I FINALLY HAVE IT

ME DOING MANUAL LABOR

THE CORRIDOR OF MY NEW HOSTEL

It was a long and tiresome journey. The war was bloody to say the least. Much was lost. There was agony and despair, there was sweat and tears; the body became fragile and the heart became weak but when all was said and done I was still standing tall. Now as my reward ‘I finally have it’.

Since long I was cramped for space very literally. The pigeonhole I lived in added new meaning to the term small. Now what was even worse was that I was clubbed into it with another guy. I had to be extra careful all the while. No stretching of hands as I might end up slapping my roommate accidentally, no food in the room else ants may occupy much needed space. It was a war each day.

But I will be lying if I say I didn’t have my share of fun. Sharing a room with two different people for a year each had its moments. The transaction from a quite, inert, lazy roommate to a wild, hyperactive, noisy one was both educative and humorous. The two were very helpful and we did form strong bonds. The pain was tolerable as long as ‘I was supposed to tolerate it’. But things in a way got out of hand. For me Murphy’s Law took over-‘if anything can go wrong it will go wrong’.

As the days went by I started to believe that my days of struggle were numbered but fate took many unfortunate twists. Many people were relieved of their misery I was not, many hostels got created but the one were I was suppose to shift in never got made. Even all my juniors got single rooms but I still had to bear the grunt of life.

But Alas! Lady luck finally smiled on me and I could not have been more relieved. From the spring of 2008 I officially have a single room of my own. Now that I look back the last 30 months may not have been that bad, I may have allowed the situation to get the better of me but the best part is that it is the past.

When I first shifted in she needed a facelift, but I was more than happy to toil because I knew it would be worth it. So finally after much labor I had my prize before me, to savor and to celebrate.

All this taught me one thing, no matter how difficult and dark the journey is there is always light at the end of the tunnel, and if you know this before hand the journey wont b that difficult either.

IN ‘DHARTI MAA’s ’ LAP

The employees of numerous MNC’s and PSU’s who regularly complain of mismanagement in their companies should descend on my campus and visit my present hostel. They will realize what a great job their administration is doing. This is because my Institute was now cemented its position as the epitome of mismanagement and its activities has literally landed us up ‘IN ‘DHARTI MAA’s ’ LAP’.

We were supposed to shift into our brand new hostel as soon as the new semester began. So our administration in a display of their foresight decided to shift all the steel cots into the new hostel during the semester break itself. Now after our return to no one’s surprise our administration has got it wrong one again. The new hostel is not ready yet and the old hostels are without beds. To out of options wwe are forced to take asylum in ‘DHARTI MAA’.

Now the hostels are ready but they haven’t been ‘inaugurated’ (errr!!!! L). So no matter how tempting the dish may be we cant dig in yet. It is believed that the formalities should be done and over with in two to three days till then we get to enjoy the pleasure of sleeping on our ‘not so cold’( pun intended) hostel floors.

But what’s scary is my Institute’s track record as far as procrastination is concerned. It will be our worst nightmare come true if the ‘two’ days are stretched to ‘twenty’. Although very unlikely nothing can be ruled out.

So this is a sincere request o everyone, please PRAY FOR US!!!!!!

BEAUTY IS ONLY SKIN DEEP

Beauty has since long been a great inspiration for some of the most brilliant personalities ever to have walked the surface of earth. Beauty has inspired geniuses to compose every lasting melody, writers to write epics, visionaries to brood over its social effects.

Beauty has caused war, made peace, provided reason, eliminated sense, turned pacifiers into bellicose, made saints out of devils. Such is the power of human beauty.

This writer, like any other mortal being, is amazed by beautiful people and has an inclination to be like them. But he does realize that ‘Beauty is only skin deep.’ Nevertheless this has not deferred him from finding solace in admiring their external forms. Although never taken aback by ‘intense beauty’, many times I do feel that the ground under me has been swept off. The admiration is purely aesthetic and is a genuine analysis rather than amazement as ‘Beauty is skin deep’.

In my way back to my hostel after the semester break I travelled by train. After enduring the cold night it was finally day break. My destination was near by. Now the train stopped, their was an influx of bodies and to maintain equilibrium an proportionate out flux.

A family boarded, the sat in the same compartment in which I was seated. Now there she was, a object to behold, an object of beauty.

Beauty has many forms. The most common is the ‘obvious beauty’. The ones who are drop dead gorgeous, the ones who have it all, the ones who are tall, slim, fair, with long straight hair. They are the ‘barbie dolls’. They are very obvious.

