As I start blogging on
my return to the platform after almost 18 months, I can't help but wonder the
"what ifs" of things that could have happened had I really gone ahead
and published this blog as my autobiography on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing,
a life through my lens, as I embark onto yet another milestone in life -
hitting the 5 digit mark on the number of days I've survived on Earth. If you know
me well, the number 10 (shout out to all those numerology experts!) has been
very special in my life, right from childhood. I had it all planned out 6-7
months ago, when I had set up 10 different chapters, or as I like to call them,
the 10 life lessons and throwbacks from different stages of my life as I'd
lived through them, while setting a hard deadline to release the material on
December 12th 2020, but then the harsh reality of CoViD-19 and other priorities
came into existence.
You may be wondering,
why blog this now? Why rise from the dead to create a blog for such an
occasion? What's so special? Your time never ends right? As some of you know, I
posted a countdown some time back in one of my stories on Instagram, and while
I had a great time reading into my friend's thoughts, this was basically it -
to release my own autobiography on my 10,000th day on Earth! This day was one
of the most special days that my father celebrated when he turned 27 years 4
months and 15 days. He told me that he celebrated this milestone with his
friends while reminiscing his past achievements, questioned if he had achieved
whatever he dreamt off and the harsh fact that ~1/3rd of his life was over. The
reality that at some stage, this would all end had started to sink in. After
all, in the end, it's all about making your mark and letting history talk about
the way you lived your life. One of the most important lessons life has taught
me these years is to live it the way I dictated it to, that it was my choices
that controlled my actions, while believing that I was in-charge of my
destiny if I acted upon it. Life is too short to hold grudges and contempt for
others. In the end, you die alone. Everyone does. But, if you mean something to
someone, if you help someone or love someone, even if a single person remembers
you, then maybe, you don't really die at all. That is why it's important for
you to be you. Now I know what you're thinking - am I trying to hit you with
cold, dark facts right at the start of this blog to discourage you from reading
further? Well, if you thought this would be a light-hearted blog with an
element of celebration, well, you're right! I'm just hitting you with some hard
truths that are in people's minds but something they never usually acknowledge,
right at the start of the blog so that you all feel human and live my
experiences through my writing. It's time that people begin to embrace the
"Y.O.L.O" aspect of their lives and cherish their times, however
limited it may be.
So, in keeping up with the traditions of my family (E!, are we ready for a new show now?), I'm blogging my autobiography while going through some of my own highlights from the past 10K days, few things I wish I could have done differently, and some hard hitting facts that I'd like to tell my 15 year old self - it would be a good read when I come back to read this blog again if and when I hit 20K (or maybe, even a billion! *wink wink*). To start off, I just want to let you know that this would be a good 2.5 hour read; so, brace yourselves and see if you can relate to a thing or two! Or maybe even more. Also, special thanks to my parents for helping me gather a bunch of these old pictures as I started to blog about this.
**************************************************************
THROWBACK #1: A TOUCH OF GOD’S OWN COUNTRY
**************************************************************
How many of you vividly
remember the first couple of years of your childhood, even now? Glimpses come
and go, but some memories just stay on! My parents photographed everything I
did when I was a kid. In my teenage years, I used to feel violated, but now as I
look upon these infant and childhood photographs, these were some of the
happiest days of my life! What they say about the curious infant and childhood
innocence is absolutely true! As I will talk about in a later memory where I
had my first ever homecoming to the city where I first grew up in, I can't help
but wonder how blessed I am to have the best parental team in my life. Both my
parents come from varying backgrounds and according to me (even though I may be
biased), have the most progressive minds from their respective family trees, as
a result of being the youngest siblings - well, after my grandmother, Saroja!
Saroja for one was one of the strongest women I know to date - to raise and
provide for a family of six alone as a widowed mom by itself seemed like a
Herculean task, but she managed it while living in one of the busiest neighborhoods
in Chennai, Ranganathan Street. She was indeed my real-life super-hero,
bringing up my still 10-year old grieving dad and her other teenage children
all by herself while making sure that they had the best education she could
offer! She gave my father the freedom to do whatever he wanted to, she openly
welcomed inter-country marriage into her family when her second son married a
woman from Chinese descent in the US of A, and in a way, I owe a lot of our
progressive background to her. One more person I owe a lot to is my grandfather
Vijayaraghavan, who was an administrative assistant in the Royal Indian Air
Force. Without any sort of discrimination, he gave my mother complete
independence to pursue whatever she wanted to do in her life and brought in the
much-needed balance of maintaining discipline and responsibilities, while
enjoying the best aspects of life.
