what an article by rohit...awsome..keep writing bro..

I messed it up, did you?

by Rohit Paul on Friday, October 1, 2010 at 8:11pm

  

I stepped into the college disappointed of having to come so far away from home.Not that I was a mama's boy,it was just the effect my home city had on me. I never wanted to breathe outside the fresh(read polluted) air of Delhi.It has this magic in it which one can only try to put in words.It was hard for me to forget the roads I took to go to school,visit different market places,my relatives and most importantly my Eng.Entrance Exams Coaching Center.I would travel all the way from West Delhi to North Delhi every alternate day to fulfill my dream of getting into a top eng. colg -An IIT or an NIIT or DCE.

I had been an average student before that getting scores of 32 out of 40 in my sessional exams from 5th to 9th standard.Some how they are just rated average in those classes.Managed just a 72.2 per cent in my 10th Board Exams and ever since whenever I have been asked about my 10th percentage,I have included that 0.2 after the decimal places without fail.I thought I had earned it like anything.But after 10th,it was time to do something big.I use to hear about these IIT guys,how their parents were so proud of them and how they were considered a big success in their lives.There is the chance I said to myself.I had things lined up for me pretty clean.What subjects you want to take after 10th Boards? Sciences,I replied.Sure? Was never this sure ever before,i replied.After all who would miss the opportunity of a possible fame coming his way.Of course I had not studied the term called probability up till then.It's a subject taught after 10th standard though i strongly recommend otherwise so that I could have implemented it in my general life.

So here was my chance to remove the "average tag" which,for me, was becoming a heavy thing to carry on.Life is tough in India with that tag,trust me.Your mother might miss on giving you any other news from the society but not about other children topping in their exams and a far-related cousin who got into IIT.I never remember my mother telling me-hey the boy in the neighborhood flunked in his exams or got into a not-so-good college.Where are these average students.Where do they live I have no idea.I kept waiting for them to move into my neighborhood or at least in my society from the time i started my schooling.They never came.So that tag had to be removed and taking science was the only possible way out.And to add to it ,the fact(acc.to me at that time) Commerce and Arts students are not considered intelligent,so my choice became just more obvious.

Traveling on bus to my coaching center,I would dream of getting into IIT.Hopes were high and passion touching sky.Time passed and I moved into 12th Standard.My dream remained the same.Well,almost the same.The IIT thing changed to DCE.I was intelligent enough to realize that IIT was a distant star.Nevertheless DCEians have no less reputation,I thought to myself.Well,as my brain was occupied with mechanics,newton laws and wondering why studying organic chemistry was important if I dream to become a mechanical engineer,my heart was experiencing new things.It had its own dreams and was busy planning a love story.After all I was in the 5th year of my teens.I claimed to be madly and deeply and truly in love with a girl I had hardly talked to.Where did i meet this girl? Of course my coaching classes.Where else do we meet these girls we fall in love with? They have to be in our school,or coaching classes. College was still an year away from me at that time.All i knew was there was something different about this girl.Never saw her laugh on silly jokes,her eyes behind her glasses were so focused on her register she brought for making notes and on the  black-board. Meanwhile I had to now manage focusing on three things now.The register,black-board and her.So my work increased by a percentage of 50even without my brain's accepting it.My heart had taken this decision on its own being brutally cruel to my brain and not thinking of the load it's suffering already.But anyways they had to be in sync with each other to survive in a single body,so they did.Who compromised? The answer is obvious.I don't need to mention that.

