The Unidentified Road

May 2015, wow! It has been 4 years since that day when my parents asked me if I really wanted to do engineering.

Flashback to 2013, 10^th board results had just dropped in, a lot of people had come by my home in order to cajole me to not take Science and go for Commerce, I sometimes ask myself what if I had listened to them? What if I had not been as adamant as I used to be? But computers, my love for computers and desire to learn as much as I could about them had already taken over all the decision making power I had and had made sure that I chose science for my higher secondary education.

Now for the next 2 years, I was at Allen Career Institute, Kota’s most known and favorite, the institute had decided to expand its operations by starting a new branch here at Ahmedabad and my once upon a time best friend recommended me to join therewith him, unknown to me that asshat had opted for B Group and my love for computers needed me to join A Group, so I had enrolled myself into an institute where I didn’t know anyone and that was a disaster, I was a really shy guy back then, I didn’t even know how to start a conversation (spoiler alert- I don’t know that even today) and I was in a class of more than 60 new faces, that’s when I realized this was not going to end well.

First year at Allen Career Institute with respect to my academic results was a total failure, I failed at weekly exams, I didn’t understand Physics or Chemistry or Maths either, I couldn’t solve simple equations, didn’t understand something as simple as the nomenclature of chemical compounds and my physics was more than just a disaster. By the end of the first year, my parents asked me again if I wanted to change my stream and opt for Commerce, but you know, the adamant me would never listen to anyone and thus I enrolled myself for the second year again at Allen Career Institute.

2014, the second year of Allen Career Institute, one of the best years of my life had begun, no, not because I would have excelled at academics, I failed terribly more than ever before, but because I would meet 2 of my most favorite people in the world, Rushabh & Bhagyesh, technically I had known Rushabh for almost 5 years now, but we grew close here at Allen, and Bhagyesh, I had a Déjà vu when I saw him, he was me at Allen in 2013 but maybe better at making choices. Allen’s academic timings were 3:30 to 8:30, now you can only imagine how much torture that was to our poor little minds, but wait a minute how can that be torture if we had never actually studied, yes! We never studied there, all we did was shake our necks up and down, pass comments, make fun of faculties and their weird accents, in conclusion, we did everything but study. While looking back I don’t remember my score, well there wasn’t anything special about those scores either, I mean why would I remember the tests I had failed? But I remember those days we spent at Allen and augment over those very special moments.

2015, JEE results were out, as expected I hadn’t scored enough to be selected in any good college of Ahmedabad, I was in Coorg, Karnataka having a nice vacation when 12^th board results kicked in, the moment I saw my result, I cried out loud ‘I have passed in all subjects’, now this is the day when my parents finally asked if I really wanted to do engineering, looking at my scores even I knew they weren’t enough to get me in some good engineering college, also by that time I had already appeared for NATA, I had scored 78, short of 2 from getting qualified for getting into an architecture institute. So no to engineering and no to architecture as well, now my maternal uncle happened to be with us and him made me understand a few things that now to pursue engineering as a career would be nothing more than being foolish, I wasn’t qualified enough to be an engineer or an architect, the disappointment panda kicked in, the truth was finally in front of my eyes and that’s when negative self-talk started kicking in “What have you done?”, “Why didn’t you study when you had to?”, “What am I going to do now?”, “Why…What?…Why?...What?”.

Now that everything was clear to me, I had still a choice left to be made, what do I choose as a career, my cousin called me and said that there’s a new course that was going to start at GLS University’s Faculty of Management, an Integrated MBA program, a 5-year BBA-MBA course where no entrance exam would ever be needed for pursuing masters, one of my many fears was gone, after what happened to me with JEE and NATA, a permanent fear for entrance exams had been installed inside my brain, it was clear I had no choice but to enroll for this course, the only thought I had in my mind was that if I opt for this course, I’ll never be able to spend as much time with Rushabh & Bhagyesh as much we did in Allen, this time the fear was an intensity of 10, but then what choice did I have? I asked my cousin to fill up a form for me and thus now began my journey on an unidentified road.

