Life’s

There comes a time in everyone’s life when logic fails us. How we try to explain everything to ourselves. How we try to understand everything that is happening to us. We struggle to change and control what we cannot change and what is not in our control. How we love and how we cry. How eventually our feelings overwhelm us so much that we feel crippled inside.

It’s one thing to understand something, but it’s an entirely different ball game to accept something. It’s not easy, in fact, it’s one of the hardest things to do—something for which I was not prepared. You see, I had always been a rebel. I’ve always been someone who believed that human free will was supreme. We always get what we want, the only question is do we really want it that bad enough? And somehow that had worked for me in this life, I always got what I wanted. What I couldn’t get, I could explain myself. Until I fell in love and got my heart wrenched again, and again, and again.

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life… You give them a piece of you. They don’t ask for it. They do something dumb one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like “maybe we should just be friends” or “how very perceptive” turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. Nothing should be able to do that. Especially not love. I hate love.”

― Neil Gaiman, The Kindly Ones

I don’t have love.

I just hate the fact that acceptance is so hard and letting go is so hard.

But then again I am not someone who’d just keep whining that it’s hard and not do anything about it. I talked with my friends, teachers, family, and communities on the internet. Here are a few things we can do to learn to accept the things we cannot change:

1. Gently take note of our feelings. Acknowledge that there is something beyond our control, and we are still trying (hoping) to change it. Are we denying something that can’t be changed? Sit with it, and let the feeling engulf us.

2. Check in with ourselves as many times a day as we have to, reminding ourselves: it is what it is, there is nothing we can do about it anymore, we did our best, and now it’s time to let it go. I know it’s hard right now, but have faith, beyond the chaos there’s a blue sky.

3. Give ourselves permission to fall apart. We have been strong, now it’s time to let go. We grieve, but we don’t have to grieve all day. We can fix ourselves an hour of grief. We sit with our sadness. It’s a healthy feeling, we don’t have to fear it. Eventually, it goes away.

4. You know, how sometimes it’s only when we close the book we were reading, that we really begin to understand. Some problems in the life get solved when we distance ourselves from them. Distancing is not a coward’s way out. It’s an act of bravery.

5. So, if this book of life is not making sense to us right now then how about we stop resisting the waves and let ourselves drown in the sea of uncertainty. We might realize that we can still breathe under it. After all, letting go feels a little heavy in the lungs right?

6. Throw away this book, and pick another one. Watch a movie. Listen to a friend, hear their aches. Help someone. Weep in the pillow. Go for a walk or a run down the hill. Dance to your music. Remember who we once were, and remember that we’ll be that again.

7. Freud said, “Love and work. Work and love. “That’s all there is.” The most important relationship in this life is the relationship we have with ourselves. We are kind to those we love, will we be kind to ourselves?

It’s 2:30 AM. On the second day of my night shift at Tapti. I’ve been wondering what I have been passionate about in life so far. I’ll edit this list later on, for now, I’ll let it live on my blog.

1. Creating a club or play space at my friend’s (who was my neighbour) terrace.
2. Playing computer games.
3. Computer Software and the Internet.
4. Music.
5. Strategy games like Age of Mythology, Rise of Nations, CiteVille, and FarmVille.
6. Mission-based games like Vice City and San Andreas.
7. Learning how to code, and learning how to code better.
8. Learning things I was not good at.
9. Making new friends, meeting high-value people, and learning from them.
10. Computer graphics and making 2-D computer games.
11. Mathematics.
12. Public Speaking.
13. Building tangible things.
14. Persuading others, talking about my ideas and vision.
15. Dreaming big, and letting others laugh at my dreams.
16. Steve Jobs.
17. The Beatles.
18. Making websites and blogs.
19. Hobby Electronics — Arduino, Sensors, Quadcopter, Tinkering Labs.
20. Startup Culture.
21. Working for S&T Committee.
22. Academic Coursework. Writing Exams. Doing Assignments.
23. Reading for curiosity and pleasure.
24. Goodreads.
25. Working on my personal projects which never lead anywhere.
26. Following my curiosities.
27. Being a leader, being followed by people.
28. Working towards self-imposed goals.
29. Self-discovery through reading, listening, meditation, and running.
30. Getting obsessed about one thing and then going deep into it.
31. Storytelling. Writing stories.
32. Journaling.
33. Working on my blog.
34. Teamwork, working with other people. I assume responsibilities.
35. When a friend needs my help.
36. Romance and romantic love interests.
37. Chess.
38. Stock markets.
39. Learning an instrument.
40. Recording myself. Voice notes.
41. Work that involves design and problem-solving.
42. Automation.
43. Data Science.
44. UPSC type preparation.
45. Teaching. Making slide decks.
46. Working for things I had founded or created. Working where I had ownership and my skin in the game.
47. Inspiring other people.

