So after one year of a new college-hostel life, slowly the enthusiasm about B.E. and hostel life settled down. Things started getting pretty serious. I didn’t even know how to write a simple program in C. Actually I came to know this at the end of 3rd sem when I actually tried to write data structure samples. Freaked to realize that I dont know the basics of writing a program, the meaning of it and reason why and how we write any instruction or statement in the code. I felt its a total waste of being an Information Science engineer. That day I promised myself to learn every damn thing from basics which comes in my way.

During this time, I met some friends who became close and dear to me later. Some geeks, some careless/daring, some silent and some inspired. Worth mentioning – inspired to some extent by my close friend Srikanth’s life. Inspired by my roommate Nithin’s academic talent and Pachcha’s dancing skills. Had met some very nice and interesting people – Gautham and Gayathri, Nikhil, Sudhir, Shinna, Vinit, Ashwin (my first roommate), Nithyanand, Srinivas Kini, Somnath, Narsim Pai… These are the people I had spent most of my four years with. This is why I always believe everyone should interact, make contacts and express in life. Life rocks when you have true friends.

Like every teenager, I too had a crush on one gal. It was just an infatuation at that time. I was pretending to be friend. But when I was asked about the relationship, I didn’t had the guts to tell the truth. I just kept silent without any reaction. From that day till now the silence prevails. Felt bad for few weeks for not expressing my feelings. But as some say whatever happens in life is for good. It was also a part and parcel of life. Eventually being in the hostel and looking at things happening around made me realize one more fact of life. Once you are in a relationship, you will loose some independence and freedom in your life. You have to sacrifice either one of them boss. Thats the way life is. So I decided no luv-shuv craps, just keep enjoying in life. Actually life was much better after that

Four years went by as a flash but enjoyed the most. No regrets. One thing to feel happy about is didn’t waste time trying to score high, to get a job in Infy or TCS. It all starts in final year. The final year was a one more eventful. Didn’t get a job in any of the 6 companies I was eligible of attending. Didn’t even clear the first rounds in any of those companies. Lost all hopes by the end of 7th semester. Mentally prepared myself and started focusing on completing the course. Then came Robosoft to campus. I said to myself this is the last company for our batch lets try, however I dont have anything to loose, so just go there and give my best of whatever I know. This little courage was given by Srikanth, just day before the interview. Luckily that attitude worked and I had a job. Thanks Sri !!

If I had studied hard, scored marks, I would have been working in some BPO or service company and wouldn’t have got the opportunity to work on Macs and other Apple products. But studying only what was required and what I felt interesting, helped me. And mainly the the attitude – you have nothing to loose – actually helped me give out my best at the interview. New lesson learnt that day.

As Steve Jobs rightly said, do what you love and have courage to go for it because you dont have anything to loose. Now I can relate myself to it. At that time, I didn’t know all these, it was just pure luck and heaven’s grace on me.

Thanks to all my friends and foes, all the lecturers and everyone else who made these four years of my life most memorable one.

This post is dedicated to Steven Paul Jobs fondly known as Steve Jobs.

October 6, 2011, India: I was in a deep sleep, suddenly my alarm in my mobile started shouting. I snoozed and with blurred eyes I saw some thing “stevejobs..” Whenever its about Steve Jobs and Apple its different. I jumped on my bed, sat, rubbed my eyes and saw the message and it was “stevejobs.. “, sent by one of my friend. I was dumb struck for a second, WTF!! Half of my instinct was telling he is gone but my adoration for him suppresses the thought and says I might not be gone, but might be critical/hospitalized.

I launched the browser and with trembling hands typed news.google.com and the first headline was “Steve Jobs passes away”. I felt like the whole world started dissolving in itself rapidly. I went to apple.com, they had this beautiful designed page saying “Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011″

Apple has also provided an mail-id, rememberingsteve@apple.com, to share our condolences and thoughts. Just shared it, in case if anyone needs. It was hard for me to believe and I checked my twitter timeline, it was filled with RIP messages. Never thought he will leave us so soon.

