Deviations from the Middle Path

I've been sitting in front of my PC for 15 minutes trying to think of what to write. Somehow nothing strikes me right now. So, some random thoughts are in order, I guess.

Over the last many years, I have attempted to adopt an attitude reflecting my understanding of Buddhist thought. Freedom from excessive desire is the way to happiness, I believe. And the Buddhist Middle Path of controlling one's wants and living with a certain detachment has long appealed to me as being a practical plan of behaviour.

I can hardly claim to be far down the path that promises so much. Part of the problem is a genuine conflict between the desirable features of attachment and passion and the inevitable sadness associated with them. Is it better to experience intense joy and sadness or remain unaffected through life's journey? I have tended to prefer the latter, and hence do not care much about the surprises luck doles out - both pleasant and not-so-pleasant. Of course, there are things I'm passionate about and people whose happiness concerns me more than my own at times. But I consciously make an effort to limit their number - especially when it comes to things. It has come to be that every new thing I acquire is regarded as a potential source of grief in the future. My rule has become, "Let the status quo continue, unless there is a strong case to be made for change." My attempt at balancing attachment and aversion to pain has also meant that the few things and persons that I do care about, I do so intensely and am ready to go to great lengths for them.

The other problem is the simpler one of lack of will power. Since coming to WIMWI, I have become laxer about sticking to my self-imposed rules. No serious lapses, but the seams have frayed. I almost never drank more than two cups of tea a day in Bombay, but I often do so here (which is against my aim of minimising milk consumption). My Cadbury consumption has gone through the roof. In early October, I stopped my 18-month long practice of accounting for my spending and have no idea how much I'm spending. I've been able to drastically cut down on TV though.

Since coming here, I've certainly deviated from my previous path (though I sense that the deviation began in the 3rd or 4th year of engineering itself). I've made closer friendships and have adopted a slightly more consumerist approach. The friendships have certainly bought me much pleasure. Not certain when and if the pain will follow. Consumerism will only lead to trouble and I better curb it to more desirable levels.

(End of what were not random, but nevertheless rather incoherent, thoughts).

Relationships

I am not sure why, but many people have called their girlfriends/boyfriends to WIMWI during Confluence. Till about 18 months ago, I knew almost no one who was going steady with someone. Obviously my knowledge was limited by my reluctance to ask any such personal questions to my friends. In the last year of college, some couples did become apparent. Still it is likely that in my class of 70, there were no more than 7-8 persons who were involved with anyone.

Soon after coming here, I realized that a really high proportion of the people have or have had a girlfriend/boyfriend. I would guess that atleast 20-25 out of my class of 80 are in varying stages of courtship, including some who will marry soon after graduation.

More significant than the number is the nature of the relationships. Or perhaps the numbers are important. In DJ, every couple was a rarity, something to be celebrated or at least strongly gossiped about. Here things are taken more matter-of-factly. The age factor plays a major role of course. With many people here being 23 or older, relationships have often already lasted for 2 or more years. So the novelty factor (for onlookers too, who have also now seen other couples) wears off, I guess.

Still this was one area where I did receive a culture shock (to some extent - after all my sister did marry someone she fell in love with in her first year of junior college). In DJ, I believed that dating, etc were basically things one only saw on television shows and films. Perhaps that was because of my and my friends' socio-economic background. Or because I never asked my friends such questions, my perceptions were wrongly informed. I came here and discovered a whole new facet of Indian society.

Heading to Tokyo

My destination for the summer internship has been decided. I will spend next summer working for Merrill Lynch in Japan. Should be a very interesting experience. I have spent my life looking westward and learning about Europe, North America and the Arab and Persian worlds. Suddenly I will encounter eastern Asia close up. I better get started on Japanese soon :)

Confluence, WIMWI's international fest, started today. The campus is flooded with students from different corners of the country and the world. Eminent personalities like Kumar Managalam Birla, Subhir Raha and Arun Shourie will address audiences during the 4 day event. Our dorm went for dinner tonight with students from MDI, Great Lakes and NMIMS. I mostly talked to the NM people. One of them is from DJ Sanghvi too - a year senior to me. Another is from Jamnabai, stays in Juhu and knows Mrunal.

