Experience

Apologies for writing something new in the middle of a intended series of articles on my Himalayas Trip.

Everything began when I just finished my schooling (class12). I had to choose an engineering college. Ya, the only choice I had (or knew) about 'what to study next' was engineering. I had to choose between a deemed university in Thanjavur, an autonomous university in Coimbatore and a very strict college in Chennai (where my parents lived, where my home is) that was affiliated to Anna University.

I knew that graduating from a deemed university is not as valuable as one done with Anna University, was a huge rumour. Every course is a good one as long as one is interested in it and every college is good, as long you have some (even a few would do) good looking girls in the campus. So, since I had changed my room's light-bulbs a couple of times and used to remember electrician’s phone number by-heart, I thought I was interested in Electrical Engineering and realizing that good looking girls can be found in every corner of this spherical planet and facebook, I chose Thanjavur.

Being in a new place away from home was exciting, new friends, sharing wardrobes and tables with  room mates instead of my brother, the best dinner was maggi (Top Ramen was even better), boring weekends, super fast WiFi and a warden who will the mark attendance especially on the night when I decide to catch a movie or grab a couple of drinks with my buddies. Life was awesome. Got used to the new hostel life, which was new only for a couple of days. Fortnight trains back home during the first year, bunking a couple of classes during the second year, asking parents for extra money during the third year and attending only a couple of classes during the last year. College was Awesome.

After hardly working for 4 years and deep knowledge in Electrical Engineering (you definitely know in part I am being sarcastic), I got a job in a leading (leading as in half of the college would get placed here and the other half with the competitor) IT company. The best part of the job was the offer letter said “Working from Chennai”. Accepted the offer, packed my bags and headed straight home.

After sitting simply in the training program for 4 months, I was deployed to Mumbai. Had fun there,  ate vada pav and dhahi, met some good looking girls (wow, a sphere has corners too), had new job as Program Analyst and lot of money to spend the weekends sleeping. I had lot of fun. Staying away from home gave me a lot of experiences, I learnt a lot, my horizons got wider, the people I know were from varied backgrounds and I definitely had a good idea of what I wanted to become.

Now, after working for 3 years and having done none of the things I have mentioned above, I am in a foreign land studying in an International University, renting a house with a group of guys I met through facebook. I still know how vada pav tastes, I know a lot of people from varied backgrounds and I had lot of fun staying at home all the twenty odd years. I know however wide my horizons are, its still not enough. I know good idea is a myth and a good idea about what I wanted to become is the biggest of all.

Staying in hostel gives a new experience, undeniable. But for a good experience one need not stay in hostels or stay away from home, one needs to be aware. Everyday is a new experience, some-days we react and some-days we respond. 

Even these 3 weeks of staying away from home has been an experience, but staying home waiting for yours friends to come from Thanjavur during weekends and play beach cricket is great fun, exploring the same old city with a new set of friends is awesome and watching your parents grow old staying very close to them is beautiful. What if I don't have your experience, you don't have mine either and we are both happy.

Sar Pass – Himalayas: How it started

Got a call from a friend when I was about to hit the bed on a February night.

Conversation starts:

Friend: “Hey did u check out the Youth Hostel Association India (YHAI) National Trekking Expediture on Himalayas. I am going”. (All excited).

 Me: Ya? Super.

F: U should come too…

Me: Seri thukirvom (sure, we will pull it off). But now I am almost sleeping, tomorrow morning I will book.

F: awesome, it’s called the sar pass. The max height on the route is 13800ft. U cross a frozen river and then slide down. I have booked for June 3^rd….

Me: (with lot of other interesting information and me not in a state to process all of that at once because I was sleepy) tomorrow morning sure thing.

F: (since I attended the call when I was half asleep, u should have figured by now, it’s a she. so let’s call her S) don’t forget, bye.

and she hangs up.

NEXT MORNING...

TEXT message from S: dai, the slots for June 3 is booked. USELESS.

Understanding the demand, I ask 6 guys and sign up for the adventure, with reporting day on June 4^th. I get updates about the whole thing via S from blogs, news articles, websites, etc. My mind voice, it’s only march now and we have a time till June. Paathukalam da.

 “We are in April now, have u booked the tickets”? Another message from S. We book tickets from Chennai to Delhi, both ways flight (We are employed u see). The thought of not asking dad money for flight ticket because we are employed rings a bell. We are employed, two weeks of leave is impossible. First of all, am I eligible for that much leave?

I told my boss “I am going to Himalayas for a trek and I need leave for 2 weeks”, seriously I told my boss I was going for a Himalayan trek and there are bosses who approve it. After impressing the boss with some good work and few weeks of waiting, Leave approved.