Why is this an unidentified road? Isn’t that obvious, I wanted to learn about computers. Management? I had never thought of that, I didn’t know anything about Accounts or Statistics or Business Administration, it would have been okay if I had skipped some lectures of them during school but hey! I never opted for commerce in my higher secondary education, I was completely blank, a notebook that had never been written in, a pen’s cap that had never been taken off, oh things were so much worse, somewhere I doubted if I should have ever enrolled myself here, this could be Allen all over again, a class of 60 new faces, shy guy, didn’t even know how to start a conversation etc… but then I thought of something, I have already screwed up a lot, how much worse can it get? This is where for only once in my life, I was probably right, I didn’t screw myself ever again, this is where the unidentified road took me to a highway of self-improvement.

If you had met me 4 years ago, you would have known how clumsy I was, not saying that I am not today but way less than I used to be, and it all started with that one presentation that Prof. Pooja Shah made us do, the new product development activity, this time it was real, everyone was my competition, I had to make an impression, I had maybe already put up an image of someone who stammers, but this was the chance where I could finally show who I really was, so I put up all my guts together, go ahead and ask to be the team leader, now I had to stand up to the bar I promised I would set up and at that moment when I was upon the stage, there was an adrenaline rush in my veins, I was scared as hell, but hey I needed to do it and I gave the first ever presentation of my life, that’s it, that’s when everything about being better started, a round of applause, the sound of everyone clapping their hands for what I had said on that stage, for the first time in my life I was facing an audience like this and I didn’t stammer, I DIDN’T STAMMER, I was amused and confused at the same time, one presentation after another, my group presented so much better and we were always good at setting a bar from then on for others, I had made many new friends, a group of 7. I loved this road now, I had started to realise that this was the road I needed to travel on.

I started getting involved in the Students Activity Committee, again headed by Pooja Ma’am and Amish Sir, faculties started to recognize who I was, this was the attention maybe I was always seeking for and then started the second semester, December 8^th, 2015, I was at Kushal Shah’s home, I get a call from the HOD herself, Dr Kavita Kshatriya asking me to help her with some of IT related work, now she becomes the mentor I always craved for, she taught me almost everything I know today, she was the reason I got so many chances to prove myself and my worth to not others but me, I needed to learn that I could do things I had never imagined possible, it will never be enough, no matter how many times I thank her.

Last year I got selected at SCIT- Symbiosis Institute for Information Technology’s MBA in IT Business Management course, now I could learn about both management and computers at the same time, it was a dream for me, the 2 different roads I had taken in my adolescence were adjoining to the same highway and thus I moved to Pune, spoiler alert, I was back in Ahmedabad within 19 days only. Why? Because I attended the academics there for over 14 days and I never felt like GLS, I didn’t feel those good vibes I used to, I felt suffocated and distressed every time I entered a classroom there or my hostel room, I needed the same feeling I felt at GLS as fuel for myself to run now or else it would really be Allen all over again and I was so much afraid than ever before to fail now. There are 2 people I talked to about my issue there, Smruti Ma’am and Kavita Ma’am, Smruti Ma’am had assured me that everything was going to be okay and I just needed to take some more time, whereas unknown to me my mother had already talked to Kavita Ma’am and when she called me she said and I’ll quote her “Doors of iMBA are always open for you, you can even join after Diwali if you want to.”

And the fear of failure brought me back to the same unidentified road I was once afraid of to travel before but this time I was traveling this road by choice and not out of compulsion. Fear of failure isn’t bad but to recognize whether that failure is going to add up to your success or not is very important, 1 week into GLS I knew this could be the place where I’ll be able to improve myself, whereas 2 weeks at SCIT didn’t make me feel that way and so it was important for me to make a decision whether to stay or not and thus the unidentified road it was.

What actuated me to write this post? One dialogue I heard today while watching TVF’s Kota Factory, “Decision of your parents can be wrong but not their intention”, my parents like any other always want me to succeed and by making me travel this unidentified road the made sure I do in one way or another.

