Venting It Out: My Agonizingly Short Holidays

I know a lot of you out there can connect with the title of this post. Which is why I hope you will appreciate my need to vent out my frustration! I had the shortest gap of holidays between my two semesters. I'm mighty pissed at my college folks for making it so.

I got a meager 7 day gap in my last semester. Now it turns out the college guys want me back Monday. All that happens is that my ass rots in the boring classes my teachers take back at college. It feels like they're venting out their frustration at us in class. I've had better classes online on topics much more boring than what they teach in college!

I'm a 3rd sem ECE student at a sad college called SVCE. Look it up on the net. Don't believe a word they say on the page. Its all a lie. for one the net connection in college is not as fast as they say it is. Seconds: we DO NOT have a "2 acre ground which provides all facilities for major sports"!

What we do have is: a lot of class rooms, with big green boards which are beginning to give me nightmares! I'm so tired of seeing the big and beautiful lawn in college which is out of bounds to all students. I'm tired of the big majestic gates that remain closed all the time- especially when I'm late to college. I'm tired of the spacious canteen which still hasn't enough space or good enough stuff to call food.

I'm tired of HATING our respected and very much qualified principal without even having spoken to him once. I'm tired of the idea that I've to spend the next three years sucking up to my HOD. Most of all.... I think  I'm tired of being the very brainy guy who is under-performing because he has become a lazy bum.

There was a time when I was really interested in the intricacies of life. I still appreciate the beauty of it(thankfully), but I've lost the eye for detail. I'm a man on a mission now. Time to beat myself into shape. Time to be that guy who was a, how you say: GO GETTER. I'm in a prison now. I also have the key within reach. But to be free, truly free, I'll have to step out of my comfort zone and reach for it. As Eric Hoffer rightly said:

"We feel free when we escape, even if it be but from the frying pan into the fire."

I'm about to jump into the fire, but hell I wasn't on the frying pan so I bet I'll get burned pretty bad. But it is a risk I'm willing to take. First step to breaking out of this self made prison. So this is your fellow blogger and human, going out with a positive attitude. I hope the next time I discuss this I'm the "GO GETTER" I've told you I wanna be. Wish me luck folks; I'll need every bit of it I can get! 

A War Within: Yin-Yang

Emotion makes life. If anything sets us apart from the world as much as it makes us one with it, it is Emotion. God has given us, along with many other things, the ability to express. Not that other beings do not possess this quality; no, it is not that what I'm saying. We have been given the power to make our Emotions very clear. An exquisite and brilliant trait that all of us have, yet let go to waste. It pains me how it is never experienced by many. But, I am not going to discuss that aspect because, as many high school text books might put it, "It is beyond the scope of this blog to discuss this topic in detail"!

Emotion gives us life. Obviously it should have the power to take life away from us. It is the simple principle of Yin and Yang. Balance. 

It is an ancient Chinese Philosophy/Theory; Their attempt to explain the universe. Yin and Yang is everywhere. Male-female. Light-shade. Good-evil. Steam-ice. An ever existing pair that can't be without the other. The classics state: "Yin creates Yang and Yang activates Yin". So there can never be an excess of one. If there is, they will self balance automatically. 

I wouldn't blame you if you asked "How is all that related to emotion?!". Simple. Think of those unbelievable situations when you want to laugh and cry at the same time. Think when you are angry and calm at the same time. Think of all those times when you've felt two completely opposite emotions well up inside of you and you don't know which one to let surface. That is Yin Yang. One trying to balance the other out. It is an ever repeating cycle. It is a War Within. 

It just makes life more beautiful. When I sit and think, it all makes sense. It might not make sense when you are just reading this, but if you put everything on hold for a moment, you too will see the beauty of it. And you will be left with a deep satisfaction that only comes from years of searching and realization. 

Our ancestors have left us all their learning so that we make take it forth. Alas! Lost are those teachings. Lost is all that experience. Little remains of the hard gathered knowledge. We are faced with the task of doing it all over again. We are definitely not doing a good job. We are too busy "keeping up" with each other to keep up with ourselves. 