Now we are on the last week of May. Making a checklist took me only a few seconds because the most important things were covered in the YHAI website and their specifications were shared by Ms.S.

Things to bring along with you:

1. Rucksack - if you have one, if not, don’t worry YHAI will provide u a good one.
2. CottonShirts – 3 on the trek. Done carry too many, ur pics will look better in that place even with a dirty shirt.
3. Cotton Pants or tracks. Jeans is also good
4. Sun Cap – 3 minimum.
5. Torch – don’t plan to buy this at the base camp.
6. Shoes - Can be bought in the base camp for 300Rs, but for good ones go to woodlands or Quechua.
7. Slippers – to walk around in the camps.
8. Socks – 4 cotton and 1 woolen. Woolen can be bought the base camp.
9. Enameled or Steel Mug / tumbler – if it can keep the tea/water warm for long and it not very heavy. Go for it.
10. Tiffin box – forget plates. Take tiffin boxes which has at least two partitions. Reserve the biggest for deserts.
11. Water purifying tablets – will be mentioned on the website but don’t spoil the water up there with these stupid tablets. Forget the purifying tablets.
12. Pen knife.
13. Dry fruits – Don’t eat everything on the first day. Believe me, u will be tempted to, but DON’T.
14. Shoes in-soles.
15. Sun glasses – black or brown. Strictly no blue.
16. Cold cream / Vaseline and Sun screen – SPF 70 or more.
17. Toilet Paper – Water will be available.
18. Light weight Towels (2) – it should dry easily.
19. Rain sheet – plastic sheet quality that can cover till knee. Don’t take heavy raincoats.
20. Jerkin/ Winter Jackets – preferably water resistive.
21. Medicines which you normally use at home.
22. If you want to contact somebody take a simple mobile (that can hold charge for a long time) with Airtel connection. We had people who bought 4 cell phones, so that they can talk full time. If u meet similar people, don’t tell them u have an Airtel connection.
23. Camera with extra battery – if your friends don’t have one.

After borrowing the shoes and the bag (Wildcraft - Alphine 55), putting the most of the above mentioned things into the bag and buying some toilet papers, I was packed on June 1^st. Since everything was set, went out to watch a movie and chose ”yeh jawani hai deewani”. Awesome timing, first half was completely about a trekking expedition in the Himalayas. The number of girls who came to the trip (in the movie) got my hopes high. With full of hopes, an extra full bag and 3 friends with mutual feelings, I reached Delhi on June 2^nd.

The idea of POWER

At this point of time, when I say violence, we visualize a women being tortured at some place in this world, and who holds the figure of the 23 year old girl who died in Delhi recently because she was raped. I have seen a lot of posts in facebook and twiter where people ask for different solutions.

I see this as a problem of thought, a problem of how power is perceived. Especially by men, power is perceived in a physical sense. The power is defined as the authority or control over someone else. But power is the ability to resolve, that most of the Indian women of my generation and my mother's generation live as an example of.

Women today don't need a strange men to come and abuse them, things start very locally. I know guys who have hit their girlfriends because he doesn't want her to have any male friend. Sorry, I would perceive possessiveness differently. I have heard of men, who have left their wives for other women and the society blames it on the lady.

This is a problem in the genes, in the society. The idea that male is more powerful of the two sexes comes from the thought that "if I hold her hand very strongly, she won't be able to move". Though a lot of us are protesting, call ourselves educated, live in a city, and think we are advanced in the way we think. I am afraid we are wrong. The ability to park the car in the first attempt, the ability to hold on to the cricket bat, the ability to stay at office without thinking about home, the ability to come back home late night without anyone's company, the ability to get married late, and a lots more is very wrongly perceived as power by men.

During school, my exam would finish at 12:30, I would be home by 1:15 and by then my home phone would have already received 2 calls from my mother, who is at work, asking how I did the exam (even though she knows how I would have) and still sticking to the work schedule at office, that is power. Recently she got her right hand fractured, but still she runs the home single handedly (quite literally), that is power. I know lady friends of mine, who have got married a little early in their life, have a career, manage family awesomely, unlike men who wait for a stable income and all random trips with friends. That is power.

Oh yes they do break down a lot (even at movies where an elephant named Ramu dies). If shouting FUUUU*K and banging something on the floor is to men, crying is to women, to vent their anger, pressure and frustration.

By the way things are going, the vision of the great Tamil Poet Bharathiyaar's for women is definitely blurred, but what he perceived about power is real.

The ability to stand up against what one feels wrong is power, the ability to balance and bring harmony is power, the ability to grow another human being inside one is power, the ability to see what their sons have become is power, the ability to raise a true man is POWER.  That is why in Sanskrit, Shakti is rightly named as 'to be able'.

