It’s been over 19 years since I’ve set foot on this planet full of species that want to survive; survive beyond the perpetual state of utter turmoil that he/she has to sail through right till their final breathe. Now, I don’t want to give the readers a pessimistic approach to life but no matter how big an optimist you are, your brain has to go through a stream of these negative thoughts. The only difference is that an optimist somehow manages to pat his own back and say “Dude!!! You rock!! Keep rocking!!”
HELL NOO!!! May be I am deviating too much from the topic but yes, the first paragraph will, in some or the other manner be related to the forthcoming content!
So, it’s been 19 years since I am efficiently utilising the oxygen content on this planet earth. But I have no shame in telling that it took me 19 years and a few months to actually realise that, “Alright!! All these yrs, I’ve been nothing but a useless lump of flesh!!”
Sounds harsh right??!
But trust me it’s worth the magnitude.
For once I made my brain exercise and think how many people in our country are actually working for the upliftment of the society in which they thrive? The answer to this question is grim yet true. The count of people who help the country in paving the road to supremacy is way lesser than the ones who are busy hogging over the resources provided by the docile soil of our nation.
I, sadly happen to fall in the 2nd lot. At first, the neurons in my head were totally reluctant in absorbing the negative data input but sooner or later it had to comply with the truth. This was when I realised that the even the food that I eat was not for free. I spoke to myself, “I need to do something substantial enough in order to earn my bread successfully”.That, night I barely slept for an hour and the following morning breakfast was the most difficult one to swallow.
Every bite of the freshly mad sandwich made me feel as if I am taking some kind of loan from RBI. If you are thinking RBI to be the reserve bank of India then you’re unfortunately mistaken! According to the context it stands for “THE RESOURCE BANK OF INDIA”.
Every sip of the hot coffee that I drank felt like I was sipping in molten lava.
Alright!! May be I am exaggerating stuffs but yeah! The coffee was a lot hotter than usual that day.
As the day passed, the circumstances grew more and more surreal and the ambience became all the more gloomy .I wanted to do something that could grab the least of recognition so that I could grab a drink and say to myself, “GOOD JOB DUDE!! I AM PROUD OF YOU!! “ .
Last winter, I had applied for summer internship in DRDO Delhi hoping to get appointed as an intern at one of the esteemed R and D labs out there. Chances were low but god knows how I got the call letter saying that I’d got selected.(P.S- Oops I am Agnostic). Destiny suddenly seemed to favour me more than ever. The bold letter head that had the ‘ever sexy’ emblem of DRDO (p.s- pardon my language) made me rise up above all my gloomy being and this very instance made me bridle about my achievement. It was one of the rare moments in my life when I wanted to call up all my fellows and acquaintances and brag about me getting into the elite institute. Apart from all these, the only thought hovering my brain was, “maybe things are gonna get better :p “ .
And much to my surprise things fairly turned out that way (leaving aside the untimely migraine attacks that tried to keep me at bay throughout the summer).
There are a few words in the English dictionary that do not perfectly portray my first day experience but at least get close to describing it. They are “disastrous, horrid etc etc etc” it took me 3 hours to actually spot the location of my dream institute which, to me, seemed to help me take a temporary refuge from the hardships of the capital city- the concrete jungle. No offense intended to the DTC and DMRC but the service provided by these ‘elite’ government organisations surely added salt and pepper to my plight.
Once I entered the campus, the seemingly endless security check protocol followed by ‘god knows what’ types of scanning sessions completely sucked the residual amount of energy in me. To add to this, my mobile phone got confiscated by the security officials who seemed no less than demons at that point of time. This would be funny to mention but this torturous sequence which had to be performed daily convincingly made me feel like a terrorist!!
But after I entered the campus I forgot all the harassment and had no other option but to gaze all over with my mouth wide open. It had that awe factor on it. Yet again, I am not exaggerating but I wouldn’t even have remotely reacted in this manner had I seen Cameron Diaz instead (who apparently happens to be my favourite from the tinsel town). I had to report to my project head by 11:00 am but the sound of the birds chirping that drives away the melancholy within you, huge labs and equipments, platoons marching along the road and Mr. Kapil Sibal walking past you could easily make one forget an appointment.
But then my conscience poked me from within and I went to get acquainted with my group head. Much to my surprise, I wasn’t jolted or flooded with words of anger and embarrassment but was gracefully welcomed by the department with a cup of coffee and biscuits *yum yum*. This gesture of theirs invoked an uncanny sense of professionalism in me. Mainly because this was so different form my college where I would be literally tormented by my HOD and would be shooed away from the class for being late. For the first time I felt smart playing a truant.
But little did I know that this warm welcome would be followed by endless hours of coding, torturous brainstorming seminars, untimely meetings with the board of directors and stamina sucking night-outs that would aptly define June 2011 for me.
Breaking my threshold, I had to work 12 hours a day like a Cyborg and then the code snippets and the problem statements would haunt my dreams at night as well. At that point of time I would rather love to get spooked by the scariest of the nightmares that I ever had instead of words like ‘hdb3, baudot encoder, zilog , verilog, sitor, g-tor, etc etc etc. barricade the dreams about me and my girlfriend making love (alright !! I am not that big a pervert).
But the very fact that I was working for the company I’d once dreamt of and that this was the beginning of my establishment as a professional subdued all the dismay.
After 8-10 weeks of seemingly eternal coding spree, the time had arrived when I had to mark the end to this magical voyage of mine with a presentation of my work in front of all the board of directors of the respective labs at DRDO, Delhi.
The presentation to the best of my perception was fabulous :D..
You would feel no less than a duke when the director in chief walks up to you solemnly and says, “Good job gentleman ….. We look forward to receiving more of your assistance next summer. I am personally delighted by seeing your prowess”
YES!!!! My hard work had paid off!!!!
I had cemented my position in the institute for the next summer as well. The training certificate was but obviously by far, the dearest to me.
I felt proud of myself. All those crappy thoughts occupying my mind had drowned in the tsunami of optimism and satisfaction.
Now I could step up to the world and with all the panache say – “THIS was my summer 2011!!!”
