Euphoria

Spring Fest 2006

What a start !!! School friend (meeting Arijit after 1.5 year) , college friends(meeting Mani, Pandey, Niksam, Bharath and Katoch after 1.5 mins or hours :P ) and then EUPHORIA (meeting them after 1.5 lives perhaps ;-) )

With all the pushing and shoving and an almost stampede ... the show had to be something really special to "break even" in terms of all the effort invested simply to get in. But to put it simply, it was awesome !!!




Well .. they just sang songs .. often manipulating tunes to quite an extent .. cacophonic on occasions .. but it was great. Really enjoyable . The evening had everything ...

• Fun .... "Ladke hamesha pyaar mein laath khate hain, aur ladkiyan hamesha laath marti hai" .. nice Euphoria funda, little twists ("Its my life" - Jon Bon Jovi, "Another brick in the wall" - Pink Floyd, "We will rock you" - Five and Queen and the list continues..) , standing up and sitting down and standing up again only to sit down once more
• The cellphone dance :) ... last year's charm still remains
• A little remembrance .. "Aankhen bandh kar loon jo main, dekhoon bas tumhe"
• A lot of memories ... "Maaeri, yaad woh, yaad woh aayeri i i i i i"
• Third Year confidence ... once TOAT was a little empty, went right up to the stage and took pics (cameras, i think, are not allowed)
• A little dancing !! Well .. as much as I am capable of :) .. which, of course, is literally nil ;)
• Loads and tons and loads of singing and shouting
• Personal discovery .. my teeth appear really white in Canon A-410 digicam pics (the detailed specification 'coz in every other scenario, they appear off-white ;) )
• Great music .. that comes as an after-thought

The whole atmosphere was great (with the exception of the gentleman from behind who kept on requesting for 'Emraan Hashmi' songs). Every individual that appreciates music must have enjoyed.

It was one of those evenings when you are just happy and you don't worry too much about anything else ... when you just forget your troubles (as if I have any ;) ) and partake in the reverie ...

To describe the mood succinctly ...

Euphoria

Decisions

We are given one life, and the decision is our whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind, or whether to act, and in acting, to live.

Most of the things we decide are not what we know to be the best. We say yes, merely because we are driven into a corner and must say something.

Every decision is liberating, even if it leads to disaster. Otherwise, why do so many people walk upright and with open eyes into their misfortune?

We all make decisions every other moment --- some decisions which have no bearing after an hour, others which stay with us for the rest of our life.

This semester, has been all about decisions .. I guess its like the real-life application of taking decisions under monstrous constraints of opportunity and time. And here I am, the dreamy-eyed simple minded boy who thought which IIT to join would be the toughest decision I would ever have to make !!!

But that was actually easy .. 'coz my heart was sure that I wanted to go to Kgp .. closer to home for 4 years before I went out for a new life. Now, my heart is torn apart. It seems that "the problem of plenty" is indeed a problem. It places the blame of a bad decision on your shoulders and not on 'lack of opportunity'. So, having all the projects on offer to choose from, really was a curse in disguise as I carefully tried to optimize the project contents, the scope of innovation, chances of publication and finally the reputation of the Professor himself.

It finally came down to the classic tussle between an established best professor(who is too busy, at times) and an upcoming, second-best professor. Close-call : Reason said that I should go for the upcoming prof with better chances of a publication (he was also kind of interested in taking me). However, since when did I become intelligent ???

So, I took the plunge and listened to my heart. Selected the Prof with reputation. After all, he is GOD and if there was one person I wanted to work with in IIT, it was this man. Childhood dream coming true ... but you might just be reading in this very space after a couple of months about how frustated I am 'coz my prof has no time for me. Real possibility : but that's the risk you take to listen to your heart. And when I was really undecided, I called up my mom !!!!
And she made the decision for me .. or rather I made her say what I wanted to hear !! So, its no longer my decision -- so no blame on me :)
And going by the record, my mom's decisions never go wrong .. so I should be just fine. And even if I am not, my mom's there to take the blame :)

"The heart is always wiser than the intellect"

After all, we will occasionally make a bad decision .... but I guess that happiness lies in looking at it as the second-best decision that you could have made. And well, for a person who has always been second-best all his life, second-best is like 'as good as it gets'. I can live with the fact that i listened to my heart and made a bad choice, but making a bad choice by ignoring the heart really hurts .

So, done with decisions !!!!
Well ..................................................... not really.

"Wait for Microsoft Research or go to Dortmund/INRIA/Aachen ?????" Any suggestions anybody ?? Even my mother shied away from calling on this one ;)