Raleigh, NC
I haven’t been watching much television lately. I switched on the TV a few days back, tuned in to channel 29 which is CNN here and the first news story was about nuclear security. Fear mongering about how much nuclear material is out there and why you must be worried.
If I go by what CNN says, and make a list of things I should worry about, then the list would be unending. By the time I reach the end of the list, I would not know what to worry about first anymore. Discussions about national security seem to be less about national security and more about internal insecurity.
National security, finance, stock market, health and for that matter anything else. Everything seems to be driven by “sentiment”. I understand that humans are driven by emotions but is there no place for logic in our reactions? A cursory look at history would reveal that lot less people are dying today of diseases or war. USA has faced far more serious military, economic and health disasters than any conceivable problem or threat it faces today. So why this heightened anxiety and the illogical responses to them?
The richer we get, the lesser we seem to have the ability to handle adversity. Sometimes I feel like running away from this all. From this breaking news cycles, from the madness of sanitizers being installed in every nook and corner of my office because of the H1N1 scare, from draconian laws being implemented in the name of national security. Sometimes, I just feel like going some place far from this fear, anxiety and negativity.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
One Lucky bastard
Raleigh, NC
A search on dictionary.com for the word bastard brings up the following
–noun
1.
a person born of unmarried parents; an illegitimate child.
2.
Slang.
a. a vicious, despicable, or thoroughly disliked person: Some bastard slashed the tires on my car.
b. a person, esp. a man: The poor bastard broke his leg.
3. something irregular, inferior, spurious, or unusual.
I am a bastard not in the sense of 1 but in the sense of 2b and 3 (something irregular or unusual not necessarily spurious or inferior).
I say that because the overarching theme of my life has been my strong luck. Things seem to serendipitously fall in my lap when I least expect. So I can say, I am one lucky bastard.
Growing up in India, I never was a hard working student in school. My approach to examinations was that I needed 50 out of 100 marks to pass any exam, so I read 50% of what I needed to read. The day of the exam usually 80-90% of the questions on the test would be from the 50% material I read. Sometimes I would push my luck and laziness a little too far and read only 30% of the material but the result would still be the same!
In India the 10th class examinations which one takes at the end of high school is a stressful situation for a lot of students. Unlike examinations until the 9th standard which is conducted by the individual schools, this exam is conducted by the board of education. One has pass this to enroll for junior college. My brother is 4 years older to me. When he took the 10th board exams, he spent a huge amount of time preparing for it. He would pull out all-nighters and my mom would prepare tea for him to keep him awake through the night. After a game of cricket, I would come back home and make fun of him for his troubles. His reaction, “dude, laugh as much as you want to, in four years time, it’s your turn”.
Four years later when it was my turn, the board of education decided that the curriculum is too intensive and stressful for students. So there was a simplification of the entire curriculum. Add to it my 50% logic, I breezed through the board exams. Growing up, my brother and sister would always complain, “You are so lucky, that it’s just unfair!”.
My brother after his board exams enrolled in a junior college in the sciences stream and decided to take a go at the entrance examinations to various engineering colleges. The same routine followed, all-nighters, mom preparing tea and his frustration at it all. What did I do after my board exams when I enrolled in junior college? I decided my brothers troubles are just not worth it. I am not going for the sciences stream and taking a go at the engineering entrance exams. It’s way too much work and I don’t care about being an engineer anyways. I enrolled in the Math and economics stream. The 50% reading rule continued for two more years in the junior college. My clueless, lazy attitude bothered everyone around me except me. Why should it? The going was smooth for me. I was cruising! Two years of junior college was followed by three years of under grad and some technical training in computer science on the side. The trusted 50% rule did not let me down in those three years as well. To make matters sweeter, I had a girl friend as well!
Finished undergrad, bachelors degree secure in hand, now it’s time to find a job! Everyone around was struggling to land one. I landed an interview from a software company through the technical training institute I attended the previous two years. The questions during the interview? Questions about C++. My answer? I don’t know anything sir and I don’t claim to, but given a chance I will do my best. The result?