For some people its Apple and its products and for some people its Pixar for which he is liked, loved and admired most. Whatever he has given, he has left his mark on it forever.

Here are some things I would like to share:

-Steve Jobs – A great visionary, technology legend, inspiring leader.
-A founder who openly challenged his competitors.
-A human being who lived a life he preached.
-He is a “Benevolent Dictator” – one who is soft and kind, yet stubborn when it comes to products and their quality.

For me, in his life’s final keynote (the last year of his life), he introduced the product – “iPad 2″ (WWDC 2011) and at last he silently said “ONE MORE THING” with “iPhone 4S” just before saying good bye to the world.

Here are some of his lines n phrases:

“Think different” – this one has to be first and foremost.

“Insanely great” – his quote for first Macintosh

“Magical, revolutionary, amazing” – describes for all his products

“Isn’t it beautiful!!”, “Isn’t it cool” – after introducing a product during the keynotes

“Thank you, Thank you all for coming” – At the very start of every WWDC keynote.

“One more thing” – Special announcements at the end of every keynote.

“Technology marries Liberal Arts” – at the end of keynote with this pic

From Stanford commencement speech –

“Connect the dots”

“The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again”

“Do what you love. The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle”

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking”

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share”

“Stay hungry, stay foolish”

If anyone has more memories please share.

Its just one day without him in the world, sure enough, we are missing Steve Jobs like never before. He cannot be replaced. He will be remembered for many more generations.

We love you Steve. Rest in peace.

Some snaps of the legend which I like:

Here is the world’s thinnest Steve Jobs ever (just days before his death)

First Day – First Semester – First Year

It was first day of our academic engineering – The Orientation Day. Me, my roommate and other friends went together. It was a large hall where almost 180 to 200 students sat and listened to the management of the college about the good facilities we WILL be having. Two of the senior lecturers also started speaking on the occasion. “God!! When will this orientation get over?” was my reaction. Guess what??? I was feeling sleepy on the very first day in the very first few hours of my engineering life. That sleep marathon continued in the classes and labs. You know what I even slept in chemistry semester examination. And that marathon didn’t end till now. To my luck the day’s event finished thankfully. And we were told to take a note of class timings from notice board and attend classes from next day onwards. So we were free for that day. “OH GOD NO!!, run back to our hostel rooms, escape ragging” was the call.

In hostel I met some new guys, I would say some hidden rockstars of engineering, whose talent I was unaware of. One of those is Narasim. Then I met Praveen and Prashant. My roommate told me they all were from same town, Kanhangad, which is also my mom’s native. So I was started feeling little homely and also because we all talked in one common language – “Konkani”. About 75-80% of the whole college strength were Konkanies. But still we missed Dali Thoye, very much. We all started going for breakfast, lunch, dinner together. We enjoyed the whole day chit-chatting in the hostel, making new friends and main topic was how the ended up in C.E.C – Canara Engineering College.

A few weeks passed by. Our seniors felt they were really missing something. They wanted desperately to prove themselves. So they started ragging inspite of fear of getting caught. Didn’t actually figure out whether they were frightened of getting caught or they didn’t know how to rag. Ragging was very mild. Daily some 2 to 5 people were ragged. I was no exception. All our hostel blocks, academic blocks, stationary, cafeteria, hostel mess were in the same campus. Ragging took place in 3 major spots in the whole college campus. First in senior boys hostel, second in senior girls hostel and There is a founder’s statue in front of academic block, that was the third spot of ragging. The founder’s statue was black, founder standing tall facing the hostels and main campus entrance gate. Why am I telling these details? Because the questions asked for me during my ragging session are directly proportional to these features.