FAKE YOU!

Your life is a beautiful gift, unique to yourself, that is why you will have to fake it to the world. Because the world expects you to be like somebody, somebody normal. The people in life compare yourself with someone else. No, I don't mean u r being compared to Kalams and Narayanamurthys, u are being compared to Mahesh and Suresh next door. With all due respect to Mahesh and Suresh, u might want to ask what is the whole point, but come on let's be practical, when u are running a rat race u don't expect yourself to be compared with Lions.

I have very rarely heard of a teacher, who comes to your desk, points at your answer paper and says "wow, that is a brilliant way of looking at the problem, it's ok that u have got a few concepts wrong but your approach gives a new dimension. Let's work on that after school hours, keep it going", I have more heard them saying "what have u written, it is totally not in sync with what is given in the text book, I am not surprised you failed". With big aims and aspirations and with less people who have the time to understand, U FAKE.

U FAKE school life hoping that people grow with age. U start working, the new place promises to be a little better, but yes, it's just a matter of time. Appraisal, money and promotions fakes you. I completely understand, you have to give it in to the fact that when result is not produced, the whole purpose of why someone hired u is gone. So u lend your ear  to all the meeting room gyans, where people say "look at that team, look at this chart, look at him, when we were like u... (where ur heart would plead to say "like me?? go take a walk, I am unique")" u align to the what they say, instead of "how can I stick to my way of doing things and produce their results". Sadly your definition of growing up doesn't match theirs.

U FAKE, with the hope that personal life is going to rock. U fall for someone, propose, they accept or reject,  either way u r FAKED. If accepted, U are expected to change ur shirt, the way u talk, the things u do, be like your 'someone's' friend's someone and after doing all that u hear "u are no more the same". U cross this barrier, go talk to your 'someone's' parents to asking for your someone's hand and they compare u with their aunt's in-law's cousin's someone. By this time u r totally faked. If rejected, that is an entirely different story.

U FAKE every phase with the hope that once u have cross that phase, the world will welcome you with open arms, hug u, kiss u and embarrass you, but all it does is FAKE YOU, right royally.

U FAKE yourself all the way to impress lot of people, important people, and end up being disappointed with yourself, FAKED UP.

Change is good, correction is good, improving is good, but if the world calls faking as changing, improving and correcting. FAKE YOU man, my life is a beautiful gift, unique, I define my life.

Svaramed at Auroville

Svaram is a place in the midst of a bamboo forest, created to discover music instruments out of everything that would bring out the feel of music in everybody independent of knowledge and training. Located inside Auroville makes it even more special.

The first time I heard about Svaram was when I took a random trip to Auroville explored the shop at the Auroville visitors centre, but then I dint know they had a musical research place. 2 years later, during my second marathon at Auroville, me and my friends took a casual bike ride inside Auroville and heard some drum beats. Moving towards the music, led us to svaram. The feel of Svaram is fantastic, the place is truly spiritual.

The place manifests independence and encourages talent and ideas.  Being a person who can play the percussions and having owned some of the small drums of svaram, I started playing the djembe, the best djembe I have ever played was still half painted. After playing for around 15mins, I realized I was only in the showroom opposite to the research place, where the real research music happens out of everything possible.

The first thing that caught my eyes was a LPG cylinders modified and hung around the place, the first one I played was set to mohanam ragam. Admiring that for some time, I fell for a huge African styled base drum. Looking from a distance, art work on the drum was fascinating, the size was by itself a beauty. The heavenly feel when you play the drum in confluence to the sound coming from the bamboo forest, make you feel like "I AM GOD". After a few of minutes of playing the drum, Prakash from the Svaram team joined me and we had an absolutely brilliant jamming session.

The marathon was the next day and it was shut down time for Svaram. I had a quick walk inside the place and when I was about to leave, "THAMBE" it was Karthik, he asked me where I am staying and for how long, and asked me to play with them at the marathon tomorrow. People of Svaram team up at different places along the trail of the marathon, with the instruments to encourage runners, believe me it works awesome on your run, and when you are going to join the team playing with them,it works even better. I joined the Svaram team near the finish line, after I finished my run. Initially we performed as a group and the group welcomed a stranger drummer in me. Myself and Prakash continued our jamming sessions, joined by kids and lady dancers.

I would personally recommend everybody interested in music to visit Svaram, and when  you are going call me, 2hours was not enough . People can also work hand-in-hand with Svaram and help them in their research. Svaram also helps to research on one's music ideas.

One could see every musical instrument that Sivamani uses with his drum kits or probably even more at Svaram, but the feeling of playing them cannot be comprehended by just reading this. If you really are acumen about this idea, you need to be there.

