Twenty Ten !

Here comes the last day. I have a stupid habit of getting emotionally attached with present things. I am still much into with this year of 2010. I feel sort of unhappy to say Goodbye to 2010, then cherish up for coming 2011. Even 2010 look far better in eyes than 2011. Anyway, things come and go and this is life. 2010 was sort of wonderful experience for me. It was incredibly by far best year of my life. I am in habit of putting up all nuisances that comes to my mind in this space. Just of a note of caution: Reader may sacrifice their wonderful time over this post and may miss once Sheila ki Javani on their Tele-Set. Choice is yours - Go Ahead or Jump Backward.

Well, I begin now. The introduction was intended to move non-enthu Juntu out of my wonderful space-time of bytes of memories. It’s not every day Gaurav exercise his keyboard for blogger space, so I promise you will find something interesting here.

This year, 2010 started with a night out at Marine Drive and Juhu Beach (yeah, New Year 2010 celebration). Not much to say about it, but it was just an experience of crowded Mumbai. New Year eve is damn crowded all around in Mumbai. January was awesome, full of surprisingly good unexpected news. Amazing was techfest time and then some quiz hassle.

February: Midterm time. 6th semester had just started, but semester soon caught momentum. Just after midterms, I decided to go home. Well, reached home without any prior notice and left everyone to surprise. But it was only 1 day trip; I had to soon leave back for college.

Then came March, CFD assignments was all I did. I will never forget those frustrating coding stuff that took weeks to debug. But really its joy and fun, once code works. Yeah, we did succeed in solving all problems. Later, I had a wonderful trip to Kapshi village. Bit traveled this month.

April fool time - I am already a fool, so no point fooling me. It was final semester exam time. But visa stuff was all in my eyes. I just wanted time to flee up. It was most hectic time ever. After exams, I had just 3 days to pack up for a new adventure - Miles away! I did a lot of shopping in these 3 days. Travelling bags, utensils, food for 3 months, clothes etc. Perhaps, in haste purchased half the clothes of wrong size. It’s difficult to get packing done for a long journey without parents help.

May 1st - All set to fly for Canada. I was going for a 10 week summer internship at University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Yay!. My first flight in life, that too international. Mumbai chhatrapati shivaji airport trilled my eyes. Jesus! What all awesome stuff mankind has created on this planet? Anyway, I said goodbye to my motherland, India. I had some connecting flight from Frankfurt. Finally I reached Vancouver. Travelling by air is very comforting and peaceful. It’s more difficult to travel 20 km in crowded Mumbai local trains, then 20 thousand miles by air. Frankfurt and Vancouver Airports were utterly awesome.

I was there in a completely new continent. Bit scared at first, but soon got used to the new place. Jetlag for few initial days. A big new country to explore. We utilized every weekend to reach every possible corner of this new land. I had a feeling - It’s time to explore now or never. So I did, travelling around Canada. Discovered places like Victoria, Tofino, Whistler, Vancouver, Toronto, Niagara. Also, I learned to cook. I used to make very delicious Dal. But, always followed wrong procedure to cook rice. Fired microwave once. Anyway, cooking was fun. Also, had a lot of pizzas and bread. Sometimes, laziness won over my empty stomach. Maggie helped to substitute for meals, many a time.

Adventures of Ziplining at Whister, Jetlag at St Andrews, Lunch at Sushi, walks of Stanley park, Ultimate Wave Tahiti at Omnimax Theater, Free Strawberry at McDonald, Illegal fire at Wreck Beach, Waitress of Sandman Hotel, Iron Man-2 at Scotia Bank Theater, Canoeing at Jericho Beach, fishes of Stanley Park Aquarium, Evening with a Canadian family, tales of a Canadian Soldier who had been to Afghanistan, 16km walk in the shades of lynn Valley, hiking Grouse mountain - highest point in Vancouver, Jug Island, 19 presentations in 10hrs, airG tour, EA games industrial tour, Gondola Ride, Ferry Joy Ride, Camping near tofino beach on a rainy night, iphone, ATM delivering only coke, CN Tower, amazing Niagara Falls, relaxing Toronto Island, downtown Toronto, MITACS workshops and Lab Simulations running for days. What a time that was!