My parents were so forward thinking that they were "all-in" for complete independence and not being reliant on anyone else for basic human needs - food, clothing and shelter. They made sure that there never was a situation in which the family would ever be in debt - especially financially - and right off the bat, through my journey through life, they made sure that I also carried those character traits. Their love for travelling around the country in their teens and 20 somethings - my mother being an Air Force kid, and my father being in the sales and marketing realm - were their commonalities and drew them together. Although they came from a very orthodox Tamil Iyengar Brahmin background, both of them understood the need for equality at the work place, being educated about the world we live in and the requirement to raise their child in an area which had a plethora of possibilities. In 1993, though my mom had settled down in Bangalore for a while (Seshadripuram to be exact), my dad was still running all over the place in Southern India - from the beaches of Madras, to the backwaters and queen's necklaces of Ernakulam, to the ever cozy city of Bangalore - easily picking up the local language wherever he travelled to. The day I was born, my father was still on his way to Leela Nursing Home in Malleswaram from one of his sales and marketing assignments in Cochin. And there I was, in the flesh, weighing 3.8kg, unusually overweight and healthy for a new born! All those sugar coated jellies (jujoops as my mother called them), candies and chocolates, seemed to have done the damage (or rather made me cuter *blush*).
During the weekends, we would travel to nearby Fort Kochi on a ferry ride and explore the Malabar coast through my favorite mode of transport - a train ride with the window seat. We were and are still are a very religious family and my father visited some nearby pilgrimage places of worship like Guruvayoor, Chotanikara and Sabarimala, and seek blessings from the Holy Spirit. Kerala is a very secular state and so you could easily mingle with people from different religious beliefs and coexist well together in spite of all the hate between multiple religions in the northern parts of India during that time period. The state is also very well known for its rich culture, and is defined to be composite and cosmopolitan with elements of both the Aryan and Dravidian ways of life - our family would blend in and celebrate the pooram festival (Google Thrissur's Pooram festival for more info in case you are wondering!), the harvest and boat festival of Onam, and more importantly, I was heavily drawn to the large but rather timid figures of elephants across the state. While I was an infant, even though I couldn't experience the local cuisine that much, I had heard loads about Kothu Parota, Appam, Puttu-Kadalai and sadhya (banana leaf meal) from my parents and I couldn't wait to try them out when I grew older.
My relationship with my parents and without a sibling is probably what brings out the best in me and I'm so glad I have them as my life support system! God knows how distraught I would be when I lose them, but there will be a time for that. Recently, appa had forwarded me an American Time Use Survey PDF by Steven Bartlett, where he rightly says that after the age of 20, you'll only spend a small portion of your life with your parents and family until death takes you apart from them and that as a parent, you'll see a lot of your child between the ages of 25 to 50 and much lesser after that. So, always remember that your time with your parents will be limited - that's one of the facts of life. Make sure that you make as much memories with them as possible! Create as much time for them as possible and make that time special! Writing up this blog with my parents as my anchors gave me so much satisfaction since this is the first ever project that I've involved them in after my school days!
**************************************************************
THROWBACK #2: NAMASKARA BANGALORE!
As I write this portion up, one of the things that will stay with me is the first house we stayed at in Bangalore after immigrating to this beautiful city and this was probably the best of my 10K days of life - 23/A 16th Cross 7th Main BTM 2nd Stage B'lore-76 - yeah, I've heard people from Bombay complain about living spaces before, but let me assure you, the old town of Bangalore (yeah, BTM Layout was considered to be in the outskirts of the city back then!) was no different. We lived in a 1 BK at the time - the hall was our bedroom, we had a small storage room, and a cute kitchen and pooja room. The bathroom and toilet were attached at the back of the house. There was a really huge open plantation at the front of our house and we would often go out there for my childhood photoshoots (I know, I gave up an early modeling career *sob*) or to play some gully cricket! As a 1.5-3 year old, when you're still trying to figure out your interests and things you loved to do, I was still grounded by the reality that we were still trying to make ends meet with my father's then Rs. 3000/- a month salary. That's how cheap rent was at BTM Layout 25 years ago! Shops would close down by 7pm and roads would look deserted. Even though they were deserted, things were actually safe! Inner Ring Road between Indiranagar and Koramangala was deserted, except for people wanting to test how fast their cars went - Indiranagar and Koramangala were actually new layouts known only for mosquitoes and floods during the rainy season and Whitefield was a far-off train stop on the way to Chennai. Getting Diwali crackers were a big deal in Bangalore and we would always save some for Karthikai Deepam. One plate of two idlies and a vada costed Rs.5 and corner house death by chocolate costed Rs. 35; basically you could have a feast if you had 50 rupees in your pocket! Auto minimum fares were at Rs.5 and Rs 2.5 for every KM after that. Every landscaped BDA park was a playground where we would spend seemingly endless summer holidays and evenings playing cricket! Storm drains (or morries as they're locally called) were uncovered and we would have big fights about who would go and fetch the cricket ball in case the ball fell into them.