The Ragging
We friends used to take small walk in the college campus after dinner. And seniors used to catch 2 or 3 people and rag us. I couldn’t escape. One fine evening I was caught. My task was to answer one simple question. “How was the founder’s statue turn into black color?” I tried telling them different answers like they painted it black, he was standing under sunlight for more than a year now, etc, etc. But it was all ignored. They needed one particular answer which I didn’t know. Finally I gave up. They asked me to get the answer from any one of my previously ragged batch-mate who passes by. My seniors where so good that they showed me a student who was ragged previous night and knew the answer. Luckily I had met him earlier and got the answer from him now. God!! I said. The answer was “All the black beauties (dark girls) of our college used to play with the statue everyday.” ( Actual answer is censored ) I thought what a non-sense answer. Whatever… I wanted to escape, so just said it. Now the next task they gave was simpler, I had to walk one round clockwise around the statue. I was feeling something is fishy there. Made up my mind and walked around. To my horror, on the other side of the statue there were sitting 3 to 5 dark gals, now staring at me. I said FML and finished the round. HUH!! A big sigh of relief. After all these drama, seniors introduced themselves and became friends and also promised to help me if there was any issue regarding anything in the college.

The Fresher’s Party
The ragging went on for few weeks. But for me there was a one more small session. One of the senior knew that I danced a bit in my high school and PU college days. So they asked me to show some steps which I did. They asked me and one more guy from our batch to dance at the beginning of the freshers party they were planning. The other guy was Nithin Shenoy – who became my future roommate and one of my close friends. So seniors decided to have fresher’s party. They collected Rs.100 from each of us, took permission from principal after much persuasion and finally arranged a party. Me, Nithin and one more girl performed our solos. Then slowly the party began. This was my first party where the music was played on large speakers and everyone danced their life out of their body. For the first time I got introduced to Trance, Rock, Metal and other genres of music. Until that day I never had heard of Bryam Adam’s, Metallica, and Linkin Park (Now my fav band \m/ ) and so many others. Even I was going crazy over the music and danced to my heart’s content. Next 2 days my neck was in pain due to the head banging we did in the party. Wow!! That was an awesome party.

Internals
Slowly time went by and soon it was first internals. Lecturers told us the rules of passing in semesters. They stressed on one point that 15 is minimum average for each subject you need to get in the internals, so that even if the paper in external is tough and you get just 35 you can sum it up to 50 and pass out. I prepared for the internals, wrote the papers. And to my anxiety my marks were like mobile number digits – 9, 5, 8, 7… I was like WTF!! Some how I studied my second and third internals and got just 15 in 4 the subjects. But Maths-1 and Basic Electricals I had 1 and 3 marks less than the average. Both the lecturers asked me to write down all the 3 internals paper and submit within 2 days. Took help from my friends and completed it. Ah!! Now I had average in all subjects. I was proud of it.

Semester Exams
Sem exams were like boss fights in games. After fighting with all the small enemies now finally to clear the level you need to get rid of the boss. These exams were like that. And the first paper was Maths-1. Dammit!! I hate it even now. Most of us went to our homes in the 15 days study vacation, including me. Passed my time eating, playing games on my PC, sleeping on the study table. But didn’t accomplish anything w.r.t. studies. Instead of studying hard, I hardly studied. 15 days went by and we all returned from our homes. Thought all my friends would have prepared nicely. To my surprise none my friends studied. I said “Wow!! Thats cool”. Somehow we studied and managed to write the exams and completed our First Semester. Happily everyone went home but without books this time, to enjoy a month full of holidays.

