Totally recall (nothing to do with that obnoxious switchneggar movie)..

I am right now on a nostalgic trip, thinking of all the good things that happened in my life. The umpteen friends, the few relationships. The first crush and all that. I am so reminded of my life for the sheer variety of experiences and people whose paths I have crossed, in one emotional decision I have decided to put my photograph

.

Source: "The hindu"

Just kidding!!!!!... I thought which is the best way to pen an ode to one of the brightest filim makers in tamil movie industry. Thats cheran and if you do happen to have a taste for tamil movies, you should watch Autograph He is a genious.For the rest of the folks who are not too keen to watch a tam movie dont you worry, its being remade in all major lanugages Kannada, Telugu, Mallayalam and Hindi (Prayer : God please god, save this movie and please let not shah rukh khan act in it.... Even mithun would be ok... but not shah rukh... please god)

When I was in coimbatore I positively tried to get out of that place and for a while thought, "Oh god what kind of a college i have joined ?". RVS was hardly known for its academics. It was popular for the IDC (Indefinite closure. College shut down and students sent back home normally for 15 days. It is accompanied by strikes, a slew suspensions and an odd dismissal. It could be as profound as cauvery issue or anti-jayalalitha or as silly as bad dosas in the canteen)

Any batch which hasnt forced 1 IDC atleast in a year is known as a sissy batch and people would constantly rue and complain about the falling standards in college kids. From a P.S kind of school(shark infested, where dyslexic kids like me would be routinely humiliated) in chennai where I was the top of my class (from the bottom), I suddenly found myself the only guy clearing mathematics, electronics an all the mumbo jumbo of science in my college. Back then my only aim was go to North India for an MBA.

When I did go to Pune for my MBA, I realised the value of studying in RVS and I realise now that those were the years I got transformed into a person. I formed my identities, gave my idealism some structure. I was so full of activity that I used to have 16 hour work days doing all kinds of things. The library was mine to dig out dust laden but non-dogeared books and have it issued, stamped and read from preface to index.

Even now there would be books with just my stamp on it. The NSS camps trying to build toilets and educate old guys with a big heart and gutteral laughs. It was RVS that gave me an opportunity to go up on stage, commit a few mistakes without being bludgeoned for that. I realised, I could sing well fight for my rights, argue with professors who were worse than me and represnet myself in an honest way. Thats the word, RVS was an honest place. With all the politics and tension, you would never find instances of backstabbing, manipulations etc. It was as uncouth and unsophesticated as its stark barren environment. It was one of the few non-threatening environments which gave me space enough to develop. For a meek kid I was, RVS was a growth tonic.

I realised that only after reaching IMDR. from RVS to IMDR was a humongous leap in all aspects. you had 50 people highly motivated from all parts of the world cocky and self assured about their abilities (afterall they all cleared CAT). It was a place of real testing my potentials. What surprised me was I had the courage to put myself and my ideas out in the open class with a typical south indian accent but I never really believed I was good. To be acknowledged by peers was a great thing and despite all my insecurities I was a computer expert from rural tamil nadu. When you are inside tamilnadu you never realise how tough you actually become in achieving goals. That state with its horrendous scarcity of resources makes you a near vulture. But when you meet people from other states, you are suddenly aware of the fact that your basic nature is aggressive.

It took a while for me to get out of the "I have to survive" trip and calm my mind down and make some real friends. Friends like Sachin who are totally unencumbered in their thinking and totally non-threatening in his approach. I had to literally disarm myself to be percieved as non-threatening and acceptable. The confidence was there thanks to the 3 year RVS experience. The utter confidence that I can be whatever I set my eyes on. Maybe that one lesson is worth the three years of percieved lost opportunities.

"Its all nostalgia", my mind sometimes says chastising me for this luxury. But isnt it nice to think of your past and feel good ? There were some serious lessons I learnt without knowing I was learning it and its worth a look once in a while isnt it ? but the whole dilema is between participation and analysis. When you analyse you look at your experience in a non-participative way. When you participate you dont have time to pause, think and come back into the loop. "It is a contradiction. But only if you look at it as mutually exclusive processes", says sachin. You can always count on sachin to immediately get on your train of thought and talk at the same plane.

Maybe that is my next sign post. To participate in day-to-day life and still have a analyst process running in the background...

There is one thing I did good in RVS. Because of my tremendous insecurity about falling behind acadameically I over corrected. I packed my day with so much activity that I was juggling college, NIIT, NSS, Library and a ton of other things including spending long hours in the electronics lab. I am glad I learnt COBOL and UNIX in coimbatore. Can you actually believe COBOL and UNIX ????

But hey whatever it is do take some time and watch Autograph...Its worth the DVD rental.