And despite all the initial struggles of moving to the city, we really did lead a normal family life - I always got what I wanted, was extra pampered being the only child, and was trying out my hand in music, sports and travel vicariously through my toys, eating by own, etc. Things that inquisitive and curious kids usually do. I had recently watched Muthu (it's a yesteryear Tamil Movie) on YT and it brought back all my memories of "Muthu" being the first Tamil word I recognized, and also the fact that it was the first movie that I actually understood. I used to think of myself as Rajni, riding my bicycle in the same manner as he rode the horse chariot in the movie, and playing the flute while he played the flute atop the elephant! I was much shorter then to reach the even the lower shelves of the kitchen and my constant cries of thoothi (short for thoothikko) would made my parents smile and make their day much more pleasant. Life was good!
UKG was probably the most testing times of my life in Bangalore. There had been a sudden spike in temperatures and the weather seemed unpredictable (much like London weather!), multiple viruses had been floating around in the city and I had caught measles, chicken pox and typhoid all together at the same time. We used to go to a yesteryear hospital near Jayadeva constantly almost everyday (unable to remember the name now) for some X-rays, blood tests, injections and so on, while my mother relied on some home remedies to cure the disease like having me sleep over some neem leaves, avoiding hot water baths to further aggravate the skin rashes, etc. instead of relying on allopathy. Curd rice was my only safe food option (it has always been!) as it was the only thing that I could actually swallow given that I also had mouth ulcers at the time! My immune system was at an all-time low and it was highly important for me to get back up on my feet. At the end of any tumultuous time, there's always a new dawn! I felt so sad that I couldn't participate in our annual day celebrations at school, but sometimes, you just need to chin up and take life as it comes and move forward! In the end, I did get a video game console at my place while I was being cured for all the aforementioned diseases to keep me entertained and this helped me to learn things outside of school work - the car racing game, baseball and golf video games that I played often started to give me an affinity to watching sports and maybe even try my hand at them!
During childhood, something that will stay with me is a small poem that I wrote for an essay writing competition organized in my school. This was my award winning poem from 1st standard that I still remember coz it involved someone really special in my life, someone who didn't even exist before and yet someone I knew I wanted to have! (P.S. I don't even know why I still remember this poem even now!) It goes like this - "I have a dog, her name is Fluffy. She is very beautiful to look at. Her eyes are blue and her nose is red and her ears are very sharp to grasp what I say. She moves around briskly dropping things from the table and while my mother used to cuddle me, she gets jealous and comes by her lap for a cuddle for herself." Sometimes, you start to get an inkling on what you wish for and in the end, the Universe manifests itself in a way to make things just happen to you. Another thing that will stay with me is my theatrical performance as an Ice Cream man in a play written by one of my class teachers, which was mainly talking about various professions in life. It was my first real taste of artistic work as well as my first ever collaboration with my mother, who made the ice-cream cart from scratch from a cardboard box. My mother is very artistic and she was very much into threading, kneading, drawing and other artistic forms of stitching in her youthful days. She gave up her career in the artistic works to bring me up and make ends meet for the family by being a full-time teacher. The pictures of the framed stitched peacock at the back of multiple childhood photos of mine is her work and is a constant reminder to me as to where I get some of my creative ideas from and to try and balance the two sides of my brain as is necessary. Playing an ice-cream man in the theatrical play also made me inadvertently realize how important it was to respect every profession and the roles everyone play in maintaining a balanced and functional society. Without bakers, we'd have no cakes for celebrations. Without milkmen, we'd have no milk. Without postmen, we'd have no post/ letters. It was a rude awakening to play all professions in the same playing field as the high-paying ones.
THROWBACK #3: HALLI SHENANIGANS & THE Y2K ERA
Around the end of the 2nd millennium (ours will probably be one of the luckiest generations to welcome the 3rd millennium), our family had purchased and invested in a piece of land in the outskirts of the city since it was the only affordable piece of land! It was a highly ambitious purchase, in an area that had a huge potential for growth with the IT boom looming all over the city and especially in areas in the outskirts where there was a huge potential for urban development! Most of the folks who had immigrated into the city from other parts of the state and the country had also cashed in on this idea and started to purchase land as well - and we too joined the race. We'd decided to construct a small single storeyed, 2 BHK independent house on our land and move in to it while understanding the risks that came up with moving away from the city to a village (halli in Kannada). There was a lot of back and forth between going to check if the house was getting constructed as per our architect's Sudheer and our wishes and we nailed in on the final design with appropriate security feature installation checks in place. We started constructing the house sometime in early August '99 and the house was ready for Gruhapravesham on April 22nd 2000. The house was named "Sundara Krupa", named after my paternal grandfather, Sundaravaradhan and it stood opposite 3 other people's houses - Mr. Ramanan's, Mr. Joshi's and Mr. Gnanashekaran's, all of whom and whose kids became really close friends. Our layout, Royal Shelters at Devarachikkanahalli was still at it's infancy and there were hardly 5-6 houses in the entire layout when we finished construction! We finally moved in on May 6th 2000.
