Aah!! I miss it!! but,

Hi!! In a month ago's post I had written, things have changed. I meant, I am going to have to leave aarambh. About aarambh (www.aarambhiitkgp.com). There were few reasons... the main not being acedemic one...yeah! But, there was this academic reason too - I wanted to take two additionals and wanted to do a project. This was the open reason. The second one was, which is now easy to tell, I needed a serious change in my lifestyle in kgp!! And I had to take efforts in that. I was adjusted in kgp in a very weird way.... I wanted to be more comfortable in this place to work more efficiently. I had to invest time into that and so, I needed time for myself....dunno if I am able to tell it properly or not...whatever... So, the thing is today I miss it!

I have missed aarambh quite a few days since I left it. But today, one of the members came to me to collect JGW money (it is one of the campaigns... for details visit aarambh site.) and i felt so bad..ouch! Last year, I had done that for our hall. I do have a sense of belonging towards aarambh but, i had no option at that time. I had given a good amount of thought into that decision. I do not regret leaving it at that time and i don't know if i feel like joining it back which is not feasible given current conditions i guess..... but yea, I think I left it in wrong way. I had option to continue by working less than other people but I knew that would not help me. I needed the complete freedom to do whenever and whatever i wanted. Now, that half the semester is done, I am done with my adjusting thing. One of it was writing!! I write on blog without caring who all or none would read it...i don't care. It's just to let my thoughts flow outside and they might happen to help someone someday in any damn little way. I don't share (I mean most of the times) the link anymore!! :D I write for myself! I am really happy at kgp. Making crafty stuff, reading things... its just as I wanted it to be!! I learnt this adjustment stuff from my co-interns at IIT Chennai and it is helping!! I wonder how I failed to see this for two full years!! Thanks!!
Working with aarambh was awesome!! The team was good too. I had tremendous amount of satisfaction in that. It was a new organisation but still I was proud to be a part of something like this. It gave me insight to different ideas people think of and mainly of how one should think of realizing the ideas in their heads! How one can get the other to work or noble cause. How everyone (yes, literally) supports the thing you do although they don't consider doing it themselves. It is very nice to give something back to the society and I owe that opportunity to aarambh. I could do that in my teenage to certain extent!! 

I feel sorry that I had to give it up...but that too was for my good and unfortunately, even thought you don't want to be selfish, there are times when you need to be one and that time, just keep aside the criteria of 'what others think' etc. One thing I learnt from this, may be I could have told them the real 'personal' reason and then had a sort of deal with them... but, I did not find any of them close enough. I will use this in coming things and will have more coordination with co-workers wherever I land up.

Languages... wish there was just one language for all

Hi! 

How you doing? I will like to give some updates before I proceed to what I actually want to write today. Summer vacation is over and its been a month since we came back to kgp. Its all good. Things change and so do we. So, this year is gonna be different, I now know what I want to after graduation and so, it seems comparatively easy. :) Okay... so lets go to the topic!

The Indian census of 1961 recognised 1,652 different languages in India. And world has nearly 6700 languages... most of them spoken only by community of less than 1000! Even if we leave these languages aside, there remain many languages which people have developed, gone deep inside and have expressed their best thoughts and feelings. What is bad in having such a huge number of languages is people miss out on so many damn things!! It feels too sad to see others and yourself miss out like this. I learnt or, say felt it strongly when I was in chennai... Here is the incident -

I was in chennai for internship, and had a Malayali co-intern. She was from kerela and for graduation, staying in chennai which is again full of people knowing her language. She never came across other languages except a bit of english which was only langauge we communicated in. She did not know hindi and of course there was no chance of her knowing my mother tongue - marathi. I din't know hers either. One nice rainy night, I was listening to Kishore Kumar songs, she entered my room. I was smiling thinking nothing but the meaning of that beautiful song! She asked me why was I smilling? I told her that the song completely gave me some kind of feel. She asked about it. I explained her the meaning. She liked it and smiled too! I was kept thinking and felt sad - damn! She is missing all lovely songs by Kishore Kumar, Gulzar, Javed Aktar and many many more who put more meaning to the music. Who made it simple for us to understand lives. She missed out all these nice songs. I couldn't help myself and ended up telling her meaning of nearly 10-12 good Hindi/ Marathi songs. She started wishing she knew hindi and to my surprise, Marathi too! I thought, may be we don't miss out because, every language has such songs and may be they are similar in meaning. I asked her to explain me meaning of some Malayalam song. She did it. That song was beautiful too. I asked for one more. And we continued... 

