Another year is coming to a close. This year was full of excitement, fun, struggle, disappointments, frustration, happiness, activities, confusion and new experiences. My discovery of self continued. Undoubtedly, I can term it as most versatile and unforgettable year of my life. Most of it for negative reasons.
A quick recap of the year. It began with placid morning of new year. In the coming week, my sister was visiting India so I spent some time at home but begul of Delhi Election kept drawing my attention. I left company of my sister and came to Delhi. In Delhi, I participated in Election Campaign. In between 26 Jan parade and Barmer trips were fun experiences.
Immediately after elections, I left for spiritual-recreational-religious tour of Bihar and Nepal. It was a grassroot unplanned trip. I was lucky to get some last minute reservations and thus began my back-pack voyage. I travelled to Sammed Shikhar, Kundalpur, Gaya, Nalanda, and Nepal. In Nepal, I attended 10 days Vipasana camp in Lumbini. After Lumbini, I toured Kathmandu on Activa. From there, I went to one of the most scenic destination of Nepal, Pokhara. The detailed travalogue of trip demands couple of full blogs in itself so here I would limit myself to general summary. On my return trip, I visited Gorakhnath Temple in Gorakhpur.
I met many inspiring, and amazing people. Most people I met wondered about the insanity of travelling alone. In my experience, travelling alone brings new insight, enable greater joy and provide opportunity to introspect and to connect with nature and your own soul. I still remember the sound of dhols and bells which were played at Pashupati Nath temple. I can feel the breeze of air which touched my skin while I was meditating in the middle of a lake on a boat in Pokhara. Just thinking about those sensations has a very cathartic experience. With Holi celebration at home, I came back to Delhi with my back pack which consisted of 4 set of cloths, one pair of shoes and some electronic gadgets.
Anyway, soon after the trip, I began with the pursuit of disciplining my daily life, a struggle which continues till date. I got engaged in numerous activities. For instance, explored cultural life of Delhi, helped an NGO with material preparation for Magazine , attended my psychology classes and finished psychology assignments, started gymming, running, blogging and meditation on daily basis. In the mean time, idea of going for Kailash Mansarovar trip caught up in my mind. I started preparation for the same. But somehow, Srini was able to convince me about idea of Cohortplus. We had been intellectually farting over the idea for six months. Time was running and the desire to do something constructive and productive was building up heavily. Eventually, I chose to work on Cohortplus over going to Kailash Mansarovar.
Meanwhile Civil Services Mains results were out after much delay. A brief experience of happiness occured. After 2 consecutive mains failure, the interview call was a pleasing experience. However once bitten twice shy, I was aware of unpredictability of civil services from my first year experience. Thus, Next 3 weeks were completely dedicated to make the most out of the opportunity.
April 30, My interview date. Interview went Ok. Definitely not the best but not the worse either. Immediately after, I moved to Bangalore. Me and my back pack. After 7 years, once again I travelled ticketless for 36 hours evading possible encounters with ticket examiners, slept in closed wooden box which was used for stuffing bed sheets and pillows for passengers and enjoyed hot railway meals.
The quest to build application began. For next 5 and half months, me, Srini, Rahul, Karan worked hard to make this App a reality. I had many moments of dis-belief, frustration and confusion in this pursuit of uncertainty but I salute Srini for holding on to his conviction, reposing his trust in me and working on the idea to make this a reality. Looking back, I think these 5 months were crucial in reigniting my interest in technology after such a long break. And I must sincerely thank Srini for this.
In between, lot of water flowed under the bridge. I visited Delhi almost every other month. Purpose was different each time. Once it was a family function, next time it was Psychology papers assignment for which I had finished in March. Me, Sushant, Prathmesh and Vikas undertook two fun trips to Amritsar Golden Temple, Bagha border and Dehradun, Hrishikesh. I travelled to Vaishno Devi with my parents on a memorable and blessed trips. I consider myself fortunate for getting opportunity of getting darshan of Vaishno Devi shrine 3 times in period of 24 hours and also visiting ArdhaKumari without waiting for even 3 hours. Most people get waiting time of 36 hours for ArdhaKumari. Sometimes, luck falls on my side. But most of the time, it is a sail against tides. Few days after visiting Vaishno Devi, I had my results out and as usual it was "not found" result for my roll number. Heart breaking, sense numbing but life has given me enough lessons to take these hiccups with ease and calm. I celebrated the failure with ice creams and some hip shaking in the Night. Next morning, I visited Nandi Hills with my sister, her intended and her friends.
All the emotions and entropy generated was channelized to Cohortplus. We had a target launch date and We badly wanted to not miss it. Company of Anup, Shekhar and Srini made my stay very fulfilling. I thoroughly enjoyed my stay with them. We explored lot of local food joints and discussed randomly about movies, books, travels, entrepreneurship, politics and random ideas. Most of the time, I was only an active listener to their conversation. It was really fun and education to listen to them. The apartment was located in rich society with facilities of Tennis, Swimming, Gym etc.