As March came, it was literally madness (whaddup March Madness references!) and it was crunch-time. I am not going to lie - there was always a sense of anxiety and tension among all of us when we went to appear for our final board examinations at Vivekananda School in Jayanagar; we had to write 11 different papers and it took us the whole month of March in 2009 to get through it all (it can physically and mentally get exhausting!) - English (Grammar), English (Literature), Kannada/ Hindi (2nd Language), French/ Computer Science (Elective), Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, History-Civics, Geography and Environmental Education, each of them had tested us differently - I swear just listing out all these subjects was exhausting. With the leak of the Geography paper at Little Flower Public school, our geography examination got postponed and our exams extended well into April too. Despite all that, I am proud that we could get past all that examination stress and came off with flying colors, given that we were the experimental batch. It was a Panini house 1-2-3 when Vidya topped the board exams from our school, with me and Mitali coming in a close 2nd and 3rd. None of those positions really mattered in the end - all that mattered was that all of us gave it our best and performed to the best of our abilities, while making sure that we had a bright future ahead in Pre-University. The "group of 24" as we are now called, rather, the experimental bunch, have all gone off to different parts of the world (some of us even married, maybe with kids!); most of us are now either in the US or in Canada. We did meet up sometime last December virtually when a bunch of us joined over video call to wish each other a great 2020, and look how that turned out! Hopefully someone from our graduating batch reads this blog and sets up a call again this year - who knows! Or maybe, I, being their School Captain, can set it up for them - let's see!
As 4th semester went on, I couldn't help but be fascinated by both Control Systems as well as Microprocessors - especially when it came to coding assembly level programs in the lab using a proper ISA, and seeing the applications control systems had outside of just electronics and communication engineering. I started to code using VHDL as I was trying to understand Digital Logic Design and little did I know back then that it would be the foundational course for what I am currently working on at Intel (Thank you Rekha ma'am and M.S. Bhat sir for getting me interested in the two courses!). My love for digital electronics and coding for H/W started to increase and what I initially thought about Analog Electronics and Operational Amplifiers was just a myth, as I slowly transitioned more towards liking VLSI and digital circuit design. I didn't have anything against analog electronics, I actually liked the course and the math surrounding it as well but I realized that unless I had real passion for the subject, I couldn't make a career out of it. 4th semester also came with bunch of projects and assignments that we had to complete together working in pairs, and my roommate Bejesh and I paired to get things done in time, with high quality, sometimes extending well into the night, as we used the Night Canteen facility in the 3rd Block Hostel to good use. All we needed to do was to go one floor below to grab a Rs.5 Vada Pav and Rs.20 Gobi Manchurian! It was really cheap and sometimes we would sometimes skip dinner in the 3rd Block mess and the P.G. mess (in 4th semester) just to have these delights. I quickly made friends with some members of the football team and as I started to get back into the game, I sprained my knee and tore my ACL - I didn't get it operated because the semester was still going on, but engaged myself in some physical therapy in the evenings as I slowly moved my knees as less as I could - in the end, it was just a slight tear and I recovered in 7-8 weeks. Life was good again!
Some of these things were under my control,
especially getting the documents in place from my parents and from college.
However, some of these other documents required some sort of communication from
HEPIA, the accommodation folks, the Swiss Embassy and the Immigration Offices
as well – it seemed like as though HEPIA had no idea about the intricacies in
the visa application procedure at all – since it was the first time they had
even done this, maybe they were unaware of it, but I think after my visit, they
learnt their lessons too and got things done in time. I had to initiate
multiple emails to get the accommodation details sorted out (they now handle all
this!) – I had personally emailed 4-5 different hostels in the city of Geneva,
and 3 of them said that they were booked for the summer. CUG (Cite Universitaire
de Geneve) was the only positive response that I got and the only option we had;
the CUG hostel was around 6km away from the university itself and we had no
idea about how we’d travel everyday while we were there. The financial
accountants at CUG had asked us to apply for accommodation through an
application portal and to pay an advance on the rooms for the first 3 days – we
were unaware of the fact that this was how everything worked in Switzerland and
even all over the world – so, we had sent the academic coordinators at HEPIA
multiple emails on who would be paying for the accommodation costs and exactly how
and when the stipend would be distributed. Luckily, my friend Radhika Natesh at
USC was helped by my cousin, Ramya Ramesh, who was still a student at USC, and
while she went off to intern at Altera, Radhika took her place in the house
lease for the summer – it was so easy right?! Many of the internships that my classmates
went on, were accomplished programs – the organizations themselves would
initiate all the procedures. But given that this was the first ever
collaboration with HEPIA, things were a little difficult and sometime in early
March, we booked our accommodation from May 13th to July 24th with an early
payment of CHF160 (yeah, it’s weird that Switzerland still used Francs and did
not convert to Euros), which we got reimbursed later on. Everything was sorted
out by mid-March, but you may be wondering that everything still looks fine
right?