After these 85 days package, I had to leave for India. It was ending of July, 2010. Back to Mumbai. At once, I just wanted to go home. Udaipur for just 2 days and back Mumbai. Time went on. 7th Semester seemed somewhat peaceful then other semesters. But in the end, it doesn't matter. August, September were just another months. Midterms and busy life of IIT seemed to have taken me back. Mid-Sept: travelled to Matheran, a hill station near Mumbai for a weekend. Soon some unexpected set of events and got a bit disturbed ~ family stuff.

October Sky: nothing much; traveled to a village called Vihigaon. This time DG cam helped me taking a lot of pictures and store in my memory drive. All through the year, I had a major responsibility of running NS 101 and NS 102, which I loved to do.. just had to compromise a few grades. This stuff really fascinated me and kept me busy like hell. But, yeah I loved what I did. I did re-structured the entire course. Thanks to support of a dozen people in my team. Home Documentary session in IRCC, Campus School Volunteering Programme, Interactive Session with Madam Vidya, NSVK volunteering Program, Salvation Campaign, Trip to Vihigaon, music session by madam Vidya at Dhrupad Sansar, Soft Skills Training by Madam Shyama, many meetings, infi mails: slowly all these are helping me in improving my managerial skills. It really takes a lot of dedication to make every event a success. Yeah, we failed many times..But there is always some hope.

November was yet another month. Busy with exams, projects and assignments. At last semester ended. I was so exhausted and went straight home then.

December: Chilled at home. Did some cool stuff? Painted rooms, Enjoyed ghar ka khana ... I could not even realise how fast 25 days at home had gone. Was not much willing, but came back Mumbai to spend last few days of this year. Recently I traveled miles in Arabian Sea - to the caves of Elephanta.

This Year was very happening. I found very wonderful friends who supported me every times. Loneliness kills me .. but few kept me alive, even when I was miles away from home. They will hopefully my friends forever. It takes a lot of experience to care for people. I also realized there is always hope and one should not lose faith easily. Many say I have changed a bit - I still wonder of them. Anyway, thanks all for being part of my life in 2010. Life to chalti rahti hai, Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham !

A little smile, a word of cheer, a bit of love from someone far, a little gift from one held dear, best wishes for the coming year... Happy New Year 2011

Everyday I want to fly, stay by my side
Everyday I want to dream, stay by my side
Every morning I wish I could just play
Wish the mornings would just stay…..

Last five years of my life (05-09)

Well I am not writing here to impress you with some impressive piece of writing nor going to tell you some amazing stories, what you will find is the plain text of words that has ran through me in the last few years of my experience in this wonderful planet Earth. If you are a person who value more the beauty of writing English rather than then its content, then I guess you have ended up at wrong place. So, choice is yours just Go Ahead or Move Backward.

The picture can better be grouped in two separate eras, the school days and then my present college experience. These happened to be completely different pictures of my life. Commercial Break - (It may have seen boring till now, but trust me its somewhat interesting too ...go on reading )

Let me first talk about the school days. I was in St Paul’s school till my 10th standard. The school was quite big, with a large student capacity....lost in crowd....I had my best part of my life here, I found many of my best friends here . From the very beginning I was a dump fool .... do u know (dimelo) I got failed out in my HKG....and which subject “Maths”, my old preserved grade sheets reveals that to me. And then, once again failed in my 2nd class in some other subject, life then went on, days rolled on. Only God knows -how things got entirely changed as time rolled on, years later I found maths, science too interesting.....and in my 10th standard with my least efforts in maths, science I became most successful. Almost the whole class used to go for tuitions, used to solve all Home Work problems, but things were completely different for me I never went for any tuitions, nor did I solved any HW given by my teachers... well sometimes, when my teachers really threatened to kill me for completing the job . I never liked studying languages like Hindi, English which were taught to us in schools, mostly forcefully to me. Studying and cramming the English, Hindi chapters was like rocket science for me. My Argument - Stories should be read, just for leisure and fun, and there is no point I see cramming every instance of these “Chanda mama ki kahaniya” and reproducing them all in answer sheets. I really had a hard time with these (Hindi n English) subjects entirely in my school life. That’s all of acads parts, other than that we had really loads of fun. That was life without any Tension, without any fear and that was just amazing.

