The adventure that is life !

I created this blogspot quite some time back. I worked out how I wanted it to look, I decided what name it should have (Memoirs of a Bhaari Chaat) and a lot of other things. But I never really got around to writing anything. I just could not bring myself to...

People may ask me why the name Memoir of a Bhaari Chaat(as I had named it originally) or in fact, why the current name.... Well this blog was supposed to start off by being just that... A memoir. A memoir of a time which was part sweet, part sad, part exciting, part disappointing and in fact must have had a part of every other emotion you can think of...

But what changed my mind and finally got me writing and changing the name of my blog is a post from someone I know quite well through a person quite close to me. Since most people will not have started to guess which post I am talking about, I will just provide the link here... Woes of a Pragyan girlfriend by Deep in thought... I suggest you go read this post before trying to make sense of what I am going to say next.

If you are not from NIT Trichy or did not know me then, you are probably wasting your time reading this but well its your time to waste so I wont stop you ! Most of you who will eventually read this might have known me in may capacities... A Thespi, an ECE student, Pragyan CTS coordinator, Coder, Designer, Central webteam member, on the committee of God knows how many committees but well looking back, I dont know how many people will be able to say "My Friend"... Not that they did not try for I have to applaud and appreciate what my friends put themselves through over the years to stay friends with me but well because I was well otherwise occupied...

How does that relate to the post I had pointed you to just a few lines ago? Well, let me put it this way... The guy being referred to by the Pragyan Girlfriend is kind of married. And I am the guy who married him.... In fact, now that I think about it, I was his best man, the officiating priest, the guests and all the other people required for a happy marriage all put in one person... Me ! And whom did I marry him to? The servers in an octagon shape building that happens to be the nerve center for all internet and intranet sites in a not so tiny college called National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli...

Deep in thought.... If this is the point where you are expecting me to apologise for giving him away before he could even meet you, forget it ! I make no apologies for he came to me with a thirst for knowledge which was as burning as my desire to give him that knowledge. I could not deny him even if I wanted to... Though if you ask him, I think he will tell you I did try to warn him exactly what he was getting into. However, I was the devil's advocate here... On one hand offering knowledge and a chance to do something constructive which he so wanted. And on the other hand advising him to stay away so you can imagine how effective that must have been ! Anyway, this blog is not about him... I hope to have one of those one day as a story of how a student can surpass his master. This particular post is about me.

What about me? Well, I would like to draw your attention back to the heading. These are my memoirs so what do you expect it to be about? Coming back to the point which I had so abruptly left about two paras back, some people must be having a lot of interesting thoughts about what or rather who was keeping me so pleasantly occupied. Well for those of you who are trying to link my name with someone of the fairer sex, I am sorry to burst your bubble but sorry... Frankly speaking, I never had the time and as our dear Pragyan Girlfriend so beautifully describes, who would be crazy enough to try ? For before I married that guy to the nitt servers, I was married to them myself.

It is about this marriage that I wish to talk about today. For it was an extremely bittersweet relationship. I still remember how it started off... As innocently as volunteering to make a webpage for a club I had just been inducted to... No not the webteam ! STEPTREC.... Or as people now would know it, Rotaract Club of Rock City... I had to design a forum which I must admit I half copied from Alagu's forum for wisdom and so did not find nearly as educating as it should have been. Now all of you know why my favourite training exercise for aspiring PHP coders over the years has been asking you to design a forum !!! I just hope it was more educating for you than it was for me !!! :D

Anyway, as always I am digressing... The next thing I knew, webteam inductions were being announced. Now that's something I remember well !!! I knew of people who had been training for weeks learning HTML, C and God knows what else in an attempt to be ready on the big day. And there was poor old me who decided at the very last minute to sit for the inductions. Well as you all know, I somehow scraped through. To this day I dont know what did they like about me at that time !! Somehow before now, I never found it important to ask !

Getting inducted into the webteam was when the adventure / problem started. Why adventure? For I was soon going to be learning things I had never imagined before. Why problem? Because I would have to do things whether I liked it or not. Deep in thought... If you are still reading this, I would encourage you to keep doing so... I hope I shall not disappoint you...

Before I knew it, I was somehow working for the first edition of Pragyan.... Pragyan '05 How exactly did that happen... Well.... I kind of forced myself into it whether you believe it or not... I started off in Pragyan in the Avishkar committee (I hope its still called Avishkar for you people but if not its the exhibition held on the grounds) The great team that we were, we started to think of an online registration form before the website was even complete. Somehow, when you are a member of the webteam, people automatically assume you are the perfect person to approach for web related work no matter whether it is designing the template of a website, making a form, or writing the text that goes into the actual page... So as usual, I was picked to make the registration form and before long, I was making the registration system for the entire Pragyan and I was a part of the CSG instead of Avishkar... Thus the adventure started turning into a problem...

