Lakshya

"Tu toh mujhe bhool gaya yaar..." said a friend who buzzed me on Facebook chat. And a couple of days later, another friend tells me the same thing... and leaves me wondering, whether really that is the case. My close friends and my ex-colleagues know that I start wondering at the smallest of things ... day-dreamer is my middle name ;-)

And so, I tried to go back in time and tried to recall some moments that made all you wonderful people to be my buddies... and was instantly transported on to a roller-coaster ride of sorts. Life during my engineering days was one such ride ... journals, submissions, vivas, exams, KTs, year-drops, projects, presentations, surviving some really tough exam papers and lectures of some really boring and irritating professors (ofcourse, many of them were very nice and brilliant people too ... but I'm not taking names of either kind).

Surviving that long journey consisting more than 40 different subjects and 100s of exams would not had been possible without the company, support and encouragement of all my buddies !

I still remember the submission days of sem VII and sem VIII, sitting in class room#301 and copying assignments and journals ... non-stop without lifting our heads and chit-chatting at the same time bout the latest bollywood movie or a breaking-news story ... music tracks from someone's cellphone playing in the background. And regularly calling up friends ... starting two weeks before the theory exams and feeling comfortable after knowing from him/her that "aree maine bhi khuch padhai start nahi kiya hai abhi tak" ... and continuing those panic-calls right until the moment we enter the exam hall.

There are unlimited such memories of the good and bad times spent with my friends ... which are almost impossible to forget !

Yaaron ... Dosti ... Badi hi haseen hai !

So then what really went wrong after college got over ... any idea ??

I think ... Lakshya is the word !

It was our common aim to clear semester after semester (with minimum number of KTs ... and maximum marks) and finally become an engineer ... which helped to create and maintain that bonding between us. Until sem VIII, our aim was same, our goals were same our struggles were almost the same and our lives were same.

Now ... cut to present day ... we all still have almost the same goal in life... to get a decent job and start earning and get settled with good salary in the next couple of years (... for those of us who already have a job). Our responsibility has increased... we have to work hard to support our parents who have been shouldering our responsibility for all these years.

And this is where there is a slight difference in our goal and our paths !

I've grown up seeing my dad participate in social service work through various organisations, along with being an active committee member our our housing society, Sindhi Samaj etc etc... And more recently, as you all very well know, I have been involved with the Art of Living Foundation since 2004 ... where I came to know about the enormous work being done throughout the world for creating a stress-free (happy), disease-free (healthy) & peaceful one world family - Vasudhaiva Kutumbhakam.

That naturally makes me more of an activist-types person and I happen to now mingle more with people sharing the same interests and goal in life ... our goal of creating a one world family. That doesn't necessarily mean I hangout only with Art of Living's (ever-smiling) volunteers all the time... I am also involved with various NGOs like India Against Corruption, Help India, Jaago Re etc etc

Everyone is aware of the dangerous world we're living in ... and because of that, I'm sure most of my friends know and understand that its very much necessary to have a "higher" goal in life ... we all realise there is more to life than the "Go to office->Slog Slog Slog (like a dog)->Come home->Sleep->Go to office" routine.

Earning money and taking care of our biological family is everyone's duty ... there's no running away from that. But unless we take responsibility for the world, or atleast our country, or atleast city or atleast the colony we're living in ... we can only keep blaming and sulking and whining and complaining and suffering bout politics, injustice, crime and corruption.

I hope all you dear friends will definitely contribute your bit in nation-building along with personal bank-balance building, body-building, reputation-building (on online forums) etc ... and even if you can't take out time for the same, atleast you'll understand my situation and never get this idea that I've forgotten you all ;-)

LOL ... anyways, if u've still managed to remain on this page after going thru so much of preaching... I'd just like to copy-paste an SMS which will explain what I mean to say:

FRIENDSHIP is like a 'HABIT'
Even if u take out 'H', 'abit' remains.