Results and Second Sem
Holidays were good. I was getting extra love from parents, more importance, more focus as hostel life was first time for me. Everyone of my relatives enquired how I felt the hostel life. Actually some of them started taunting me saying that “if I had studied properly and got good marks, I wouldn’t have got into this hostel thing”. I used repeat the same thing in my heart but with little change – “If I had studied properly, I wouldn’t have been able to experience this fun-filled life” Time passed by and the second sem began eventually. Nothing much was happening around for first 3 weeks. Me and my roommate got into some misunderstanding and he opted for a single room. I was left alone. This was just like a bullet shot. But wait, the real missile comes here – The Results. I was on my toes to see my results. There were all of us pounding on one another. I got my chance quickly. Saw my results… I totally collapsed. I was feeling like someone had hit me on my head with an extra large hammer. I had got just 54% – the first time I am scoring a second class – BANG!!!! . But that was not all. I had cleared 2 subjects with just 35 marks – the first time I scored so low in any subject – BANNGGG!!!!. Wait a sec, the final result is not PASS instead it reads FAIL!!! BAAAAANNNNNNNGGGGGGG!!!! For the first time I had a backlog in my life. And that was Maths-1 FML!!

Life in Depression
For nearly 24 hours, I didn’t come out of my room. I was sleeping in depression, various thoughts wandering in my mind, don’t know what to do next. Main thing is how to tell my parents. After hearing my friends’ results the next day I was feeling little better as most of them had flunked in Maths-1. Yipee!! So gathering all the courage I called up my parents told them. They got hurt very much. But still my Dad took my side, strongly supported me, told me put for re-evaluation, if not write it the second time. Hearing that I promised myself one thing that day, whatever might be the case I am going to clear this paper and in my engineering I would never ever flunk.

One advantage of this result was my relatives stopped telling me how to study which branch to look for a change, blah, blah, blah. All their advise and suggestions were puffed in smoke. PUFF…

Rays of Hope
Things went on that semester my internal marks were good. I was happy, parents got little hope, even though they were prepared for the worst I guess. Then came the college day, I performed 1 solo and 1 contemporary group dance. As any other boy in engineering even I had a few crushes, not serious though. The serious one is yet to come in the story ;P And that was a hope.

In the steps of Topper
By the end of 3rd internals I had average of nearly 18-20 in every subject except Maths-2. Study vacations arrived and then we all went to our homes. This time I had only two subjects in my mind Maths-1 and Maths-2. And I had only 10 marks in Maths-2 internals, that means I need to get 40 in externals. Here comes one more character in the story – the first sem topper. I hardly new him in person, but from my friends, I heard that he is a highly focussed and intensely concentrated student. Heard that he used to PERFECTLY REVISE (P>S: Studying is different; revising is done after studying); he used to revise each and every subject 4 times before sem exams. 1st time during internals, twice during study vacation, 4th time before sem exams. God!! How does he get time when we find it difficult even to list out the chapters in each subject. We hardly get any time to study. So in vacations I used to think about his studying pattern and learn maths, mostly by-heart maths . Thats all I was capable of.

So all set ready for the exams I had Maths-2 on monday morning and Maths-1 on tuesday morning. I did night-outs for both the subjects. On tuesday noon, after two sleepless nights and 2 maths paper back to back, I was feeling really tired. I had my lunch, came to room and slept for next 18-19 hours at a stretch. Sleeping is the one thing I do properly in my life until now. Next day I woke up found out that next exam was chemistry. Grrrr. One thing was sure, In this sem either I will flunk badly in 2-3 subjects or I will clear all. Just dropped all those thoughts and just strategized on what to study and how to write stories in theory papers. I had decided that I am going to concentrate and study sincerely only the programming and computer related subjects rather than wasting time on subjects useless to my specialization.

Sleeping in Examination Hall
So one more sleepless night just to get passing marks in chemistry exam. I was scared of all the chemical equations in it. I knew only one equation: 2H + 0 = H20 which I learnt somewhere in high school. Knowing only one equation in mind, I made myself clear that whatever is the question I am gonna write pages of theory answers. I went to the exam hall. Question paper was given, went through all the questions. Ah!! Felt happy, knew something. Then started writing the answers. Somewhere after 31 pages of story writing slowly from my right side the examiner came and started tapping on my shoulders. I was like shrugging him off but that fellow tapped again and again. At that moment I realized, freaking, I was !#@%$%!SLEEPING!#@%$%! in semester examination hall and that poor fellow was waking me up. Holy crap!!! I didn’t know what to say to him, either “Sorry” for sleeping or “Thank you” for waking me up. I just requested him for water, drank it and felt little awake. And now to my horror I realized that I didn’t write 31 pages instead I found that I had written only 3 pages and that constitutes of just 1 full and 1 half answer. And I had only 1 hour 30 mins more to complete my remaining 80 marks answers. God!! that was an unforgettable experience. Somehow completed the paper writing all stories and came out. I prayed to God to pass me in the subject and save the person who evaluates my paper, because my handwriting was like amoeba. Even I was not able to read what I had written.

