A Life In Retrospection This Far

Back to the office front, a senior management person called me after I resigned ... He was angry and disappointed with me ... He wanted to know the name of my next company to join... I told him, I don't want to disclose it... He replied don't you have any trust in me? ... I said "yes, I trust you." ... I told the name of the company... He said, if you do not extend your stay in our company, I will call your next company and ask them to cancel your job offer... He wanted me to extend the stay to transfer the knowledge... But I had gathered so much knowledge that one month was not sufficient to transfer that knowledge... My company did not show any interest in my knowledge until I resigned from the company... Today, if I retrospect, I should have asked them whether they think I have proved sufficiently in the Industry? ... If yes, can they transfer me to a core telecom project? That way the knowledge will stay with the company and my goal of joining the core telecom pro...

Hiren wanted me to start the married life, by learning all household tasks... He was against keeping a maid for the first 2 years... We did not even have a washing machine that time... Actually we were financially safe to purchase a washing machine immediately, after moving to Bangalore... But sometimes Hiren's expectations cross limits... Most of the times, it used to get as late as 3 pm to complete all the weekend household tasks and have lunch... Anyways ... Parallelly I started learning Kannada script and began reading the Bus destinations and shop names ... I also gathered few basic questions that we need to answer while travelling by public transport in Bangalore ... Three months got over ... I joined my job ... I wanted to get an opportunity to work on a core telecom project (like protocol development which were the key projects in India at that time) ... But I didn't get that opportunity... I tried to put my case in front of the director to put me in a telecom project, ...

Within a week of my master's project completion was my marriage ceremony planned ... Hiren was alone in Bangalore for 2 years now ... And we stayed in a long distance relationship for 2 years ... So everyone including Hiren's family and my family was of the opinion that we should get married now ... And it resulted in both of us getting married within one week of the end of my master's project... The marriage was in Ahemdabad ... So my family travelled to Ahemdabad ... Just one day before we travel to Ahemdabad, there was a massive earthquake in Bhuj ... In Gujrat ... It took a toll over many lives ... We had planned a wedding on a very small scale ... Both of our families ... My parents, my sisters, his family, his sister and Hiren's close friends ... At night, we had planned for reception... We had planned it for extended family ... However, after the earthquake, we cancelled the reception... The marriage ceremony in the morning ended and we were at Hiren's home b...

As the first semester ended, I realized that it was the time for Hiren to leave the campus. My mini-project also ended. So I did not have to access the Instrumentation lab any more. However I would never forget the radio program "Bela-ke-phool", which played all old melodies ... And I will also not forget our common friend Ashish ... Who also was an admirer of those melodies ... Days passed ... When it comes to formal course-work, except DSP,  I did not do any exercises in the books on my own ... only heard what is taught in the class ... taken down some notes ... no extra preparation after the class about the subject ... just used to read my notes before the surprise test ... I only used to understand (that too mostly 40 to 50% of what the professor is teaching) ... i did not try to get an understanding of the subject after the class ... spent most of the time on the computer (maintenance - formatting/partitioning), internet issues, NIS/NFS, setting up and maintain lab netwo...

Twenties must have been a very complex decade because of higher education, work life and personal life all began and getting settled ... All at once ... Things which start in parallel, end in parallel ... some of them turn out to be successful, some of them turn out to be un-successful ... My twenties began by taking an education break to prepare for further studies ... after one year of preparation, I got a good score in competitive exam which enabled me to go for my masters ... I enrolled for my masters as a Research Assistant (RA) ... It was a two and a half years Masters program ... There is another program which is Teaching Assistant (TA) program ... which is a one and half year program ... for which I was not eligible because of my score ... I enrolled and I was very proud to be a part of IIT ... course work began ... at the same time, I started working to maintain the department's computer lab to be eligible for stipend ... The stipend was Rs 5000/- per month that time ... t...

I thought of listing some great people and jot down some great incidences that took place in my life in my teens. These people and incidences add a lot of value to my life. I have a lot of gratitude towards them.    Taskeen Staying on the ground floor of our apartment, she used to stand in the balcony ... Or rather her mother used to make her stand in the balcony ... Just so, she will get some fresh air... She was a one year old child then... Just began babbling ... and standing on her own ... she used to call each passer by .. I mean, just make a babbling happy sound when she used to see someone ... I was one of the passer who she found worth making a babbling happy sound for ... I must be 15 or 16 years old then ... It was not that I had never seen a child before in my life .. But maybe it was the happiness in her sound which drew me closer towards her ...I never could ignore that babbling sound and just pass by her ... On hearing that sound, I used to go close to her balcon...