October 2009

Dilemma, Chaos, emotional turbulence; October 2009, had me on my toes. I was frustrated, at times distraught, and on most occasions I did not have a convincing reason for the same.

Work Place:

It was not too hectic like the previous month, thanks to numerous equipments which went down. October,'09 witnessed the maximum equipment failures in our lab, and hence my basic work flow had to be stalled. At times I felt bored with nothing to do, and hence used to spend hours before the computer browsing the net, searching for papers, logging into facebook or twitter. My Professor, a true professional, realizing my predicament, directed me to spend more time in the lab assisting the system owners to debug the faulty equipments. I was always looking forward to getting my hands on some high tech equipment. The Plasma Immersion Ion Implanter, as it is called, is my new guinea pig. I am assisting my colleague to sort the issues out with the system.

The last few days of oct'09 was fruitful, I got some interesting results on my solar cell process and hence I was contented. The icing on the cake being, I could convince my professor to a new experiment, which I hope to commence by first week of November.
Perhaps the idle days at the start of this month had made me a bit annoyed and hence frustrated. It seemed to me as if I was directionless. Not knowing what to do next brought in those fears of an impending storm. This anxiety may have eventually transfigured into a chaotic state of mind.The inability to convince myself that Patience, and Optimism are two essential components in research also added to my woes.

At Home:

Oct'09, I had been to Trivandrum twice. Dusshera holidays gave me enough time to plan for a trip home. I had a great time home with my dear ones. Not a speck of dissatisfaction. I came back to IIT on Oct 5, '09. Coming back from home is always an emotional ordeal.
Oct 13, '09 I received a call from home saying that my cousin (not a direct cousin though) had met with an accident at Salem, and passed away.
Sabari was more than cousin to me and my bro. He was our school mate, we used to travel in the same bus, had spend so much time together as kids. He was the one who introduced us to the world of TV video games, he had a 'Balbaro' cricket bat and we used to play with him for so long. In the course of time, we had to go our separate ways, our careers, exams, and all those ensured we couldn't even meet for years. Sitting alone in my hostel room (my roomie went home for diwali), all those images flashed across my mind. I had no one to share my grief with. I was totally down, with tears rolling down my cheek. A state of numbness ensued and the realization that I could not go down to attend the funeral pained me. Two days went by, thinking about the state of mind, the near and dear of his family would be in. I couldn't take it anymore, and I asked my professor whether I could go home for a couple of days, who was more than willing to give me the permission. I called up my dad, and expressed my desire to come down. He too agreed, and finally, I managed a flight via Bangalore to Trivandrum on Oct 16 '09. From the airport, my brother picked me up and we went directly to Sabari's house. I met up with his mother, and she was inconsolable on seeing me. The recollection of the same fills my eyes with tears.
Having spent the next three days visiting Sabari's house, I realized it was time for a some piece of mind. I needed to gather myself, and put my thoughts in perspective. I couldn't go back to Mumbai with so much trauma going through my mind. I had a couple of days up in my sleeve. I spend the last two days of my stay at home with my parents and talking to them really eased me out. My return ticket was scheduled for Oct 21 '09.


Back in Mumbai; From Oct 22, '09 I got deeply involved in my work. I was putting in extra effort to get myself in shape, and my efforts were proving successful. Success is always a receipe for lifting your spirits. A couple of highly successful endeavours lifted my spirits, and here I am blogging about my state of mind.

The Great Indian Search

A week back, I got a message from a friend. It read "I got engaged". Bemused, I rubbished it as one of those prank messages. My logical mind insisted that the veracity be confirmed. Hence I decided to call him. I called him, but he was not answering. I tried again, and the response was the same. After an hour, he called back. I was driving the car. I stopped, and picked up his call. I asked him, "Are u engaged?". He replied,"yes". I asked him to divulge more details, and then we spoke for another ten minutes. The fact of the matter was, he got engaged to a girl, who he knew for quite long(since school). It was a shocking piece of information, because none of his friends, including myself, never heard him mention such a girl or any girl for that matter. My Best wishes to my dear friend.

My brother turned 26, this July.Employed with a multinational networking company, he earns a decent salary. Sounds like a matrimonial ad,doesn't it? My parents have embarked on a mission to find a prospective bride for my brother. The search parameters have been shortlisted, and the search is in its 'beta' stage. A couple of prospective alliances came over, but the ever problematic, astrological match took its toll. The alliances came from relatives and well wishers, and hence technically the search was confined to a restricted 'database'. As the days progress the search will expand to a huge database, and the task more daunting. Yesterday, as part of this exercise, we(me,my bro and mother) had to search for a profile in a matrimonial website. The profile was viewed and it hit the astrological roadblock. We moved on,and performed a search based on the 'parameters' . It yielded, some 1500 profiles,with photos and details. While browsing through various profiles, the thought dawned on me. How do we identify a person for this enormous list, and my brother will have spend the rest of his life with her? It is an extremely complicated search. A whole range of external factors come into the purview. I told my mother about my dilemma and she retorted, "it is indeed a tough job, but there is no other go". I told her not to bother me with this, when my time comes.

I have been a proponent of arranged marriage for some years now. 'Arranged' as per my definition excludes the 'stage managed' arranged marriages (rebellion at home in order to marry the girl/guy whom you loved). This is strictly my personal take on it, and I do not intend to hurt anyone. The tiresome nature of the above mentioned exercise made me wonder, whether I was endorsing the right thing. I still believe, it is the duty of the parents to find the right match for their children. After all, they have earned that right. The first two paragraphs contradicts itself, and it is this contradiction that baffled me. If I go the traditional way, I will have to go through a long search routine, and If I break free of the tradition, the search would be far less 'painful'. Is it that a wiser mind (older mind) takes more time to arrive at a conclusion than a younger mind?

I leave it to you dear readers to post your comments on the same.

However, the search continues...................