But this one was different. She was the one I liked. She was beautiful in a very shuttle and mysterious way. She was not gorgeous, she was simple. She was ‘beautiful’ but not in the way the dictionary describes it.

She was dressed in a black ‘salwar kameez’. Her attire, her nose ring and her complexion suggested her religion. She was surrounded by siblings yet there was no one remotely similar to her.

She was not slim, neither was she fat. She was fair with a glowing face. But the thing that made her ‘beautiful’ and was the crown jewel of her appearance has to be her EYES.

They were the biggest and darkest eyes I had ever seen. It seemed that the entire world can be lost for time infinite in her dark eyes. The sharply contradicted her skin and sharply increased her looks. Her ‘duppata’ covered her head but from what could be seen she had long black straight locks. All in all she was definitely eye-candy.

Now don’t get me wrong. I was a plain admirer who didn’t have anything better to do and so glanced at the cute girl in front of him. Now for those who say ‘Beauty is only skin deep’, the best reply has to be that I was looking at her and my eyesight is also only skin deep

ALMOST A WINNER

I tried so hard and came so far

But in the end it doesn’t even matter

Pakistan needs only 6 runs to win the honors of maiden T20 world champions. After a middle order collapse the hard hitting Misbah-Ul-Haq plays a gallant innings to bring his team inches away from one of the greatest victories of all times. But then it happens. To a wide ball of Joginder Sharma ,the brave Misbah plays a predetermined shot as a results the ball scoops up and into the waiting hands of Sreesant. ‘India crawl out of a hole’ and become world champions.

A quick jump to the present and the IPL has taken the cricketing world by storm. Player auctions have made cricketers millionaires overnight. Over 80 players were auctioned. But our brave Misbah was no where in the reckoning. Why was it so?

Ishant Sharma bowled one magnificent 9 over spell to the best batsmen in the world and earned an extremely fat paycheck from one of the ICL bidders. But then what about Misbah?

The answer is simple. Misbah was almost a winner. He almost brought home the trophy, but in this world almost is not good enough.

In contrast Ishant’s spell actually resulted in India winning the Sydney test. He went all the way. He ended up actually winning.

Cut to motor sports and we get a similar picture. Throughout last year’s season Lewis Hamilton was the talk of the town. But when it was all said and done the seven words which summed it all up were ‘The Flying Fin is the World Champion’.

This theory is applicable to each and every field and discipline. We associate fame, wealth, glory and success based on the end result only and not based on the effort. For in the end the summit is wide enough for only one person.

We value the winners. Coming second earns no points. But then in this highly competitive world were the difference between first and second (read looser) in many times is decided by fortune or by fortunate/unfortunate twists of fate, is such treatment justified?

It simply reiterates what I have always believed, LIFE ISN’T FAIR.

INNATE TALENT

How many times have we come across the statement ‘He was destined to succeed’.

I recently heard it. I was told that due to innate talent a person I know has cracked the toughest exam in the country. There were many who toiled day and night but in the end the stood no chance. It was said that they simply weren’t lucky enough to be born with what it takes to succeed. This made me think. If our ‘innate talents’ decides our fortune then what is the need to labor. You will succeed only if GOD has paid a little more attention to you and has installed some extra applications in you. Right? Thankfully this is not the case.

Earlier I used to forget my failure saying that ‘it was never meant to be.’ If any of my comrades achieved something which I could not I will say ‘It was his destiny’. But this recent conversation finally beamed sunlight into my gloomy thoughts and helped me see light.

One thing and one thing only decides our fate-EFFORT. It’s all about how much you can dish out and dish in. It’s about unidirectional focus and unfettering faith. It is about persistence and practice.

But then why do we many times forget this universal truth. This is because we are silly enough to equate one’s effort as the labor they do in the eleventh hour. The truth is we are fighting during every passing second. It’s a struggle. The people who accept this and polish there armor from an early age end up begin innately talented. It is about being smart enough to practice and improve each and every second.

Given our short sight we associate pre-developed talent as innate talent. We undermine the hard labor that was the cause of this ‘innate talent’.

We are all born equal. It is left upon us to choose. All of us write our own destiny. Those who squirt away this valuable ink may fall short when the want to write the climax, but those who have regularly inked down their story have to simply write the conclusion when the D day arrives.

So next time after tasting defeat I involuntarily utter the words that it was not meant to be, I shall immediately kick myself and remind myself the true meaning of ‘Innate talent’.

Armed with this new realization we should all push ourselves more for in the words of the great Napolean Bonapart ‘Success goes to the most perseverant’.

‘He is not a better student than you,

He simply studied better than you’

Mr. Nayak

My class X Geography teacher