Catastrophe struck. Chaitanya was pretty late in getting
his passports in his hands (he had only recently applied for his passport) and
we had provided the passport to our travel agent in Bangalore sometime by the
end of March. There were some delays on the travel agent’s side as well and he
had finally applied for the visa in mid-April. The expectation was that we
would get our VISAs stamped by May 8th, and we’d have our passports in our hands
by May 10th or 11th. It was touch and go, but we had no other choice at this
point in time (there is no premium processing even now!). We had the option to
postpone our flight tickets if needed, but we were not sure if the
accommodation could also be postponed. We realized things were at a standstill
even at the beginning of May and our travel agent had informed us that it could
take longer than the committed May 8th target date since there was some employment
authorization issues and miscommunication between the Consulate of Switzerland
in India (it was in Mumbai) and the Immigration offices in Switzerland. I tried
to intervene and talk in a diplomatic manner with the two agencies about the MoU
that the two universities had signed and that this was only a temporary work
permit of 90 days – I don’t know what they understood, but they somehow
misunderstood what I said and started to process a work permit visa (like the
H1B visa in the US!) and that would have required further scrutiny. There was
utter chaos during that time. We had to keep on postponing our air tickets to two
weeks after the current date and Etihad was ok with that – just that we had to
pay the difference in the air travel costs between what we already paid and
what the cost was on that day. We were requested to keep mum about the whole situation
and not create further confusion and just wait until we got our passports back
on our hands. We are at one point just helpless, because there was nothing that
could be done from our end – apart from just postponing our flight tickets and
keeping my Dean and HOD informed about the situation. Everything rested on how
fast the Immigration Offices at the Canton of Geneva would process our
applications.
It was early June and there was still no response
from any one – almost a month flew by and my academic advisor, Prof. Fabien
Vannel had asked me to start working on the project from Bangalore itself, especially
that it was just RTL development of an image processing algorithm (the problem
was the interfacing aspect with the indigenously developed high speed camera) –
the 2 pass connected component labeling analysis algorithm – first on Matlab
and then using Verilog. The problem was that I could not look at the source
code and the SPEC to see what were the inputs and outputs of what needed to be
done by me due to an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) that was signed by the
designer and the professor. So, I couldn’t get much done on my side. I started
to even doubt if this internship would even physically happen, and since the
professors had planned to go on vacation from July 12th, could I complete my
internship within 4-5 weeks especially given that this was a 9-10-week
internship? To keep myself distracted and because I had to complete an internship
for college credit, I approached one of my friends, Nithin Kamath who was
interning with Dr. Sriram Vajapeyam as well as one of my professors, Dr.
Arulalan Rajan, enquiring if their teams needed any support from my end. It was
an unpaid internship and I was a part of the team that developed a
glue logic communication module for Multi-Core processors. I didn’t develop the
RTL itself, but I did help in looking for IPs available on Open Cores and
integrating multiple such cores into their sub-system for testing purposes. I
also had a small pilgrimage that I went on with my parents and my uncle/ aunt
to Mumbai (Siddhi Vinayaka and Mahalakshmi Mandir), Nashik (Triyumbaksehwar)
and Shirdi – it was much needed since it helped me calm down and just accept
life as it came.
