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I recently visited IIT Kharagpur as part of recruitment team on behalf of my company. It was my first visit to any campus since I passed out from college. The campus resembled a lot with my college campus. Almost everything was same. It had a separate area for academics, hostels and sports facilities. There were individual building for every Engineering department. All hostels were along a road. Sports facilities were in between hostel buildings. Same kind of badminton wooden courts were there, as they were in my campus, when I was very fond of this game. They were owned by coach of that game and the coach used to take complete charge of them at the time of Inter-IIT practices. It had one medical facility and one shopping market inside campus itself. That campus had its own restaurant and that restaurant could not be considered among the decent ones at all. Students used to go out in city for good meals. But even the best restaurant of their city could not match the restaurants of Delhi. It had one auditorium which was used for showing movies, same as it was in my campus. No commercial vehicles were allowed inside academic area. Most of the students were on cycles.

Almost everything was similar as of my campus. It had been five and a half years completing my engineering course. It was giving me very nostalgic feeling and a lot to analyze about my old days. I remember, when first time I came to Gurgaon, that city did not seem adaptable to me at all. I thought, I will never be able to ingrain myself with this life. And now, in last five and half years, I am so much ingrained in lifestyle of Delhi that I had totally forgotten those ways of life. Every morning, I wake up on time and dress up in nice clothes for office. Getting dressed up in decent clothes was rarely a concern in college days. The idea of looking smart had never existed in mind at that time. There was the culture and environment of learning, and creating something new. There were sufficient time and opportunities as well. Motivation level was also very high. It was the thing in air of that vicinity. But, I still think, that so much of my efforts went unproductive at that time. Today, I don't do anything, until unless, I am interested in it or it is necessary for my living. I can quite clearly see the returns that I will be making out of my efforts. Even, when I am not certain of positive returns, I am sure that even failures will add a lot to my experiences and next time when I will try something, I will be having more matured and experienced approach. But this was never the case in college. I guess, at some level, I was always uncertain that where I fit.

I used to feel that I had to earn good grades and for this it seemed necessary to attend all the classes. So, I tried to attend all the classes. I always used to pick a seat near window. And, during lectures, I would be looking out of that window. I did not use to do it intentionally. Lectures were so uninteresting that watching out of window was quite pleasing. It is actually tough to be interested in thousands of theories without having interesting enough applications based on those theories. I could, of course, force myself to go to classes, but, that way, I could not generate my interest in those courses. Everyone used to blame curriculum and professors, for not giving them enough examples of applications or teaching subjects in boring way. I think, it would be very wrong to accuse faculties or management for not working on finding interesting applications. If, I put myself in my professors' shoes now, then it seems extremely expensive to arrange applications for some of the engineering streams. A large part of engineering deals with heavy and very expensive machines, which can not be arranged at academic level. And even, if institute could manage to get that kind of money then those machines could not be easily accessible to every single student individually. So, I also find myself in the same situation that how to make those courses interesting to students.

A lot of efforts that I was putting in by forcing myself did not prove very fruitful. When someone coming out of college that inexperienced and non-passionate then obviously the guy would be trying out in many directions to figure out where he could fit in. That was the reason that it still took me almost an year and half  after college to settle in a field, where I can find myself interested. I would say, I am still very lucky. I still can see many of my friends carrying something which they are not at all passionate about and it is pity that some of them will carry it for rest of their life.

Life goes in one direction. Past time never comes back. People loose a lot in their lives not living passionately. Today, I can see that every passing year makes lots of changes in my life. Every next year, I find myself more involved than last year. Now, time is less and responsibilities are more. To do anything new, I have to steal time everyday from my regular life. Now, I have so clear visibility about vastness of life and importance of time. I try to make my life very disciplined, schedule many tasks everyday to get maximum productivity out of it. In those old days, when there was ample of time, no responsibilities at all and all the avenues to bring out our best, then I were investing myself in all the directions, living under false illusions. It had been fair if I had not put any efforts and there had been no returns. But, there was a lot of efforts and all for the sake to just come up with self realization - "I don't fit here". This return seems quite poor for the rigorous 5-6 years of efforts. I feel pity that so much of efforts went unproductive, which could actually had added a lot to my present life.

