SORROW.

IN TODAY'S WORLD OF BUSINESS,
AN IMMENSE EXISTENCE OF SADNESS.
SPREAD AROUND THE MESSAGE TO GEL,
AND MAKE EARTH A BETTER PLACE TO DWELL.

THE OBVIOUS QUESTION THAT COMES IN YOUR MIND,
WILL I BE ABLE TO MAKE THEM ALL BIND??
DO NOT THINK WHAT DIFFERENCE YOU CAN MAKE,
THINK THE DIFFERENCE THAT WE CAN MAKE.

COME FORTH AND COME AHEAD,
LET US MAKE THIS WORLD AS ONE THREAD.
THAT HAS ALL OF US AS ONE,
AND NO BODY IS LEFT OUT TO BURN.

SELFISHNESS IS NOT THE MEANING OF BEING HUMAN,
TO BE TOGETHER AS ONE IS THE MEANING OF BEING HUMAN.
LET US BE PART OF THIS NEW RESPONSIBILITY,
TO DEMONSTRATE THE REAL MEANING OF HUMANITY,
LET US SHOW WHAT WE ARE FOR,
AND SHOW WHAT HUMANITY STANDS FOR.

LET US BE OURSELVES,
LET US BE HUMAN.
SO, WHEN THE ALMIGHTY LOOKS DOWN,
FEELS PROUD OF HIS LARGEST CREATION.

Serious Concerns

Concern 1: Last week, while traveling from home to office, in train, I noticed two boys studying a subject, and the moment they started reading the book out, one of them said ‘This is the f***ing subject, it f**** my mind last night’ and all the sentences he spoke there on had the same four letter word in different connotations, with his other friend joining too, I mean whats with the language these days, the 4 letter word has been used with so much of importance to it and that too with ease without any public shame. I guess the writers of constitution would not have even thought that freedom of speech would be so misused, I mean, I also know that the subject is abstruse as I too studied it, but I or none of the people around me in college would have spoken such an abusive language in front of common people around. And this is not the case with one or two students, I have seen this phenomenon from quite some time now, and nothing can be done from it as this all has come from the influence from west in our race to be developed, but as far our Indian values are concerned, we as youth should take care of not using such bad influences in public at least and in some way retain the original Indian values even while simultaneously blending with the west.

Concern 2: While traveling back from office the other day, when I was outside andheri station, I could hear two females chatting, and one of them spoke, “Its ok to be 5-10 minutes late, we are punctual as per Indian Standard time ”, both of them laughed and agreed. This statement clearly tells that what we think about India and ourselves personally in terms of respect for time, by making this statement we are just lowering ourselves in respect, we are lowering ourselves in what we call as professionalism, and this is the major factor that is differing us from our peers. I mean there is problem with the basic thinking in us, why can not we be on time. Our laid back attitude and lack of respect for time in smallest of tasks can harm us in a big way, because we never realize the importance of time and continue with same attitude in biggest of tasks. I think this is a serious issue because most of us falter in time management, I m not saying that everyone should be the best in time management, but try not to make such statements honestly, as by making such statements we are just ridiculing ourselves and losing respect for ourselves.

The thing I pointed in above two concerns is, that while in 1st case we are learning or getting influenced from the west, then why not in the 2nd case?

Lets think about it for ourselves, and decide what we want to learn?

Good Old Days !!!!

As I mentioned earlier, there have been few people around me without whom, I would never be what I am.

Today morning after seeing old pics of college days, reminded me of those lovely friends and those memorable days we spent together, those days of fun, masti, study and adventure. There used to be so many things happening within a day that felt like a day was more than just 24 hours. There was no limit to what we did, there was always a positive attitude towards doing anything big and bigger, it was like a person comes out with an idea and the entire class would come ahead and support it.

We have done as crazy things as changing desktop backgrounds to some ones pic in the class, editing someone’s photo and keeping it on library cupboards, to playing road rash and eating lunches in the practicals, taking weird photos of students sleeping in the class while lecture is on, enacting a professor’s English accent with special hand movements and gestures, enacting the way they react to situations with their own special tones and sounds (mch mch) and imagine we did not even spare a lab assistant whose reactions were always of “A Computer about to crash”, u ask him 3-4 questions together n he will faint then n there…(there were many such incidents that took place)
All these little things happened 24 x 7 and got smile and laughter on our faces and kept us alive and jovial through all the studies, assignments, practicals, journals, print-outs mid-terms, vivas, main exams….

Amidst all these, we did had something running back of our minds when we were in our final year, that this is going to be the last year we all will be spending together and our paths may be separated from here on, so in order to preserve these strong bond of friendship that entire class shared, we celebrated big time.

