A prayer

Dear god,

I won’t ask you to change the people around me,

But don’t change me either;

I won’t ask you to instill gratitude in them,

But don’t let that ingratitude stop me from helping others;

I won’t ask you to make them feel responsible,

But don’t let that take away my sense of responsibility;

I won’t ask you to make them reciprocate,

But don’t make me insensitive to delicate feelings that matter;

I won’t ask you to make someone standby me in need,

But don’t let me move away from them in difficulty;

I won’t ask you to change the people around me,

But don’t change me either.

Written in a moment of extreme frustration, after years of taking all that the world had in store for me. These are feelings I wanted to express, opinions I wanted to voice and ego I wanted to exhibit. I didn’t want them to come out, wished I could bottle them up and keep them to myself forever, just to be accommodating. But today, it had exceeded the limits, I can’t keep it to myself, and so I vent off here.

Being in Love

As most of us would agree, being in love is the most beautiful feeling one can ever experience. It makes everything around us feel good, enables us to put up with the most irritating situations and gives us the strength to bear the most excruciating pains. It never takes away the smile from your face, and as far as I know, it also enables us to understand the actions of other people and see world from their perspective. There will be no moment to sulk and complain, for when ever you feel low; the thought of your loved one is enough to lift your spirits, even in the worst distress.

Pleasant thoughts fill every moment of leisure and every wait is enjoyable, even if the wait is for a ticket at the railway station. Love makes a poet out of common man, and it is interesting to see those transformations. Every song appears to be meant for you, every poem heart touching. The simplest displays of Nature, may it be a cool evening or a sunny morning, appears romantic and awakens the inner soul.

It is only with experience does one get to know all this. And yes, it only means one thing; I have been through all this. Taking the heart for a canvas, there have been pictures on it. Not once but many a time. If love means cherishing the thoughts of something or someone, thinking of nothing else, then most of us would have been in it. Let me come back to pictures on the canvas.

During childhood, it was mostly inanimate objects. As a kid and like every other child, I was fascinated with toys. Aeroplanes, cars and various other things filled my thoughts. I still remember the toy dog my mother bought for me when she had to visit a doctor and left me with my grandma at home. I was three then, and of course, it is still there in my collection of toys. Each time I go home I see it there in the show case, painted red and black in places, a display of my artistic excellence. More about it later. As I grew up, my attention shifted to cars and trucks. I would buy cars when ever possible and stack them up in the old iron box on the attic.

By the time I was in seventh class, I first saw a hand held videogame. An uncle of my classmate bought it for him from Hyderabad, and it captured my attention immediately. Day and night I thought of nothing else but brick game and snake game. I got one for myself and every evening as soon as the school got over, I would rush home and would be engrossed in playing with it. After all I had just one hour between school and tuition in the evening, and at night my dad would order me to eat and sleep as soon as I came back from tuition. Thanks to it, my eyes turned myopic and I was sporting a pair of glasses in less than two months. Later TV video games entered the scene and Super Mario and Islander became the buzz words. In class we would discuss nothing but how to cross various stages and how to get more powers.

As I grew up, animate objects (faces, rather) starting appearing on the canvas. It would be as most of us know, the girl in the next section or some distant cousin whom you meet at a marriage, that captures attention. A mischievous act or a cute smile is enough to make one admire them. Agreed, I or in fact any one of that age, lack the maturity to see beyond external appearance. But the admiration is short lived too. A slightest disturbance, a silly quarrel was enough to erase the face. In retrospect I laugh at myself, thinking how silly I have been, but that is what makes life beautiful. Faces appeared and disappeared, and the frequency with which this happened decreased over time. To make it clear, as I became older, a face took long time to appear and it took even longer to erase it from memory.

All this happened till I finished my schooling. The days of my intermediate education were some of the most painful ones in my life and I was fully troubled with Ramaiah and JEE coaching. I never cared about others, not a moment to think of some one else. It was perfect, I was just following Henry Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I come first to everything else. And there was nothing on the canvas, except a good JEE rank. Those days in Gowtham, when I was repeating for JEE were golden days. I still wonder how focussed I was on the exam; I cared about nothing else, food, sleep nothing mattered. It was that dedication that earned me the nick “Machine” with my friends there. It was for the first time that I understood how enriching it is to love one’s dream.