Movies were screened late in the night. I have just come back after watching "My Sassy Girl" - a Korean comedy with a very romantic ending. The funny scenes as well as the senti ones were very good. The sound of the Korean language, particularly the voice of the main actress, is quite hard, but the words tend to end in vowels like "aa"... my vocabulary is not varied enough to describe the sound well. I really liked the flick though. Hope to see more such movies this week.

Where is home?

After being rooted in one city for over twenty years, I finally spent a 7-week stretch away from Bombay in October and November. This weekend I managed to go back. Two days in Bombay were lovely. I met my family and many of my friends. Meeting Vrisha was of course the highlight. I can't believe I am missing her growing up. I hope that when she is older, she likes reading. Otherwise I would not be really adept at getting her any gifts!

I went to Juhu after almost three months. Sitting on the beach, exchanging stories about WIMWI, TCS, Syntel and others, recalling how different our lives were less than six months ago, it felt good to be with old friends again. Software engineering is really difficult work - I would take a nightout at WIMWI any day.


Still haven't been south of Dadar since coming to WIMWI. My only window to South Bombay has been the exceptionally detailed view in Google Earth. I miss staring at the juxtaposed buildings of the Rajabai Tower and the Bombay Stock Exchange.

I even managed to cast my vote in the Lok Sabha by-election. Did not know much about any candidate. Voted for the Congress, despite being increasingly frustrated by poor performances of the Union and state governments led by it.

In spite of all the fun I had, I wasn't at all unhappy at being back in Dorm 18, Room 13 today morning. Perhaps it is because of the relatively light academic workload in the second term, but life is quite nice here. My home is still Bombay, but 1813 is not too far of the mark.

I have recently taken to watching movies on the computer. Saw Deewar for the first time last week, with the king of Big B fans - Moti. Really nice movie - almost Shakespearian in its hero's tragedy.

Also saw two Japanese films - "Spirited Away" and "Tonari No Totoro". Both are animated movies. Both are also essentially comedies with happy endings. I liked them both, especially Totoro. There is something quite distinctive about these movies - but every culture has its ways, I guess. Will see more Japanese "anime", as they seem to be called.

And of course, I saw "The Goblet of Fire" - in Bombay with my sister. It's very well-made with superb special effects and a focussed storyline. The "romantic" scenes were rather fun to watch. I liked Prisoner more though, probably as it was more imaginatively made. Goblet is no mean feat though. I think it was the most difficult movie to make of the six books released so far. The plot of that book was quite unwieldy and many interesting pieces had to be left out. Phoenix and Prince are more focussed on Harry's inner turmoil and cinema should be an excellent medium to depict that.

Three birthdays

November is a big birthday month for me. My dad, my sister, a cousin and atleast half a dozen friends were born in this month. One more was added to the list this year - Lizzy. And her birthday happened to fall on the 15th, making it a three-birthday day. Devesh and Neha of course are the previous members of this club. Unfortunately, as placements are going on, Lizzy's birthday was celebrated in a rather low-key manner. And as Devesh has only recently reached Hyderabad for training in Infosys, no great celebration for him either. I think Neha would have had a better celebration, especially with Sanket being in Bombay :)

I spent a rather lazy day today. Last night I slept at almost 4 after partly watching a Japanese animated romance "Spirited Away". At 8:30 am, Chhedi called. Somehow I woke up and heard him say that volunteers were required in the new campus for the placements. In a jiffy, I got ready and briskly walked to the welcome desk, some 4-6 minutes away from my dorm. And what did I see there? A bunch of volunteers sitting with nothing to do, and Moti grinning away in evil fashion. I had been tricked. There was no choice but to sulk a bit. Then I put in about 2 hours of work before going back to my dorm. Moti got back his dues though. He had to work for placecom till 10:30 in the night :) (Good show though, Moti).

After lunch, I completed the movie I began last night. "Spirited Away" is a good romance, though the dialogue is not special (perhaps the translation couldn't capture the subtleties). This was the first Japanese movie I have seen, so naturally I could not grasp many finer points and references. The main character Chihiro is a really nice kid though :)

Then I went to Westside and Crossword on CG Road. Got a soft toy for Vrisha from Westside. I hope she likes it.