After my 10th, I unfortunately landed up in a new school Central Academy, Sector- 5. I joined a coaching institute Career point, Udaipur. It was first time in life tuitions like that had happened to me. Just a dream of IIT, or to get a better college had made me landed in this whole new world (new school and coaching centre). Initially, rather for most of time I believed that I had made worst decisions in my life...I never believed that the stuff, they teach at coaching could ever help me (Well to be honest, most of what they used to say was already before in my head)... I used to believe I had wasted a whole lot of my parents money at this place, and I am soon gonna have a tough time after bunking all schools classes. My new school was in collaboration with coaching institute, so I was allowed to skip as many school classes as I wished.

Let me say a few words about Central Academy. It was a nice school, campus was a bit small but people were very friendly and one more thing it was a co-ed school. I was too shy then. Teachers were too cooperative. I never thought the teachers might be pleasant to a student (me) who rarely attends the school. And from now (11th standard) we had only five subjects to study –Physics, Chemistry, Maths, Economics, English ......well only nightmare was English. I used to open English, Economics books only a night before examinations, and try my best to get passing marks. For other the subjects: Physics, Chemistry, Maths...most of my school exams,even final boards....I appeared without even opening my books or only 5-6 hrs of random sampling of pages of books before the exams. All I needed was to pass in school, as I was pretty sure that school marks and boards grade are never going to help me in my life ,they can must be a matter of a few day’s joy and fame. Preparing for IIT JEE I unknowingly was trained to perform a quite well in all sorts of school and other exams even without a day’s preparation before. Even my school performance did not turned out so bad as I was expecting, I was really quite good, that I had never hoped and imagined. But all this ended up in missing the really fun of school life, I had a very few friends there and time went on monotonously.

And finally the day (April 08, 2007) of judgement (JEE 2007) came, after 6 hours of testing......it was all over. I really screwed my paper. Later I discovered that I had done pretty well, but that was worst of all I had done in last two years. My performance in IIT JEE was just enough to fetch me a good college, but not a good branch. So, at first I decided to drop and try for one more attempt, but because of pressure from relatives and parents I finally have to join in Civil Dept. @ IIT Bombay. From my very first day, I used to believe that something is wrong. I was not meant for that and I don’t deserve Civil. These feelings used to kill me from inside. But after all nothing could be done. There was just a last option... somehow to get a branch change here. Well, its the best institute in country and with best brains gathered together, and it could must be a real challenge to just even think of that. After coming to IIT Bombay, I believe that IQ is an important ingredient of success and some people are really god gifted. I had to come face to face that I was not gifted. Initially, I had a great desire for branch change ...and all that faded out in first few weeks and then I only had a hope that some miracle can somehow happen. After a few midterms’ results, and a bit of disappointment I finally gave up the idea of branch change. Life was going okay, although it seems sometimes was wrong. I Just Keep On Keeping On. Soon the first year was over; time goes on too fast here. I enjoyed three month vacations@ Home. Somewhere, just before my 2nd year was about to begun I got an email that my branch has changed to mechanical. Well, that then seemed to be the most amazing thing that has happened to me in all these years. I was really delighted.

So, second year in mechanical, some excitement in beginning, bit released, acads more tougher than civil, professors much more painful and on top of that worst grading as compared to any other department, had all lead to screwing of my 3rd semester. One more, most important reason, i got my Laptop and iitb DC++ system- plenty of resources to explore, movies, songs, games and at least priority acads. It’s not only fun here but when it comes to cracking exams, people here are far smarter than elsewhere in the world. I soon realized that my previous philosophy of-one branch better than other was totally wrong. Every Branch has its importance., it's just a matter of how you look at things. I would never suggest anyone to give a fight for branch change or anything else like that. I have learned a lesson to be happy with whatever you have and now have a completely new philosophy of living life. My 4th semester was best ever in college, more fun, more movies, more gaming, better grades too ...I wonder how I got better SPI than any other semester before. Now the next only problem is I am not clear of what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. I am jealous of the people who knows early in life what they really wanted to do ......Hope I could figure out my destination in days to come.

That's all for now !!!

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