Worthiness of one..

I believe, strength and maturity are virtues obtained through experiences of life rather than age. Contrast in your perspective with someone else always gives a lot to analyze about yourself. I met this wonderful girl who lived and brought up in an orthodox family but north-eastern liberal culture. North-eastern culture is no different than western culture. They live for themselves. Their philosophy had always been enjoying their lives as much as they can. On the other hand, Indian orthodoxy believes in living for wishes of either your next generation or previous generation. People make sacrifices of their own lives for the happiness of their parents and children. I can imagine, how bigger perspective a person can obtain living in these two opposite worlds. This perspective would surely give a person a temptation to discard Indian orthodoxy and live life at own free will. But, on the contrary, I found Indian values so ingrained in her that most people don't have. She was ready to make any sorts of compromises for happiness of her parents.

She came from a hard-core business family who had their traditional business for more than 100 years. Usually, such families don't carry passion for craftsmanship. They give precedence to wealth and luxurious life. They don't even seem to understand meaning of the word "passion". For them, life is all about earning well, have society reputation and have all pleasures of life. Whereas, craftsmanship is about doing one thing over and over again till it gives perfection as output and passion is the enthusiasm to be persistent on this journey till it ends. It was surprising to see her coming from such a background, entering into professional world, valuing her profession so much and carrying it so passionately.

She lives among friends where, everyday, she witnesses her friends going in and coming out of relationships. Vulnerability is the persistent phenomena that most of her friends endure. Loss of self-respect, fall for persuasion, all comes in line being happening and romantic. In this aspect, she has seen everything - loyalty, cheapness, desperation, obsession, sacrifice. Yet, she remains so untouched and so resistant to everything. If, I ever encountered anything contrast to my beliefs, I always found myself carried away in that direction. It had been miraculous to see her rejecting all opposite influences and still holding her grounds so strongly. I have found this strength quite rare.

My world was always uniform. My father is an intellectual person. Value of education and emphasis on work was always there in my family. I always saw my father putting long working hours, not for money, but because of being workaholic and for a little bit of fame. It won't be wrong to say that my whole family was careen orientated. I had no other options except the choices I made. I had to end up in a profession which gives me more satisfaction in its dwelling creativity and appreciation rather than money.

In retrospect, when I think of all the things, I count as my achievements, I did for only one reason, that all those things were tough.  My degree, my career or my mobile applications all are in line to this thought only. Somehow, my perception to differentiate substance from shallowness is based only on this one factor, whether it is in my passions or character. I am appreciated many times in my work but that appreciation never en-thrilled me. Because that appreciation always came out of need rather than gratitude. But praise of many has failed before the stand taken for me by one such girl. It makes all the difference for me from rest of the world.

I think, I finally got it...

Besides having above average mind, smart ones mark their difference from normal people in one more factor : the capability to follow their mind when emotions are overtaking them. Times come when every single bit of your mind tells you that the path you are following will not leave you happy in the end. Even when your experiences advocate that with time everything will change and you will forget almost everything. Your pain would be buried so deep down that you will hardly remember these days ever. At those times, very few are there who can follow their minds.

Even after doing a lot of achievements and earning respect in eyes of many, you don't feel fulfilled and a little importance given by someone makes your day. Your brilliant mechanical mind starts loosing its control. Driving factor of your motivation starts changing and you suddenly starts realizing "Big Truth" of happiness. When you are trying to hangout alone with someone but she asks to hangout in group and you feel sad. When someone is sharing every single secret of her life with you and you are enjoying that special position, but even after months, you realize that you are not at all that special person into her life. When you know that this will not work out at all, no matter how long you wait for her, stop focusing on your career, switch cities for her or stay unconditionally committed forever. Every single day, you are getting very clear signals to withdraw. But, still, there would be very few able to do so, that are the smart ones.

I have finally started understanding the perfect imbalanced world of smart ones. I have finally got, what is extreme happiness of companionship and unbearable pain of separation, happiness and sadness without any tangible gain or loss. I have finally got to understand the difference between smarts' and losers' world. I think, I got to know the world where I belong to.....