Around mid-June, the Swiss Immigration Offices at the Canton of Geneva had reached out to me and said that they had authorized my employment for the internship – turns out, they had authorized it for my father (*sigh*) by mistake and not for me and it took a couple more days from their end to finally give me the confirmation. Once we got that authorization, the Swiss Embassy at Mumbai stamped the visa and I had authorization to enter any of the Schengen states and pursue my internship for a period of 90 days from June 23rd to September 19th – I finally received the passport with the stamping in my hand on June 25th and was slated to leave for Geneva the following week (July 1st) – but there were still problems and this postponement in my schedule also had a lot of implications. If I were to go and pursue this European internship further, I would have had to skip the first few days of the 7th Semester and even skip all assignments, home-works and quizzes, in case they were held. And campus placements – all the top-tier semiconductor companies (like NVIDIA, TI, Qualcomm, etc.) usually come to campus as early as possible to snap up whom they thought were the best students from the graduating batch, and I’d be missing sitting for on-campus placements as a result. Even if I were to think about pursuing graduate studies, it was almost time to think about preparing for the GRE/ TOEFL and appear for the exam by mid-October (worst case!) so that I could submit my graduate school applications in time. It was a difficult choice that I had to make because even my internship advisor was supposed to be on vacation from July 12th onwards until possibly August 6th and that meant that I had to work on the project all by myself probably with just the support of a couple of master thesis students. Also, the fact that NITK doesn’t allow a student to go beyond 4 weeks of missing graduate school was an issue, because the registration for courses as well as audit/incomplete/ change of course date would be well beyond what I wanted to sign up for. In the end, both my HOD as well as Dean (Academic) brought in some special permissions in place through multiple annexures to ensure that I had a smooth transition back to the final year of my UG and that made my decision to finally choose on pursuing the internship so much better. One problem though - I wouldn't have much time with my internship advisor, but that was OK - as long as I met him, looked at the tasks at hand, completed them on time, sent him weekly reports and ensured that the algorithm was implemented in Verilog, that's all that mattered. So, yes, finally, the bags were packed, and we were off - abroad! For the first time, I crossed the international borders without my parents - I was eventually getting out of my nest into the big world, which eventually turned out to be a pre-cursor for my graduate studies as well.
The next day, both Chaitanya and I reached HEPIA by
thoroughly going through the route and alighting at Gare de Lyon. We approached
the main Engineering building and were greeted by Ms. Christine, our
administrative liaison from HEPIA – she had immediately recognized me since I
had a voice-call with her some time in March when we were finalizing the scholarship
grants from the Swiss Government. She took us on a virtual tour of the building
and showed us around the place, introduced us to our advisors, as we reminisced
about the crazy summer in India and what we did while we were waiting for the
visa to arrive. She also took us to the accounts section, and she clarified
with us that they had paid the accommodation costs at CUG, paid us CHF160 for the
advances that we paid, and also gave us the stipend/ scholarship (CHF750 each)
for 2 months’ stay even though we were going to be there only for 6 weeks, to
get us through the month. The stipend was supposed to be used to cover for our
food and grocery costs only since the rest of the expenses had been paid for.
And let me assure you – any place in Switzerland is pretty expensive to stay at,
and in case you were planning to settle down there, it’s better to find something
on the outskirts of the city and rely on the public transport network that the
city offered. But we ended up saving much of the stipend while only partially
using it to cover for our groceries. We used some of the amount to invest in a
6-day Eurail pass to travel across Europe and cover all the main touristy spots
over the weekends and given that it was a short 6-week internship, we had to
plan this properly!
As I had mentioned before, for food, we had
packed some ready-to-eat food packets from India, and if needed we'd buy some
frozen food, bread, rice and yogurt from the grocery stores right near CUG to
get us through the nights. For breakfast, I had a daily ritual of having muesli
and nuts with cold milk and it became a routine – I loved having it, especially
with the rich milk available in Switzerland. The room itself was small – it had
two beds, an amazing view at the mountains, a cloth storage/ iron table area,
and a wash basin. Having lived in a shared space in NITK, sharing the toilet,
bathroom and kitchen with other students at CUG wasn’t much different. The kitchen
had an electric stove, a shared refrigerator and microwave to heat up food and that
was how we usually prepared our dinners. It was difficult for both of us to prepare
lunch in the morning since I also had to get ready to go to work; so, I’d go
out every afternoon to the nearest McDonalds’ to order a couple of Cheeseburgers
– I thought they were pretty cheap and tasty and was vegetarian (clearly
mistaken!) – only later (almost at the end of the trip) did I know that the patty
was made from beef. Otherwise, I’d rely on bread and Nutella to get me through
my hunger. I’d quickly made friends with some of the neighbors in the 6th floor
where our room was located and would sometimes even work from the rooms in the night,
in the hopes that I could complete the assigned work in time. There were public
Wi-Fis all over the place in Geneva, and at the time, WhatsApp was all I had to
communicate with my parents – the only place that didn’t have them were the
transit systems, but that was okay. On weekdays, most of our activities in the
evening revolved around going to the parking lots at the Ice-Hockey Rink (Patinoire
des Vernets) and sometimes, the Football Stadium (Stade de Geneve) to watch the
knockout stages of the 2014 FIFA World Cup on the big screens and with the
French, Swiss, German and Italian crowd, since Geneva had a mixed cultural
influence. We could easily mingle with the younger generation and the college
students attending CUG and I even made a couple of friends in the Cafeteria. We
could have watched Barcelona v Napoli at the Stade de Geneve in their
pre-season game, but in the end, we decided against it. That said, once we were
in our zones and working on our respective projects during the day in our labs,
we had just the right amount of time to mix fun with work, as I started to like
this culture of “work hard, play hard”.