For how many days could I go like that, sleeping late, spending all day talking to my friends on the phone, playing online games, watching the tv shows that never seem to end, and occasionally when I’m tired of everything else, picking up the book from where I left. Reading the story of that idealist Architect, Howard Roark, and everything that was going wrong in his life, and mine. Every night I’d promise myself, not tomorrow, I’ll sleep on time from tomorrow, I’ll build a routine tomorrow. I’ll do things which you can call work from tomorrow. But tomorrow came and it was today, and today was yesterday, but I was all the same. It was late at night and I still felt sleepless. I knew I’d be cursing myself tomorrow, again, and the cycle would continue. For how many days could I live a purposeless life? I thought to myself, as long as this quarantine lasts.

The entire world stood at a standstill because of a novel coronavirus that first infected someone in Wuhan, China who drank bat soup and then went on the world tour to all the countries in the world. The only places where it was not found were the place where they were not looking for it. Coronavirus spread worse than a wildfire, and it would engulf 5-10% of humans that came in contact with it. Nobody knew how to treat it, nobody had a vaccine. The governments around the world closed their universities and offices, and asked their citizens to lock down themselves in homes, and hope that this virus stays away from them. And that’s what everyone did that year. They slept on Monday mornings since there was no work to do. They spent all the days talking to their friends on the phone since their friends had nothing better to do either. They played online games because they couldn’t go out anyway. They watched tv shows when no one was around to give them company. And a few decided to attack their pending reading list. But there was one thing that everybody did, everybody grew closer to their families. Even if they were apart, in two distant cities, with no way to go back home, they called back home four times a day to ask what did you eat? Did you make your bed? How is everyone at home? To share news of hope, that the increase in the number of cases is coming down, that probably someone, far, far away has discovered the cure. News channels mongered fear among masses, yet not all feared some of them knew that what has to end will end anyway. Some of them knew that no amount of worry could predict the future like they knew that no amount of shame could undo the past.

If you read history, you’ll start to believe that humans can endure all kinds of hardships. If you read about the pandemics that prevailed before you and I were born, or the wars that man fought for a few inches of land, or about the norms of society that kept lovers away from each other. You’d know, come what may, humans will endure. This time, the hardships were different. This time there were no great wars to be one, there was no one to blame, there was no enemy that we could find. This time all that the warriors were supposed to do was sit on the sofa and serve the time. Now there are many things humans are good at, and more than that there are things in which humans suck. Staying closed in a room with nothing much to do is one of them. And that’s what happened that year. People just kept asking each other, how many days could I go like that.

This is a rite of passage, a coming of age. In these ten years, I grew up.

2010 (I passed 8^th grade and moved to 9^th grade)

Every kid who would score more than 85% aggregate would be awarded a scholar badge. This was the first time, I failed to get a scholar badge. I wasn’t sure about what I wanted to be when I grow-up. I hated to make choices. However, this time I had to decide between Hindi and Sanskrit. I had to choose a language which I’ll have to study for the next two years. I fixated on Sanskrit. I scored decently in the following years but now I can hardly speak in Sanskrit. I think no one can. I would spend most of my time playing computer games and researching ways to hack/optimize/enhance my computer. I had a thing about collecting pirated versions of high-end software. I wanted to learn them, but I didn’t know why? This was the time when I started my first blog on Blogspot, it was called minipacksoftwares. I would post the links to download software. I started another blog called, carfest, where I would post about (as evident from the name), cars. I think I was doing okay. I enjoyed spending time on the web. I would create a free account on all the websites that I could get hold of. That was me in 2010. Fascinated by technology.

