Pursuit of Happyness

It was April, 2016 when we finally took the plunge. Everyone was excited, yet a little scared. It was big leap and we were signing up for several years of EMIs. To be honest, we were booking a house slightly beyond my reach. Based on some overly simplistic calculations in my excel sheet, I was confident I could achieve the goal. All it needed was some good planning, that could go hand in hand with the calculations. I only missed one little detail - all the planning (with buffers) goes for a toss when you get hit with uncontrollable variables. In your face.

After ages and ages of waiting for our building to completed, we tried to sneak into our still under construction flat. Nirzari was all excited and even did the 'Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi' sequence once we entered the half complete flat. I too was very excited as this was going to be our future home, after all. Unfortunately, our happiness was short lived. As soon as I entered the kitchen, my heart broke. It was complete darkness. Even after spending hours to choose the ideal unit, we had chosen the worst possible flat on the brochure. There is little you can do in an under construction property and to some extent its pure luck on how your flat would turn out to be. And boy, were we unlucky?! Just when we thought our ideal home was about to be completed, we were given this shock.

I was in no mood to accept this flat. After all, that brilliant sales man had managed to sell us the worst unit after all promises of "plenty of light and ventilation'. He had very smartly diverted us from the best unit (in terms of light, ventilation, view etc) and restricted our options on the bad ones. We fell for it. Anyway, the damage was done. After this started my long battle to change my unit. The sales team knew that selling this unit again would be very hard. And hence started the excuses like 'we don't change our unit, its not our policy'. After months long of escalation and what not, I finally got approval to change my unit as "an exception". This time magically, we only had option on higher floors in the direction that we wanted (no surprises, another tactic from sales). However, this time I was actually ok with it due to the brilliant view it may provide. But I didn't want to take any chances this time. So, we climbed the staircases. One by one, all the way to 28th floor. By the time we reached, both me and Nirzari were completely exhausted. And was it worth it?

There are some things that just click. We follow this simple rule while buying. If something instantly clicks for both of us, we dont think further. Else, we dont buy. And this was one such case. The moment we entered the flat, I just knew this was mine. The view, the light, the breeze - everything was just perfect and how I wanted my dream house to be. We went back to the office and told that this was the unit of our choice - 13281. The guy promised the change and that price would be only on floor rise. Naive mistake number two from me. I believed him.

For several more months, the process to change the flat happened. Meanwhile, we had started working on our interiors way back - right on the earlier unit. The interior designer was patient enough to wait for all this mess to go and was waiting for the key to our house. It was clear that it's going to be another few months before we can get the flat. Finally, after several more follow ups and escalation, the flat change was done. And then, I got the horror when I was sent the revised agreement copy. They had added HUGE amount in the difference of price of flat. When I contested, they asked for proof of promised difference of amount to be just on floor rise and nothing more. Gotcha! I didn't have any written proof as the sales guy mentioned to me it was a standard process! Well, here began my one more long journey of getting this amount reduced. After a LOT of emails, calls (and call recordings), I proved to them (will skip the details) that the promised price of flat was much lower. And then we finally settled on an amount to close it.

I knew buying a house is painful. However, to actually experience the pain is something else. Not everyone perhaps would go through all the troubles that we went through, but I'm sure everyone has their share. We atleast got a beautiful house of our dreams at the end. Luckily, the interior process was very smooth for us ... till Corona struck!

Only 10 days of work was pending and the apartment decided to disallow all interior works. It's like seeing the finish line from a feet away and stopping there. Now started yet another battle of resuming the interior works. I made a group of owners stuck in similar situation and we fought this battle together. After couple of weeks, the apartment finally gave in and allowed us the works (again will skip details).

Well, just a tiny flash back. Just before the interiors were stopped - finally the day of registration of flat arrived. Everything was smooth, except the next day I was gifted Conjunctivitis. Though I recovered from Conjunctivitis soon, I suffered from dry eyes for quite some time. Till today, I'm not sure if it was normal infection or... you guessed right.

