BEING PUTTU

BEING PUTTU

Brian Tracy, a popular American host once said” “Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.” I have been feeling awkward and uncomfortable since 8 months now. In fact I have exploded into a new world playing the role of an independent, pragmatic character. The play is called the NEW WORLD and is written, directed and produced by a REAL WORLD GUY. Don’t you think it was very insecure for me to come out of your secure, affectionate, inspiring, lingual and cultural strong hold zone mom? But you know insecurity is the basic tool of the actor’s trade. And I know that you were a part of this act much before I did. My trade is to step out to be much better than what I am today and you taught this!! To exaggerate little things, to worry about them, plan every step carefully, encourage people who dare to think differently and to water the dry harsh realities of life with humor have been hereditary to me. Plato the greatest philosopher has always inspired me. I remember reading this ““Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge”. I don’t know why you made me so emotional about people. The emotional quotient in me helps connect to people in the simplest way. I need not tell you that its hard being emotional and it does allow a pain wave into your calm life most of the time. But I love surfing it. That’s what makes me tall and different from the rest of the people on the beach of life. Talking about waves however great you think you are its ironical that when you look at the mighty ocean out there roaring beautifully with its magnificent waves you feel little/engineerish( I personally want somebody to add this word to the dictionary because an engineering degree nowadays is so small and common). You know how I hate doing mundane things. That’s quite contrary to a person who is in the electrical engineering field right! I am portraying a young bird which has to adapt, mature and spread its wings to finally fly to where it wants. There are two important realizations of life. The things which you do for the society and the things you do for yourself. It’s very important for me to do something for the society, as in society itself and in terms of establishing my identity in the society, and also be able to do something for myself in order to be the real me. Just like an average Indian soul oozes the desire, I wanted to be here in this fantasized world called AMERICA. No wonder that this land ended up negating my ideal job in TCS in terms of the society. I have always packaged success measure boxes. As you can see, o oh! I am sorry this box is supposed to be imaginary. So, as you can imagine there are 2 sides to this success box of mine. If I am creative enough I would paint this box from the palette of society using two bold yet pleasant colors. The society side of it would be dipped in red because it has to be bright, ostentatious and different. The other side would be blue which depicts the calm, creative, never ending taste for success side of me. (And these are my favorite colors too). So the big journey into this technological maze was red! You know what I mean right. I call this part of my life “THE OBVIOUS CHANGE”. This is my journey so far. I just don’t want to give out the usual stops of this journey like the food here is not good, earning your own piece of bread makes you do all sorts of things like being a hotel server, a salesman, washing dishes at a dining place or doing a night shift at a gas station. For any student who comes here there are two lines in his notebook. The first line has to be filled with money and the second one with grades. Each day he fills out a new page with two lines in it. I am sure any student who comes in cannot afford a notebook with more than two lines in each page. I definitely need you to subconsciously realize that you have not injected the vitamin m(money) factor beyond a certain limit in me which made me fill up the first line partially in my first semester. I have never been money oriented and that’s probably why I have never ended up doing mundane jobs. If you have the drive to do things you will keep yourself occupied for the rest of your life. Unfortunately i am not driven by money. Please don’t come to the conclusion that I never worked in my first semester. I wasn’t lucky enough to get an on campus job which in itself has an identity to it and I would describe that in the later part of this journey. I couldn’t put in more number of hours of work like my money oriented friends did but let me tell you that they were being greedy enough to earn more to spend more. I am not justifying what I am doing nor am I saying that being money oriented was bad. Unless you are money oriented you cannot realize the materialistic essence of life which in turn governs your happiness quotient.