e-VALUE-ation at its best!

You are four. You are crying for that ice-cream cone on display on that cart the happy man with the funny costume is dragging. Your parent, teacher or some other random adult stoops down with a slight frown.
"No dear! No crying. Good children don't cry. Good children don't fuss."
You are eight. Your first Term exams are about to set in. You are not exactly sure about what an E.X.A.M. is all about. You are just a happy, wandering kid who wants that bicycle your neighbor's son has. Your parent stoops down with one eye-brow raised.
"Be a good student. Get a hundred in your Math Paper. You will have it."
You are twelve. Your so called best friend left you for the new transfer student in school with the coolest imported clothes and games. You sit in a corner, head hanging low. Another random adult walks up to you. (Think of someone different from a parent or a teacher this time.. Maybe an aunt? )
"You don't get so worked up. She is bad. She will have it for what she does. You are good. Good people are ALWAYS happy. "
Bam! The next thing you know you hit puberty and are slowly making your way through middle school to high school, dealing with all the possible contradictions of the first twelve years of value-education provided to you. When you finally begin to LEARN what the world,people and values are all about. Believe me, some people have it much earlier than 12 while some much later. I chose this time period cause of the psychological transition we go through when there is an institutional transition from middle school to high school. From winning hearts of your friends to breaking hearts of many (read parents). From 'who am I ?' to ''Woah! Who the Hell am I , Dude!?'
You slowly begin to realize that it was all wrong. That ex-best friend of yours is STILL walking with her arm hooked around that now-not-so-new transfer student around the corridors. That guy who pushed you off the chair and made it look like you were the one who played the classroom prank a few years back, is still holding his reputation as the best student of your batch- a teacher's pet. Though every adult had told you for the first twelve years of your life that such deeds are bad and bad people will "have it" soon, HE is not having it . But he is supposed to. Because Adults are never wrong. Something is massively wrong with the way things are working. He is supposed to pay for it. If not.. You will make sure he does. Wait.. what is that word called? Erm... Oh yes. R-E-V-E-N-G-E. (Other phrases- getting back, getting even or even teach him a lesson). Now you can bid good-bye to the values you carried all along.
There are two kinds of worlds a child lives in. A world of illusion and fantasy created by the child himself- here there are giant super-natural creatures, castles, giant chocolate trees with thick cream flowing out from the base. The second world of illusion created by the adults- with GOOD people. These constitute of GOOD teachers who hit you only for your good, GOOD aunts and uncles who will bring you sweets and are always very good (no matter what they do to you) , GOOD boys and girls of your age who will grow up being good with you. While the bad boys and girls will only suffer- like Cinderella's step sisters and the big,bad wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. They will never be happy.
I believe one of the things that makes teenage harder than it already is, is the fact that at every step we will have to deal with so many contradictions. I personally don't believe in Karma. But even if Karma does exist there is no way of finding out whether you have got your share of repentance from that person who put you through stuff. As a teenager I just wondered why din't people tell me that bad people DO succeed. They ARE happy. They do get what they want. I learnt that they call it "being smart, clever and crooked." (and often come with that crooked smile... at least in my head they do.) For example I was brought up with the values- 'Cheating is bad. Cheaters never prosper.' It is so ingrained into my mind that I would not cheat even if I was given the answer key by my own teacher and I need those marks to pass the very exam. Quixotic much? Well in that idealistic world of mine I have seen people not just pass but top exams/classes/the batch with those answers scribbled in a piece of paper stuck under their table. What I found hard to understand is that we are different people. They topping the class had no connection with me not scoring just as well. I was the one solely responsible for my performance and that's all I needed to be concerned about. However I remember all the time I spent screaming about how these people have been bad and yet gifted with good marks.
Most people quote : Life is unfair. Nope. It is the way it has always been. It is because we expect it to synchronize with our "good people-bad people" theory that life becomes unfair. I still remember this friend of mine who did not get the barbie-doll set she was fond of for Christmas because she was bad that month. However her best friend who was in her eyes equally bad (or maybe worse) going by the definition given to us by adults got the same barbie set for Christmas. I now wish someone who knew better than us had explained things to her back then. She went around using the word LIFE and UNFAIR around us at an age where most of us din't even know the meaning of these words.
On this note it is apt to mention about Carl Rogers, a world-famous psychoanalyst who speaks about conditional positive regard- where the child is given a reward every time the parent feels he or she has been good and is punished every time the child has been bad. So there you have the child growing up judging himself as a person based on his rewards and punishments. Just like the bicycle child. 'If I DON'T get a hundred in math I will NOT be a good student and I DON'T deserve the bicycle that my neighbor's son has. So that makes me a worse student than him.'
So here we are stuck in a loop. Generation after generation making the same mistakes.
On a concluding note these are my personal thoughts on this Good vs Bad debate.
There are No Good or Bad People. There are people who can get really good sometimes and really bad some other times. There are people who make up for their bad with some good and some who sometimes try to get something good from their bad. Sometimes people do bad things with the conviction that it is good. Some people do good but it ends up having bad implications.
What is the conclusion to this complexity? To stop categorizing things into Good or Bad, Right or Wrong. Cause the truth is no matter how old we get and how experienced we get we can never perfectly separate them, let alone associate rewards and punishments with them. So that the next time we see a child of four, eight or twelve we know that he/she will not grow up believing that life is Unfair.