At the end, after all the struggle and financial planning for every stage, I feel not accepting the earlier flat was the best decision ever. Hard earned peace is extremely satisfying after four years of booking the flat :P

Except for one tiny detail. Nirzari and Anika (our 6 month baby) are still stuck in Maharashtra due to COVID. Now the last leg of battle remains - to bring them back safely :-)

Flashes of Life

Rarely do times like these dawn upon the world. And though one might think we will have stories to tell once the dust settles, the truth is rather bitter. The best story tellers in the world are at risk. If the virus was an intelligent being, one would think the strategy to be to eliminate all the wisdom from the world by attacking the elderly. As of today, nearly 6.5 lac cases have been reported worldwide and over 30,000 are dead because of COVID-19 virus. 

Yet, there is hope. History tells us that during the worst times for the world is when the best inventions were made, including penicillin. And we are already starting to witness breakthroughs from the top brains in the medical world. However, we know there is still uncertainty around when a cure will be established scientifically. It may be long before a vaccine is available to public. Meanwhile, we know thousands more will die. It is inevitable. 

In such gloomy times, even the most optimistic folks are hard hit mentally. It is hard to not think about life in such times. Ponder about the things you have accomplished and those that you couldn't. All the happy (or sad) times you had with family. Old memories come to life and one gets lost in the merry times to get some respite from the reality. 

It is funny that I can't really tell what my oldest memory is. Can you? I have vague memories of early childhood - mostly beating the hell out of a soft toy and launching it over our gate outside. Of course, there are other memories captured in pictures - but I can't really remember any of those. As I grew older, me and my brother Abhijeet had some weird tactics to keep ourselves busy. Of course, this is when he wasn't troubling me. Mostly it was playing cricket inside our house compound. But I clearly remember one of our devilish "ideas" was to come up with a chemical formula to kill red ants - because those are bad ants! And our genius invention was to mix whatever chemicals were available at home - and mix them up and test it on the poor ants. Mostly the poor creatures died from drowning in water than from our genius solutions. In an another unrelated incident, I had killed a black ant. And my brother convinced me that the ant's ghost will haunt me tonight. 

But I also liked to play alone. I remember I had a yellow plastic box (some discarded box from my dad's automobile shop) where I kept all my toys. Cars and action figures! And like any other kid, I used to cook up stories and play with the toys. Until one day, when my brother hid one of my cars. Hell ensued. I had a Yankee Doodle sticker on my small wardrobe. And my brother said he hid the car BEHIND the sticker. I can't believe how stupid I was. I actually TORE the sticker to find the car while in parallel crying the hell out. My brother on the other hand was laughing his ass out on his idiot sibling. Post that it was WAR. I took one of his car, went to the terrace and threw it over from there. After that it was parental intervention that caused the ceasefire. But there were peaceful times as well. We did not stop from playing cricket inside the house. There was one small room which was never used by anyone - and was typically our playing area. I clearly remember playing with a steel rod and plastic ball. We used to 'swing' the plastic ball and hit with the rod so hard that at times we could see sparks flying from the tiles. I remember both of us looking at each other stunned when we saw the sparks. 

Summer holidays were obviously the best. We usually went to our uncle's place in Mumbai. Of course I was always given some maniac holiday homework. I distinctly remember writing tables from 1 to 20 some 20 times! I can't believe I actually completed that work. Cruel. However, I did get time to play cricket with the kids in the apartment. We did break a few windows and ran away frequently. When not in Mumbai, we used to play some stupid games like creating a garage from old school book cardboards. Or creating some 'homes' in the terrace under the coconut tree leaves. It's hard to believe that we were once so dumb and innocent at the same time. 

As we got little older, we graduated to colony level cricket AND video game! I remember shopping for 64 bit cassette games in Manish Market in Mumbai. Those typical 999 games in 1, out of which we played 9. Duck hunt, Mario, Contra, Circus and so many more. I was amazed (and still am) that I could shoot down a duck with a gun pointed at TV screen. Well, we also graduated from running around everywhere to getting cycles. That led us to go to cycling on most evenings. And I clearly recall once we went into an adventure to go cycling into some weird farm with a really old structure. We were clearly lost and it was getting dark. To top that, we saw bats in the structure. Hell. We just cycled like crazy from that farm till we finally reached the road. What a nightmare. Of course, when we got home we got some nice shouting from mom.