Felt nice going to a bookstore after almost 4 months. I liked many books, but finally chose Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel", an acclaimed exploration of the geographical and biological underpinnings of the course that human history took. Should be a great read.

Volunteering

I have volunteered for helping with placement organisation after securing my own internship (of course placecom would have "volunteered" me anyway, had I chosen otherwise). And the last three days have been quite an experience.

I have rarely taken part in the organisation of any large-scale event. I did help in the organisation of one event - Taboo - in our engineering college festival. But I was focussed on that event and hardly noticed the complexities of arranging the whole festival. I clearly saw those this time. I got a taste of many aspects of the organisational arrangements over the last three days. I worked on preparing rooms for company interviews and making recruitment kits for the companies. I was involved with managing the interview process with one of the companies, though only as an underling of the real manager. I actually booked a cab for the departure of that company's representatives. It is hardly a boastworthy task of course, but it was the first time I had done something like this. I worked the phones today while assuming a position in "dynamic" in the afternoon (I was basically collecting info from different places and passing it on). And of course, I did a lot of running around the new campus.

It's been a great experience. Watching the placement process from a different angle is quite something. I realized the amount of detailed planning and effort that went into making the placement process (still ongoing) a very well-organised affair. From food to rooms to CVs of applicants, everything has to be done really well if WIMWI's reputation has to be maintained. Being part of summer placements is an education in itself. And there is a sense of satisfaction in doing my bit to help my classmates.

My dorm has had a good day. We are one of only two dorms (out of 23) on campus to have all the facchas placed today itself. Gusshow! I am really happy. Most of my friends have been placed too, but some remain. I hope that they make it as soon as possible.

Recalling T-Nite

Today I am an a situation somewhat akin to the one I was in during T-Nite. It's that familiar time of day when the birds begin chirping and I have just walked back into in room from CR-10. Except for the rather cold weather, it almost exactly parallels my experience of night-outs during T-Nite. And like T-Nite, part of the exhilaration lies in working to ensure that the whole team does well, the team in this case being the entire PGP 1 batch, as opposed to section D during T-Nite.

This time the reason is the summer placement process. Surprisingly, I have been placed in a company already. It's a rather interesting story which deserves to be told, but since our "quiet period" is still on, I can't say too much. Suffice to say that I have secured a summer internship. And since I am now free, I am now placecom's slave. Was working with guys from my dorm through the night to prepare some rooms for interviews tomorrow. And now that the interview process is about to begin, I do not want to miss the action and will go back to CR-10 after 30 or so minutes. The work being done by our placecom (placement committee) is phenomenal. I am staggered at the scale and complexity of the placement process and placecom has handled the process immaculately.

A Litany of Woe

Not a good day today. The finance paper in the morning went well, but afterwards came two major blows.

Economics is my favourite subject in WIMWI and I was really unhappy that I messed up. The paper was not difficult, but I was unprepared and possibly a bit overconfident.

As I returned after the paper and checked the online notice board, I saw that the interview shortlist for TAS was out. And I was absent from the list. Within minutes, my spirits sank (Whenever I get bad news, it is always a few minutes before it registers properly). TAS is a firm I would have given an arm for. There is a flicker of hope that the shortlist will be expanded, but I am pretty much resigned to missing the bus this time.

Only thing that I can do is to really work hard during the next one year, pick up my grades and ensure a good rank in the first year. Then I will be able to make to it to TAS' list in the final placements. That's a long way away though, and I have my current internship interviews to manage.

We had a final company presentation this evening. It was an "interesting" talk and lifted my spirits. Summer placements begin tomorrow, though my interviews will probably be held from the 12th onwards. "If music be the food of love, play on," said Orsino in the memorable opening of the Twelfth Night. It has no relevance here...I just like the line!

4 down, 2 to go

Another 15 hours and yet another set of midterms will be done with. So far, the four papers have all been not-very-difficult. I made mistakes in maths, but nothing that I'm terribly embarassed or upset about. Accounts today seemed like a very easy paper. I fear that the paper's ease was deceptive, and that a catch lurks somewhere that will ruin my whole paper. Since there was essentially only one long problem, I'll either get rather good grades or rather bad ones - I don't expect a middle path here.