A year after I came to the Insti, the face that was to last, appeared on the canvas. Of course, I was the culprit, and it was my fault to cherish and nourish meaningless thoughts. Nevertheless, it helped me in its own special way. I started enjoying the beautiful nature in the campus, and the smell of soil after a rain. I became a poet and many other developments took place. It was all one sided, and now I realise that I was lucky that it was so. When you don’t get to know the other person, you tend to idolize and attribute all good qualities to her/him. It doesn’t hurt you, as you don’t get to see the harsh realities and there is nothing to disappoint you. And so I lived in utopia, for a half and two years. The goddess was deaf and the devotee dumb. The former wouldn’t hear and the latter couldn’t speak. But to call a spade a spade, it was really a beautiful feeling. I never had a moment to complain, and nothing would disturb me. Everything was pleasant and fine. So did life go on until I realised that, after all she is human too and had her own shortcomings.

I don’t have much to say about a two way thing. But literature survey (read literature survey: experiences of friends and fellow men) indicates that there can be two cases. The first case is when it’s mutually enhancing. One complements the other and life can become a really wonderful experience. The second case is when the opposite happens. Each one tends to restrain and mould the other to fit to their ideas and life becomes painful.

Let me come back to my story, the whole point of writing it. Now there is a new face on the canvas. A fresh and an altogether new experience. This time I am sure that I will not fail. It’s going to be a life long relation, an enriching one. For it isn’t the face of any other girl. Not a human with all possible problems and traits that may disappoint me. All that can happen is that I can become a better individual. It’s the worlds most beautiful face; the face of Miss Ego.

Formals

I saw him at Gurunath, eating maggi. He seemed to be fully preoccupied with thoughts, as he did not even lift his eyes to look at me, when I stood at his table.

I saw him walking down the road, talking to someone over a cell phone. I smiled at him, as I usually do. His eyes met mine, but they didn’t seem to recognize. He walked past, still speaking. I could see something missing.

I saw him at Tiffanys. Precariously balancing coffee in one hand and a file in the other, and walking through the maze of tables. I tried again to strike a conversation with him, but something in me warned. I heeded the warning and left.

After a few more similar events, I started thinking about him. We used to talk and chat freely all the while. Neither he nor I ever hesitated to start a conversation before. Yet, now here I am shy and hesitant.

As I started thinking more about it, many thoughts began to arise. Will he mind if I go and talk to him as usual? Or will he find it offensive, as a sign of mockery? Will he take my silence as lack of my care for him? That is the last thing I want, to be perceived as a fair weather friend. I wanted to talk to him, tell him that I am with him, hear what he wanted to say, and console him if possible. But something in me is preventing me from doing it. Is it a characteristic to this place? Or did I fail to develop intimacy with him? No, we are good friends! Lack of intimacy is not the reason. Why this stale-mate then?

I was pondering over it, when the reason dawned upon me. I was in a similar situation, times when I thought of The Fountainhead and Ayn Rand. Some of my close friends too went into silent mode during that period and almost forgot me. One day, I could not hold it up any longer and called up one of my friends, and asked him why he forgot me. He replied, “Machha don’t know how you would take it.” I am in his place now, hesitant to talk to the other one.

My dear friend, I am with you, ready to share your feelings. Please don’t take my silence for indifference, and don’t count me out. The only fact is that I lack words!

ALL THE BEST.

[Dedicated to the guy, still awaiting placement.]

My intern story

Let me get back to the posts I promised earlier, how I got an intern, how it was non technical and how I became a binder.