I started my swimming, running, gymming and meditation schedule on more regular basis. But my struggle to discipline my schedule continued. Start ups are always demanding experience so my schedule became obvious casualty of night outs or stretched working hours.
Amid all this excitement and learning of entrepreneurship, disappointment of civil services, fun company of learned flat mates, struggle of maintaining my schedule lay the confusion. Confusion of what to do for rest of my life. Should I aim to become a teacher or IT professional or political psephologist or researcher or entrepreneur or just continue with the pursuit of civil services? The vividness of my dreams, incompleteness due to failure in civil services, desire to do something meaningful, something where I can discover same momentum, same energy or similar conviction as I possessed during civil services haunted me.
Its not like I did not know what to do or if I was short of options or skills. It was my ambitious attitude which wanted to make maximum out of opportunity in my alternate career. At the same time, a part of me remained trapped in lofty dreams of becoming IAS. Almost 100 times, I had reached to the conclusion that pursuing career in IT as professional or teacher would be my best bet. But whenever I read something thrilling about other fields, a part of me wanted to drift in other direction. Srini was putting constant effort in looping me for start up thingy. Reconciling this inner conflict was one of the biggest challenge I faced after civil result. Way more challenging than dealing with frustration of repeated failure or seeing my luck beaten by hundred others who appeared for Interview.
In between came this unexpected trip to USA. This trip turned out to be a novel experience which enriched my overall journey of 2015. It demands a separate blog in itself. Will write about it some other time.
Right now, I am in Amsterdam, waiting for my connecting flight back home. Will be heading to Bangalore to fulfill my commitment with Srini. He has been very considerate and helpful throughout. Now time has come to pay him back.
With the end of year coming to close, I have also sort of crystallized my thoughts for my future endeavours. Become an IT expert, learn as many technologies as possible, settle in Noida, help students in civil services preparation for free, run in marathon, write regularly, read daily 10 pages of a book, meditate and read poems. But one prerequisite to this is need to settle at one place and to discipline my mind.
It was one wonderful year where I simply flowed with the flow. Overall It was one of the most unforgettable year of my life. But an experience which is gud once in a decade only. Civil Services results left an indelible scar. There is no bitterness or wounds but scar remains.
To sum it up, I can say, "In this year, I learned to flow with the flow".
Annugachchti Pravaham :)
A quick recap of the year. It began with placid morning of new year. In the coming week, my sister was visiting India so I spent some time at home but begul of Delhi Election kept drawing my attention. I left company of my sister and came to Delhi. In Delhi, I participated in Election Campaign. In between 26 Jan parade and Barmer trips were fun experiences.
Immediately after elections, I left for spiritual-recreational-religious tour of Bihar and Nepal. It was a grassroot unplanned trip. I was lucky to get some last minute reservations and thus began my back-pack voyage. I travelled to Sammed Shikhar, Kundalpur, Gaya, Nalanda, and Nepal. In Nepal, I attended 10 days Vipasana camp in Lumbini. After Lumbini, I toured Kathmandu on Activa. From there, I went to one of the most scenic destination of Nepal, Pokhara. The detailed travalogue of trip demands couple of full blogs in itself so here I would limit myself to general summary. On my return trip, I visited Gorakhnath Temple in Gorakhpur.
I met many inspiring, and amazing people. Most people I met wondered about the insanity of travelling alone. In my experience, travelling alone brings new insight, enable greater joy and provide opportunity to introspect and to connect with nature and your own soul. I still remember the sound of dhols and bells which were played at Pashupati Nath temple. I can feel the breeze of air which touched my skin while I was meditating in the middle of a lake on a boat in Pokhara. Just thinking about those sensations has a very cathartic experience. With Holi celebration at home, I came back to Delhi with my back pack which consisted of 4 set of cloths, one pair of shoes and some electronic gadgets.
Anyway, soon after the trip, I began with the pursuit of disciplining my daily life, a struggle which continues till date. I got engaged in numerous activities. For instance, explored cultural life of Delhi, helped an NGO with material preparation for Magazine , attended my psychology classes and finished psychology assignments, started gymming, running, blogging and meditation on daily basis. In the mean time, idea of going for Kailash Mansarovar trip caught up in my mind. I started preparation for the same. But somehow, Srini was able to convince me about idea of Cohortplus. We had been intellectually farting over the idea for six months. Time was running and the desire to do something constructive and productive was building up heavily. Eventually, I chose to work on Cohortplus over going to Kailash Mansarovar.