Eventually completed rest of the exams. Nothing special happened in the remaining exams, atleast didn’t sleep while writing exams. So skipping it. And now the vacations. This vacation was a little special because I was missing someone I felt special or I made myself believe that she is special. Ok will tell this story in the next post containing my second and third year. Nothing great achieved in those two years. But some minor changes in life.

Wow!! This post is looking similar to my chemistry answer paper , so long, only difference is I didn’t bluff here and most important I didn’t sleep while writing this post

Comments and feedbacks are welcome C ya soooon………………

Long time since my last post. Thought this time I would write something about my college life. Nothing great. Just another engineering life story. Plain, simple, fun-filled, most memorable 4 years of my life. Thats it. I will be blogging it in parts.

First, How did I end up in engineering college? I thought of it for long time in recent days and traced back and found the answer.

Pre-Engineering Glance
Actually it all began after my 10th class when everyone of my family, relatives(especially), implanted in my brain that taking science in pre-univresity would boost your options for graduate studies, career and job opportunities. So I took science (A combo of Physics, Chemistry, Maths and Statistics). Some even asked me to take biology instead of statistics. Grrrr, I hated it to the core of my heart, so dropped it. That’s first best decision I took in my life. The next two years of my life was a perfect teenage boy’s life, where he does all sorts of wrong things and mistakes to get the beatings and scoldings from parents, relatives(ignored), lecturers(never cared). That resulted in a first class pass in final exams and a 5 digit rank in C.E.T. (Common Entrance Test) – a exam to get a seat in engineering college.

Oh!! missed one character in between. Before writing the C.E.T. exam I had attended a crash course where I met a guy named Srikanth. This fellow always used to be on fags and never cared about his future, with a careless attitude. Thats it about him for now.

And now with that extra large digit rank number I was sure of not getting any proper college with proper subject. Still with huge support and encouragement from my Dad, we both went to first round of C.E.T. counseling only to take a payment seat in Chemistry discipline in S.D.M college Dharwad. God I hated chemistry. Now I started thinking whether I made a right decision on choosing science over commerce. Dad convinced me that if I study properly in the first year, there’s a chance for me to change the subject of my interest in the second year. I didn’t have any option but to agree my Dad. Then me and dad went to Tirupati, climbed the hills – 9 kms trek consisting of 3500 steps – got the LORD’s darshan and returned home back. Here the Lord brings some twist to my collapsed, disgusted, no-hopes life.

The Twist
Immediately after coming back from C.E.T. counseling, we got the news that Canara Engineering College has got the sanction of 60 more konkani quota seats. And we are requested to come to Mangalore for seat selection process. So, me and my dad reached the college. And what do we see, the college is located on a cliff surrounded by dense forest and the college campus floating in the fog was looking like a perfect hill resort. I was feeling like I was in heaven. For one second I felt that the Lord showed me my path to destination. Still can visualize the first glance of the college. We reached the college office. After some registration and document verification process I was just 2 candidates away from selecting my seat.