A Lesson Well Learnt- A Short Story

 Photo Credits- Jonathan Sir (Staff Advisor -HIVE, LSR)

I was six when I first learnt to ride a bicycle. My grandfather, Dr. Manohar Lal Sharma, taught me how to always take charge and look forward.

“Dada! I am feared” I cried out.

“There is no need to be afraid, son”, he looked at me, his eyes indicating correction of vocabulary. “It’s no big deal. Remember this. You should be the one taking control, and not the one being controlled by this two-wheeler. You master the art of cycling and you have learnt life’s most important lessons. A- You are the boss of your life. B- Life needs a balance to move steadily. C- You are the rider. So you decide where you go, which route you take and in what speed you move in, towards your destination. D- No matter what happens, it is important to keep peddling. The moment you give up and stop, your life will stop functioning in the way it is supposed to.”

I wonder how he did it. Each time I came up with a new problem, he would somehow connect it to life and its teachings, often making the subject of my problems a metaphor for life or “real-life” crisis. My grandfather was one of the wisest people I have met till date. Every morning, he woke up before sunrise, wore his leather chappals and set out for a good long walk across the district. That leather footwear had always been special to my grandfather. I used to buy myself a new pair of shoes once in every ten months, but my grandfather had been using the same brown leather ones from the time I could remember his existence. “Great footwear carries one to great places” were the words he chose when I asked him why he would not call for a change. “These were gifted to me by my father when I turned thirty. They belonged to him. He was a great man.” I never followed this about the Indian way of thinking, where people tend to attach themselves sentimentally to the things that belonged to their predecessors. I sometimes thought it was rather quixotic on my dada’s part to wear the same old footwear whose stitches were not as strong as they were supposed to be, any longer, just because it belonged to his father. However, it worked for him so I could not argue much. The footwear carried him to every corner of this country. While my shoes used to wear away within a year, his slippers were right intact, except for a few stitches loosening here and there. Moreover, on account of its squeaky sound, it was easier for me to discover that he is approaching my room which buys me enough time to hide my mid-night snacks under the bed and feign sleep. As a child, I used to try wearing the slippers and walk around the house pretending to be my Dada. My feet fumbled loosely in the over sized leather. When my grandfather got to know about my act he chided me for doing so. I began to abhor those slippers from then.

One morning, I left the house with my grandfather. It was time for my first swimming lesson. As any other kid in the district, I was also to be trained in the Maikala Lake which was situated two kilometres from where we lived. As my grandfather stepped into the water and started warming up with initial laps, I surreptitiously hid his divine slippers behind the rocky corner of the lake, where he might not be able to locate them easily. After the swimming lesson, which was too traumatising to narrate, we stepped out of the lake. I had changed into the fresh pair of shorts, my “learners’ gift” (again a tradition followed to encourage the nascent swimmer), and started making my way towards my grandfather. From a distance I could see him leaning against the bark of a tree, his head hanging loose between his shoulders. I was fully aware of the saturnine expression that would cross his face when he discovers that his slippers were missing, but I had not prepared myself to face him that moment. As I came near him I had, if I may put it, the most heart wrecking experience of my life. In his eyes, I could see not just sorrow but pain of losing something so dear to him. I shrunk as the squeal of my guilt echoed in the hollowness of his heart. I wanted to jump into the lake for I could see myself as not only a culprit but also a coward who did not have the courage to run towards the rocks and return his footwear to him. What would my grandfather think of me? What would dada think of his only grandson? The little boy whom he has been nourishing with his wise, righteous words for the past eight years has failed him. My eyes did not leave his face. I just wished he could stop hurting himself. I just wished I could speak up.