We made t-shirts for ourselves, I still have the paper that has number of t-shirts owned by everyone (we got 97 t-shirts amongst 67 of us, with some buying more than 1 or so)…the t-shirt has a speciality of everyones name written on the back by siddharth in IT shape…and the front liner goes as “GOD IS REAL (unless declared integer).

After the 7th semester was over, we organized a trip to Goa for ourselves from 8th to 12th January. With 54 out of 67 coming in it, it was the tremendous response that we got,( as the other classes who went for the same got no more than 30 people going together. And this was bound to happen, because choosing one location for spending 4 best days of your life with 50 other people is not easy, specially when everyone has his/her own opinion on the same. But we managed it despite this), Despite the groups that we had amongst ourselves, we always behaved as one, we had plans for entire trip and all went fine on all the days, people enjoyed, had fun, some made a debut of their drinking life, enjoyed boat rides, life at beaches or rather beauties at beaches, then singing songs, screaming aloud while riding in the gypsy, teasing locales around, ridiculing people’s behaviour after they r down and out, I remember one of us sang “Signal pyar ka signal” and said he felt as if he was flying, then the other walking or rather trying to walk along a straight line just aside a swimming pool, then one trying to control the other two, one getting bruised meeting an accident after drinking, and few who did not drink had to run around beaches searching for lemon and salt for people vomiting around and in no control of themselves. Well apart from all these there were quite embarrassing events which I can think of, but it rather be in my thoughts…
And ya how can I not write about the controversial “CERTIFICATES”, well, we all had some unique quality in ourselves which we were famous for and in a sarcastic manner we put it on certificates and gave to all at the last day of the trip in train, as I mentioned in my previous blog ”Grandmother of DJIT” was given to Rutu Patel as she keeps on behaving like one, then “Outstanding student of the class” was given to one as he always to be late and stand outside class then “Most refreshing face” to one as she used to always look harrowed . And many more such funny and sarcastic titles, but some sarcastic tiltes went far and created controversies, which after discussions and arguments, was taken in right spirit.
But, ya those 4 days definitely made me see a different “me”.

Then came the final event of farewell which we had between vivas and exams, we partied at a hotel on one eve with dance, sing, games, Q an A round where we received one amazing answer from a person to a question he was asked, emotional speech, hugs, photos and drinks (hard and soft). I remember 2-3 of them nearly were down and out, out means literally out, sitting near the tree outside party hall and vomiting, and one making regular visits to the loo, and spending 20 mins vomiting. The party went till 1 in the night and finally some of us who were still there were requested to go home.

On the last day of our exam, we distributed photo of all of us together, which we had clicked earlier, where everyone is wearing DJIT T-shirt, I can still remember the expressions on everyone’s face when they came out and saw the photo given to them…the expressions were of happiness, a bit sad as this was the last day we all met, nostalgic reminding all good old days….

I personally, feel really proud of my class and those special events as I was a part not only organizing them but at the same time receiving trust from the entire class as I don’t think in today’s world, anyone would give you even a penny for a class event without trust!!!

OHH!! What days, what people, different mindsets, different background, different opinions but all came together as a strong force and bonded with love, care and affection for all!!!
Miss and love them all!!!!!!!!!!!