Life was good till this point. Then came the serious phase of 7/8th standard when I somehow got hooked on to studies. I used to consistently rank beyond 13th in my class before this. Somehow, the graph went up after that and I fell under the trap of "high scoring" and tuitions and what not. Basically the rat race. A group of us even went to Kota post 10th for ambitious IIT coaching. This HAS to be the worst phase of my life. I hated that place to the core. I struggled with the way things were taught and executed there. Plus we were staying away from family for the very first time. I didn't have time to cope up with the immense pressure. I was just lost in another rat race, and I wasn't winning this one - I wasn't even close. I was never the one with immense self belief - inspite of doing well in schools I always doubted my ability. Before every exam in school, my typical note to mom was 'Im going to fail tomorrow'. When I came back from Kota, all I had was a huge relief. It was not a place meant for me and I was happy to be out of there. Yet, it did give me a life time of lessons.

Life at the moment is pretty much like Kota (ok way better than it, but you get the point). We are all stuck in this situation that no one wants to be part of. Its not a place meant for us - yet it will give the entire world lessons that we will never forget. And we will survive this - just need to keep looking back on the good times for relief and humour!

Sometimes you meet someone who leaves an everlasting impact on your mind. It does not matter if that person is far away or even if you never meet that person again. What matters is that when you think of that someone, you feel happy.

Lessons Learnt

1. Try to resolve doubts and questions yourself first. In most cases you already know the answer.

2. Best ideas come from fundamental questions, and not from applications.

3. Brain works with full efficiency when it's fresh and when thoughts are penned down.

4. Quality of work is more important than the quantity.

5. Mechanics first, details later.

6. Read ! Read ! Read !

7. Implement.

8. Faintest doubts can disrupt any base of understanding. Clear them all.

9. Never force a solution on a problem without exploring alternatives.

10. Solutions which "surprisingly" work are most likely to be wrong.

Milestones

Scribbling in this digital diary after a long time. The 100th ton was yet again snatched away from the little master today. A bit more wait for this(probably) never again to be trespassed feat. Wonder if milestones should be so keenly expected (at least from ourselves), or just accepted as they come by?

The later may seem reasonable and rather cushioning at first read. One is bent to be cautious about self and not perform as usual with feats at the back of the head. In contrast, unless we push ourselves with expectations, we won't achieve by just sitting and saying to self "yeah, I'll just wait and milestones will follow". Probably they won't. I think it's a perfect blend of expectations, ambitions and clearing head of self awareness which marks the trademark recipe of success.

What US taught me

It’s been quite an experience in the US. When I came here, I was fresh out of undergraduate school. Two years back, I vividly remember the confusion in mind. When you get an offer letter for a job for the first time in life, it seems to be the best achievement. Turning that offer down and instead going ahead to study during the looming times of recession was quite a decision to make for the several others freshly graduated just like me. Forums on the internet were full of debates whether to take up education at this point in the US or to have some job in hand and play it safe. Today, I feel happy to have made a decision to come here. And the reason is far from just academic.

Many people have asked me, “Is MS worth all the expense?” I have no good answer for this question. It all depends on what you expect from it. Everyone has different goals and what’s diamond for one might look like a coal to other. For me, it was worth both the time and effort spent in these two years. I learnt about things I had never heard about. And it may be that someone knowledgeable might have known it all before taking up the course. I am not among those people who can claim they learnt very little in MS because quite honestly, I had far limited knowledge of any specific course in my domain. If anything, I feel sorry for those who couldn’t learn much, either because they already knew stuff or because they took too easy classes to boost their grades. In the later case, I believe they shouldn’t complain about not learning much. Having said that, after the horrible nightmarish first semester, I understood not to be overambitious either! I had taken the most difficult courses, which combined with the first ever part time job experience, was near choking, with things like ‘two tough exams on a single day’ or ‘submission of two projects in two days’ quite common. And I was struggling to cope up. Experiences like these are really good, but I hope I don't get one of those again ;)