My reading habit has finally ignited again. I have gathered a rather large collection on my reading table - 7 books in all, ranging from Gulliver's Travels to a novel based in 16th century Istanbul. I have borrowed these from friends (Khakee lent me "Hitchhiker's Guide", and Titli lent me the novel "My Name is Red" and Russell's "Sceptical Essays") and from WIMWI's library ("History of the World Economy"). I also to finsh my own books ("Wealth of Nations", "Gulliver's Travels" and Premchand's "Godaan"). I am flitting around from one to the other, slowly accumulating the page count in each book. I want to pick up the pace soon, up my reading to about 90 minutes or 2 hours a day and make up for the time I lost between June and October. Perhaps I should aim for a trip to the Ahmedabad Crossword around December 15 and begin building my book-collection again.

Finance and economics tomorrow. Time to sleep.

Midterms loom...again

The midpoint of the second term is here and midterm exams begin tomorrow. Unlike last time, I am not very well prepared. But exactly like last time, I am taking things quite coolly.

There are 6 midterms in 3 days. Tomorrow's papers are maths and marketing. Since both are open book, I hope I'll manage to emerge out without serious mishaps.

Midterms will be followed by placement interviews. I wish I could describe some of my travails in more detail, but I would rather not run afoul of our placement committee's guidelines. Suffice to say that, given my illustrious engineering record, I have not been shortlisted for any interview yet. But there are scores of companies still remaining. I hope to write more after November 16.

Diwali Celebrations

Diwali was a great affair in campus. This was my first Diwali away from home, but frankly, it's been one of my better ones in years.

The day began at 11:00 am for me. We, Dorm 18, went for lunch to a Gujarati restaurant at about 2 pm. The meal was, despite the sweetness of everything from the potatoes to the daal, quite delicious. In fact I rather enjoyed the sweet food (though it would be best if this lunch is repeated only at 6-monthly intervals or so).

After coming back, some of us had to attend another company talk. The person who came talked really well, but for some reason I was rather sleepy.

Then I was off to join D Company people for a visit to our economics professor Errol D'Souza. He is widely acknowleged as the best professor we have this term. He sure does know macroeconomics like the back of his hand. And he's very congenial too. He invited us to his house for Diwali. We enjoyed meeting him and his wife. They are extraordinarily kind hosts. Not only did they arrange for some snacks, but also kept crackers for us to enjoy. I too joined in and held a fuljhari (sparkler) in my hand after years.


Chhedi and I decorated our dorm with 18 diyas (he had obtained 30 for his work for Insight). We also kept some diyas in and around our rooms. I just love the little lamps. What's Diwali without them! What's life without little lights!

I next went to LKP where volunteers were busy placing hundreds of diyas around the lawn. I helped a very little bit and stayed around to watch them being lit. It was a really beautiful sight.

After dinner in the mess, a bunch of us went to see the decorations in the other dorms. In contrast to the 18 diyas in dorm 18, there were many hundreds in dorms 19, 20 and 21! Plus there were exquisite rangoolis adorning the courtyards and entrances to the dorms. Dorm Unness (19) won the dorm decoration contest, as they have in each of their three years of existence. Good show guys! I hope that we put in even a fraction of their effort next year. We also saw the decorations in other dorms like D-1, D-2 and D-11 (these are the three girls' dorms) and D-14.


It's been at least 6 years since I celebrated Diwali in such a communal fashion. Generally all I do is put up lights on my window grills and light diyas every evening. I miss my family of course, but this was a rather special Diwali. I wonder why I never celebrated Diwali with college friends in Bombay.


The lovely evening was capped off by a fireworks show in LKP at 10:30 pm. It lasted for atleast two hours, I think. Some of the rockets were really awesome. And so were some of the flowerpots. All these, plus the sight of a bright Mars in the background, uneclipsed by even the brightest of the fireworks, and the company of friends like Moti, Chhedi, Thoku, Prostee, Khakee, Paldy and Khajoor, made this an evening to remember. I look forward to Holi next spring and the next Diwali too.