2011 (I passed 9th grade and moved to 10th grade)

I had friends who shared my passion for technology. Together we would discuss ideas we could turn into a business. I would come up with ideas of websites that I thought did not exist then. I would try to use my creative energies to come up with new ideas or solve problems that I believed would have existed. I was naïve in my thinking, but it was okay. I started to blog for a friend, it was called techinnews, it was about tech industry news. We grew into a sizable community. We had an active Facebook group. That was the time when my friend introduced me to Google AdSense. He talked to me about ways people earn money over the internet. He talked to me about ways we could create our own websites. I started learning programming languages. I always thought it was impossible for me to learn. The syntax would terrify me. I would play online games like CityVille and FarmVille a lot and listen to English Music.

2012 (I passed 10th grade and moved to 11th grade)

I was at a crossroads. Science, Commerce, and Humanities. I could choose only one. I hated to choose. Humanities lost by a close margin, I decided to study Science and Mathematics with Computer Science. It was honestly Computer Science that defeated Humanities. I aced my 10th Grade Exams, I don’t how? Maybe being a good student for two years paid off, I received two upgrades in my scores because of that. I started learning to code seriously. Meanwhile, my father decided me to show the world, he took us to Hong Kong and Macau for a week. This was my first international vacation. I spend a night in Disney Land. I got pictures clicked with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (Madame Tussauds). I travelled on a luxurious ferry. I saw a live theatre. I created a memory I still cherish. When I came back reality hit. I had joined coaching to prepare for JEE. I scored -5 in mathematics on my first test. I felt kind of funny and stupid.

2013 (I barely passed 11th grade and moved to 12th grade)

Eventually, my coding skills improved, I could now differentiate between a++ and ++a. I started working on independent coding projects with a friend of mine. We were trying to recreate the SNAKE game for our CS Class Project. We were quite successful, I coded very sloppily but the product was hit. I was scoring like crazy in school, the bar had never been lower. However, I started waking up at 4 AM in the morning to code. I was dead serious. It gave me an amazing kick. I realized that I feared stage, and before I was over with school, I had to overcome it. I started applying to participate in inter-house competitions. Finally, I was selected to represent in Hindi Debate Competition. I killed it. My Sanskrit skills paid off; I literally sang a Sanskrit Slokha to begin my speech. Everyone loved it. I was the winner. I was nominated to represent the school in National Level Hindi Debate Competition. Which was my biggest break by far. I was unstoppable. I even sang a song on the stage for the first time in my life. I decided not to continue with coaching and to do self-study. In hindsight when I think of it, probably I just wanted to buy myself more coding time. I taught about animations and game development to my juniors when I impersonated my CS teacher on the teacher’s day.

2014 (I passed 12th grade and took a year off for JEE Preparation)

This year we worked on YODHA as the CS Project. A street-fighter type game was developed with a graphics library for C++. I barely passed my preboard exams. I passed mathematics by one grace mark. My father got worried and visited my school teachers. I was asked to join tuitions under my school teachers. I suited up for the farewell. I had lost almost 15kg weight in the last year. I gave my boards, they went well. I miserably failed in all college entrance exams. During JEE Mains exam, I felt like crying. I wanted to run away. I felt what performance pressure was. Meanwhile, my board’s results were out, I scored above 90%. My family was proud. I decided to take a year off to prepare for JEE. I moved to Kota and joined a coaching institute. I gave up my internet connection and all my social media accounts. That was the time of my life when I studied full time. Winters came, and I fell ill. I could not breathe. I started visiting doctors. I realized what the comfort of home was. I realized the value of money. I realized the struggles of having a roommate (and benefits too). There were times when I just wanted to give up. I wanted to come back home. My friends kept telling me that it will get better. A few years down the line, I would think how petty my problems were. That kept me going. I stayed. I kept attending the lectures, practicing questions, and writing tests.