Then something drastic happened. My grandfather looked up at me and smiled. “It’s just a pair of slippers. If they were meant for me, then I will find them.” I stared at him agape. Did he just push away his morose by yet another piece of his eternal wisdom? “Don’t worry, my son. I have learnt my lesson today.”

With that he started walking towards the house. I followed him like a shadow; the dark one, the gloomy one, the one with a shrunk character. Never will I ever be a great man like my grandfather or his father. As we reached home I dropped myself on my grandmother’s lap and wept. I wept for hours. I had asked her not to call out to dada. She tried to comfort me with her pats and hugs. She even asked me whether I was missing my mother or father, something she knew was imminent right from the day they passed away when I was four. She had even prepared a short way of consoling me for when such a thing would happen but as she started I nodded my head and pulled away from her. The last thing I wanted is to be pitied upon. I ran away from the spot and before I knew, I was on the street making my way to the lake. I picked my bicycle from the corner of the street, where all the bicycles are usually placed and started speeding up. As I was leaving the house, I heard my grandmother following me and my dada stopping her; “let him! He knows what he is doing.”

It took me almost thirty minutes before I collapsed at my doorstep with the leather slippers held tightly between my fingers. My eyes were still burning with tears and my hair was messed up with sweat and mud. My grandfather walked up to me and gently lifted me up to his lap.
“I am a thief! You should hate me!”

He just laughed softly and tossed the slippers to the other side of the chair, almost carelessly. “You are not a thief my dear. You are a brave kid. You stood up to what you realised was wrong. Now this is what I call Greatness.” With that he kissed my forehead and swayed me from side to side until my cry subsided to gentle sobs. I told him that I wished that I could someday fit into his shoes, rather slippers in this case.

Needless to say, he knew all about it. He had seen me hiding his slippers (I can’t tell how. I have never understood him and his enigmatic personality) but pretended like he hadn’t. That was a lesson well learnt.

My Grandfather was a great man. He taught me how to always take charge and look forward.

The Day When Everything Went Wrong...Revised (15 years later)

Remember the time in junior school when "essay writing" was introduced to us? It first started with Festivals, historic leaders (in my case one hundred words on Mahatma Gandhi), Seasons and then slowly moved on to a little more subjective topics which made us as young children express our thoughts and tastes; MY favourite teacher, MY mother, MY best friend and so on. I remember my experiences as a seven or eight year old girl with bulky handwriting , trying to balance my newly sharpened pencil in between my index finger and thumb, I found it rather flattering when asked to write about MY opinion (a word I used a lot to sound smart) on things.
As I was ransacking my old carton boxes I found one such essay jutting out of the lot : "The Day when everything went wrong.... by Sandhya Sriram, Class 3 B, Roll number- 46". I am sure this was a common topic given to the students of that age across all schools. I remember walking out of class with my friends that afternoon as we unanimously agreed that this can never be possible and the topic is by nature flawed. To quote my friend: "I have bad times, sometimes badder times but I am happy. You are also happy. I am sometime sad. But not full day. Only sometime." She spoke what was going on in our head as the three of us nodded in agreement. When I read my essay almost after fifteen years now I could not help but laugh at the innocence in the thought process. This is just a gist of the whole essay :
'I woke up late. I forgot to have my brekfast (underlined in red with the correct spelling on top of it). I missed my school tempo because I woke up late. I was hungry. My father dropped me to school and my teacher shouted at me for being late. I saw I forgot my water-bottle in my car. Now I was late and hungry and thirsty.... In Anitha ma'am's class I did not remember 6 tables and my partner called me stupid. Now I was late and hungry and thirsty and stupid......  '
The list of adjectives with the conjunction went on for a while before I religiously ended the essay with "...it was INDEED a day when everything went wrong."
I wonder if I now pick up a paper and pen and was asked to write the same essay, what would my day consist of. The point is that I won't. I won't write an essay with this topic cause either I would end up with nothing to write about or have a surfeit of incidents that will be too hard to pen down. Each of us have had such days where we tuck ourselves into bed at night and sigh : "Today was a horrible day. Just NOTHING went right." But did everything go wrong? Fifteen years now.. Not so innocent .. and yet the same belief. Sometimes I think our eight year old selves had the truth of it..