Soon I was so deeply entrenched that there was no escaping it. I was stuck to Pragyan and the webteam for the rest of my college life! Partly because I was thirsty to learn more but mostly because, once you are on the job, you always have the feeling that if you give up on it, there may not be anyone to nurture it. Pragyan was my baby as well along with a lot of other people's. Though Pragyan '05 was dominated by final years, this small second year along with one or two others did manage to make their voices heard. I am again digressing here but I have heard a lot of juniors complaint how second and third years are not given fair chances to handle events and stuff. Well that may have been the case in the first year of Pragyan since there were no precedents then and no experienced people to choose from but let me tell you right here and now. The people who proved themselves have always had a place in Pragyan. Yes... It may not have been possible to appreciate people's work everywhere. A person who worked as much as I did in his third year was not even involved in Pragyan in his final year except at my request once in a while. But yes.... I dislike hearing people complaint "How can we prove ourselves if we are not given a chance?" There are chances all over the place. Its upto you whether you can grab it or crib for it !

Coming back to the point, (digressing seems to have become a habit to me) that's how my problem began as did my great adventure. Adventure? Well... They are the more well documented parts of my work with Pragyan and the webteam... Content Management System... Trips to Delhi for TEQIP information management software.... Getting Pragyan it's first Server... Confirguring its mail server... Making a distributed web server for webteam... Some work items may seem routine to all those people left in college now. But let me tell you the first time I had to do any of those..... Was an effort and an adventure in itself. Whether the undertaking took me a few hours or a few months... The feeling of satisfaction was always worth the effort...

So where does the problem come in? Well... You dont always have a choice regarding what you want to work on. All the things listed above..? Together they could have taken up all the spare time I had in college. And I have not even listed most of the other things. However, these are things I had to take time off for... Things I had to find time for within a 48 hour day. Having to do things you would much rather not do is where the problem arises. I never wanted to design website templates.... However I had to... I never wanted to make posters. Dont really fancy myself as a designer anyways... But I had to... Never really wanted to document college rules or write citations... But I had to... The list goes on and on and on and on...................

So if I were already so busy, why on earth did I take up more work ???? The problem lay in setting standards so high for yourself and your team that it becomes hard to achieve. Every time you reach a new benchmark, you are already pushing for the next... Because you feel that the work that you do will be a part of a better whole. That the work you do will be used in future... Because the work you do may spare someone from your pain later...

I know now that in the four short years we spend in college, it is very hard to build something long lasting. The webpage you build is replaced within a year. Something that seems new now will look outdated in a week. A brilliant idea today is a has been tomorrow. And this is not just true for the four years you spend in college but for your entire life. Life is fast. You either pick up the baton and run or you let life have its way with you.

So what does endure? If anything, it is your knowledge and skills. I could not built anything that will still be there if I come back even two years from now. But I feel that in my own way, I did leave a legacy. Deep in thought... The baton that has become your curse... Is that legacy of mine. And even though I keep cringing at the thought of the curse that comes attached with the baton, remember that it becomes his baton as well. And as each successive generation of souls cursed with the dreaded baton who are man enough to hold on to it and not let go leave a legacy of their own, you come to realise that the baton was not a curse but a boon. Even if you never see a website for the rest of your life. Even if you never run a single ls command for the rest of your life, that legacy will give you strength. A sense of worth. A sense of being able to do something that most others would shoo away as being crazy(though you may not believe me now... Given the circumstances in college, some of the projects I undertook initially, people did call crazy. Does anyone call anything you undertake crazy any more?) When I look back at college and see the work going on there, I see my legacy alive and in safe hands. Safe hands because it is not just my legacy but theirs as well... The adventure continues.

This is my memoir. Not a justification of my actions, not an apology, just a statement of facts as they were or rather as I perceived them. My thoughts as me myself may be flawed. But for what my thoughts are worth, I will tell you what I believe. Yes I have regretted at times for the fun I never had. For the people I never met. For the things I never did. For the happiness I might have never known. But that is life. Its upto you to choose how you wish to live it.


P.S :- This happens to me my first blog thought I guess I always knew that my first post would be along these lines. This particular post was in reply to something that struck a chord deep within me which could not be adequately expressed in the comments section of that wonderful blog by Deep in thought. Whether there are more posts are not partly depends upon whether or not that chord is struck again. I do hope you enjoy this one though.