The first touristy spot that we visited that very weekend that we arrived was CERN because it was the home of the large-hadron collider and the end of the world and world-famous Atlas experiment. Being in the midst of it all, and soaking in the atmosphere from all over the room due to the presence of multiple scientists explaining various concepts on fission, fusion and accelerating a quantum particle, took me straight back to my 11th and 12th standard days when I was learning so much about nuclear physics and the energies created by the interactions of these particles with one another. CERN was pretty far from CUG, and we had dedicated an entire day to walking around the facility, visiting the museums and educating ourselves in the planetarium. We were so mesmerized by the Globe that we just sat there talking about the summer we had until then and how this trip may have not even happened without the persistent efforts of so many folks who wanted to see it through. We then took the tram back to the city and then roamed around Downtown a little before heading back home – we just loved the vibrant atmosphere created in the city and couldn’t wait to explore it again the next day. The next day, we visited the United Nations Building – the European Headquarters, and the Hall of the League of Nations. We realized that Geneva was the HQ for multiple UN related organizations like the Red Cross, UNICEF, UNEP, WHO, etc. once we reached the UN building – we needed to have an entry ticket to get into the facility as a tourist and once we were in, we signed up for the 1 hour tour. There was just so much history in the building, especially since the start of WW-I and it was nice to see how well maintained the facility was, even after so many years. There was an active session going in one of the conference rooms, and we observed the live session from the gallery section (meant for journalists, guests and viewers) for around 5 minutes before continuing with the tour – it was nice to see representatives from countries like Malawi, Tanzania, Papua New Guinea and Jamaica talk passionately about disaster management. After having gone through so many channels and had so many conversations with the Swiss Immigration officials, administrative assistants and my college’s deans, did I think I have a fair opportunity in dealing with diplomacy and thriving in it? Maybe it all worked out for the best – I wasn’t as assertive before as I am now, but it would have been something!
The next weekend, we just roamed around the other
spots in the city of Geneva – the Jet d’Eau, Bel-Air as well as Coutance – the fashion
district, the St. Pierre Cathedrale, the Reformation Wall, Place du Bourg de
Four, l’horloge fleurie to name a few. We loved the old town near the cathedral
, because it gave us the feel of a European city – the cobblestones and
intricate architectural designs of the houses that lined up the cathedral had
some elements of the medieval age, while the newly created buildings along Lake
Geneva’s shoreline gave it the modern day touch. But, both of us had done everything
we wanted to do in the city by the first two weekends – especially when we
witnessed the 7-1 drubbing of Brazil in their home WC – and so asked for some
guidance from Pierre and Jeremy – they had suggested us to visit the valley
town of Chamonix – Mont Blanc to truly get a feel of the Alps. As a foreigner
in the Schengen States, you rarely get exposed to hearing the names of such
places because they do not usually get the international exposure that they are
supposed to – people usually think that Paris, Munich, Frankfurt, Berlin, etc.
are the places to be in, but sometimes the smaller and unknown places in the world
can surprise you. Chamonix-Mont Blanc was one such place – it was just an hour’s
drive (45 minutes from our room in CUG actually!), a valley town sitting in the
intersection of the French-Italian-Swiss Alps. Chamonix was supposed to be one of
the best mountaineering, skiing and resort destinations for so many people in the
area as well as south-eastern France and I seemed so puzzled when they had
mentioned it the first time. The experience was so pleasing – we had booked a
shared return Alpybus from Geneva airport to the Aiguille du Midi cable car
station (costed us approx. CHF45) and the ride up to the top of the du Midi and
back down was CHF55 and the experience was just magical. It was the first time
I had seen or experienced snow in a natural environment, and to even catch a
glimpse of a glacier (Mer de Glace) from the top of one of the tallest
mountains in the Alps was such a blessing. I was so underprepared and underestimated
how cold it could get at the top, but it was still worth it. It seemed like the
best reward that Mother Nature offered us especially after such a horrendous
summer filled with anxiety and stress. I just wish that we could have continued
to go on the circular looped Hellbronner cable car as well to complete the
experience (it takes you around the Mont Blanc – the tallest mountain in Europe
- and the Italian Alps), but maybe it is destined for me to visit it some time
again later in my life. Only time will tell. The valley town of Chamonix itself
is incredibly cute with the towering Alps taking much of the beauty away from
the town – it had it’s usual Swiss as well as French touch – the church being
at the center of it all. I also wanted to experience the thrill of driving through
the Mont Blanc tunnel from France to Italy and back (the tunnel is constructed
through the tallest mountain in Europe and links Chamonix and Courmayeur), but
I can think about doing this when I possibly plan a road-trip across Europe later
on in life. At least I hope I can visit Europe again.
