The Magic Spell...!

Now, before you might be tempted to close the tab thinking that this might be just another one among the long chain of brain churning and philosophical articles I tend to write many a times, then I assure you that this shall put an end to all of its kind! After five whole years of searching trying to find the magic spell of living life, the perfect solution I was so desperate to find, is still quite illusive. But I have found certain eye-opening facts which I thought I'd share with my friends without further ado, as walking down this path any longer will only result in a worthless waste of time.

Now, whenever I finish writing an article, I always get the eerie feeling that something's missing. There are always some trailing doubts, some things which were about to be shot out but weren't, which give me a recurring notion of something left out and offer me more food for thought! But this particular piece of text aims to clear all of that... There is always so much to keep us occupied that we often find it difficult to get our minds off the bustling fast lane and concentrate on what's actually important. But I've finally figured out the answer to all my queries. This might sound a little annoying to people expecting something extra-ordinary, but what dawned on me was a simple realization, that there is no magic spell, there never was and there never will be!

I have pointlessly pondered upon certain aspects of the past long enough and have finally decided to learn from it and move on. Instead of complaining and whining about how tough it was, now I can finally come to terms with life. Living in college with colleagues from a myriad of different cultures and backgrounds, has taught me to appreciate how revealing life can be... The way some of us are placed right now is a privilege, and we should be grateful for it, instead of arrogantly taking everything for granted and exuding even more greed. I was off-track for a while and it took me quite some time to find my mojo, but some back-tracking has finally paid off and forever cleared my doubts.

Sometimes we need to stick to the things we believe in, irrespective of whether anyone else has faith in our goals and methods or not. Some sacrifices are necessary to serve a bigger purpose. Not all people will agree with you and some, quite frankly, won't be the least bit interested in looking at the world from your perspective. Some might like you, while a few might detest you, but one should always remember what his initial targets were. Our goals should remain unadulterated and shouldn't be modified by temporary roadblocks.

As for me, I'm living life completely by my own laws and don't regret anything I've done so far. I have played the game hard even when life seemed no better than a thorny impenetrable maze with hounds chasing you down. It feels great to have overcome all those thick endless dark clouds which always shrouded the way ahead, achieving my childhood dream of becoming an IITian, and barging my way through all the impossibilities which stared me in the face. My bluntness in saying this might be interpreted as cocky by some people, but I have found that many a times, it's in our own interest to see things just the way they are. I've written quite a few articles on similar issues, but this should serve as an ultimatum to sum it all up!...

As my best summer break ever comes to an end, it feels nice to cap it off with a family trip after three long and busy years. Having tried my hand at everything worthwhile the year before and with the director of Bharat Forge asking us if we would be interested in a future career in the company, after having successfully completed both the unique projects given to us in our intern, things can't look any better!

Of course, there are still a few minor issues that need to be addressed, like trying not to blow off steam when not at all required and being like a precision guided missile when it comes to hitting the mark, which have to be gradually worked on! But, with the prospect of our careers looming large in the horizon, everything else from now on takes a backseat. Extra-currics, parties, personal issues and similar stuff lose their place to the forthcoming academic challenges. We have had enough of the former in the first two years of college and it's time to get a little bit more serious and couscous about the latter.

The time for talking is over and our actions will be the only things which define us and decide our futures. So, carrying in mind all the fond memories of my friends and family and the inspiration obtained from my summer intern at BFL, I get ready to bid goodbye to my hometown in the hopes of returning a winner, better than ever before, and wishing everyone else the same.

ALL THE BEST!!!...

&

BE THE FORCE!!!...

A Recurring Doubt...!

When you think of the seemingly limitless expanse of space and then try to place yourself and your surroundings in it, it just gives you a sense of sheer pedantic nonsense, no matter how much you zoom in! We are all so concerned with life, which is itself such a flimsy thing, that we seem to forget what tiny specs we really are, especially when compared to the bigger picture.

And, no! These are not the simple musings of a daydreamer. These are valid questions which each and every one of us face at a certain age and learn to ignore or defer to other issues as we grow older. We never truly understand life, and even the most enlightened of men offer only partial solutions to all our queries, which often just answer the 'how' part of living life but not the 'why'!...

I've spent most of my time in the recent past working, enjoying, thinking, writing but most of all pondering upon the reason why I bother to do these things at all. What's the most which can happen to you if hypothetically speaking, you decided to just exist, assuming for a second that you had no personal or social responsibilities to live up to, and looking at the situation from a strictly logical standpoint? 

In any case, you would spend your time here, and then your soul (if there indeed exists such a thing) would become one with nature or however you want to put it. If you have lived a successful life, people benefit from it and build on it, and if you haven't then no one really cares. But my constantly recurring doubt is where does all of this get you, at the end of it all?

Visualizing the end of life as we know it, sometime in the very distant future, we can picture ourselves asking questions like what did this endless cycle of life and death, creation and destruction have to do with anything? What did it do for us? On the larger scale, things would have gone on as usual even if we never existed. 