( At least to most of the people). I was pretty sure of earning my living expenses and not a penny more. Don’t you remember mom I have cried over the phone while talking to you that I don’t have a good on campus job. Did I tell you that if you want to get hired in this country you need to ask someone to refer you? See it’s not a bad concept at all. People here want to hire somebody whom they can trust and that can happen if somebody who has put in a lot of years to that company to bring someone of his own. And for the kind of son I am I would never stoop down to low levels and pester people to get me referred. I have seen my friend hating my senior for a period of time and praise him and beg him the next moment to get him a job. I am not being an angry rebel out there. He was just being “Shrewdly Intelligent” and that’s what is needed in this fair/unfair society. I finally found an on campus job which demanded washing vessels and I am glad I chose this path. For me an on campus job was more dignifying and safer than serving out shrewd Indians, pakistanis and Bangladeshi’s out in the off campus business. You know may be an off campus job is not my cup of tea. Its more of selling your identity than selling commodity. Talking about identities there is an interesting aspect of losing your identity here. You know how the relationship between india, Bangladesh and Pakistan is. When you decide to lose your identity and start living like a beggar here. Wait a moment I am not being offensive but unfortunately every one of us works very hard to earn a penny doing all sorts of jobs which you consider Low society in India. That’s why I term this living the BEGGAR part of it. So in this process people never do have the actual time to discuss about nationalities and fight for their nation. Here we are realizing cultural harmony when every other person wants to identify himself being an Indian rather than a Pakistani or Bangladeshi for the obvious reason. Then there is this dictionary called the AMERICAN DICTIONARY which involves a lot of dash words. Ya that’s what I term them. Its obvious that anybody living here especially my lot considers it ethical and decent to utter those infatuating words and be stupid enough to identify themselves as the citizens of this country. You definitely want to come here and experience the thrilling aspects of an AMERICANISED LIFE. But traffic management and brand management are the two great aspects of this country and I would definitely write a new letter to you about these as they are really worth talking. You know I have never helped you at home except for the times when you made me do things. But I am rather surprised at the fact that I have become more responsible and organized than I have allowed myself to be. There are a few of my friends who think shopping, partying and earning money is essentially the meaning of a FAIRY TALE like LIFE. Unfortunately its not that I don’t like these but its essential to understand that I have matured into being something different and rather more intellectual and sensitive than this. You know right. I used to read books like “ THE GOAL”, “ POEMS OF AMRITA PRITAM”, “ SHORT STORIES OF ANTON CHEKHOV” when people of my age would read “ THE DA VINCI CODE”, “ FIVE POINT SOMEONE”, “ ONE NIGHT AT THE CALL CENTER” . In fact I consider something being overly popular as stupid. Ya that’s my intellectual ego. You have always told me that we can become what we dream only if we start living it. I started living the TCS dream much before I got into it. I have spent, in fact we have spent all our lives dreaming big mom. That’s probably why what we are even if its little enough. To dream big is to live big. I want to live big intellectual thoughts, great emotional moments, love passionately, think differently, measure success by what you give back to the society and die famous. Don’t blame me for that. You were the one who exposed to intellectual discussions on TV while my friends were watching a HRITHIK ROSHAN performance, you were the one who made me read books which nobody of my age read, you exposed me to classical music, bharatnatyam, tabla when people played cricket. Coming back to the land of America the instinct for success made me to madly apply for technical jobs all throughout the USA , market my resume well and finally land an internship in a company which supplies and manages electricity to the whole of southern California. Ya I know you are happy. I am glad my dad is happy because I have never seen him being proud of me till today. Its essentially because he is a part of the society and would dare not conceptualize something beyond that. This job would essentially realize my materialistic aspects and the commitment of repaying my bank loan. But let me tell you that I will get a PHD degree for myself and become a professor because the job is essentially not mundane. I know this has its own financial constraints. But there is more to this interesting story of mine. I would want to get an MBA degree and probably manage a company of my own later. Now neglecting the society side of it I probably want to make it big in literature and die famous. A ha I know you are so proud of yourself that you have cloned the essential you. But let me tell you AMMA being PUTTU is really difficult. But I would always strive to do that!!!!