Unidentified roads can scare you a lot, it is your responsibility to choose whether if you want to travel it or not but to be sure you at least need to go few miles ahead before taking a U-turn.

A Theory of Goodness

Have you ever helped someone being disinterested and with a selfless concern for the well being of that person? A past event just popped up in your mind, didn’t it? And it feels good too, doesn’t it?

What I am talking about here isn’t some charity work you did, I am talking about the times when you helped one of your friends, family members or relatives just to put a smile on their face, just to make them feel a bit more cheerful or a bit more happy, this is what all of us want, to make our-self feel better by helping someone else feel better, and it works every time.

From our very early childhood days we are taught to be good to others, we are taught to be kind hearted and never be bad to others, then why is it that sometimes we knowingly or unknowingly hurt few people? Why is it that we feel remorse towards some people? Why is it that sometimes we want to leave them the way they are and not look at what is bothering them? The answer is hidden in our past experiences where we sought to help someone and instead of making us feel good, it made us feel noxious, instead of shrugging away that feeling, we may have chose to keep in our mind as a reminder to what happens when we go out of our way to help others and how it made us feel miserable. That’s the problem with us, we humans hold on to negative feelings more than the positive ones and when we hold on to these negative feelings we find more and more reasons to support our decision, the reasons may be absurd but at that moment of time everything seems to be logical.

Making yourself believe that what you did was right no matter the consequences are good or bad is the most important thing, what you did was in good faith, it’s the fault of the other person who couldn’t understand your actions and who doesn’t understand the importance he/she has in your life, just because of few bad incidents if you choose to keep yourself away from helping others then it is the most irrational decision you could have ever taken as it questions the person you’re letting yourself become because of just a random incident that took place and that too wasn’t your fault, if you did it in a good faith, that’s all you need to keep in mind. Something that you need to keep in mind is that maybe out of 100 times you did something to make someone feel better, it is possible that all of those 100 times you made the right decision and exceptions are really rare.

Something I remember from my childhood days are the animated series I used to watch and in most of them no matter what the consequences were the protagonist of the series would never back down, one of the best examples is that of Optimus Prime the leader of Autobots and centre of the Transformers series, Prime’s values and thoughts are that of a perfectly good being, no matter how many times he was let down by his team members, he stood up for them, no matter how many times his values were challenged, he always stood by them too, that’s what a really good human being should do, ignore the faults of others and accept the good in one’s self and maybe that is what we all need to inculcate in us.

‘I am Good’, that’s the only positive self-affirmation we ever need to be good, not just to others but to ourselves too. This affirmation has multiple meanings, it can be interpreted in multiple ways but when thought of, it holds the same meaning you want yourself to believe in and that's what the theory of goodness is all about.

An Insight To The Inside

Have you ever growled and howled from inside? Like there is this another person inside you who wants to clean your surrounding by effacing those who hurt the ones near to you, those who belittle, disrespect and demean the ones you care about. How do you control your rage when everything you care about is being ebbed and you stand there still not being able to do anything?

We never really want to hurt anyone, all we want is to make them feel the same way the ones we care about felt when they got hurt. All of us keep a list in our mind, a list which is composed of names, the names that once crossed the line and messed with the ones near to us. The people in the list don’t understand the way we feel, the way the ones they messed with feel, not every joke they make about someone is a joke, a joke they made about someone may be disturbing enough to snap them out of sanity. There’s always a dark side to all of us, the side that none of us wants to embrace because what it brings will always be chaos to us as well as the ones who hurt us or the ones we care about.

It has been much on what if someone hurts the one we care about or someone who is near to us, but what if the person we cared the most about hurts us or leaves us in between of a pathway surrounded by mist?

How helpless would you feel when you lose the person you cared the most about just because they didn’t make the right choice, just because they were selfish enough to maintain their fanciful status quo, just because they wanted to be that sheep in the herd who never realized it was surrounded by wolves. You’ll always keep reminding yourself of the wrong choice they made, the choice that snatched away everything from you. But never forget that the ones who left you were no more than a sheep disguised as wolf too, they’ll soon realize your importance and when they do, they’ll crave to be back with you but now you’ll need to make the right choice and let them go, they’re not the same now as they were before, they have changed and such changes are accompanied by harmful repercussions.