It's a scary thought, because if there's something we humans love to do, it's to try and validate our lives. We put our faith in a 'master controller' and detach ourselves from things which are too vast to fathom. Instead, we concern ourselves with the pettiest of issues, just like me thinking about whether the title of one of my past articles was a little too brash!...

I frankly don't know how to answer these questions or what's the right thing to do. This is where science collides with faith and during the heated debate, people begin to lose sight of the question itself. I really hate it when I'm in doubt; but the best I can hope for is that things sort themselves out, just like they strangely always seem to do. Some things, I've learnt are just not for us to meddle with, especially for an engineering under-graduate like me!... I guess I'll just enjoy the wonderful rain outside and go about life the way I usually do!...

Self Made Voyage!!!...

So many articles written this summer and yet I find it extremely hard to find words worthy of describing this awesome experience. A countless number of priceless lessons learnt, with a soul renewed and a heart pumping more horse power than ever before, I get ready to step into my third year in college!

If there is one thing which Bharat Forge has taught me, it is to remain in one gear only and that is 'constant over-drive'! It might not necessarily mean physically running around all day, but it surely means getting into an unbeatable state of mind! Project after project successfully completed and consecutive reports timely submitted, it's been one hell of a ride!...

I think I've literally done almost everything conceivable in the past year and the summer intern which followed, and in fact, 'eventful' would be a very mild description for depicting this epic voyage. But, with my third year in engineering college just round the corner, things are about to get serious. This is the year which will probably have the most profound effect on our careers, with companies arriving in our college to offer interns and placements to all the students.

Although there are certain walls yet to be scaled, building for the future has rendered every other small priority irrelevant. Reality can't be changed and hence among other things, getting good grades is of the utmost importance, without which all other efforts would be in vain. I was fortunate to have done this year's intern with one of the topmost students of our department, one year senior to me, who other than being a good human being, also served as an inspiration.

He has done it all; right from getting the first rank in one semester and winning several events like IDP in Anveshan [the Metallurgical Engineering fest in IIT(BHU) Varanasi], all the way to forming his own dance group with his friends, called NUTS'11!... To have achieved all of this and yet be the very personification of humility inspires me to respect him all the more. What's even better is that he has become a very close friend of mine, and its good to finally see someone who lives by his own common sense and follows his own self-made principles, just like me!...

It was a pleasure to have him come over to my house for our report completion today, followed by lunch. He never speaks as if he's older to me, and a chat with him on a personal level spread a sort of calm over me, which I had not felt since a long time. So, hope we always remain in close contact Himanshu bhaiyya. Looking forward to cracking this new academic year, as the word 'fighter' is much more than just a cliche, I repeat the words which are, and always will be, the closest to my heart:-

BE THE FORCE!!!...    

The Technological Edge!!!...

I've heard of living life on the edge, but this is the first time I'm truly experiencing life at the 'technological' edge! Our first summer project being very pin-pointed in nature, at least as of now, leaves us with plenty of time in our hands. And although a second project on 'EMD Welding' is on its way right after we finish developing the 'Creep Test' procedure for Bharat Forge, life at the moment is pretty alleviated. Sitting in the comfort of a sofa in an air-conditioned research library and catching up on every earth shattering engineering breakthrough that has taken place in recent times is, without the shadow of a doubt, my favorite part of the day. 

Surfing the net to find extensive details and combining it with the knowledge gained from the latest research papers available here, is by far the best utilization of time I've done in ages. Many a times I feel like I'm already living my dream, even before I pass out of college with a master's degree in hand. The dim fluorescent lighting in the beautifully carved ceiling and the few rays of sunlight entering through gaps in the curtain totally detach you from your current bearings and take you into a world where science combines with technology to give rise to new ground breaking theories and their varied mind-numbing applications.

It was just the other day that I picked up a magazine titled 'New Scientist', in which Einstein's space-time theory had been challenged by physicist Lee Smolin and his colleagues at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada. They had made a radical claim that we actually live in an eight-dimensional world called 'phase space', which combines our familiar four dimensions of space-time with a four-dimensional world called momentum-space. If this theory was indeed proved to be correct it would solve certain intriguing problems like the 'black hole information-loss' paradox.

Spending your days at the research facility of one of the foremost companies in India, trying to conjure up the secrets of the very fabric of reality in your mind, is probably a strange but one of the most interesting and fruitful ways one can spend time here, that is if you are interested in such stuff! Time flies and we don't even look at our watches. This is one of the first and only places where I think of staying a little longer, instead of being keen on returning home as soon as the clock's hour-hand strikes five every evening!...

I wish this amazing journey would last a bit longer than the duration of our summer intern, but alas with only a month remaining, the time to leave Bharat Forge draws nearer every day. But, what's more important is enjoying every present moment as such good times might not last forever. With so much uncharted territory yet to be explored, I can now say with conviction that: "Even the sky is not the limit!..."