I landed that job! The interview seemed to care more about my honesty more than what I actually know or did not know. The next three years I loved that job, lunch breaks was usually spent with my girl friend, disposable income to spend on chai and cigarettes at the numerous “irani” cafes with friends and occasional beer parties thrown in. Even treated my then girl friend to a few fancy romantic dinners. (By romantic, I refer to the dinner, not me). Life was good.
At the end of three years received an admission offer along with a guaranteed loan from a university in the US. Getting admission offers from a US university was the easier part, getting the US visa was the tougher part. What did I do? I applied my mail for the visa when everyone would line up outside the consulate for one. Voila, in a week the visa arrived by mail. That was when I realized the theme of continuing good luck in my life. My brother had a few years earlier got an admission offer from the University of Nebraska at Omaha but was turned down a visa by the US consulate and here I was, never tried hard for anything in my life and things just falling in my lap.
After finishing my Master in the US, I worked for a few years in the IT industry. One fine morning, I was told, “Sorry, we have to let you go. We are cutting your entire division”. I decided to make plans to return to India. I was at a restaurant and I met a guy whom I had seen occasionally at the same restaurant and engaged in small talk. During that conversation, I told him that I was making plans to return to India as I just got laid off. He asked me for my resume. The next week I had an interview call from his organization. After 2 days of interviewing, I had a job offer in hand which paid 15K more than the previous job. Add to it, I received one more job offer in Austin, Texas which paid the same 15K more than the previous job. Around the same time, I even met my now about to be wife. Even accidents do not seem to go wrong with me. After three years at job, the same person whom I met at the restaurant wrote my recommendation letters for the MBA admissions and I now have an admit from HEC Paris with a scholarship.
Why am I writing all this? Recounting my life story, spilling out details of my life which are probably of no interest to most people in the world? It’s because I realized every now and them that we value so little of what we have and strive and pine for things we don’t. It creates frustration, anxiety, stress and all the while we fail to appreciate all the beautiful things that have been given to us, for free. Things which serendipitously fell in our laps, things for which we never had to work hard. From the beautiful lush green trees and the breeze outside my window, to the smooth tasting Yuengling beer in my hands while I am writing this! We are all far more richer that what we actually have in our bank accounts. All this rambling is just an acknowledgement that probably the world has given me lot more that what I ever gave it in return or what I actually deserve and maybe in the future I will be able to correct this imbalance.
A search on dictionary.com for the word bastard brings up the following
–noun
1.
a person born of unmarried parents; an illegitimate child.
2.
Slang.
a. a vicious, despicable, or thoroughly disliked person: Some bastard slashed the tires on my car.
b. a person, esp. a man: The poor bastard broke his leg.
3. something irregular, inferior, spurious, or unusual.
I am a bastard not in the sense of 1 but in the sense of 2b and 3 (something irregular or unusual not necessarily spurious or inferior).
I say that because the overarching theme of my life has been my strong luck. Things seem to serendipitously fall in my lap when I least expect. So I can say, I am one lucky bastard.
Growing up in India, I never was a hard working student in school. My approach to examinations was that I needed 50 out of 100 marks to pass any exam, so I read 50% of what I needed to read. The day of the exam usually 80-90% of the questions on the test would be from the 50% material I read. Sometimes I would push my luck and laziness a little too far and read only 30% of the material but the result would still be the same!
In India the 10th class examinations which one takes at the end of high school is a stressful situation for a lot of students. Unlike examinations until the 9th standard which is conducted by the individual schools, this exam is conducted by the board of education. One has pass this to enroll for junior college. My brother is 4 years older to me. When he took the 10th board exams, he spent a huge amount of time preparing for it. He would pull out all-nighters and my mom would prepare tea for him to keep him awake through the night. After a game of cricket, I would come back home and make fun of him for his troubles. His reaction, “dude, laugh as much as you want to, in four years time, it’s your turn”.