Meanwhile Civil Services Mains results were out after much delay. A brief experience of happiness occured. After 2 consecutive mains failure, the interview call was a pleasing experience. However once bitten twice shy, I was aware of unpredictability of civil services from my first year experience. Thus, Next 3 weeks were completely dedicated to make the most out of the opportunity.
April 30, My interview date. Interview went Ok. Definitely not the best but not the worse either. Immediately after, I moved to Bangalore. Me and my back pack. After 7 years, once again I travelled ticketless for 36 hours evading possible encounters with ticket examiners, slept in closed wooden box which was used for stuffing bed sheets and pillows for passengers and enjoyed hot railway meals.
The quest to build application began. For next 5 and half months, me, Srini, Rahul, Karan worked hard to make this App a reality. I had many moments of dis-belief, frustration and confusion in this pursuit of uncertainty but I salute Srini for holding on to his conviction, reposing his trust in me and working on the idea to make this a reality. Looking back, I think these 5 months were crucial in reigniting my interest in technology after such a long break. And I must sincerely thank Srini for this.
In between, lot of water flowed under the bridge. I visited Delhi almost every other month. Purpose was different each time. Once it was a family function, next time it was Psychology papers assignment for which I had finished in March. Me, Sushant, Prathmesh and Vikas undertook two fun trips to Amritsar Golden Temple, Bagha border and Dehradun, Hrishikesh. I travelled to Vaishno Devi with my parents on a memorable and blessed trips. I consider myself fortunate for getting opportunity of getting darshan of Vaishno Devi shrine 3 times in period of 24 hours and also visiting ArdhaKumari without waiting for even 3 hours. Most people get waiting time of 36 hours for ArdhaKumari. Sometimes, luck falls on my side. But most of the time, it is a sail against tides. Few days after visiting Vaishno Devi, I had my results out and as usual it was "not found" result for my roll number. Heart breaking, sense numbing but life has given me enough lessons to take these hiccups with ease and calm. I celebrated the failure with ice creams and some hip shaking in the Night. Next morning, I visited Nandi Hills with my sister, her intended and her friends.
All the emotions and entropy generated was channelized to Cohortplus. We had a target launch date and We badly wanted to not miss it. Company of Anup, Shekhar and Srini made my stay very fulfilling. I thoroughly enjoyed my stay with them. We explored lot of local food joints and discussed randomly about movies, books, travels, entrepreneurship, politics and random ideas. Most of the time, I was only an active listener to their conversation. It was really fun and education to listen to them. The apartment was located in rich society with facilities of Tennis, Swimming, Gym etc.
I started my swimming, running, gymming and meditation schedule on more regular basis. But my struggle to discipline my schedule continued. Start ups are always demanding experience so my schedule became obvious casualty of night outs or stretched working hours.
Amid all this excitement and learning of entrepreneurship, disappointment of civil services, fun company of learned flat mates, struggle of maintaining my schedule lay the confusion. Confusion of what to do for rest of my life. Should I aim to become a teacher or IT professional or political psephologist or researcher or entrepreneur or just continue with the pursuit of civil services? The vividness of my dreams, incompleteness due to failure in civil services, desire to do something meaningful, something where I can discover same momentum, same energy or similar conviction as I possessed during civil services haunted me.
Its not like I did not know what to do or if I was short of options or skills. It was my ambitious attitude which wanted to make maximum out of opportunity in my alternate career. At the same time, a part of me remained trapped in lofty dreams of becoming IAS. Almost 100 times, I had reached to the conclusion that pursuing career in IT as professional or teacher would be my best bet. But whenever I read something thrilling about other fields, a part of me wanted to drift in other direction. Srini was putting constant effort in looping me for start up thingy. Reconciling this inner conflict was one of the biggest challenge I faced after civil result. Way more challenging than dealing with frustration of repeated failure or seeing my luck beaten by hundred others who appeared for Interview.
In between came this unexpected trip to USA. This trip turned out to be a novel experience which enriched my overall journey of 2015. It demands a separate blog in itself. Will write about it some other time.
Right now, I am in Amsterdam, waiting for my connecting flight back home. Will be heading to Bangalore to fulfill my commitment with Srini. He has been very considerate and helpful throughout. Now time has come to pay him back.
With the end of year coming to close, I have also sort of crystallized my thoughts for my future endeavours. Become an IT expert, learn as many technologies as possible, settle in Noida, help students in civil services preparation for free, run in marathon, write regularly, read daily 10 pages of a book, meditate and read poems. But one prerequisite to this is need to settle at one place and to discipline my mind.
It was one wonderful year where I simply flowed with the flow. Overall It was one of the most unforgettable year of my life. But an experience which is gud once in a decade only. Civil Services results left an indelible scar. There is no bitterness or wounds but scar remains.
To sum it up, I can say, "In this year, I learned to flow with the flow".
Annugachchti Pravaham :)
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