My today's fortune and some nostalgia - Part I

My Today's fortune says it is time to do something new. Well lets see what new can I do today..

Here I am sitting in my office, sipping coffee, checking my morning mails,

making calls about the problems that might have been encountered during night, fixing them. All being usual stuffs.

With this kind of routine, all new I can do as of now is to design a different approach to a few technical problems in software for the work we are doing here. That too can not be said as new, because what we are doing here is re-using the techniques and tools for the solutions.

In other layman terms that is just a copy-paste. I may or may not do that, which does not make any difference, except that I'd be done with one more work item and happily go home, contented with my day's job, contented that there are no overheads anywhere, that my bosses and clients are happy with everything smoothly going on.

And then I ask myself, did I work so hard right since my school days - that had been around 20 years now!! for this?

I remember I wanted to be a Doctor, when I was a kid - because I was really fascinated with the lab-coat and stethoscope.

I was sick of the medicines I was given by the nurse and I dreamed of taking my revenge by staying at the other end of it.

I was so madly in a passion to become a doctor that I started preparing for my medical entrance exams since I entered class VII.

With many highs and lows in the path followed I gained the self confidence about my medical career in class X when I scored 99% in science and 97% in mathematics.

You can imagine the degree of passion and perfection in my mind, that despite everyone getting overjoyed and elated about my success, when I came to know about my score in science, I had only one instant thought - "Where did that one mark get deducted?"

The destiny or something else I don't know, had other things planned up for me. It could not accept the level of passion I was holding for this career, that I never cared for anything else.And then it happened...the thing changed my mind and my life completely.

First thing that my mom was not at all interested in me going to medical career, (for God knows what reason, I never asked her); anyways I never cared for that so I was heading for my own line of interest, when an incident completely changed everything, the sudden demise of one of my friend's father.

That was a time, I can never forget. I don't know about the others, but for me I was shocked and hurt so much I had lost the feeling of myself.

The most shocking part was that, the doctor had to tell my friend's mother about the news and had to remain emotionless, even when they were family friends.

And I was like - Will I be able to do this, ever??? I know it now that it was too early to think that way, but my mind had completely gone numb and I was truly scared.Till that time I never cared about emotions or anything else, my head completely engrossed in career making and suddenly such a turmoil of emotions really shook me from within.And then I myself said to my mom - "I am not going to medicines". My parents were also shocked at this decision, for they knew well, how hard I'd worked to go into medical profession.However, my mom was happy and didn't say anything, my dad anyways never say anything, so it was like do whatever you want to.

I was second best in mathematics so obviously took that and by some grace I really scored good in that. I wanted to go for IIT coaching in Kota,some 70 KMs from the place we were staying that time, but that was a time when Kota had gone quite notorious with the crime rate real high and unfortunately for me, there were no secured hostels there,you had to take a private hostel and stay in it.

My parents did not agree to that, and I was made to stay at home and prepare on my own. That was first time in my life when I really felt sorry of me being a girl, because my friend near by my place went to the coaching. I was really jealous, angry and frustrated with all that and as usual, my emotions took over me. I lost my concentration, zeal, passion of everything I wanted to do.

As a result, my score went down, I regret it now, but that would not change anything. I could not get admission into any good institution, when I know I could have got if I'd have controlled my frustration and concentrated more.I was really angry at my parents and refused to talk to them at all.

They tried to convince me but failed, for my dad never feel much about girls' education. He is of the thinking that if I study well, I can go ahead with that, if not - anyways I'll get married to some one.

Then to give me some change and pacify me a bit, they took me to Banasthali Vidyapith, brainwashed me that doing BSC in comp science and then MCA will be a good thing for career because of this IT boom and all.

To tell you frankly, I was never interested in computers, nor am I now too. I hardly ever open my laptop at home, only to check stuffs when my blackberry pings about arrival of some mail.But I joined there, for reasons I also don't know, may be just going ahead with my parent's decision again.

Life was completely different at Banasthali Vidyapith.It is difficult to put here in words, but somehow I liked it.

The peace and natural beauty of the place, the hostel life and its noise,the library, the khadi-wear,classes on weekends and holidays on Tuesday,the course schedule and the fact that there were so manyyy things to learn there - Foreign languages, all kinda sports - lawn tennis, hockey, badminton,swimming, basketball, horse riding,yoga, aerobics and what not.

Then the best of music, dance, art; it was like a place with so much potential and freshness.

I really adored the library and could spend hours there. In fact most of my holidays and free time was spent there only, browsing through its rich collection of books and magazines.

It was a place that calmed me down, made me think about the life and its prospects from a new mindset. I had taken a very weird combination of subjects in my first year - computers with physics and maths.

And needless to say I was attracted towards physics more than the other two. I found computers ok, sometimes really boring with already established facts and no new thing to discover on your own.

The only time I felt elated was when I used to sit in the air conditioned labs and when some program would get executed in one shot during the practicals :).

Banasthali is situated in Rajasthan and the heat there would make anyone love the air conditioned labs for the practicals.

So as I mentioned before, I was getting more and more into physics - really loving it and enjoying it every moment. In fact even in my XII, physics was my favourite subject. I hated Chemistry more than anything else. In fact it used to give me nightmares sometimes.

Here physics was giving me new directions to go ahead in my career path. I wanted to take the line for me future studies, do a PHD in same, become a research scientist.

And I passed my first year with real good score, obviously with highest in physics. Then came another breakthrough, IT IT IT!!! And my parents were scandalized knowing that I wanted to continue with a mare pass course just for physics???..when I can do honors in computers which meant leaving physics forever.

And I entered into another confused state - what is correct? Should I take something that has this much potential because of boom period or some thing I find close to my heart.

I was not in a good position to decide anything hence went with parents' decision again, took computer honors but somewhere a rebel inside me was poking me to do something and I took maths honors as well. Everyone including my parents tried to scare me about the nightmare of taking dual honors. I knew my life would be a ship engine with that, taking additional 4 subjects in already tight schedule of morning six to evening six along with my yoga, swimming and American English classes.

But I needed something to vent off my anger on and I went ahead...saying to everyone and to myself - "Whatever"!!!