We lock our emotions down and look to best the other's. Others do the same to themselves. No one man lives for himself. Learn to love yourself first. Learn to Unleash your emotions. Learn to use them, control them and build them. Spend a little time everyday nurturing them. Look where they fall short. Tomorrow when and if you are all alone, all you've got is your emotions. A man with no respect for these Life Givers isn't alive at all. He is truly alone. He wont even have himself. 

Next time you have this War Within, know that you are alive. Know that you have something very beautiful in your possession. Treat yourself to a buffet of emotions and go WILD! You have nothing to loose! Cheerio! :)

"I Am What You Say I Am"

NEVER say that. You will be giving yourself away... and there's nothing you can regret more than that. I let myself be ruled by that shitty statement in what were supposed to be the best years of my life. The statement is cool. It comes from Eminem himself. Although, considering what and who he is... all of us should know better than to live by it.

The teenage of a person's life are the most precious years. The potential to develop and grow in these years is enormous. I repeat: ENORMOUS. Few realize that, and those who do are lucky. Of those few even fewer realize it in time to make something of that enlightenment. The others either cry over all the spilt milk or regret over it, wishing every moment back.

I wasted 4 precious years of that age. Now, I'm almost out of it! Come this December, and I will have one teen year left in me. Yes, I do sound like an old man don't I? I only used to look and feel like one... now I even sound like one!

My story starts about 6 years ago. It was the first time I had heard the words "IIT". Indian Institute of Technology. I really didn't care much about. Little did I know what it would do to the consequent 4 years of my life. My father, an ardent newspaper reader, found an ad in the paper from "BASE" that was about a coaching for students starting from when they got into the 9th grade. I never wanted to get into it. I wanted to learn the guitar instead, go for basketball coaching instead. But, I let my parents decide what I am. I decided I was what they said I was. I played along. I lost the next two years of my life.

I should have been strong. Stuck to what I wanted. I could have backed out even then. But I didn't have a reason. Case: Nayak Sr. v/s Nayak Jr. Case arguments: Nayak Sr.: "How will guitar help you earn? How will basketball help you earn?". Nayak Jr.:"..........". Judge's decision: Nayak Jr. sentenced two years of hard IIT coaching at BASE Basavangudi.

That is what happened. I should've escaped but I didn't. I accepted that fate. Here I am, years later, wishing I had put a little more trust in myself. Here I am, wishing I had seen my parents more as benefactors than as an opposition trying to convict me in court! At this point I feeling like a living example of the Metallica song "Disposable Heroes". It goes "you will do, what I say, when I say... you will die, when I say, you must die....".

That is the predicament you will get into if you let the importance of these years slide. No matter who it is, don't forget... never let them tell you who you are. It doesn't matter who it is that is telling you, remember.. it will finally be you and only you who will look at everything around you crash. One of my favorite songs "Somewhere I Belong" by Linkin Park delivers meaning that is very important. No matter who you are, you belong somewhere. The purpose of every life on this planet is to find that somewhere. Only when you attain that somewhere will you be truly free of the pain. The peace you find will be unimaginably satisfying. Learn to trust yourself. Learn to stand for yourself.

Having said that, I would also like to say something of equal importance. When and if you get into such a situation because of whatever may be the reasons. Don't sit around and blame the world for being unfair like I did.. It never is. You are born to this world. You are its child. It will never do anything unfair to you! It is inevitable. It is for your best. Accept it. Make it what you want. Fighting is useless; Know that. If the world wants it, there is little you can do!

Give all you have to it. Believe me, I've been on that side of the grass. I fought. I lost. Here I am: nowhere. I'm not in an IIT. I don't play a guitar. I haven't had formal training in basketball. I'm nowhere. I'm in between: in a sand trap. I'm having a hard time getting out. Whether I do get out or not depends on how well I've learnt my lessons. That is my problem. But to all of you out there: don't come into my position. It ain't fun! So don't fight once your in shit. You're smelly grimy and dirty anyways. Enjoy the warmth. Get through it. From there... you'll be immune to all kinds of shit! Learn what you can from this experience of mine.... Remember: its about you. Nothing else.