Remembering Cheri........

Time flies away pretty quickly. It is hard to believe that exactly a year ago, Cheri left us all for heavenly abode. Though I had came to know about it very late - in the final days of May. It was a shock definitely. I couldn't believe this was happening with me. It all seemed so filmy, so unreal. I couldn't accept it as a whole truth ever in last 1 year. I always felt that due to some other reason, she has stopped emailing me. But now, 365 days later, I have to accept it with a heavy heart that Cheri is no more.

I often think why do I miss Cheri so much? I never talked with her neither I ever saw her face. The communication channel between us were chats initially and then the emails. Do words create so much magic in virtual world too? I am a guy who was always suspicious of the fictional world of internet and never allowed myself to develop any close bond with any person I met online. But then, Cheri was different from any other person I had ever met..... even in my real life.

Cheri was the most innocent person I had ever came across to. She didn't know that all the things are not meant to be shared with a total stranger. I sometimes read her mails in which she had mentioned her family and friends in a manner of a kid telling a story. Yes, she was a kid definitely. Not even 18 when she passed away.

I have been going through a rough patch for past 20 months and have interacted with many people during this course. The failure at this juncture is pretty harsh because, at the age of 25, you're not a kid anymore. You are a warrior (or someone in the garb of a warrior) who has to take on this world willingly or reluctantly. Either fight or perish - this is the only rule. Chats with Cheri would take me to the world that existed in the stories of 'Balhans'(my fav child magazine) that didn't have any kind of pressures, selfishness, flirting, etc. and there was always a happy end. She had a totally different childhood from mine since she came from an affluent family but still, at the age of 17, she had the heart of a 10 years old kid who didn't like studies, for whom life meant enjoyment... who didn't want to grow up at all.


She wished to get married soon so that she could escape from the studies. In her penultimate mail she had repeated it that she intends to get married in the coming month since she would turn 18 in April. I was busy with my GD and PI business and so didn't bother to ask the date of her birthday. It wouldn't have been of any use anyway........ She died before celebrating her 18th birthday.

If you are reading these lines Cheri then I want to assure you that I will never forget you. Your mails will always be stored in the folder named after you. I hope you are at peace in heaven. Finally signing off in your style

LOVE YOU

Prateek

Death : The Final Truth

Last week began on a sad note. Puneet called me at noon and informed me about the sudden demise of Koldy's father. I was shocked. Koldy had his share of troubles since class 12th. After clearing 12th somehow he had a short stay at polytechnic college before settling for BA finally. His MBA was going on and it seemed that he would finally attain some stability in life but destiny had something else in kitty for him.

We visited his home in the evening to attend 'uthawana'. Almost a week later we went there to meet Koldy again. How the world had changed for him in the span of a week? Now he has to look after his mother, household responsibilities besides thinking about his career. I could sense the maturity on his face in just one week. In fact, life changes in the couple of seconds only. I hope God gives Koldy strength to face this tough time. Though nothing can compensate for his loss..... but then.... this is life....

Mahaveer is back in the town for a week and we are planning for a meet soon. 'Clash of the Titans' has been released today and we are thinking about watching it on Sunday. The month of April has arrived and the countdown for the result has begun. I do not want to think or write about it much. Let the fate take its course. Though I feel that the time of my plight is over and there must be a new beginning for me in the coming month of May.

Writing, Movie and Resume

Rohit left for Kanpur last evening and I am back to my writing business. I haven't written a single post in any of my 3 blogs and there hasn't been any new submission by me on either ISC or RS. It means that I need to do a lot this week. Tony's announcement on ISC about the talented writers seems quite interesting. It was heartening to know that Vandana has put forward my name for it. Though it is not clear yet what the webmaster intend to do and how many persons shall be selected, but this whole thing is quite intriguing. I will update the readers when anything comes up in this regard.

The visits to TIME and PT offices were a good experience, especially the latter one. The PT director chatted with us for almost half an hour and has asked me, along with Rohit, to send CV to him. I found a resonance of my own thoughts when he said that academics do not stand in the way of person aspiring for his dream B school. Hard work and right attitude ultimately make the difference. So I am planning to send my resume to him soon. Let's see, what kind of role destiny wants PT tp play in my life? Will it be just a special appearance (it already played one), or a cameo or a supporting act? The answers to all these questions are hidden in the womb of future.

Mom has gone to Haridwar for 3-4 days and so the family of us 3 alone is here. Yesterday noon I watched the film 'Masoom' after a long time. The film is a classic and is the first film directed by Shekhar Kapoor. It is based on the famous Eric Segal novel 'Man, Woman and Child'. The movie was pretty entertaining and properly conveyed all the emotions. It was not a melodramatic cinema where buckets of tears are shed. The film was aided by superb performances by the cast as well as by the combo of Gulzaar & RD Burman. The film features one of my most favorite songs of all time, 'Tujhse Naraz Nahi Jindagi....' The song has philosophical touch and talks about the enigma called life. If anybody hasn't heard this song till now then please go and listen to it. I promise you, you won't regret.