Now the confusion began – There were just 2 management seats in Electronics, some 10 payment seats in Computer Science and 9 merit seats in Information Science. I made one thing for sure that I am not going to waste my dad’s hard earned money on management and payment seats. So only option left was merit seat in Information science discipline. Now again whether to take it or leave it, was the question. Then just removed a coin from my wallet flipped it, heads – gonna take the seat, tails – go back empty handed. And guess what, it was tails. Oh God!!! Help me!!! Dad asked me what are you doing? I said – “Deciding !@$#%?”. Finally my turn – the counsellor asked “which branch?”. I decided I am not gonna study chemistry for 4 years and then, if I complete my engineering, I am not gonna spend rest of my life in some research lab. I took the Lord’s name and said “Information Science, merit seat”.

After a month dad and me went to second round of C.E.T. counseling and took back our cheque we gave for chemistry payment seat. I was now relaxed.

Stepping into Heaven
After getting long advises about how to study hard and switching to Electronics discipline, I finally geared up to join engineering college and more over the HOSTEL. I was totally excited.

Two days before the joining day hostel rooms were to be selected. Roommate was decided earlier – Ashwin Acharya – he was the son of my uncle’s one the associates. My bro, Ramu-anna, took me to the college registered a room and then returned back.

Next day, Sunday evening, at about 7pm I reached the college campus. It was full of freshers with their parents. It was just like a market place. I was all alone with my bags. Just glanced once only to see all the students were excited and full of energy stepping in to a new innings of life. That made me more happy and I too got boosted. Went to my room, met my roommate.

Old classmate, Re-entry
Me and my just became friends decided to have food and going in group was a must to avoid ragging. Our college didn’t had any previous records of ragging as we were the only second batch in the college. That means we were the very first juniors who were about to be ragged. As we were walking downstairs, I saw one familiar face coming in opposite direction. He called me with some weird name, which I hated. He was Srikanth – the C.E.T. crash course classmate I mentioned. Then I just exchanged a few words with him and went for dinner. He looked very decent, nice, down to earth kinda person. For a couple of minutes vainly pondered over his attitude makeover only to find the answer a few months later. He later on, in the coming years, became my closest and best friend.

And that is all about how i got into engineering and the very few moments of introducing myself to engineering life.

Children dont hesitate to say whatever’s there on their mind.

Check this video – how this small kid

Feels like I shud be a child forever so that I can say anything to anyone
and no one hates me at all

Ubuntu to OS X: HowTo

Ubuntu to Windows XP: Download Theme

How To: http://bit.ly/7Lxrbk

courtesy: linuxologist

Good Morning everyone and thank you for giving me this chance to speak to you. This day is about you. You, who have come to this college, leaving the comfort of your homes (or in some cases discomfort), to become something in your life. I am sure you are excited. There are few days in human life when one is truly elated. The first day in college is one of them. When you were getting ready today, you felt a tingling in your stomach. What would the auditorium be like, what would the teachers be like, who are my new classmates – there is so much to be curious about. I call this excitement, the spark within you that makes you feel truly alive today. Today I am going to talk about keeping the spark shining. Or to put it another way, how to be happy most, if not all the time.

Where do these sparks start? I think we are born with them. My 3-year old twin boys have a million sparks. A little Spiderman toy can make them jump on the bed. They get thrills from creaky swings in the park. A story from daddy gets them excited. They do a daily countdown for birthday party – several months in advance – just for the day they will cut their own birthday cake.
I see students like you, and I still see some sparks. But when I see older people, the spark is difficult to find. That means as we age, the spark fades. People whose spark has faded too much are dull, dejected, aimless and bitter. Remember Kareena in the first half of Jab We Met vs the second half? That is what happens when the spark is lost. So how to save the spark?
Imagine the spark to be a lamp’s flame. The first aspect is nurturing – to give your spark the fuel, continuously.

The second is to guard against storms.