When surrounded by mist all of us search for someone who’ll guide us though the correct pathway, the pathway that will lead us to the inside of our own self and when we reach our destination we’ll realise that the mist was just an illusion we created so that someone could hold our hand and drag us away from the irrational reality, but is it the right choice? Shouldn’t we be the one leading ourselves? The person who guided us will always be there to help us in the most adverse situations but the one leading our way through the mist must be us.

An Introvert's Tale

What I am going to say today can be related by almost every introvert and almost all of us have a friend in our clique who is an introvert but wait, am I being paranoid? I always want to keep myself away from people, though my emotional void for presence of those who I want needs to be filled, I always try to skip the quick touch whenever it is involved and get into a conversation as soon as possible. I’ve always hated a quickly ended conversation because it doesn’t allow me to connect to someone and also there are reasons they end soon after they start. The most common reason? I run out of topics to talk, I rely on the latter to be the one who drives the conversation but not everyone sees this the same way as I do. People think I talk less because I am shy, damn I am, I have always had problems connecting with people because of which there are only few friends that I’ve, but once I connect with them, there’s always an attachment involved, few of which have gifted me with a lot of sleepless nights and taught me to look at the world with a larger perspective.

I am not going to lie, I have a very rigid mindset and I’ve abstained myself from getting into environments and people that force me to change the way I am, only one person has ever been able to challenge me enough to push me out of my comfort zone and helped me define myself in a new way.

I, who was shy and introvert till 12^th transcended into being an ambivert only after few months of stepping into college, knowing no one there I had to start from scratch and make new friends. Whoa! That was hard for me but soon those people filled the void that I always carried with myself. Trips, Treks and Tours with those people made the best part of life I had till now. Fast forward into the last year of bachelors’ degree, I made few newer friends, one of which is someone who I had never imagined would gain so much importance in my life, someone who called me a best friend, hadn’t had heard that word from anyone for me for few years now and here we are now sharing everything with one another; useless talks, problems, solutions, gossips and many more things. That’s what an introvert really needs, someone they can talk to, someone who trusts them, someone who they always want to care about, someone who will create a new kind of void and can only be filled by that same person.

Over the years I have made many decisions, some that I am proud of and some that make me feel sorry about myself but every of those decisions are connected and make me who I am. An introvert doesn’t want lot of people in their life, only a bunch that can be counted on fingers, but once the introvert connects to them, the introvert makes sure that those people receive the best of everything he/she can offer. Know that introverts are fiercely loyal when they trust someone and they expect the same in return. Always understand that introverts don’t let many people in, so you must be pretty important to them if he/she is willing to spend their time with you.

Pen & Life

Have you ever imagined if there was this one instance that had never happened in your life? Your life would have been completely different and maybe better. Of course, if you do, you would be fixating up on your past and letting it torment your present.

But what if the events had turned out the way you wanted? Are you sure things would have been anymore different? Even if they had turned out the way you wanted, would things have been better than they currently are?

Let’s pull an analogy between a pen and our life, a pen can be used to write whatever we want, but the things we write are always driven by our emotions and our needs to fulfil our ideas, just like that our life can be used to do whatever we want but we are also driven by our emotions, needs and wants.

The Mask

Have you seen his mask fall off and reveal the true beauty? Have you ever seen a guy open his heart in front of you and shown the tiny bits of his emotions? Have you ever heard about the things that he loves the most and those that hurt him? These pieces are probably the best things to listen to. In this world where they are expected to show their strength, witnessing their vulnerable side is an experience itself.

The way he will talk about what makes him happy with that shy smile and twinkle in his eyes will make you most patient listener in the world. The way he will blush on telling you about the little things he likes about you and the hopes that he has will probably sound better than the sweetest of poetries. The way he’ll brush his hair aside and with a slight smile check your reaction will show his innocence. He’ll hesitate to open up because that is something that he has never done, but when he does, you’ll know what the true definition of a beautiful heart is.