Take out 'A', still 'bit' remains.

Finally, take out 'B', still 'it' remains :-)

And It is going to remain forever ... no matter what ! Cheers !!

So Near ... yet so far ...

Yesterday I was hanging out with my classmates as usual, we were having a casual discussion about our college in general, when it suddenly dawned upon us that we have almost reached the end of Semester VII of our engineering course ... and we all were amazed at how time just flies away !!

All my friends had the same thing to say: "It was just a few weeks back that the semester had just begun and now they're saying that we are going to face exams soon ... time passes so quickly !"

I don't know about others, but for me, getting done with the first-half of the final year of my engineering course means a lot of things.

#1> After crawling for years and years, I've finally started seeing the proverbial light at the end of this otherwise dark tunnel called "Engineering". The journey which had started in 2003 finally (and thankfully) seems to be coming to an end. This may sound unusual from a person like me who loves to travel ... anywhere, anytime, anyhow ... but then, this is not just another journey ... its Engineering ... and its different ... to say the least.

<- Light at the end of the tunnel

 (Mumbai - Pune Expressway)

#2> While most of my classmates have already got jobs in top software firms ... the rest have decided that they will prepare for aptitude tests more rigorously and see to it that even they eventually land a plum job in one the top software firms ... and the remaining ones are keen to join the Telecom or Networking sector. But the difficult part is, none of the above intrests me ! Maybe, because I hate deadlines. I am a perfectionist who will finish the job at hand withutmost care and perfection ... but at my own time and speed. 

But, now that I am only a few months away from becoming an Engineering, ain't I supposed to know exactly what work I'm gonna do to earn bread for me and the other 6 people at my home ?!?! 

(Ok ... I have a passion ... a childhood, teenage and present day dream ... to become a Commercial Pilot ... but its the one that needs moolah ... shitloads of moolah ... the kind of money I've never ever seen in my life. And, without any kind of financial backing, pursuing my dream will have to remain only as a dream and a subject of my fantasies and fiction.)

Will "I" become yet another rat in the never-ending "Rat Race" by following the crowd and disappear among the thousands who take the same route after their B.E. and keep dreaming about flying Jets and sigh everytime I watch an Aircraft fly over my office building ... even while I'm trying to fix a bug in a never-ending code, sipping coffee in a cubicle in an temperature-controlled office ... 

Or will lady luck shower her grace on me, as she has been doing so far ... and allow me to carve out an identity of my own ... and make me stand out from the crowd ... rather ... much much above from all the crowd ... and let me work at a place where I won't feel worked-out even after working over-time ... and let me live my Dream ???

To know ... keep reading ... the "Reality Show" (and ofcourse ... keep praying for me)

Here we go ...

नमस्ते & Good Morning.


Okay ... so "Reality Show" goes the name ...

But whose Reality are we talking about ?? And whos gonna Show it ?


And by the way (everyone reading this must be surely thinking) ... haven't we had enough of reality shows already ?!?!?! Some gave us Indian Idols year after year, some gave birth to Crorepatis (alrite ... only 1 Crorepati and a lot of lakhpatis) and insisted that Umeed is not so uncool afterall, one of them made (and continues to make) Bakras out of aam aadmi and started the trend of giggles on Indian TV which is still the in thing onall types of channels ...
the list will go on and on ... so coming back to this blog ...


The Reality is, even I don't know what this blog is all about :-D . Anyways, now that the blog has been created, something has to be written and I'll definitely keep posting regularly no matter if somebody is reading or not ;-) And I'll try to keep some Reality element in each post.


Keep giving your feedback from time to time. Unlike in Pvt. Ltd. companies ... your valuable feedback won't bring any positive changes in this product (my blog) ... but your feedback is definitely valued. So keep writing in.


Happy Reading. See ya.


PS: It is said that whenever you meet someone for the first time, irrespective of the time, you greet them with a "Good Morning"