Friends will be friends

As we all are at dénouement of our education, ready to catapult to new heights, new glories of an exciting career ahead, we do leave few footprints behind. IIFT won’t really be remembered in the mind, I still don’t really feel attached to the college and its ambience. Nothing much to write about, lesser to think about. Not many places inside campus which I may cherish few years down the line. Pretty much unlike my REC days whose each location still comes alive to me. Be it canteen, café, srinu’s ciggi point(even for non smokers like me), gardens, acad blocks, admin block, senior hostels, messes I still can vividly remember everything, I guess IIFT would never capture the same, true picture may come out few months down the line .After all we always take things in hands for granted.

But IIFTians would be cherished, Few more than others. Some as close as one can ever be. Some gem of friends. Some get mature and help you get more mature in process. Some oppose your views and help you get stronger, help in strengthening your beliefs and faiths which initially was as strong (or as spineless) as Indian middle order.

Some with whom you can take liberty of getting down right rude. Rude what would sound to others is forthrightness among friends. One does not rate friends but few are much closer than others. Mentioning names would be like praising them, so I won’t name them.

Life goes on and as you part with great chums you always know another wonderful bunch is round the corner………….

Engineering the managers

Ajeet Nazre while addressing the audience during “Al Gore Sustainable Energy Competition” on 12^th of February touched a right chord. After a long time I heard someone whom I instantly liked. But what really spiraled into brooding was his statement “I adore engineers and not managers “.

Circa 2000, few aspiring engineers are being addressed by principal of one of better engineering colleges of India. Yes Mr. Principal your words still keep ringing in my ears. Guess you talked of couple of things. First being how prey become predators ( about ragging and how those “getting ragged” become raggers once they are in second year) and second of course about how India needs quality engineers and how happy he is to address 300 of them. True all four years I was trained to be an engineer and told how India needs roads, Watts of energy, new machines and I loved the attention. Being told that you are “future of India” .

But things go the way they should or should not. I cant comment on that. Engineers who should build India and specially the better engineers one from IITs/RECs are the ones violating it. They are the ones jumping the bandwagon of MBAs.

My take on it? We Indians are still in conceiving ideas , we still are far away from nurturing it in a motherly manner. I do adore engineers, I do like managers.

Still I know we produce quality engineers. Managers? We still are chasing the mirage; we are still away from being the best in this breed.

I have witnessed sheer razor sharp brilliance of Indian engineers; I have yet to see brilliant managers, yearn to see them sooner than later.

Pied hues of happiness

As I sit in my cozy chair and wonder aloud what really is happiness? Truth is , we have no concrete answer. And do I really abhor those whose happiness is not similar to me? Answer is staunch no. happened again to me, being direct person that I am sans many layers of diplomacy I ended up being down right rude to some one and of course the person concerned felt the pain. But may be it was because our views clashed and they were as stark as it could be. We both retreated perhaps surrendering our arms before we could hurt each other even more.

May be I am a person of too strong opinions, may be I love confronting uncomforting views, but it is sheer delight to fight them. Try to please one and all and you are grounded. Better voice your opinions and be sounded a “spoiler”.

But that is beauty of life, if they all are clone of me or me a clone of them, world would be so less interesting. World is beautiful as it has so many hues so many shades. I live to have some more fruitful some more “high” interactions.

“Everything still stays gray”

In Awe of Awesome

A beautiful song is being played in the background. Eyes of the lady is being compared to the deep seas. Yes moody and self willed sea. Before you can come up with couple of more thoughts , he blurts out “Awesome”. A single most oft abused word. No I have nothing against the word but I want the users of the word to know that please do differentiate between different degrees of feelings or greatness you attach to different events, different people. Awarding an awesome to everyone is like awarding a gold medal to one clocking 20 seconds for a 100 meter dash. Before the word means everything and loses its charm. Lets put a moratorium on it and use it when it only warrants it. Needs few examples? Cross court shot of Federer . Ball by Warne to get Gatting clean bowled in famous Ashes Test. Poems of Keats. Delivery by Al Pacino in “Scent of Woman” . beautiful articles by Guha, Beautiful Snaps by Rai. But terming every second thing awesome just takes the aura of the word.

Awful was another awe inspiring word which lost its charm because of overuse.