To nurture, always have goals. It is human nature to strive, improve and achieve full potential. In fact, that is success. It is what is possible for you. It isn’t any external measure – a certain cost to company pay package, a particular car or house.
Most of us are from middle class families. To us, having material landmarks is success and rightly so. When you have grown up where money constraints force everyday choices, financial freedom is a big achievement. But it isn’t the purpose of life. If that was the case, Mr. Ambani would not show up for work. Shah Rukh Khan would stay at home and not dance anymore. Steve Jobs won’t be working hard to make a better iPhone, as he sold Pixar for billions of dollars already. Why do they do it? What makes them come to work everyday? They do it because it makes them happy. They do it because it makes them feel alive. Just getting better from current levels feels good. If you study hard, you can improve your rank. If you make an effort to interact with people, you will do better in interviews. If you practice, your cricket will get better. You may also know that you cannot become Tendulkar, yet. But you can get to the next level. Striving for that next level is important.

Nature designed with a random set of genes and circumstances in which we were born. To be happy, we have to accept it and make the most of nature’s design. Are you? Goals will help you do that.
I must add, don’t just have career or academic goals. Set goals to give you a balanced, successful life. I use the word balanced before successful. Balanced means ensuring your health, relationships, mental peace are all in good order.

There is no point of getting a promotion on the day of your breakup. There is no fun in driving a car if your back hurts. Shopping is not enjoyable if your mind is full of tensions.

You must have read some quotes – Life is a tough race, it is a marathon or whatever. No, from what I have seen so far, life is one of those races in nursery school, where you have to run with a marble in a spoon kept in your mouth. If the marble falls, there is no point coming first. Same with life, where health and relationships are the marble. Your striving is only worth it if there is harmony in your life. Else, you may achieve the success, but this spark, this feeling of being excited and alive, will start to die.
One last thing about nurturing the spark – don’t take life seriously. One of my yoga teachers used to make students laugh during classes. One student asked him if these jokes would take away something from the yoga practice. The teacher said – don’t be serious, be sincere. This quote has defined my work ever since. Whether its my writing, my job, my relationships or any of my goals. I get thousands of opinions on my writing everyday. There is heaps of praise, there is intense criticism. If I take it all seriously, how will I write? Or rather, how will I live? Life is not to be taken seriously, as we are really temporary here. We are like a pre-paid card with limited validity. If we are lucky, we may last another 50 years. And 50 years is just 2,500 weekends. Do we really need to get so worked up? It’s ok, bunk a few classes, goof up a few interviews, fall in love. We are people, not programmed devices.

I’ve told you three things – reasonable goals, balance and not taking it too seriously that will nurture the spark. However, there are four storms in life that will threaten to completely put out the flame. These must be guarded against. These are disappointment, frustration, unfairness and loneliness of purpose.

Disappointment will come when your effort does not give you the expected return. If things don’t go as planned or if you face failure. Failure is extremely difficult to handle, but those that do come out stronger. What did this failure teach me? is the question you will need to ask. You will feel miserable. You will want to quit, like I wanted to when nine publishers rejected my first book. Some IITians kill themselves over low grades – how silly is that? But that is how much failure can hurt you. But it’s life. If challenges could always be overcome, they would cease to be a challenge. And remember – if you are failing at something, that means you are at your limit or potential. And that’s where you want to be.
Frustration – Disappointment’s cousin is frustration, the second storm. Have you ever been frustrated? It happens when things are stuck. This is especially relevant in India. From traffic jams to getting that job you deserve, sometimes things take so long that you don’t know if you chose the right goal. After books, I set the goal of writing for Bollywood, as I thought they needed writers. I am called extremely lucky, but it took me five years to get close to a release. Frustration saps excitement, and turns your initial energy into something negative, making you a bitter person. How did I deal with it? A realistic assessment of the time involved – movies take a long time to make even though they are watched quickly, seeking a certain enjoyment in the process rather than the end result – at least I was learning how to write scripts, having a side plan – I had my third book to write and even something as simple as pleasurable distractions in your life – friends, food, travel can help you overcome it. Remember, nothing is to be taken seriously. Frustration is a sign somewhere, you took it too seriously.
Unfairness – this is hardest to deal with, but unfortunately that is how our country works. People with connections, rich dads, beautiful faces, pedigree find it easier to make it – not just in Bollywood, but everywhere. And sometimes it is just plain luck. There are so few opportunities in India, so many stars need to be aligned for you to make it happen. Merit and hard work is not always linked to achievement in the short term, but the long term correlation is high, and ultimately things do work out. But realize, there will be some people luckier than you. In fact, to have an opportunity to go to college and understand this speech in English means you are pretty damm lucky by Indian standards. Let’s be grateful for what we have and get the strength to accept what we don’t. I have so much love from my readers that other writers cannot even imagine it. However, I don’t get literary praise. It’s ok. I don’t look like Aishwarya Rai, but I have two boys who I think are more beautiful than her. It’s ok. Don’t let unfairness kill your spark.
Isolation – Finally, the last point that can kill your spark is Isolation. As you grow older you will realize you are unique. When you are little, all kids want Ice cream and Spiderman. As you grow older to college, you still are a lot like your friends. But ten years later and you realize you are unique. What you want, what you believe in, what makes you feel, may be different from even the people closest to you. This can create conflict as your goals may not match with others. . And you may drop some of them. Basketball captains in college invariably stop playing basketball by the time they have their second child. They give up something that meant so much to them. They do it for their family. But in doing that, the spark dies. Never, ever make that compromise.

