It's that time in life :)

Exciting times around me :). The awesome (read, grueling) experience of Masters is culminating beautifully, what with a bucketful of treasures for each one of us. And to think of it, we were just getting started! Time here has gone by insanely fast, but has managed to gift us some beautiful friends, that knowledge which we all came yearning for and that one "offer" which is the gateway to our dreams :). All that we had dreamt of all our lives are for ours to attempt now; attempt and succeed :).

Everyone is entitled to their own small and very personal dream, and there's one I have been nurturing since long. To state it briefly, I have loved cars like hell since the time I had first loved, now is the time to own one! My affair with cars dates back quite early when my uncle handed me a copy of the lone car mag in India at that time, Auto India. That was a time when kids used to live by Raj comics and Tinkle, and here I was swooning over a Volvo concept car! My love story had started, I still did not have my heroine though ;). I finally spotted her outside my school! It was a blazing red Zen that made me stop in my track and drool! The following weeks were spent sifting through newspapers to find more about her. Sadly, we did not have google during those days :(. I finally could grab a copy of Auto India which carried a test drive report of the Zen. The car was a driver's delight and the author was head over heels with it :). More than the numbers, what impressed me was this line - "the gear-shift is as smooth as a hot knife cutting through butter" :).

The Zen is and will always be my most favourite car :). Cut to present, I am at the brink now and want to so much get the *best* car my money can buy! After all, this would be my first car, and I want to spend my money sensibly. As you might have heard, love is beautiful until you have to spend out of your pocket ;). So, my first instinct was to rummage through every "sensible" car in the market and compare their specifications. Sadly, the definition of "sensible" just did not go with my interpretation of "best". Every other car I stumbled upon turned out to be a bloated bag of compromises, a very suave bag at that ;). All of them tried to do many things well and hence failed to communicate a confident emotion. And that's when I turned to cars which were not perfect. They made no bones about their shortcomings, but cried their hearts out to connect to mine. They definitely were candidates of "best" for me :). They all seemed to say the same thing - "grab my steering wheel, give the stick a nudge and put the pedal to the metal, let's have some fun!". I no longer needed those clumsy specifications to judge, because the cars were talking to me :).

This piece is dedicated to such cars which get written off by so-called car experts as impractical means of transport. But for enthusiasts (not experts), cars are not mere means to commute from point A to point B. Cars are partners in a relationship so close that it is strengthened after every drive :). These are unpretentious machines with an identifiable heart. These make the best companions, the perfect second love :)

PS: My search for *my* best car goes on. May the best one win! :)

Overcoming the Demons!!

I reckon it might be a tad too early to be writing about what I am going to write, but this is how life is, the time is never "right" ;) Flashback to fall, when I sat down with several like minded people around me. The big question on everyone's mind - What course to choose for the coming semester??!! Coming to what someone has said, we loathe choices as much as we rue the lack of it ;) And so we were into this session of longing-for/ruing-over the past, fearing/anticipating the future, praising/cursing the university.

And among all of them was the giant, ie. Operating Systems by Frank Mueller. Projected by seniors as the Goliath which only crushes helpless Davids, this course made our hands tremble even as we wanted to click on its link! Somewhere at the back of our minds though, we had this notion keeping us afloat that this course is necessary to survive in the Systems Industry. We were also backed by the faith that Frank Mueller is after all a human being ;) Otherwise a lazy bunch, each one of us made sure to regularly attend online lectures during the break to brace ourselves for the final battle! :)

They say that you know angels when you catch the first glimpse, and here starts my ode to one of the best teachers I have had in my life, namely Dr Frank Mueller :) I knew of him as a sadist, he turned out to be the goldsmith :) I thought of him as a rude maniac who grossly kills the life of his students and he shocked me with his penchant for exercising the intellect of his students and his love for detail :) To talk of his projects would be an injustice to them as they need to be experienced. Even the most indifferent student is bound to emerge a sharper, fitter, better mind after this beautiful course designed by Dr. Mueller :)

Back to today, I am proud to say that this so-called sadist has allowed me time to write this piece, although the next submission date is tomorrow! There is one more awesome project to come and I am raring to go! The demons have been defeated and the experience of this course will remain embedded in my mind till I have it ;)

Am I guilty??

When I sat down to write today(after an unjust gap of almost a week!!) I still had an overwhelming sense of guilt hurtling down my mind.. and the reason.. I have an Operating Systems project to deal with.. and my project partners are not 'wasting' their time blogging! ;) I had almost given up when I thought I would not do any good to my project because all I had in my mind was write! ;)

This itch had been so strong because I recently witnessed a very important event in my life, and that's a snowfall! Yeah, I have already added a 'life-event' to my facebook, yet I somehow felt that this event deserved more :)... 

Being in North Carolina, it was a legitimate surprise for us when we woke up to the forecast of a snowfall that evening, more so, because it had been pretty hot(as always) only yesterday! Facebook friends took upon the responsibility of to-the-minute weather presenter and the build-up was all there! Come evening, our optimism transformed the rain drops into snow flakes the moment it started raining. In sometime, they were real!... we went out, had a little snow-fight, and were so happy with the little "snow" we had been bestowed with ;) We were back home right after, anyways, the 'guilt' of not preparing for the presentation next day was already overpowering us. 

As if that was a challenge to God, he promptly followed it up with a brilliant display of real snowfall. For the next one hour, all of us had our mental defences down, every assignment took a backstage, and we were out in the middle savouring our first ever snowfall:) Dear God.. it was surreal! Thank you for making us part of this celebration which fills us with life and washes down a lot of 'guilt' from our already duped minds.

Being a fresher!!

Another of the 'firsts' :).. Butterflies in my tummy.. my 'bachpan ka sapna' of writing a blog is finally being "put into words" and here I am!.. new and 'fresh' into this lovely world where people(with and without jobs) 'try' to find a space of their "own" and *yet* want everyone else to "appreciate" it.. hmmm.. a little ironical, isn't it? ;)
I am too excited to judge myself!.. and too restless to put down some thoughts which have finally 'climaxed' into me creating this blog.. today is special!!.. I am finally a "blogger" and I am a 'fresher' all over again :)

Raise of hands among all of you who *hate* being the 'fresher'!.. If you are reading this, a certain little smirk would have paraded your face while you remember your first day at school or college or for that matter your office ;).. 'fresher', in its simplest sense resembles a 'guinea pig' more than anything else in this beautiful world :P... if you are the fresher, you are a subject to the most innovative pranks ever!.. and you are supposed to 'enjoy' them.. I don't know if anyone of you really did enjoy them.. but they surely inculcate enough intelligence in you to touch new benchmarks of innovation when the new 'fresher'(bakra) comes in :D... no!!.. i am not doing this to save myself from your criticism ;).. take this more as a "nirdosh ki pukaar" ;)

There is another side to this word 'fresher'.. and that's some point I will try to make.. Forget the pranks(ragging).. forget the nerves that come with it.. stop for a moment and think.. isn't being a fresher the best little thing you look forward to?.. Isn't that what excitement and change is all about?.. My ideal day would end being a fresher to something new in my life, and I am sure most of you think similar.. life is what it brings with it.. and excitement is the best among them :)

Hope my encounter with this uncharted territory(read blog) adds some value to my 'ever increasing' life :)