Not only will his hesitant nature be beautiful in its own way but also pure. It will be pure because not everybody would have had a chance to enter his heart. It’ll amaze you when you would know things that he feels and thinks and how pretty they sound. Trust me even the annoyance and hatred that he hold will sound something real when he lowers his voice and keeps his heart in front of you.

It is a rare sight that you get to know about his fears. His fears of failing his people and the fear of losing what he cherishes the most. That fear is a sign of his fragility, those broken lines that allow the light to enter and make life a little brighter. It shows the love that resides in his heart. The best part will be when he will talk about the hopes he has and the dreams that he wants to turn into reality.

What will make you feel happy will be the little things he appreciates about you, little things that make him happy. He may not do this regularly or talk easily about everything that he has in his heart, but when he does, listen. Listen to the lowest of rhythms and sing along every beat.

He may be nervous and have his own fears, but hold his hand and let him know that his heart is the prettiest amongst the art that resides on the planet. Cherish his idea of this vulnerability will make you go weal in the knees and the reason why you’ll want to believe in him, forever.

(Note: Original post by Tanvi Taparia)

Friendship

“Why do you always speak in between and cut me off while I speak? I’ve had this enough already, ascribing the previous time when my best friend decided to keep distance from me, you were one of the reasons too”, “Shut up!” the other girl replied. Yes, I am referring to one of the altercations which happened at my college few days back.

Is to asunder your friendship for one single altercation reasonable? That’s the question which actuated me to write this post.

The upshots of one single quarrel can be adverse and result in to animosity. What kind of friendship do you have if one single heated conversation can asunder your friendship?

A, B, C, D & E, five girls who became friends in the very first week of college aren’t together now. A made a boyfriend in the other class and started hanging out with him. B didn’t come to college most of the time and thus lost contact with her friends. C, D & E are still together but is it enough for them? A has already broke up with her boyfriend and is being abstained by majority of her classmates, people refrain themselves for sitting beside her because of unexplainable reasons, every time a professor allocates a new group project, A has to search out for who in the class are left.

P, Q, R & S, four girls became close friends in second semester. R & S became friends on the very first day of our college whereas P & Q knew each other from their school. The four continued to be friends until something happened in 4^th Semester between R & S, and the so called best friends had split up. They did become friends once again in the beginning of 5^th Semester but the bond between them was never the same again. Few days back P & R engaged in an altercation and it resulted in to another split up. On the contrary, R in the first week of our college's 3^rd Semester was assigned a project with me as a part of orientation, she said “Look at us 4, we haven’t been friends for a year but the bond is much stronger”.

Dressing up and taking selfies isn’t friendship. Standing by one another’s side in trouble times is called friendship. What kind of friendship is splitting up because of misunderstandings?

Even boys are not less in breaking friendships, just because you didn’t like to be around someone doesn’t mean the whole group has to do the same. I’ve seen a lots of friendships breaking up in last 2 years, the biggest group of my class which used to consist of 12 people has now split up into different small groups, I used to consider that group the apotheosis of friendship, whole group standing up for one guy at a really adverse situation isn’t a small thing, though they still are friends but have the bond remained same?

For a person like me who always had hard time finding and making new friends, it feels bad when such things happen to people around you who were once happy having the company of each other.

As someone would say ‘Friends are the family you choose’, then why break that family? Stand beside one another when it is necessary. Stop finding of what kind of advantage would you have if he/she was your friend? Be who you are, don’t change yourself for your friends because if your friends are asking you to change yourself just because they can have a good impression in front of others, you really need new friends.

At the same time even you need to understand what your friend thinks about you, he/she may not always want to do whatever you want or may not want to accompany you in several things. Just because he/she has his own different choice doesn’t mean he/she is trying to ignore you. These little misunderstandings asunder you from your friend. Never let you true friends leave you, try to understand what they expect from you and how you can meet those expectations. In near future you may not have someone to share your feelings with but a good friend would always be there to stand by your side, listen to your problems and help you to solve them.