Love yourself first, and then others.

There you go. I’ve told you the four thunderstorms – disappointment, frustration, unfairness and isolation. You cannot avoid them, as like the monsoon they will come into your life at regular intervals. You just need to keep the raincoat handy to not let the spark die.

I welcome you again to the most wonderful years of your life. If someone gave me the choice to go back in time, I will surely choose college. But I also hope that ten years later as well, your eyes will shine the same way as they do today. That you will Keep the Spark alive, not only through college, but through the next 2,500 weekends. And I hope not just you, but my whole country will keep that spark alive, as we really need it now more than any moment in history. And there is something cool about saying – I come from the land of a billion sparks.

Keep the Spark Alive!!

A nice Inspirational speech. You will really feel inspired/motivated once you read it. Perfect points.

I read it often when I m very sad or depressed. It gives me lil hopes.

courtesy: Mail forwards.

The blogging community has come together for a gr8 cause.

And that is to improve our surroundings, climate, environment basically we can say to improve our Earth.

So join hands to promote and work for this gr8 cause and make a better living.

Blog Action Day

Thank you

I found a new inspiration on how one should be living a life. Everything he explains are basic things like gratitude etc., which we normally tend to *purposefully* not follow.

Randy Pausch was an American professor of computer science and human-computer interaction and design at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pausch learned that he had a terminal case of pancreatic cancer in September 2006. He gave an upbeat lecture entitled “The Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” on September 18, 2007 at Carnegie Mellon, which became a popular YouTube video and led to other media appearances. He then co-authored a book called The Last Lecture on the same theme, which became a New York Times best-seller. Pausch died of complications from pancreatic cancer on July 25, 2008.

Here is the video. Do watch it till the end.

Randy pausch on Wiki

A great speech by all means. Hope you take some lessons @ the end of this video and try to be a better human in life.

Excerpts of the Notable quotes from the video

Discovery Time!!!

I found this stuff from little amazing. Actually every product by google is really amazing.

More over i am wondering what is google aiming @.

I am like surprised by the features, workflow and usage, the overall concept of “Google Reader“.

This one application can do multiple things.

To list out a few

-It can preserve and manage the sites or blogs you follow.

-And keep track of articles which you have read and not read.

-Follow your frenz, their updates and their shared items.

-You can share items with your frenz or people who follow you.

-You can star articles from sites you r following.

-You can analyze the trends of yourself n your frenz

and many more..

Currently i am able to browse thru these features.

In short I can say, Google reader is

“A center which can manage your frequently accessed stuffs on the net”

Do check out Google Reader once. All you need is a google account.

When

Apple says: “Think Different”

Google shud say: “Think basic”