I do not know how true of a claim it will be if I suggest that the educational system here is far better than that in India. And no, this is not driven by the usual prejudiced negative remarks about the education system in India; this is driven by my own experience. I don’t know about others, but my own way of thinking has changed quite a bit during these two years. And I refer to thinking in general, not from just academic problem solving point of view.

I had heard more negative than positive remarks about the culture here. After staying two years here, I’m glad the equation has flipped, at least in my mind. One cannot make statements about any culture without experiencing it and understanding it. I found it very weird when I just landed here to get a casual “hi” from a stranger walking across the street. There are some things which you have to experience to reason them out. Understanding culture is one of them. “So…” I curiously asked to my American co-worker at my on campus part time job. “I heard a lot of parents kick out their kids at small age, is that really true?” He thought for a bit and replied, “About five percent of the families do that.” I was really surprised. That guy has paid for both his daughters’ education. “It’s all worth it when you look at them standing with the graduation cap.” It was good enough to silence my doubts.

Thinking about the part time job always brings a chuckle. Back in India, I wouldn’t have imagined working as a cleaner at some dorm. Here, I was forced to give up the discrimination of work. All work is treated with almost equal respect here. I vividly remember the first day at work- ever. Here I was, with a broom in one hand and the dust pan in other, waiting for my supervisor to give instructions. One cannot escape the thought at this point of having turned down a rather comfortable job in India and having signed up for something like this. I had heard a lot about how the managers at on campus jobs are strict and how students are exploited. So I was a bit paranoid about it. But when I talked to Michelle, my supervisor and Lisa, my co-worker at work who trained me on the first day, I felt like I was talking to my friends. I could not help thinking of how disrespectfully most cleaners back home are treated. The people at Governors’ (the university residential hall where I still work) are the most amazing people you can find! I am dearly going to miss them.
Having said that, US is like any other place with respect to how people are. Some are good, some are not so good. I know many of my friends here who have had horrible experiences with their managers at their part time work. You cannot judge a nation based on the small sample of people you meet, but in my experience, I met more good people than of the other kind. And the Jerry Springer show kind of people, well I am happy not to have met any of them.

Even with the much better system, and friendly attitude of people here, something always seems missing. It feels like a flavor rich American delicacy, but with lack of spice in it. No old friends, no roadside chat with a ‘chaat’, no roaming on the roads, and no sitting on the bench by the road side with friends talking the most non-sense things ever.

And as I approach the last week of my masters, I can’t wait to go back home.

Chasing your dreams

Life is ever changing. You make all the plans you want, but there will always be loopholes in them that life exploits. There are so many possible situations that you can't possibly plan each case to perfection. And this is where the unpredictability of life comes in. Well, if everything was predictable life would be boring.

Having said that, one can't really be too excited when plans go wrong- especially when they relate to your ambitions. Until recently I used to think (quite illogically) that people never get something when they get too excited about it. To put it in other words, things which they crave for the most are quite unreachable. But giving it more thought, it seems that people remember only those things which they wanted badly and didn't achieve it. There are so many rejections which we get in daily life and we hardly remember most of them. Why? Because we were not very excited about them in first place!

It pretty much is a challenge to chase our ambitions. How many people do we know who are actually pursuing what they really want to do? How many people do we hear daily telling us "Oh I actually wanted to be X, but now I got into Y. Life is all about compromises."

There is no universe conspiring for or against you. Its just you and the infinite situations that can happen with you. Some plans will work, others wont. One can't plan for all possible cases. And it is these very loopholes, which we call problems that we fall into and give up. Then we compromise and accept whatever comes our way.

Life is not a compromise, its just a measure of how far we are willing to go to achieve what we really want from it.