Four years later when it was my turn, the board of education decided that the curriculum is too intensive and stressful for students. So there was a simplification of the entire curriculum. Add to it my 50% logic, I breezed through the board exams. Growing up, my brother and sister would always complain, “You are so lucky, that it’s just unfair!”.
My brother after his board exams enrolled in a junior college in the sciences stream and decided to take a go at the entrance examinations to various engineering colleges. The same routine followed, all-nighters, mom preparing tea and his frustration at it all. What did I do after my board exams when I enrolled in junior college? I decided my brothers troubles are just not worth it. I am not going for the sciences stream and taking a go at the engineering entrance exams. It’s way too much work and I don’t care about being an engineer anyways. I enrolled in the Math and economics stream. The 50% reading rule continued for two more years in the junior college. My clueless, lazy attitude bothered everyone around me except me. Why should it? The going was smooth for me. I was cruising! Two years of junior college was followed by three years of under grad and some technical training in computer science on the side. The trusted 50% rule did not let me down in those three years as well. To make matters sweeter, I had a girl friend as well!
Finished undergrad, bachelors degree secure in hand, now it’s time to find a job! Everyone around was struggling to land one. I landed an interview from a software company through the technical training institute I attended the previous two years. The questions during the interview? Questions about C++. My answer? I don’t know anything sir and I don’t claim to, but given a chance I will do my best. The result?
I landed that job! The interview seemed to care more about my honesty more than what I actually know or did not know. The next three years I loved that job, lunch breaks was usually spent with my girl friend, disposable income to spend on chai and cigarettes at the numerous “irani” cafes with friends and occasional beer parties thrown in. Even treated my then girl friend to a few fancy romantic dinners. (By romantic, I refer to the dinner, not me). Life was good.
At the end of three years received an admission offer along with a guaranteed loan from a university in the US. Getting admission offers from a US university was the easier part, getting the US visa was the tougher part. What did I do? I applied my mail for the visa when everyone would line up outside the consulate for one. Voila, in a week the visa arrived by mail. That was when I realized the theme of continuing good luck in my life. My brother had a few years earlier got an admission offer from the University of Nebraska at Omaha but was turned down a visa by the US consulate and here I was, never tried hard for anything in my life and things just falling in my lap.
After finishing my Master in the US, I worked for a few years in the IT industry. One fine morning, I was told, “Sorry, we have to let you go. We are cutting your entire division”. I decided to make plans to return to India. I was at a restaurant and I met a guy whom I had seen occasionally at the same restaurant and engaged in small talk. During that conversation, I told him that I was making plans to return to India as I just got laid off. He asked me for my resume. The next week I had an interview call from his organization. After 2 days of interviewing, I had a job offer in hand which paid 15K more than the previous job. Add to it, I received one more job offer in Austin, Texas which paid the same 15K more than the previous job. Around the same time, I even met my now about to be wife. Even accidents do not seem to go wrong with me. After three years at job, the same person whom I met at the restaurant wrote my recommendation letters for the MBA admissions and I now have an admit from HEC Paris with a scholarship.
Why am I writing all this? Recounting my life story, spilling out details of my life which are probably of no interest to most people in the world? It’s because I realized every now and them that we value so little of what we have and strive and pine for things we don’t. It creates frustration, anxiety, stress and all the while we fail to appreciate all the beautiful things that have been given to us, for free. Things which serendipitously fell in our laps, things for which we never had to work hard. From the beautiful lush green trees and the breeze outside my window, to the smooth tasting Yuengling beer in my hands while I am writing this! We are all far more richer that what we actually have in our bank accounts. All this rambling is just an acknowledgement that probably the world has given me lot more that what I ever gave it in return or what I actually deserve and maybe in the future I will be able to correct this imbalance.
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