This is something I had written as an introduction to one of the events of the annual Tech fest in college during my long forgotten anchoring days more than a decade back. Lately, I have accepted the fact that whatever I had written earlier in life is making me cringe today. I mean the short stories that I had penned in school and college make me wish that I had never written them in the first place. In all likelihood even what I am writing today may be something that I wouldn’t want to revisit 10 years down the line.
Today when I read the script I am deeply perturbed due to the casual negativity that has made its way through into the content even without me realising about it.Let us step back for a moment and try and visualise the big bad world from the eyes of a happy go lucky college going kid. For starters I was pretty sorted in my head as to what my future was going to be, a career in the Indian civil services . So it was pointless for me to reach out to someone and try to understand what it meant to be working in a corporate environment. But I am surprised by the incorrect notion that had taken roots in me without any basis of rationality.
“Travails and challenges of the stress filled corporate world”, ”Perform under grueling circumstances” look like cheesy lines from a Shakespearean tragic play. Could this have been my perspective of the IT sector where I would eventually end up later in life. It would be worthwhile to find out as to what a current final year student thinks of this sector.. This will be an important yardstick to measure whether there is change in perception.
Don’t even get me started on “the constant nagging of your boss”. Doesn’t the boss have other important things to do than keep nagging you . Again a careless observation from someone who has not much clue about what he is writing. I have had my share of demanding bosses over the years but none of them fit the bill. I should ask the folks who report to me on my current style of functioning.
All said and done this instance clearly demonstrates the pitfalls of the bias that clouds our judgement on topics that are outside our normal realm of existence.
Now I think that I need to take a chill pill and wrap up the serious tone of this post and give the 20 year old me a break. The irony of the fact is that in the midst of a hectic day the moment I saw this chit I smiled to myself. And believe me guys that it is no mean task I don’t smile easily ask Jeslin. So it proves that I indeed did something worthwhile back then. Maybe, for a moment I was transformed to the young bloke who loved anchoring, who loved talking through the mike in a hall full of people, who loved writing scripts for such gigs, who would practice diligently along with the co presenter so that we are impeccable on the stage. In fact when I shared this with her now in WhatsApp she recollected those days with great fondness.
I still remember my internal project viva where I was being grilled on Matlab by my professor who was a Phd candidate in the same subject. Naturally I had a tough time but what she remarked at the end of it really cracked me up. She said that the cock and bull story that I used to invent whenever a conceptual question was posed to me was so convincing at times that she would wonder if her understanding of the concepts was incorrect. She wished me luck to get a professor for the final viva whose main subject was not Digital Image Processing. She was kind enough to give me decent marks and true to her words I scored heavily in my final project presentation and viva.
At that point of time I would always be that guy in the project team who would be the one making the presentation and taking questions at the end even though there were far more scholarly peers in the group. My grades during engineering were dismal but I totally nailed it for my seminar where you have to present a topic and take questions on it. I hate to brag but that was the only time I topped the class in all of my 4 years in college .Back then I loved making presentations in class. A special feeling overcomes you when you are the cynosure of all eyes in a room. Moreover, you get to speak and your mates have no other option but to listen to you.It so happened that once a professor gave the class an option to either write an assignment or you have to prepare on a few topics from the syllabus and make a presentation to the class. This was an offer I couldn’t refuse and was the only one who picked the bait. These days I reminisce those moments whenever I have to give a big ass presentation to the client.
Ethan, who has just turned 3 years old would cook up stories about his time in Delhi and Bombay though he still can’t pronounce the name of our hometown properly(he calls it thirupuram).The fact of the matter is that we left Mumbai soon after he turned one and he has never been to Delhi in his life. I have no iota of doubt if he was talking to anyone other than his grandparents or the extended family they would totally buy his story. The apple indeed doesn’t fall far from the tree.