I wrote my board exams.My engineering entrance exams followed soon.Did I do well? Well my question back to you is - have you ever seen a broken-hearted lover doing well in his exams? Neither have I. They just make great poets.Not great engineers.But to blame it entirely on the heart would be like taking a revenge from it for all the past troubles it had landed me into.My brain and the justified "average-tag" up til then,was also to do with my average results.IITs, NIITs, DCE. I got into my 4th best dream university.PTU.Yes PTU. Didn't I mention about my 4th dream university earlier? Oh,I must have forgotten or you must have skipped,read it again :)

So I entered my engineering college in Ferozepur with the growing in size "average-tag" attached to me, broken in love,away from the roads traveling on which my heart and brain,both had some purposes dreaming about the excellent results and a perfect love story.
Weak after I entered the college,lightning struck that left a message in my head that mechanical is not all about Mechanics-my most favorite subject in Physics-there is much more to it.I chose to become a software engineer changing my field from Mechanical to Comp Science.The 1st year was a repeat of what was already studied in 11th and 12th standard.Probably they came to know we never did it with much success so they had it ready for us again in the 1 yr.But I wonder why they include it in IIT's as well?At least they are the guys who managed to do it thoroughly in the first go itself.Anyways those were issues people responsible for our education system needed to ponder over.I had my own bag full of worries to worry about.

My new one being if I ever wanted to do Engineering?No no,the question was not "comp science eng.",this time, it was just "engineering". That's what hits you the hardest.Taking all those competitive exams,preparing for two years,brain in search of finding the easiest way to remove the "average-tag", not only failing in your attempt,but realizing after couple of years that you never wanted to have the thing you were fighting for.It's like a child compelling his mother to buy him an ice-cream.And as he tastes it,he realizes he does not like the flavor.He goes for a change of flavor.As he licks this one,he realizes he is in trouble.It's not the flavor,it's just the ice- cream he  doesn't like.He just got to finish it of in 4 big bytes.The first year,second year,third one and the best of the bytes-the fourth year.How could he not like the ice-cream he wonders while taking those big uncomfortable bytes.Everyone likes it.He is suppose to like it.It's every child's dream to lick an ice-cream.Is there something wrong with him?He tries to like it but finally gives up and aims at just completing without any unwanted delay.After all,you don't want to take a fifth byte,do you?

The first two years passed quickly.There was a silence in the air of Ferozepur which I started to like.It was completely opposite to what we experience in Delhi i.In Delhi you have to go lock yourself in a room to not to hear any sound and here in this place you have to move all the way out of the campus to hear a sound.That too if any vehicle is passing at that moment.It wasn't necessary.On that silent highway,a truck or a Punjab Roadways passes all of a sudden at a speed of70-80km/hr making a big passing noise for a second or two similar to a strong wave that breaks the long silence at the sea-shore.

Sharing-autos have different names in different places.The name given to it in Ferozepur and in most of the Punjab is Tam-Tam.They offer you the cheapest travel.You could go from our college campus to cantonment area by paying just mere Rs 5 and if you wish to have a look at the city you are just required to pay Rs 5 more.Sometimes i felt like paying the auto walas more but then I thought of the times I had been looted by the auto walas in Delhi.Paying 50rs for 5kms there and 5rs for the same distance here,it's a neutralizing process in which I decided not to interfere.

Time passed by and I just tried to enjoy the scary ride knowing at the back of my mind that it will end shortly and there is no point being scared now.After puking once in the beginning of the ride - failing in Engineering Drawing -I was successful in getting off the ride without any further dizziness.Fortunately or unfortunately I had an offer letter from a Software Company waiting to give me this king- size treatment in their beautiful campuses across the country when I passed out of the college.I got lured.Jumped on the luxury and the disaster was on its way.From choosing sciences at the age of 15 to working as an IT engineer at the age of 24,time has traveled fast.Almost 10 years and my decision seems to stick to me like a glue.And I look back remembering my illusions about love and other subjects apart from sciences.How I misunderstood my school days infatuations to be love.How I just cared about removing that "average-tag" as soon as possible.Not knowing that I was doing everything opposite to what actually was required to remove it.

Now when I look back I realize that it's not about seeing the world from people's eyes.It's about seeing it from your own ones.Because your eyes may discover something that world couldn't discover till now.And oflate I discovered that I like the hot Gulab-Jamuns and not the cold ice-creams.