2015 (Wrote JEE and moved to College: Sem – I)

My roommate suffered from varicella, the course was also almost over, I moved back home and continued preparing. It was comforting. I started to appreciate the home-cooked food. I started to appreciate the Masala Chai. I wrote my entrance exams, fumbled up in most of them. I had to choose between studying Computer Science in a not-so-good college and Petroleum Engineering in a so-so-good college. I ditched my love for CS to study Petroleum Engineering. I could not secure myself a place in IIT. I was frustrated. When I joined my college, I had just one thing in mind. I have to make the best out of it. In a month, I had boycotted a mass bunk, lost the friendship of the entire batch, scored highest in the mid semester exams, and won myself a scholarship. I was a scholar again. I realized I had good communication skills than most of my batchmates. I tried learning to play volleyball but I miserably failed. However, in the end I scored a perfect 10 CG. I kept learning programming languages and web-designing. That was my hobby now.

2016 (Sem – II and III)

I won a number of intra-college competitions, that was some extra money. I enjoyed the fame as well. I started watching TV Shows. I was doing good in academics and hence I scored a perfect 10 CG again. This time when I went home for summer breaks, I was introduced to Arduino Uno by an old school friend. When I came back to college I started learning about UNO. And things I could do with it. I made a small team and we did handful of projects. I loved spending my time that way. I also started to learn how to play harmonica. The world of technology was making me all fascinated again. I started doing online courses. I was introduced to Internet of Things and Data Science. And I wanted to tell the world about it. I started ignoring my academics a bit, a hence a result I only scored a CG of 9.5. Initially devasted, I realized this was a big break through. I no longer had to care about maintaining a perfect CG. I would optimize my time. I had no clue what I wanted to be or what I wanted to do. I wasn’t exploring career options; I was just following my hobbies.

2017 (Sem – IV and V)

I found a senior who helped us secure funding from college for our tech endeavour. We restarted Tinkering Lab and later founded Science & Technical Committee. I started doing a course in Machine Learning. The best thing about this time was controlling a physical LED over the internet. My mind was blown with what technology could do. I was constantly in the dilemma between core and noncore. I was selected to attend SRISTI Summer School in Gandhinagar. It was a great experience, I learnt about teamwork, project execution, leadership, and technology development. I took these learnings home with me. I started working on tech projects with my juniors. We had ten teams, working on ten different projects. From flying drones to making utility apps. I mentored all of them. It was a great experience for me. The S&T Committee grew exponentially, I felt like a CEO of a booming start-up, and all my juniors were my employees. It was my job to ensure they learn and make the best out of their time in college.

2018 (Sem – VI and VII)

We organized a successful technical festival in college. I started working on a start-up idea by completely negating my academics. I started reading books, I bought a kindle for that. In that year I read 57 books. By the time the semester ended, I had entirely failed with my product development idea and my grades sucked. I got scared. I went to the internship. I learnt how to simulate a reservoir. The soulful music came to my rescue. When I was back at home after internship, I started preparing for the GATE Exams and college placements which were to begin from next semester. Everything went to the cold box. I realized that I was lactose intolerant. To free up my mind, I started writing on my blog. When I joined back college, I started meditating to maintain my peace of mind. I was getting anxious and nervous about my future. The first company came (it was everyone’s dream company), I sat for the interview. I got placed. I was on cloud nine. Within a month, I received an email about my selection for IPTC Education Week in China. I had a paid vacation to China to look forward to. That semester I scored a 7 pointer, that was a dream come true. Haha.

2019 (Graduated from College: Sem – VIII and Started Working)

I again organized the technical festival in college. Then I went to Beijing, China for a week. I made a lot of friends around the world. One of my most cherished memory was eating Indian food with friends from four different nations in China. Nothing could get more international than that. And guess what, they loved the Indian food. By the way, my team was also the second runner-up for the group project competition that was part of IPTC Education Week. Saying goodbye to all those lovely people was the hardest. I knew my college days were numbered so I started to live each day to fullest. I would spend my time talking to my favourite people all day. Enjoying those last sips of Chai and last bites of Samosas that I was going to miss dearly when it will all be over. I spent a good amount of time this year at home. Often just reading books and talking to friends on phone. I was eagerly waiting for my joining letter. It eventually came in August. I was going to work on an offshore platform. I learned how to escape an underwater helicopter. I learned how to extinguish a fire, how to board a life raft, and how to sail a lifeboat. I jumped in the open sea (with a life jacket). I don’t know how to swim. I travelled to work in a helicopter. I spent a night in an unmanned platform playing cards. I couldn’t attend my convocation because of work, I had graduated with a gold medal. This year I read 60 books. These days I spend 2 weeks at work and 2 weeks with my family at home every month. I did try to start exercising this year but I failed.