Lessons from LIFE

Sometimes I wonder that if it had not be those people who came in my life, would I have been the same person as I am, the most of the times I reached to the conclusion that it might not have been the same “me” as I am today.
One Sunday morning back in 2000-2001 during preparation for 10th exams, in one of my tuitions, my teacher told all of us sitting there, that “Observation is the biggest teacher of all and the best way to learn anything is to observe it as close as possible.”
Since then, I have been following this statement of his and observing things around that I like to incorporate within me.
I observed my fathers’ punctuality and the value he gave to time and money; I liked it and am incorporating it in me. I saw my mothers’ hardwork behind my education and I thought as a tribute to her efforts, I should work hard and make her proud. So, punctuality, hardwork and respect to money without giving it undue importance is what I got from my parents. Then the love, care and affection that my grand parents bestowed upon me, made me realize the importance of these qualities, hence I follow them with people when required.
Apart from that my uncle, my cousin, and my friends, taught me how to live life freely despite faced by tensions and disappointment. The spirit of positive competition is the thing that me and my other 2 friends from school learned while studying together during 8th, 9th and 10th standards. And this is one thing which I actually incorporated during my tenure as CSI Vice chairman in DJSCOE while positively competing with IEEE committee and with equal support from them as well, we were able change the image of CSI V/S IEEE to CSI with IEEE to certain extent (am sure Grandmother of DJIT will support me on this as I clearly recollect having this discussion with her during one of our AMAR Lunches).
But one thing I missed out on was during years before my engineering was the kind of charisma or dynamic all round development that certain people have in them. But life at its most unexpected turn got me into engineering and here I learned how to be dynamic in nature and to take initiative in all walks of life (obviously by observing people around), be it a small thing or big, you got to be decisive and analytical to take the right decision at the right times. The one thing that I have found in most of us is the fear of taking risks and the fear of being ridiculed by others while giving out an idea or making any decision. I read this statement in one of college posters of IEEE 2005 (during my tenure as CSI Vice-chairman) and it said “The thing required to have the best idea is to have lots of ideas”, I completely second this statement, as it says that brainstorming is the best way to think what to do on any occasion, as unless and until, you don’t have option, you wont have any solution. So, most people in the fear of getting ridiculed by others for their weirdest ideas shut their mouth and don’t even think about the problem.
One more thing I learned in these past 3 years was Teamwork and respect for everyone’s efforts in the team, I heard this statement just yesterday from my friends at TCS “How can you get individual attention in a team/group?” and that is exactly what one needs to understand while working in a team. Here again people fail to realize this.
Apart from all this I have learned a lot from failures that I have faced personally and academically, and those failures have given me philosophical kind of thinking towards problems and I learned to take the positive outcome of those failures, and believe me that is the best thing one needs to succeed after failing.
No doubt I have learned many of qualities from what I have observed around, but the basic sense of adjusting myself to the situation and applying brains then, is what I have cultivated with in me as I believe that there cannot be the same solution to the same problem in different situations, you have to be situationally analyze the problem as per the circumstances at that instant of time and then solve the problem.
Ya people may say that there are few qualities which is original from within you, the only thing I argue would be that humans are bound to be developed and improve themselves to achieve highest level of perfection in them, and in that process if I am incorporating certain qualities from certain people then it should not be wrong, on this occasion, I got to write one more statement “If you copy from one source then it is Plagiarism but if you copy from many then it is research and development” (courtesy of this statement is the status message of one of my friends on gtalk).
What we behave and the way we react to situations, in some way or the other, is always influenced by our surroundings, by people around, and by the kind of environment we have grown and that is the basic reason for arguments/discussions/disagreements etc. So, observing qualities if combined with incorporation in the way you originally feel is what I follow.

What to write

Sometimes i have few thoughts that appear in my mind, and i want to write it and preach it, but since there has always been lack of time in this fast paced world, my thoughts remain in my mind only....
Since this is the first time i am writing online, i dont know how far i will go with this.. but my aim of writing it here is to give some solid form to my thoughts, beliefs, issues etc. and i think this could be one of the ways to do so...
Grown in the middle-class traditional gujarati jain family, i have seen many ups and downs in my life but there has been this strong sense of achieving something in life and be perfect in whatever i do, well i am on that path and will continue to do so....
I do have certain set of beliefs and certain principles which i observe as in
(1) I do believe that hardwork is always better than intelligence, i dont know how many would agree to that, but this is what i believe from somethings that has happened in past few years, and the reason for this as i see is that with hardwork, any other quality can be cultivated, may it be dedication, determination, intelligence etc..
(2) I also believe in punctuality and i know many would agree to that, and the very good thing that comes as a by-product of punctuality is the well-structured thinking process that you develop, i mean the thoughts, the ideas become so well structured that everything falls in its place while execution, ther wont be any mishap or unfit when ur thoughts are crystal clear and organised.
(3) I do believe in God but not the way the others in my house do, i feel that respect for God should come from within and i beleive being kind to others and helpful to others is one way to respect God. Rituals are fine at their place and one should follow them at right times but that feel perform a ritual should come from within. I believe, we humans are a bit hypocrits in this matter, on one hand we pray on the same day we do something that is inhuman....
(4) I do not believe in QUOTA SYSTEM (now thats the latest one), not that i am against quotas but i am against the way it is implemented and against the process with which it is implemented, i do believe that deserved backward category or undeveloped category of people should given a chance to progress. But here what is happening is different, if a person from a so called backward category is rich enough to live without help, then he cannot be termed as backward in any rspect. I mean to say is that the label of backwardness should be on the basis of a person's inability to fulfill his daily needs and progress, but not the basis of CASTE.
If any person builds a college for educating people, then it should be open to all and in same amounts, A gujju college should not have gujju quota or sindhi college should not have sindhi quota, because if a person wants to benefit society, why does he has to benefit only his community and his people, he should work for all,
ya u can have quota for general backward class who can be identified by a thorough process before admitting them
(5) I believe dufferent situations bring out a different "you" and being static in all situations wont work, so need to be dynamic and growth in Life is key to go ahead and improve, i belive Life is an indefinite learning process and more quickly we adjust ourselves in the environment, better will be our performance. According to me, LIfe is Full of Experiences (LIFE)
(6) well other than this there are few principles which i observe at my workplace and as and when necessary or if i feel to do so...