The Dog and the Shoe-Box.

Walked through the empty street; watching the moon consume the darkness,
Exams done, a whole December planned ahead of me.
The winter wind blowing the hair off my shoulders , the cold running down my spine,
I hold up my coat tight, with an unusual delight,
Waiting for my favourite season to set in; the frozen treat of Delhi.

As I went on, ignorant of what lay ahead, a yelp from my end did shake the evening's calm;
The big brown creature,caught trembling with fear,
"It's just a Dog," I told myself; though the same line had me sweating and unnerved
"Just stroll away and it won't hurt you" , I followed my voice and walked askew,
Pulling my coat over as the temperature seemed to drop lower.

Just as I turned away with a soundless sigh, I heard a moan rising in the air,
I stopped at once to face what I had left behind;
Took a few steps closer to get a look so clear; sceptical and  yet too sure,
It is not what I saw but what I felt that matters
As I start to share what I witnessed, I must say Fate is not too Kind.

The big brown creature strolling around, watched the moonlight just like any of us did,
He walked a few steps forward and back again,
And shook himself up then uncurled his paws, moaning still, head held low.
Then all at once he pulled a crushed box; a left-over perhaps, no use to a human;
Curled himself back ,trying to fit in, he howled in pain.

Shivers ran through my skin and bones ; No! it was not the cold,
'The poor thing is cold,' is what struck me that moment;
It first tried its paws and then his face a little slower, but all in vain,
Its body was too big for a crumpled shoe box
It moaned once more as a gust of wind blew by, and carried the box to the other end.

My heart ached so bad, what could I do, I got to help out?
I looked around and found my last resort,
A dark, woollen, thrown-away cloth , only too perfect for the deed,
I fought my phobia all at once and picked the cloth , marching right to the spot,
The moment it saw me , it bounced up to retort.

I backed off; my knees giving way, my heart pounding hard,
"I am just trying to help" is what I said out loud,
The vulnerable eyes, now replaced by powerful ferocity,
Feeling strangely guilty for a mistake that I could not comprehend,
watching him stand in defence, his eyes so proud.

"You are human. You don't like us. You are selfish and mean."
Were the inarticulate words that I could pull out,
I looked at my denim and thick woollen coat, suddenly aware of my own secure living,
It stood there still, looking me in my eyes, I took a few more steps back,
It stood there still, staring at me with doubt.

Another gush of cold wind was enough to shrink it up once more,
I felt ashamed as I involuntarily pulled my coat closer,
It closed its eyes and this time it opened them, soft and calm; so hollowed and deep,
And in those eyes I now saw the helpless reflection of its entire kind.
"Please don't hurt me. You see, I am yet not doing quite  better."

With the third gush of wind I felt my heart freeze down, as he moaned and moaned,
Cursing the city's winters for the first time,
Again with a jerk he walked to the end, pulling the little shoe-box, it's security blanket for the night.
He brought it back to the spot, where the street light shone dim, hoping to get some heat,
Settling with his paws and his tail inside, with a gentle whine.

"I am sorry" I heard my voice speak up, as I knew it was time to leave,
I took the first turn and then started to pace up,
It was time for me now to hang my head low, for I could do nothing to help the poor fellow,
How many of them are found suffering the cold? How many of these stories remain untold?
I wondered on my way back, running down the sub.

Walked through the empty street; watching the moon consume the darkness,
Exams done, but could no longer care of the December planned ahead of me.
How many of them will survive the month; we need to do something before it is too late.
You heard it all my folks, the tale of the Dog and the Shoe Box.
Have you been in my place before? Do you have any suggestions? Please share your story.

It is just so MATHastic!