It was my second shift at Tapti—an offshore gas production platform where I had started working. Anand, one of my college juniors and a friend had emailed me to ask how my life was going on? I wrote this email to explain to Anand how offshore was treating me so far.

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Hi Anand,

Well, everything in life gets boring once you gain familiarity, it’s just about time. I am about to finish two weeks here at the platform and I have no clue how the time passed. When you are on board, away from your family, you are not really alone. You are detached from the outside world not because there is no way to engage, but because you get engaged with the inside world. You can always make calls to friends and family or keep in touch with emails. It’s only about the first day, and then you lose the urge to constantly look out for your phone or laptop. It’s a family all together and with time you get accustomed to its culture.

We start our day with a daily behavioural based safety meeting at 7 AM sharp. Here we discuss the checklists, observations, and jobs. I have to reach the control room by 8 AM after getting ready and having breakfast at the galley. Since I am new, the control room timings are a bit relaxed as of now. At the control room, I observe my seniors, read P&ID diagrams, read manuals or books, take field rounds and try to trace the pipelines, try to understand how things work. It might sound too much but honestly, everything is just chill, all my seniors in the control room are young AEEs, so they understand. Often we just sit there and talk, and gossip. On some days, unmanned trips are planned, a team has to go to the unmanned platform for well health checking or to do some testing. I have been to the unmanned platforms twice as of today. Both times the total trip took less than 3 hours including travel. The travel is done via chopper. I have heard that sometimes you have to stay for the night, I haven’t experienced that yet. But I think it would be good. Unmanned are really peaceful, you can hear the sound of the waves crashing on the platform jacket. On the contrary on the process platforms, compressors make nasty sounds. Again since for now, I am at the learning stage so I only have day duties. The best part is that I share my day with 3-4 more new GTs whom I have known from my initial joining days, good friendships have been formed. I rarely get time to be alone, and rarely the time to write such big emails, without anyone staring at my screen.

A control room has to remain manned 24 hours but as of now since I have no responsibility, I can technically go in/out of it anytime I want. Take as much break as I want. We break for lunch at about 12:15 PM and come back by 2:15 PM. Then we break for tea/coffee. Whenever we get bored, we all new GTs go to the pantry. It gets hard to see what you are putting inside your stomach because sometimes the food becomes the way to entertainment.

When we come back to the living quarters in the evening, which is usually after 7:30 PM (that’s when control room handing over is done) , we have TT Table, Carrom, GYM, Desktops, and Televisions (in all rooms) to amuse ourselves. I have my kindle with me so I prefer that. You’ll feel exhausted so naturally after changing and having dinner and some light conversations or emails, you’ll hit the bed, to be ready for the next day.

I hope I gave you a brief picture of my day, more details on call when I come back, haha. The crew change for ONGC happens on Sunday and Monday. Tomorrow some of my seniors are leaving, and I am feeling sad about that. I told you, you end up forming a bond with the people you surround yourself with. But it’s okay I’ll see them again after 21 days. I am coming back next Sunday, hopefully, if they don’t drop me because of my weight. It’s another kind of experience to travel via chopper over the sea, it takes me around 50 minutes to reach Mumbai.

I hope your exams went good. I hope your preparations are going awesome and that your mind is at peace. I wish you the best if you are about to sit for placements. Let me know how things are on your side.

Regards,
Girish

I was home for the last two summer months. While lazing, reading, and eating in that time I gained a lot, although only the weight would be apparently visible. Now it’s time to pack my bags and bid goodbyes but goodbyes are hard, no one knows how to say them, especially to the loved one. They bring out melancholy blues. The feeling you get when the party is over.

Amazing right.

