I, Me, Myself……

“Mei yesa kyun hun mein yesa kyun hoon

Mei yesa hi hoon jaisa hi hoon”

This song aptly suggests the state of my mind when I wanted to do a write up on myself….

This has been in fact, the toughest write up because on self introspection I have found that I have a split persona with completely different attitude and behaviour…. One part of me wants to achieve great feats, raise my voice against the peccant offences committed in our society, be both a responsible citizen to this nation and a responsible daughter shouldering my mom’s onus, take charge of my life and pursue my goal no matter how hard it is to accomplish (or at least make a sincere effort in fulfilling it…). Hmmmmm….. Quite a miss perfect!!!!!

But this miss perfect part of me takes a back seat mostly… The devilish pimp grins at me most of the times and I succumb to its wishes in a trice. I become sluggish to take up responsibilities, or take up a stand for a cause, or procrastinate my plan for future. I easily get satisfied with what I am today and forget to follow my goals (the typical me!!). I turn self- centred and all I care about is my happiness.

I guess this is me… all of us have 2 different facets and most of us would have realised that…. What I am trying to do is keep the devil in me dormant and try to be the Miss Perfect (if not completely, at least to an extent). Well, any sincere effort will never fritter away and my efforts to keep my devil at bay will succeed!!

ARE WE SANTAS IN REAL LIFE??

As I was riffing through the May edition of Reader’s Digest an article instantly caught my attention. It was about a simple man making a big difference to innumerable village children. I was baffled for pro tempore when I read through the article to find out that

Hemant Chabbra, a mediocre business man is responsible for helping the children in Jhadpoli village, Maharashtra. People who are well fixed (that includes me) are hesitant or slothful when it comes to serve the less privileged. How mean can we get!!!!!(I m not generalizing... there are quite a few exceptions!!!) This realization hit me hard on my head. I feel all of us at some point in our life are over shadowed by our ephemeral desires and in the process forsake virtues and turn into money minded zombies. And the consequnece is we fail to actualize that we have made ourselves into human machines devoid of emotions.

Chabbra’s novel idea of reusing disused and rusty bicycles that were discarded by the privileged children of Mumbai has helped myriad village children attend their distant school on a regular basis. He has bounteously added the urge in these children to take up education as basal to their otherwise arduous life.

Though this contribution may seem to be of lesser magnitude, its effect is emphatic and tremendous. “Small drops make mighty ocean”. This is possible only if all of us help towards the betterment of the community even if it is going to be infinitesimal.

There are lot of children who are in dire need of a Christmas Santa Clause to fulfill their wishes. The only way to make their wish come true is by bringing out the Santa in us in whichever possible way.

LAISSEZ FAIRE????

I had recently read “Paths of Glory”, Jeffery Archer’s latest. The book was a tribute to George Mallory, a Cambridge Professor, who was the first mountaineer to reach the summit of the world’s highest mountain peak, Mt. Everest. Ironically this feat is not being accepted by most of the mountaineers.

Mallory was a great mountaineer and visionary in his period.Whether or not he reached the summit before he died remains a subject of speculation and continuing research, but his perseverance to pursue what gave him the utmost satisfaction has to be appreciated.

After completing this book, I realised that most of the times we carve for recognition for all our doings. We want to be accepted by others … But in this whole cycle we are letting go of our principles in a jiffy. Individualism is long last and we blindly trod down the steps which others want us take. Take for instance, the number of Engineers graduating every year… do census half of them would have taken up engineering just because their parents wanted them to do. Many of us have acclimated ourselves just to fit in the boundaries drawn by the society. You do something different people think there is a problem with you cerebrum.

Women are even more prejudiced by this society when she has to make choices. Unfortunately we do not have choices offered. We have stringent restrictions placed on what we are “supposed” to do rather than our likeness to do things (at least in India!!!). I would say I m lucky enough to do what I like but there are numerous less fortunate girls who are made mere puppets with the society . Why is that we always have to bare the brunt of this society???? Can we not take decisions for our own self??? Don’t we have our own identity???

There was a match box factory near to my dad’s place in a small town called Kaveripatanam. Most of its employees were girls from 7 to 18 yrs of age. Once I had the opportunity to talk to one of the girls working there. She was only 10 yrs old (same as me then) but what she said made me realise this truth in its crudest form. She was a drop out from school, started working in this factory to support her family though she had the flair for studying and wanted to do her schooling. It was then I conceived the fact that your identity depends on a lot of external factors and not you (though at a later point of time).

This is just an example where a girl’s identity is getting electrocuted and her individual wish takes a back seat. There are lot many situations where we are always forced to make the sacrifices. This sometimes makes me feel that we are the frailer ones……

I only wish we get an answer to this!!!!!!!!

PROJECT SYNOPSIS!!!

I m surrounded by a nimiety of emotions (Sigh of relief!! , distress, uncertainity, confusion) when I think my project is going to wrap up in the near future. Though I have been a part of this team only for the past 8 months , this has been a great learning curve in my career. A team divesified on cultural aspects yet unified with common goals.I had no clue when I got a call for joining this project. With nil expecations I joined this project, simply to avert the BENCH period ("Taboo" word in a Software Engineer's life).

I must say I have imbibed a few qualities though not too many from my stint with this project. There are so many pepole around us that sometimes we miss to identify people with innate qualities. But I was fortunate enough to have a person who has really influenced me- Mercy, my lead. She is one of the few persons with whom I have interacted a lot. Maybe because we are the only female counterparts in this project. And I m thankful for that!!

She is a perfectionist and smart worker. Learnt a few tricks from her. A very good teacher who explains things extensively. She has the ability to handle any kind of trivial situation with cool head and ease. We have shared a lot of lighter moments and i throughly cherish them.

As the famous dailogue from the movie Forrest Gump goes

" Life is a box of chocolates. You never know what you will get ."

This time I was lucky to pick a Cadbury Diary Milk (one of my favourites!!!)

I have had my share of both good and tough times in this project. And this has actually forged me to face a lot stiffer competitions I m likely to face in my pursuit.

This experience has indeed been an enriching one from both professional and personal fronts.