Replay of life

I know, it is probably very stupid and more kind of sad to analyze past through eyes of present and look for alternatives. Everyone's past carry something that one can never change but still be sad thinking of it. People always tell to me that they don't regret their past, because they have learnt something valuable from it which helped them a lot in carrying their life forward. I can never agree with this.

Lately, a lot of thoughts are coming into my mind. What, if I have a chance to replay my last eight years again? Would I like them to be as they had been? Would not I like to be friends with some people, I had always been intimidated? It would have been great to know all those people better and get rid of that feeling. May be, I would have changed course of a lot of my actions if that haunted feeling had not been daunting me always.

The best part of the day, I used to like, was evening. I always used to go to terrace or some open place and used to watch setting sun for a while. Then, I forgot all that for a very long time. Perhaps, I could have stopped for all those evenings to give my life a little perspective. I would not have forgotten all my passions and life had been dwelling in little romance. I would have liked to explore the opportunities to break my heart and feel the pain. That notion itself, had been very stupid and non-sense to me so far, but suddenly, nothing seems stupid to me. Probably, at the point I find myself today, any step doesn't seem wrong. Any step would be taken from here will add some new experience only. I always had belief that life is all about sum of experiences, and today it feels like that I don't lack anything but experiences.

When you realize that your story of life had been an attempt to put everything right, to choose the right course and nothing else, then suddenly every act of immorality doesn't appear so wrong. All rules, that I had been living in, are just, feel like, taken off and I don't even care for them anymore.

I don't really know how could I end this article. I just wish, to be a spectator for a while, not a player in my life. Just wish to see it passing by without getting involved..... :)

A Myth: Education eradicates poverty

In my country, many middle class young graduates are getting employed and being well paid because they managed to get professional degrees. Since their education helped them to earn their living, they are promptly advocating the role of education in removing unemployment. Many NGOs (UNICEF too) are educating children all over the country and it seems like that it is the main activity on their agenda. Many professionals are joining NGOs for part time and giving their time to educate poor children. The real question here is, it really is the education which will create the job opportunities for the young graduates?

Simple economics explains that consumption in the economy drives the production and production is the responsible factor for creating new employment opportunities. And, the mass consumption simply depends on the purchasing power of the public. Where does education come in this simple explanation? Will educating poor increase their purchasing power? Or, educating poor will increase the competition bar in current employment market? Most of the professionals are earning good living, because they created new job opportunities for themselves? Or, they just got enough educated to beat the competition and get a decent job?

Purchasing power of public means the proportionate or even distribution of wealth in the society. That means no one should be extremely rich or poor. That is not the concept that most of the professionals use to buy today. I have many friends from IITs and IIMs, premier institutes of India. Almost all of them want to live luxurious lives. They share the common idea that people get good education to earn more and more money. If the students getting best quality of education in the country have that kind of thinking then how it can be made sure that giving normal quality education to people will make them contributing in the society? How can it be made sure that they will help in creating the balance of wealth which is the blood line for creating employment opportunities?

I also have a few friends working with CRY (NGO). They have the firm belief that the cause of every problem in India is illiteracy. They are very much involved in helping CRY to educate children of poor. I do appreciate their efforts and gesture. But those are the fellows, who want to earn as much money as they can. All of them want to be rich enough to spend unlimited amount of money on all kind of luxuries. I watch them spending every evening in some fancy branded restaurant, pub, coffee shop or movie theatre. Most of the Brands are brands because some rich can afford to spend a lot of money to make them publicly known. And, spending on those brands is helping the Brand owners to become richer. If a few people are having much more money than many in the society then that is certainly not helping to increase the purchasing power of the society. And, if someone is educating the poor children so that they can get a decent job and on the other hand is a part of the community which is very much responsible to tear down the very essential fabric which creates avenues for employment, then this doesn’t make much sense.

Of course, I don’t mean that education is not an important factor to create a balanced society. But to make everyone just professionally qualified in science or management courses doesn’t fix anything. Some intellectuals give argument, that educating a man can make him aware of government policies or he can be self-employed. That is right and helping but still, it is very little of help. It is like trying to fix a problem without cutting or even identifying the root cause. All that makes sense only when lower class, which consists the largest portion of society, has good purchasing power. Without educating people and making them committed about the economic balance could never bring more avenues of employment and certainly can’t remove poverty.