When you look at time as an onlooker, it looks like a snail but when you are the end, it turns out to be a cheetah who is caressing, clawing and crushing on the memories you just made. It tries hard to fade them away and you try hard to collect but in the end, the cheetah always wins. Time is such an arbitrary concept. Although the clock always moves at the linear speed time shrinks and expands. Even if the clock is not ticking, time keeps moving. It is there and yet it is not. It is omnipotent and yet it is yours. It’s a cheetah and it’s a snail.

But unlike the time I can come back. My goodbyes are not permanent unless my time has come. So I will come back again and again until my time calls. To be lazy again. To read again. To eat the food prepared by the best chef in the world, my mother, again. I’m going to come back.

Until then I bid goodbye to home.

This summer was a cheetah that looked like a snail.

I wrote this speech for Professional Communication coursework during freshmen year of my college in 2015. I'll add the review my professor gave me for this speech later.

But what can one person do? Something that I’m tired of hearing since childhood. You know some individuals fascinate me so much by the way the touch and influence our lives. The way they mould the world we live in. How do they do it? I have read quite a few biographies and what I could infer from them is. It was never about talent they had, there are a whole lot of talented people in this world. A lot of prodigies out there. You don’t always hear about them changing the world. It was never about the hard-work that they did. I meet a hardworking guy every ones in a while and they don’t always change the world. It was also not about the money or resources they had. But then what is it all about. I concluded that it was all about the choices they made, the decisions they take. You might not believe me. How can some choices or decisions change the world? Bhagat Singh could on one hand chosen to enjoy his youth, to have romances or on other hand he could give his life for his country. He chose to be what he is, a legend. And you have just two simple, or maybe not so simple set of choices. And these choices defines who we are and what we can do? These choices differ amazing individuals from mere civilian. We can choose to be what we want to be. So answer to your question what can one do is that he can make some choices.

One can choose to be a leader or a mere follower. Being a leader doesn’t necessarily intend joining politics or talking popular positions. All it requires is courage. For me leader is someone who can bring change first in himself and then society. Leader initiate things. He takes responsibilities. He stands against wrong. And sometimes he can start a revolution. On a cold day one woman refused to give up her seat on the bus in Alabama. The Civil Rights movement began. She was Rosa Parks. She was a leader. You find something going wrong. You take a step and try to stop it. You are a leader. And if you just pass by you are a follower. I’m not saying that you should stop following, following helps you learn, it inspires you when done in a right way but don’t get stagnant. Don’t end up being a part of herd.

Second choice is to choose to invent or to blame. What’s this (showing a bottle)? Sounds nonsense, I know. Who made this? Do you know back then when mankind resided in caves it was very difficult for them to get water out of river and take it back home. Then someone made a container out of leaves but it wasn’t durable. Someone else noticed that if you put wet soil under sunshine it becomes clay. And then someone else made a pot from that clay. But that wasn’t durable too. Then someone else invented plastic, someone else thought that a water container can be made out of plastic. Someone else gave it a shape. Someone else made it transparent, someone else gave it a cap, someone else made the treads for the cap and someone else just made a factory to manufacture bottles in that thousands of people are working just to make bottles. For thousands of years, millions of people are working so that we can quench our thirst where ever we go. Maybe we don’t acknowledge but there work is still here long after they are gone. And this is just a bottle, look around you, you are sitting in a museum of human work history. This fan and this air conditioner, someone was feeling hot. These people could have just blamed their tools, people, time or god and would have carried away with their life. But they choose not to and that made them great. They chose to find solutions. All your prized possessions, your achievements and glory will be buried along with you. Only your work will live on.

So you have these 2 simple choices to make, simple but requires courage and efforts. And if you chose to lead or invent or both you are no more a mere civilian. You are doing your bit. It doesn’t really matter whether you succeed or fail in your efforts. All it counts is have you done your bit? Let me end it with a short story. A terrible fire had broken out in the forest. All the animals were running away, including the lion, king of the forest. Suddenly, the lion saw a tiny bird rushing towards the fire. He asked the bird, “what are you doing?” To the lion’s surprise, the bird replied: “I am on my way to extinguish the fire.” He laughed and said, “how can you kill the fire with just one drop of water, in your beak?” The bird was adamant, and said, “But I am doing my bit.”