But, then I realized, every culture is different and so are thoughts of people with different culture. Each language definitely has some unique beauty to express certain feelings which to not give same impact after there best translation too. May be it does not matter much as there are many other things to do in life but, it is all sad!! We do miss out on something. Each language has its own beauty and you can understand it only when you know the language. I felt very strong about things she missed by not knowing hindi and marathi and what all I missed not knowing Malayalam(first time in my life I had such a respect and desire to know some South Indian language) and of course I could sort of imagine how much more we were missing out together not knowing any other language of the world enough to understand it's songs and literature. 

4 Be$T fRieNd$ :-) (you were always there... i am there too)

When needed someone
You where there,
When felt depressed and alone
you made me realise you care;

When I stood alone
You stood along with me,
When needed a company
I always found thee;

When I shared a secret
You always kept it,
when things seemed dark
you did not let me worry even a bit;

When I needed someone
you were always there,
dear friend, just want you to know
i too will always be there... for you. 

They too want it coloured!!

 

                                      Here, I am speaking as a member of Aarambh (www.aarambhiitkgp.com ), IIT Kharagpur and thats because it helped me to get this kind of experience! We had a drawing competition for Children from Deesha Seema School, which is a residential school but hardly has facilities required and the kids need someone to provide them  with stationary and give them opportunity to showcase their talents. They were all fascinated by little things like colours we gave them and pencils as well (!!) ‘coz they got one per person which is rare to happen in their world. They all were eager to put their imagination on paper and the way they did it, made me realize that the imagination is wonderful gift mankind has and although they have lack of many things and limited access to the world, they don’t lack imagination.  They too dream of a large house, sporty car and beautiful backyard for their future!! It was very disturbing to come out of that drawing sheet and realize the reality which tells that very few of them will actually be in sound economic condition in future if their education system and limited access to the world remains same. I felt extremely helpless. All these colourful drawings on paper, which were a direct reflection of their dreams and thoughts, will they be able to colour them actually in LIFE? There was a girl, she knew me because she was in my group for a museum visit which we had for them few days before this competition and was in standard one. The competition was only for class 4^th and above. She was quite till elder kids were drawing, but later when they started colouring, she kept telling me that she too wanted to draw and colour! I tried my best to explain that she was small and we will give her a chance when we come next time. She was in no mood to understand, she told me she cannot wait! She knows that it will take a lot of time and she really feels like using those new colourful crayons!! I could not help giving her a page from notebook (we had limited sheets) and she did not care that her paper was not same as others. In few seconds there was a group of children telling us how they also wanted to draw and colour. It was possible and very easy for us to allow them realize their imagination and dreams on paper but as we all know its not that easy in real life. We need full society to make each one realize his/her dreams. The whole experience told us that they too dream like us. Some dream even bigger than we do!! Yeah! They too want a colourful and happening life! They have not seen the world and have no idea where they stand. We are the ones who know it and as a society, we are the ones who can help it! Help them guys in every way you can. I never went so close to life of needy people…not even kids. Had only heard and just knew. This was first time I could read what they are thinking and this is all I felt. Get into their life and it will make a way better for them.  So, when possible go with all colours you have and fill their colour box….’coz they are capable of and have right to – colour their life!! 

P.S: bahut tempo me and feel ke sath likha hai... so excuse me for grammatical errors.

Dedicated to all kgp friends -

This is dedicated to all my kgp friends on account of friendship day.....friends who make life here so beautiful...:) Thank you !! And here goes the poem -

Life is not all straight… but you make it almost right,
Mornings are always lazy… your company makes them energetic and bright

At all times mess food is highly unpalatable…
but a small talk over table makes it eatable

Put so many alarms and yet need each other to wake us up,
need each others motivation even for a bath;
ping each other within 5 mins of saying real 'bye' to ask a virtual 'wassup?'
always their there for each other standing 'hath in hath!!' (no rhyming word found for bath :P)

For early morning lectures and all 'm too lazy
but when you sit besides, it makes things easy

'Load' uploads homesickness… you come and unload the' load' itself
 Temper is few times sky high… you bring me back to myself

Sometimes, I need company and someone to talk
you come along and 2.2 we walk

You get bored and hungry just when I do
and then together to veggies/eggies we move!!