Finally I finished Watching Them

Yesterday chintu bhaiyya visited home and we chatted for a good 45 odd minutes. Yet again it was implicitly emphasized that the sooner my results come, better it would be. And yes, everything depends on my result. There is nothing I can do or plan until my result is in my hand. That is why I have stopped thinking much about the future job prospects. For this sole reason I didn't apply for HCL Technologies though I told about it to all the other needy acquaintances of mine including peers and juniors. Let's wait and watch how future unfolds?

Last week I finished a no. of films that have been residing on my PC's hard disk for  past many months. One of them was a romantic film 'Sleepless in Seattle' while the other was a thriller 'Ransom'. Both the films starred two very talented actors of Hollywood - Tom Hanks and Mel Gibson. The movies were good and though I knew the whole story of Ransom, I enjoyed the film since it was not a routine thriller and certainly much better directed than its copy which I had watched almost a decade ago on DD metro. This was the 3rd best performance of Mel Gibson for me after his roles of patriots in the movies Braveheart and The Patriot. This guy is an absolute delight in the kind of cinema where intense acting is required. The other film was good too but not very good to find a place in my already crowded list of favorite films. Though it became evident to me why was Meg Ryan considered as America's sweetheart. She looked beautiful and innocent in the film. I don't understand why did she decide to have her hair shorter later. Now I am planning to watch her other 2 big films - You have got mail and When Harry met Sally.

There is little more I wanted to discuss about the films but the shortage of time has made me cutoff the conversation in between. I have to go out somewhere. So see you people in my next post. 

Suicide is not the answer

It has been more than a week after my last post. I wanted to share a couple of things last week but due to one  reason or another I couldn't post anything on the blog. Things are moving very slowly at my end. I haven't filled up any form, loads of backlog is still there and I am able to execute only a small part of my plans. The situation hasn't chaged much though I am trying to improve it.

Suicides have suddenly increased in the city. Last week a final year girl committed suicide after she messed up her one paper. 2 more deaths had occured only a few days ago before this unfortunate incident. The reason was same - unable to cope up with the pressure of studies. I have been bearing the stigma of failure for last more than 18 months. It becomes lot more tough to endure  when you are the pride of your parents and have a image of a brilliant kid in the eyes of others. The girl who committed suicide belonged to this category and was about to get married. I can understand the trauma she had been going through but suicide is not the solution - at least for the family.

The role of the parents and other family members is paramount here. They along with the close friends are the support which can held a person while he is crumbling under pressure. A lot depends on that person too. He should trust his parents and not hide anything from them. Hiding the facts creates a sense of guilt and it is another catalyst in inducing the thought of suicide. In the end a person should try to comprehend the importance of his/her life and how devastating can the suicide be for their family.

Failure is like a prolonged illness. One feels like giving in often. But remember, if one doesn't fall ill, he/she won't understand and value the meaning of a healthy life. A success following a gigantic failure is the sweetest dish a person would ever taste.

The eve of Holi Brings a Reason to cheer about

Last few days brought two good results for me. As I had mentioned in one of my previous posts, MAT and CAT results would be declared within a similar time frame, and it actually happened that way. MAT was declared on 26th and CAT on 28th of february. Both the results gave me nice surprises and immense satisfaction. My expectations from MAT were around 98 and expected CAT to fetch me 90 odd percentile. I ended up getting 98.82 in MAT and 94.04 in CAT. Simy told me my rough AIR in CAT and it feels good to be among the top 13 thousand students of the country.

So how the things have changed for me in the light of these two results? Frankly nothing much has changed. Had result come a month earlier then I would have been able to fill up the forms of a no. of top 50 colleges but that's not the case anymore. There is just one college left now - Welingker. I will fill up one more form and that will be of FMS IRM. Though I won't be joining any B school in 2010, a good show at GD/PI process of both these colleges would boost up my confidence that was shattered last year.

Holi has gone and a new month has begun. I need to gear up myself again as the fight for survival continues after a small break.

Master Blaster ! Take a Bow

The little man has done it once again. This guy keeps on surprising me with his energy and never dying ability to cross one milestone after the another. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar ! Take a bow. I was fortunate enough to watch his magnificent 200 from scratch till end. I had no plans to do so as mostly I take a catnap in the noons. But this time I decided to catch the initial part of the match since India was batting and what followed was an absolute treat for the Indian fans. Post India's innings I checked twitter and found that Sachin as well as Tendulkar were the top 2 trends there. Last time I had seen him rocking twitter after the match against Australia when he had hit that superb 175 runs. That day will be one of the saddest days of my life when Sachin would decide to hang his boots. But till then, I wish, he continues to play the way he has been playing for past 45 odd days.

I haven't yet decided what to do now when my exams are over. Tuesday evening was spent with the friends while the yesterday was consumed by the cricket match. Today's morning was, as the routine is, was devoted to article writing. February doesn't have many days left and I need to prepare a strategy very soon.