As soon as the first announcement regarding internship was put up, I busied myself, trying to get fundaes from seniors regarding various interns and how to crack the interviews. It was only then did I write my resume for the first time ever. Downloaded the Insti format, the one with the table, took out my grade card and listed all the courses faithfully. It became some 4 page resume with large spaces, but I didn’t know then that it was arbit. I made extensive preparation for the first interview, which was by Reliance. I didn’t even know there is something called a shortlist, and went on to buy a dress and a pair of shoes two days ahead of the first interview.

The day finally arrived, and I felt pained to bunk classes for the interview. After the first class, I came back to my room to dress up formally and went to the placement office. Instead of the interview, there was a pre-placement talk for the seniors and we were asked to attend it. The interview was in the afternoon and a shortlist has been put up after the pre-placement talk. Some ten of us have been short-listed on the basis of CG and the interview was a mere formality. Just before the interview, I had plans of dropping out, hoping to make it to ITC. Timely intervention by a good friend of mine saved me, who explained me how difficult it was to make it to ITC. Two months later, ITC came for intern recruitment and only then did I come to know the level of difficulty involved. The interview with Reliance went on smoothly and I was selected, right in August 2005 for my intern in May 2006.

This may have given me peace of mind avoiding all the trouble my friends experienced in finding an intern, but only during the placements this year did I realize that I lost something with that early selection. I had no fundaes about a Group Discussion, nor was I used to interviews. [And as luck would have it, the people who conducted mock technical interview for me this year were also from Reliance.] And that lack of experience clearly showed up during interviews this year, all my GDs cupped.

Coming back to the intern story, the projects were assigned somewhere in March 2006, and were mostly based on company requirements. They weren’t core mechanical for they had nothing to do with Design or Technology. Instead they dealt with operations related problems of the company and I chose one related to Maintenance Management.

I reached Surat on 13^th May 2006. We had a day to familiarize ourselves with the company, where we were explained about conducting ourselves in a petrochemical complex. [I have already written about my plight with the food in Surat, here.] The first two weeks slid away, without me figuring out how to go about with the project. And I knew nothing about Maintenance. So I started studying about maintenance management from the material available there, and read a few books on six sigma and lean production systems too. My mentor asked for a plan to be chalked out on how I was going to do my project, but wasn’t satisfied with my first plan. Fortunately, I found one employee there who gave me an excellent idea to carry out my project- A survey. The only thing he said was “Do it a consultant’s way!” I caught up his idea and quickly proceeded with a plan. Read various maintenance management programs and made a questionnaire.

The hardest task was getting it answered. Most managers took it as an intrusion into their authority and felt that I was cross examining them. One was even rude to me. [Here is the account.] Some delayed it indefinitely, while others wanted me to sit with them to get the thing done. There were a few good managers, who appreciated my idea and made sincere efforts in filling up the questionnaire. It took two weeks for the questionnaires to be filled up. I made a presentation and my mentor was extremely pleased. The final presentation to the management went well, despite it being the last one, after six hours of presentations by my friends. My final report was two books of 29 and 52 pages each, one for RIL and one for my Insti.

On the last day, I got the report printed from my co-mentor’s brand new colour printer. To get it bound was a different story altogether. Only the documentation centre has a binding facility, and the employee there told me plainly that he was only going to show me how to punch holes for a few sheets. I had to do the punching myself for the rest of them, put the sheets together and then use a comb binding strip. As it always happens with me, there was a correction in the report that I made for my Insti and my mentor corrected it. The writing on the printed paper looked odd, and I wanted to change the sheet. So I went back to my computer, made the correction in the page printed it and went back to the documentation centre to re-bind it. I had to be careful to see that the page was properly punched and that the alignment was right. I pulled out the already bound report and switched pages with a sense of satisfaction. Finally towards the evening, Sardie, the IITD friend of mine wanted me to help him in binding his report. He had some other work to be done and I had to bind his report too. This is how I became a BINDER. I learnt spiral and comb binding. This definitely would have been one of my options for self employment, hadn’t I been placed.

That night, at 1 pm on 15^th July 2006, I took a train to Mumbai, amidst the tense atmosphere in Surat. I was supposed to take a flight to Hyderabad the next day evening from Mumbai. I missed it, and that is the story to come next.