MATH: The subject that starts out with one, two, three, goes on to a,b,c and ends up in alpha, beta, gamma. (Don't Google it. This is my personal definition after studying mathematics for almost sixteen years now. )

You hate Math? I am not surprised. About seventy percent of my batch does. When asked why, there is not one person who is able to justify it with a valid reason besides that of having flunked too many times or having been chided all through their childhood for lacking "calculative skills".
I remember when I was in pre-school and was first introduced to numbers I had the wildest questions in my mind.
"Ma'am! Why is one written as 1?"
"Ma'am! Why does eight come after seven and not before?"
"Ma'am! When I turn ten hundred and forty-four years, how will I write it in this tiny box here?"
My teacher, vexed by my continuous questions, struggled hard to conceal her anger. She would glare at me and grind her teeth while I stood there, under the impression that one day she will answer all my questions. Well, she obviously din't. I still remember how she had walked up to me one day after class to strike a deal that if I stop asking her "weird" questions in class she would give me a bar of 'Dairy Milk' . My reply: "Ma'am what is weird?"
"YOU!"
Incidentally in my standard seven, I took up the same topic for a class project to find my answers to the first two questions (by then I quite clearly understood that I need not worry about the third one.) The concept is indeed very interesting and for anyone who wants to read up on it; here it goes: http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=49183.
There might be a better and more logical explanation to it but hey! I was in seventh grade and I was quite happy with the answer!
I love Math! (Please keep reading)
We all were told in school that a person cannot survive in this world without mathematical skills. I am not going to check the veracity of that statement because that is not why I love the subject. My quest of the so called "journey into mathematics" started when I decided to find out why others hate it. That is when I realised that MOST people who hate Math develop the aversion not because of the fear of exam or fear of the teacher in school (who for some reason is always found with a long-sized wooden ruler in the hand). The abhorrence for Math arises out of the fear of NUMBERS (and operations) to start with and on a higher scale, fear of embarrassment resulting out of simple miscalculations in public. For example; if a parent or a teacher asks a twelve year old to compute seven into six mentally and she answers it wrong, she will be scorned at for not having learnt her tables properly or being "poor" in Mathematics. And God forbid , if you are a Tambram like me, you are expected to be born with high calculative skills and will be disparaged and looked down upon as though the entire pride of your caste depends on "seven into six equals forty two".
When such importance is given to a subject and a higher (negative) importance when one gets it wrong, the majority of the population is bound to fear it.
One way to fight this fear will be to NOT make a big deal out of it. It is OKAY to goof up. All of us come out of the exam hall and say: "Darn! I made a silly mistake." It is important to know that making silly mistakes does not make YOU silly.
Getting back to the topic in hand, it is a common notion of many math lovers to say 'Math is Fun' but I say "Math is Funny!"
First we have Natural numbers. That's simple.
Then we have whole numbers. That's great! Zero is a very useful number.
Then we have integers. Negatives! Don't like them, but okay.
Then we have Rational numbers. Wait! Were't we just done ?
Then we have Irrational numbers. Irr what?
Then we have Real numbers ! OKAY! Got it !
Then we have Complex numbers! Thank you for the apt nomenclature.

The FUNNIEST of them all is when we are introduced to "Abstract Algebra" or "Boolean Algebra" in higher Mathematics. The question in my paper: Prove that 0.a=0.... How? No. My question, WHY?
Then we were introduced to Graph theory where we were asked to calculate how many chipmunks will a mommy chipmunk give birth to (with given, non-mathematical, conditions)? I was wondering for the first few hours whether I was sitting in the wrong classroom .
Currently we are diving into the world of ANALYSIS! It is rightly said that once you go deeper into a subject you will find that there is no connection between what you started with and what you are presently doing. I READ MATH. The only place where numbers appear is in the serial number column.
So here we are. After mastering all the necessary skills required for all of the above and acing the papers , I sit for an interview and this is what they ask me: "What is zero point zero one raised to the power of two hundred?" For the first time in my life my marks looked quite redundant and I did not know whether to laugh or cry. Sitting in that board room all I could think of  is all those friends of mine, back in school and college who loathed the subject and cribbed about it every single time. I walked back home more amused than usual and looked it up. Even Google took a few milliseconds more than it usually does (Well, I may add!).
So in sum, we have lovers of Mathematics on the right hand side (RHS) and haters of Mathematics on the left hand side (LHS). No matter which side you belong to there will be a time in your life when you feel like you know nothing and run hunting for your calculator when asked to compute basic arithmetic operations. So why fret? Why give it the status of "the most terrifying subject" when all you are , or rather both sides of the table are expected to do by the end of the day is tap on the calculator. We can say, in this case;
 LHS=RHS.
Hence Proved.

