The Wonder Years

Strange thing is travel! i mean extensive travel...It puts things in perspective. Just travel for the heck of it. Initially one looks for comfort..Nice place to stay, nice food, good entertainment. Then one gets used to it. Then one starts looking for exhiliratio: damn good party, night outs, movie marathon. Then thats over too.

Then it strikes you. Something is missing. Aah,and that is the huge comfort of daily life at home sweet home. No, you cannot just plop down at your home and declare to people that you had a loong tiring day. Strangely, family listens to your every word..You come back to an empty house where there is no one to listen to your own self pitying BS. Its not only that, you have now got to prepare your own food. Its not a fancy event where there is a proud mother behind to say, 'Damn good beta' an you can conveniently eat what she cooked just for a backup. Here, you got to eat it too.

Amid all this, things start taking shape too. In your head that is. It is not necessary for all, for some the mumbo jumbo of staying alone does give exhilirating glee for days on end. But then, people have heard of psychiatric cases where things explode one fine day.

Anyway, you realise the economy of your actions, time, money, others time. And you realise what you really want in life. You strangely realise what you really want in life. It all seems clear . Home, family and friends get an all new meaning.

A thank you from a stranger now seems meaningful, helping someone stranded in a new city seems most logical, giving money to somebody who genuinely seems to have forgotten her wallet doesn't seem suspicious, people in city with a genuine language problem is NOT FUNNY, finding some one to trust in a new place gets a new meaning, finding a decent place to jog is well lucky, finding a place where you can feel closest to home is priceless!! Cos you have been there and done that.

Now it does not all mean that one becomes St. Patrick with a halo on the head and holy water in your hand. Far from it. But you do realise the limits of your vagabond life. You strangely appreciate it and moreover get used to it. Somehow that is the bigger learning than anything that you pick up...

Hear closely an its quiet, no blaring music, no drunken brawls, no H9 guys comin an yellin 'H 10 ki maa ka....', no quirky neighbor who would listen to Bhajans at 3 AM an then graduate to highly obkectionable videos by 7 AM, no assignments, no exam tomorrow for which you don't have a clue, no batch meetings on 'serious issues', well this is called home. Its comfortable, warm and its back to civilisation with a bang...

Before you know it you have passed one complete time of your life and are headlong in to another.

Its been 2 months and i thought many times to update the blog...It was titled 'The Wonder Years' cos the first series that i downloaded an watched on campus was the same. Somewhere it also became a metaphor for the times spent, literally the wonder years.

Life is now spent in meetin up people an yeah jogging on the beach...

Some things just strike back to you..It was 2 years back when i first landed in Lucknow and i wrote my first post!! It went something like this.

July 2005 i wrote....
I have realised that its a new system, but i will have to adjust pretty quickly and give my best.I will have to have infinite patience to cope and shine out here. i am realy hungry to perform. Thats the difference i have seen in me for quite some months and i think its time to perform.

Well now after 2 years I realise what helped me achieve all that is just having that hell lot of patience..while working on all the activities, with all the different sort of people, those frustrations, times when everything went wrong and also times when things went remarkably great!!

Having identified that patience is the only thing to quietly keep on moving ahead despite everything made ALL the difference. I had also decided to lead a very controlled an disciplined life for d 2 yrs which also helpd immensely..

So what went right along these 2 years.....Firstly finding awesome friends for life, the quiet confidence to work in the first year, world class act at Summers, the Einstein award, the ALCOM work, the groundwork at Student Council, NYCC and yeah all the Jogging!

All along there was just this mad rush to do some excellent work, to push the limit and see what comes off it. Well things fortunately turned out to be good, with help from excellent people along the way...Lady luck did smile a lot!

It was all with some really bad times, lonely times when everything seemed downhill and those jogs to let things go.

Anyway time to move on! Back to my cool life in Bombay fr good...Time to look beyond and i already see Bigger things to be done, better challenges to fight for and yeah i am getting a good feeling about it!

Today officially signing off as presi. Handing it over to the new guys around. That marks the end of my student affairs. Mad rush, with too much squeezed in . It has involved a lot of sacrifices in terms of time spent with friends, enjoying...The time could have been spent with some great people on campus, some more personal time. But it has been worth it and sometimes it is necessary to just know how far can you go! It is also important to stop there and quietly turn back

Today i ran for 15 kms non-stop in my campus. The largest distance that i have run so far...
Feel like Forrest Gump just minus the girl who screams 'Run Forrest run'. No luck yet in that department!
Good to have pushed it finally!

I have been jogging now for 4 years. Over these 2 years at IIM L, people have seen me sweat out 2 rounds on the ring road almost every single day. This has been inspite of maddening amount of work, sleepless nights and exams.People have indeed wondered about this mad habit of mine (especially if you don't seem to be loosing a lot of kilos!)

In reality, my jogging is the only thing that has kept me going in life. It was "Swimming" when i was a kid. Swimming out for 1000 m non-stop was exhilirating. But then due to an unfortunate change of address, I could swim no more. Then i found myself near to a beach and started jogging! And there my love for running began.

When you run along an empty stretch of road, you just feel like you are tearing the wind apart. The feeling of just you on the road is amazing. It has never failed to refresh me whenever i needed it. I still remember there was a day when i was simply incosolable. And i made sure no one knew about it barring those who could make out. And i had a slew of meetings to follow where such an attitude would not do. I just ran straight out for 10 kms, when i simply could run no longer. I was all right and back on a bang.

So whenever some one feels a desire to go so fast that not even a whisper can reach without your express permission, RUN, like when you were a kid, like an untamed horse that owns the meadow down below and the stars above. Maybe you will know what i am talking about.

P.S. Those in love with running must watch 'Chariots of Fire'.

Time to sign off from office.... What began in the first year with ALCOM, then controls, NYCC, Council & mentorship almost ends... Damn hard work, countless hours but have made friends for life who i know would stand by me wherever i go and whenever i call.. That is my pay off from this place. Not a job and not a fat pay check!

Adios to all the work...

Beautiful flowers in the IIM L campus & a snap of me n my room