P.S. Times of India's Banglore and Mumbai edition reported that CAT result might be out today. Just 4 hours left in the day and yet there is no confirmation from the IIMs. God bless those students who put their optimum efforts in the exam. I pray to the almighty to give some sanity to IIMs and Prometric and let the results be out tonight itself.

I Wonder......

The last 48 hours were pretty tiring. I couldn't sleep properly on the nights of 20th and 21st. The bus journey at night is not at all a good option. Even if I had booked a sleeping coach, the situation wouldn't have altered a lot since the bus stopped so many times making it difficult to keep your eyes closed for more than 45-50 minutes.

The CET paper was my final MBA entrance exam and I was most relaxed during it. There was no pressure on me and for most of the time I solved the paper according to the strategy I had planned 134 attempts out of 200 might not look good for an OMS student but considering that I hardly did any preparation, these attempts look decent.

The 3-4 hours period after the exam and before we boarded the bus were very boring for me. My classmate Gaurav Sharma had gone to his cousin's house and I spent some of the time at a mall sitauted at 22 godown. Malls are not the happening place for me anymore. I am quite surprsied how the charm of malls have faded away so soon? Just roamed around a bit, spent sometime in planet M and finally went to the food court to eat. Food court looked decent and I had bhel poori there. Post eating I decided to spend the time by strolling. Once outside, I extended my strolling plans and decided to go to sindhi camp, the place where I had to catch the bus, on foot.

While walking I was yet again mulling at the kind of life I wanted for myself in future. Whenever I visit the malls these days and watch the affluent, fashion possessed people around I begin to wonder at the artificiality of life there. Is life all about eating at expensive cafe and restaurants or buying the weird but latest trendy outfits from branded showrooms or just try to show how much cool and metrosexual are you? We enjoyed these things a lot during our college days but now I see myself getting repelled by the same. While walking on the raod I saw a group of rikshaw pullers, with no roof at their heads, preparing their dinner. Their meal consisted of bajre ki roti and jaggery (gud) and they were happily chatting. It was in sharp contrast to what I had seen at the mall where people were devouring pizza worth Rs. 200 and yet couldn't satiate their appetite. What kind of world are we living in? We do not pay for the ingredients and efforts put in cooking a dish but for the brand name, services offered (?) and the taxes.

 I wonder......

This week

I was supposed to be tensed this week. The week's account should have opened with the declaration of the results of CAT. Then my Tauji and taiji's Golden anniversary would have followed it and in between I would have had put my rest energy into the preparation of CET, my last MBA entrance exam. Instead, I have spent this week literally doing nothing.

An unexpected long conversation with Simy on facebook on monday made me rethink over my plans again. I would share all the important points of our conversation in some other post because I am still in the thought process and need time to come out with new plans. On the other hand CAT continues to test our patience. It seems like we are waiting for our university results. I had appeared in this paper on 4th of December and even in the 3rd week of February CAT's status quo is unclear. It seems that the results will be announced in the next week only. I am not too worried but little curious about how I fared. So, in the next week I will be getting two results - CAT and MAT.

I am not doing any preparation for CET. I couldn't concentrate on its preparation for last 2 days due to obvious reasons but then, to be honest, after monday I didn't feel like studying anything. So, yet again, I will be appearing in a MBA entrance exam without any preparation.

God bless me !

How to begin......

Blogging is not new for me and as far as I can remember, this one is my 'nth' blog (Engineering guys, especially those from communication engineering would understand my fascination with the word 'nth' .) I approached blogging in a no. of ways. My very first blog was a mixture of no. of elements. that included my poetry, my thoughts on some random topics, a peek into my college life etc. I didn't share anything from my day to day life there. In my 2nd blog too I experimented with a 9 part story and a couple of other posts. My last blog was solely devoted to my creative writing and finally we come to my latest blog 'I Scribble'.

Why did I refrain from writing about the general ups and downs of my life, about the people around me and, of course, about me. The primary reason was my prolonged period of failures ( which is yet to get over ). Who wants to write about failurs and debacles? People do write but only after getting successful. Recalling the horrors of failures after getting success is a part of celebration of success. I haven't got that kind of success yet. In fact, I am yet to get 'any success'. But still, I feel that there is lot to share from my life with others. The failures do not stop you from enjoying the first rain of the season, or having a non stop laughter session with your friends or to appreciate the beauty of something. Failures do make the individuals to crouch, to incarcerate themselves into a self-made cocoon. I have been through all this. But then I realized that the world doesn't stops with me. It continues to function in the same manner. Why should I then miss out on all the precious moments that life throws at me? Why should I cease the contacts with my acquaintances just because I have failed? There is a dignity in failure too and I am not ashamed of my failures anymore.

So I am here with 'I scribble' - a place where I wish to discover myself through my own writings. Anyone who wishes to know me through my scribbles is also welcome here.