Panacea for Pressure

"Oh! My life is entering a crisis situation. It is now time for me to start taking stress" , says no individual.

What is the first thing that we hear when we tell someone that we are under stress or in some kind of a "helpless" situation? "Been there, Done that!" , "It is a rough phase which shall soon pass" and the worst one : "You will get used to it!"
I had a friend in school who had the tendency to fall into trouble more often than one would expect. I wish I had gotten the opportunity to know her better since her mind is something that has always intrigued me. She was ever late to school, never did her homework and needless to say, she was in the bad books of all her teachers. One day I tried to strike an open conversation with her to see if I could give her some kind of assistance since our board exams were fast approaching. I walked towards her with a mind to give her a lecture on how she needs to get serious with her life and needs to set a definite path  and goals. That evening I stepped out of my school walls realizing that I needed more help than her. This is the slightly fictionalised version of the conversation we had:
"You haven't touched your books yet! You have been consistently scoring below .. much below average in the term papers. I am worried for you."
"But why?"
"Because no university in this planet will take you in with these marks."
"That's not true."
"Okay I meant.. No TOP , Good University."
"So?"
"So... Don't you want to get into a good place?"
"And then do what? Get a nice job, earn a package of thirty lakhs by the age of twenty-five, then get married, have children and when they turn out to be like how I am today, tell them the same thing that you are telling me now? No. I don't want to get into a good place. "
"Then how do you plan to lead your life?"
"I plan to LEAD my life. That is exactly what I want to do. I plan to do things MY way and most importantly, do the things that I want to do and not what I am expected to do. "
"Alright. So you have no plans for your life?"
"Yes I do."
"And that is?"
"I plan to be happy and content in every step of my life so that if things don't work out the way I expect them to, I still have a reason to be happy."
And she was right. We had four weeks for our board exams when she first attempted to open her books. She took no coaching or assistance whatsoever and was the only one laughing and giggling on the day our exams commenced. When our results were declared, she walked out with an eighty two point two percent while I was sitting with a ninety three percent , head hanging low having all my "goals" and so called " definite path" dissolved into nothing and as she had rightly pointed out , having NO reason to be happy about. I had slogged for the whole of two years with nothing but ninety seven percent in my mind and was now forced to toss the value for my sedulous efforts into the dustbin in less than two minutes. Then when I met her and smiled a congratulations, she said this:
"Don't worry Sandhya. You will do well for yourself, just like I did today. You will find a reason to be happy in the midst of all the battle you fight everyday. The battle of wanting to be the BEST."

She would have been an extreme case to quote example of. However, she taught me something vital which is well embedded in my brain now. How many of us enjoy the process of  achieving our goals? How many of us do our work WITHOUT thinking about how our end result would be. It is but natural to worry about how things will turn out but what I learnt in these three years is that it is what we learn during the process that is more important than what we get after the process. We are all going to be successful some day. How? This is how:
Success is a subjective term. Each person defines it in their own way. The best part about this word is that it can be used in an extremely flexible manner. Today if I score eighty percent in my math exam , I know I din't do too well but others don't. I need not explain where I went wrong to anyone or make excuses as to how this term the paper turned out to be relatively harder (while in reality it was the simplest paper ever). I just need to be happy and, TRUST me, no one will ask me a question after that. According to them I have been successful.
Moreover a person can keep redefining her perception of success by redefining her goals based on experimentation to find out what she thinks is achievable in the given circumstances and finally reach a point where she can say she is successful.
There is another thing that I have come to understand in these three years (with my small attempts at experimentation). Goals and Dreams are two different concepts and they cannot be used interchangeably. Goals are where you want to head to. Dreams are where you are already heading to, without your knowledge. It was my goal to get a ninety seven percent in my boards (which din't happen). It was my dream to get into one of the top colleges of the country (which did). Goals will lead into pressure ; social, parental and self. Dreams will lead into joy and hope. They will give you the driving force to achieve your goals. The person taking the least pressure in this world will be the one who has created the perfect synergy between his dreams and his goal. His needs and his wants And most importantly understood what according to him is failure and success.
Last week I had the two most life-determining (not really) events of my life.
A life-determining interview.
A life-determining exam.
I goofed up both. (And I am not the kind of person who goofs up things easily.) The best part? I am still here. Siting in the same room as I was a week back. Talking to the same set of friends as I used to a week back. Living the same life as I did a week back. So what has changed? Nothing. Probably things would have been different if I HAD done well. Different does not mean better. One can never tell. But now I am here, writing this article, smiling to myself, remembering my friend. Things did not end up the way I had expected them to. But I am happy. The things I learnt in the past few weeks are priceless; something I would have never learnt if I hadn't crossed this "phase", as people like to put it.
This is for all my friends who are giving their Boards, CAT, Placement interviews or any other competitive examinations. Each and every one of you are unique in your own way. Please do not let any of this determine where you stand in the list of success. No matter what happens today, the bigger picture is bound to be a beautiful one.  Believe in that and chase your dreams, restructure your goals, and yes, Be Happy. Nothing is worth so much pressure.