Music must release oneself from the mundane thought and Svaram does it perfectly well.

written for http://www.deccanchronicle.com/tabloid/potpouri/music-and-innovation-swaram-028

when i speak at a graduation

After watching the famous Jobs graduation day speech at Stanford, I imagined myself going in front of my school's 12th pass outs  some day and say 'what follows' (assuming that the trend continuous that majority are still getting into a engineering college).

When u get to college, there are three things you are going to experience. New people, New ideologies and New you.

NEWPEOPLE:

The first day you go to college, things will be very different, different language, different style, different mentalities, different size, so different in size that you would probably end up getting ragged by your own class mate, and most importantly different outlook, so different that the girl whom you know for the past 4 years turns her face away 'heart break on the first day of college' get used to it, u will encounter more of this.

To girls: u ll be looked at as if u r a European tourist entering the rural India, with a WOW. Enjoy the respect, don't do too much, who knows u might not even be worth it and the realization might not be far away.

Dai boys: the lab, the mess hall, lab coat, daily color dress, bikes, girls, everything will look equally attractive, BEWARE. Labs, there are lots u ll have to learn outside these four walls and a few machines get out as early as possible. Mess hall, the pouch - the more you eat, the merrier, sleepier and bigger u get. Color dress, the maximum u can buy is 10 pairs of trousers and shirts and u definitely know the rest. Bikes, with all due respect, petrolku daily unga appa-na kaasu kuduppan. The girls, its scientifically proven that girls get prettier at college and the guys get stupid, they are still working on the relativity (for the first part of the research, it was a no girl team. A girl came in as an intern, and they are still working on the research).

Guys and girls getting into gender biased colleges, I have nothing to say them except "SMART MOVE", if u know what I mean.

NEW IDEOLOGIES:

 Everyday might seem like 'nothing big has happened', but the day before the exam believe me, IT IS GOING TO BE REALLY BIG. Even and odd semesters which will be synonyms for cultural semester and symposium semester. U ll have a lot of things to do but most importantly, do something new, do what u want.

It's ok if u don't focus, it's ok if u don't have clarity, it's ok if u are not going to get better grades, its ok if to hate somebody, it's ok to love more than 1, it's ok to raise a finger at your professor and say "can I go to toilet". Participate in competitions and department clashes, get face to face with a professor, talk to HOD and explain why u are better than him, get on your knees for a girl, get into a fight for your friend even when u know that he is wrong, celebrate that with a drink together, buy a phone for 15000 and get confused about whether to recharge it for 20 or 30, Go to new places, meet new people, treat them with arrogance, disagree with them with respect. Stand on top of the world and say to yourself " i have a lots left to experience in the bledy world and I am loving it".

NEW U:

GET OUT AND ENJOY. DON'T BOTHER ABOUT THE NEW YOU, HE CAN TAKE CARE OF HIMSELF.

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. You are the guy who'll decide where to go. What follows you is always YOU".

P.S.: if any Teacher, Principal and Head of institutions is reading this, we can customize this, no problem at all. :-)

special CLASS ROOM

There was a place in the last row, where an 11th class boy used to sit. To his left it was the girls’ row, ok let’s not touch the nice part now, and let’s go to the other side. Everyone on his right seemed to be different. The guy who looks always sleepy, the guy who removes his shoes and sits folded legs, the guy to whom different things were interesting at different times, the guy who drives his own car to school, the guy who could wake up at 3AM to watch Ranji trophy, and many more.

But there was this point when all of them were scaled on the same parameters, MARKS. Marks were used to understand how good one would fair in his life. Probably then he dint realize that Marks is just made by some dumb heads, because they couldn’t see the brighter side of everybody and everybody were special, and what they do can’t be done by others.

The guys who scored better were considered bright, well to do in life. The guys who scored a little lesser where probably the hooligans, the people who have to attend special class during the evening to learn the morning lessons again, to do better in life.

Like many schools, his school didn’t understand, it’s not all about marks. The special classes they conducted were more de-motivating than the 3/100 he scored in biology. He probably escaped the illusion of marks, but there were a lot of his friends who got stuck with the illusion.

Though, Today he agrees to the fact that, even the little English he knows is because of the teachers who taught him ‘A for Apple’, it remains true that instead of asking him to read English newspaper daily so that he can get 8/10 instead of 6/10 in an essay, if she could have made it more interesting and shown the true value, he would probably be writing the same article in a better way for a newspaper and the same could have been read at the UNICEF. Even though he is coping to move on, he still feels sad about how many people are still feeling defeated because of being forced to play the game they didn't even want to.

Classrooms were fun, but the Special class-rooms were such a pain. All those whom he competed weren't there, left only to be satisfied with the increase in the probability of winning, making even probability less fun.