Thanks for being great friends in every way
Wish you a very happy friendship day!!

Here comes next JEE..in no time.

 'Fly in the plane of AMBITION & Land in the airport of SUCCESS...Luck is ur's, wish is mine...May ur future always SHINE..Best of luck for THE exam.'

'On tides high we try to sail, smtyms win smtyms fail; toiling @ nyts, praying for flights; now's the time…give JEE the bestest way, everything else keep at bay. Best of Luck!!'

             Wow!! What a feeling on reading these smses. They are still in inbox… they are there just b'coz they were sent to me just before THE (12^th April '09) day. When went back to them to send sms to few friends who will give JEE this year and remembered those JEE days. The ones before JEE. Great days they were. I learned maximum about science (this has to be there), about life, determination-dedication and hard work. And also to dream in real sense. To dream a dream that is realistic (not a fantasy), can be achieved but needs many things in return, and the desire to live it makes you do everything for it. Sacrifice everything you can. In those two years, everything that came our way, was ultimately related to JEE and IIT by us somehow. Even the songs I liked listening to in 12^th were mostly motivating songs like - ‘Chak de India’, ‘ashaye khile dil ki’, ‘kandho se milte hai kandhe’… and few songs which I liked for their music and lyrics were also related to that feeling and Yogic zone experience of preparation days. While listening to them now, get that feeling….wow! It's great!  Every night before sleeping, used to see the picture of IITB in front of my eyes (yeah…IITB but let me tell you I'm happy in kgp too… J don't know how it would have been in Bombay but it does not even matter now). Whenever went online, by default visited sites of IITs and JEE preparation institutes. Nothing came over IIT-JEE preparation unless and until that thing was really very important.  Life revolved around IIT and JEE. Any damn thing related to IIT, any news…even bad news (like reservation for teachers), seemed to motivate to study. The reasons mainly being - motivation was overflowing from within and second-the news was never on pages except first/second…, whole world seemed to care what is happening with IITs. I miss those days… that yogic zone, that level of motivation, that strong desire to achieve something and real uncertainty of clearing JEE but in mind very clear that you ….chilling nah?..... Wish that there was a time machine which would take us into past without changing realities and without taking any of our today's time. 

I thank everyone who made those two years of my life so interesting and ultimately secured and happening life now.

Now, again this year, lacks of students are going to appear for so called toughest exam on earth and few will clear it and get passport to explore what they dreamed of 'IITs' and also miss their JEE preparation days. Whatever, Best of luck to them all and also will tell what my sir always used to say - ‘Dekho bachho, tension mat lena, Jitna ata hai, aaram se karke ana. JEE nikal lete ho… badiya hai. Nahi nikalte ho… aur bhi bhadiya hai.’

Jao. Jang jit ke aao. BEST OF LUCK!!  or better take,  BEST OF EVERYTHING!! YO!!

Dedicated to B-16

Yesterday was our hall day and in the morning when we were just thinking how to decorate the room, felt the sence of belongingness towards the room and ended up deciding to dedicate something to my room as dedicating something gives you the feeling of giving back something to somebody, being really grateful to thing/person for being there for you. So, wrote a poem for my room and here it goes - 




On coming to kgp,
had tempo to enter my hall;
but room at first site,
was 'phenolic' and too small;
                                  then learned it was for two,
                                  meaning I had to share;
                                  exsistance of room itself seemed great,
                                  to expect 'OK' things one should not dare;
life then started at kgp,
lectures, cycle, tempo and fundae invented;
room earned the sence of belonging,
to change it or 'do something' we no more intend;
                                   Its not always well arranged,
                                   our small but cozy den;
                                   we lay in load and peace here,
                                   enjoy cold, sun and rain;
Sometimes sad, sometimes happy,
we fight, we cry, we laugh;
we now know - yes, its 'phenolic', its small,
but however it is, its homely enough.

                                    
P.S.: phenolic means it smelled of phenol the day we arrived and it gave a very bad first impression.