The Name Game

Have you ever wondered as to how you got your name ? Most of us are told about it by our parents when we enter school while some of us don't care to know! Trust me, I was one among the latter cause I never found anything special about my name. It has two syllables and mean "evening" unlike something like "intelligent", "beautiful" or "lovable". I remember asking my mom (as a child , of course) as to why I was not named "Telula" or "Shelly".  She looked at me bewildered and simply said:" They are not Indian". Then after a few days I went back to her and this time I put forth three Indian names; Kritika, Sakshi and Ananya (who happened to be the "superest" girls in my batch I spoke about in my previous post). She gave me a soft knowing smile and simply said : " Because they are not YOU."
I was too young to follow that statement back then. I just shrugged my shoulders and walked away , something I usually did when my parents started to talk Greek and Latin.Later I realised what exactly was the crux of what she wanted to convey: It's not the person's name that defines her (or him) but the person who defines the name. If you read it twice and understand the statement it makes absolute sense and has a nice moral and philosophical connotation to it. However, I know that a number of people would disagree to it.
Recently,in college I was speaking to a group of my friends in the corridor. That's when another student from a different batch joined in to greet me. I began the formal procedure of introducing my fellow mates to the new entrant. While I pointed out at the last one in my group as Raveena, she raised her eyebrows and exclaimed "Oooo.. Raveena Tandon?" referring to an eminent Bollywood star, and burst into a fit of laughter. My friend just shrugged and smiled weakly. She later told us, how much she has started to abhor her name since her entire school life went in smiling back for the hackneyed joke that was repeatedly cracked by her peers. Now here, this girl is repeatedly being associated with the name that has derived its identity through someone else. How cool is that? Let me answer it. It's not and you don't want that happening to you!
Talking of names and Identities , we cannot miss out on the nicknames that one is given in all phases of life. Starting from home to junior school, middle-school, high school , university, workplace and so on , if you look back you will realise that there is practically an entire collection of names that were once associated with you. I personally have lost count of the different kinds of nick-names that were given to me : Sandu, Guddu,San, Sans, Chutki , Bubli , Baby , Pikachu (no comments) , Sriram and Sandy being the most common of all. Nick-names are given to evolve a private, convivial space between you that person. It is given out of fondness and affection. It carries with itself a sense of attachment. Am I right? Nope, there will still be people who would disagree with me.
My another friend from college, Nilofer , happened to share her experience with me this evening. A name that was so well thought of, Nilofer- The one with blue or beautiful eyes (and quite apt for her, I must say), was conveniently altered by her school mates to just the second syllable. Lofer , a common term used for road-side roughs, has become so much a part of her daily hearing that now she automatically responds to the call , without any show of irritation or annoyance. I am not going to be a moralistic preacher and say what they did was wrong, since I have had my own share of fun changing mahiya to mafia and Kiron to Moron. However, I can sympathise with her; and in many ways empathise too.
Well now this is the Name Game as I would like to put it. If you are not happy with your name , as was my case as a child, look around and you will know that you are in a much better position than many others. Despite the pre-formed identity and the unreasonable alterations made to your name, in some way or the other you still tend to define it. I will not be able to accept Raveena or Nilofer under any other names now. Because that is what they have done, provide a meaning to their names ; something so unique that each time anyone utters their names in their absence, their closest friends can't help but think of them and ONLY them.
And that is what matters, won't you agree?