The travel to Chamonix-Mont Blanc completely
changed my perspective about Europe and both me and Chaitanya developed the
travel bug and had a wanderlust for exploring the main tourist spots of Europe
even more. Once we were back in our rooms from the trip, we immediately booked a
6-day Eurail pass (6 travel days) and made the most of the pass as much as we
could. We had to book reservations on some of the fast speed trains in addition
to having the pass, but we only decided to live on a backpack for those trips
and not stay at any hotel/ hostel – living in Europe, especially in the cities
and towns of Switzerland was actually safe. We split the 6 travel days across 2
weekends – one with a 2 day trip covering Venice, Rome and Milan (in other words,
Italy), and another with a 4 day trip covering Paris, Frankfurt, Berlin, Munich
and northern Switzerland - it was a four day trip due to the Swiss National Holiday coming in the middle of it all. We had planned everything to perfection and the
routine was set - we would start very early into the day (like 5am-ish), take
rest, sleep well and charge our mobiles during the train journeys, and once we
reached a main train station, we’d use the public Wi-Fi and message our whereabouts
to our parents, and grab some food for the day. One thing that I really
appreciate about the train journeys in Europe is that the trains are always
right on time and on the dot – they’re never too late and never too early. Another thing is the safety that comes with it all.
The trip to Italy was so good and it was a precursor
celebration trip for my 21st birthday as well and it is one the trips that I will cherish the most- because it was something I planned and executed to perfection - the perfect holiday as I'd like to call it. We boarded the early 6am train from
Geneva to Milan - we got up at like 4.30am, got ready and caught the Route 3 bus
to La Gare Geneve-Cornavin – we reached Milan at around 10.30am, grab a cheeseburger
and some fries from the McDonald’s at the Milan station, and alighted on to the
Trenitalia to Venezia-Santa Lucia. Once there at around 1.15pm, I was in awe
when I noticed the gondola rides, different colored houses and other buildings
constructed through the waterways, and so many canals servicing various parts
of town. It was very different to see boats being used as the primary method of
transport other than walking (we walked and walked a lot!) and not observing any
motorized vehicles in the area. Now, we didn’t have any GPS to help us with
navigation, especially in the island itself – so, I knew about this restriction
and had pre-planned and written down the routes to various parts of town and
the important places to visit. We visited the St. Marks Basilica and the Piazza
San Marco while crossing through multiple bridges and the Grand Canal, and when
we were at the Basilica, it started to heavily rain – we got partially drenched
and sought refuge in the church itself – the church was huge and the detailing
was insane – I could only imagine how the St. Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine
Chapel looked like. Venice was so pretty, but as a tourist who was single,
there was nothing else we could do there. Venice also has a huge port and we
noticed a huge cruise ship leaving port and heading down the Adriatic Sea
towards Albania and Greece. We then boarded the train to Roma Termini at around
6.30pm and reached Rome at around 9.45pm; the McDonald’s at the station was
going to close at 10 and we quickly grabbed our dinner and started to roam
around Rome in the night.
The internship in Europe was about to come to a fitting end - I had executed all my tasks and Prof. Vannel was happy with the results and source code that I had provided to him. I had even written up a thesis on what I understood from the project and the future opportunities that the project had. He gave me a prototype of the camera as a token of appeciation for my work and also a T-shirt sporting the colors of HEPIA. Just before leaving, Geneva had held it’s annual summer event, the Fetes de Geneve which included one of the grandest firework displays in the world over Lake Geneva – the display gets heavily sponsored by multiple organizations from across the EU, and eventually had approximately 30,000 rockets bursting in the night sky for around 30 minutes. The grand fireworks made me realize that no matter what happens to you and whenever you feel let down by things going against you, it is important to always think positive and put your best foot forward in a way that encapsulates your “never give up” attitude. Life is full of learnings and lessons, and if we are able to build on the positives and focus on how we can work on the learnings, everything will start to fall in place. Though the internship helped me grow technically, I think it helped build my character more, especially through the whole experience of being interviewed for the position to going through that tough phase and finally ending it on a high. It helped me to plan things in advance for short and long trips, to always be prepared for the worst, to diplomatically deal with higher authorities, to appreciate other people’s point of views and to not take things for granted. I learnt to understand the physical limits that I could put upon myself before eventually giving up, and the ability to survive independently in a foreign land without much support from my parents. In the end, you may think that none of it matters, but every experience is a lesson well-learnt. Remember this very carefully and it’ll be useful to you during your “not-so-good” times – when you walk through a storm, hold your head up high, and don’t be afraid of the dark – at the end of a storm, is a golden sky and the sweet silver song of a lark. Walk on through the wind, walk on through the rain, though your dreams be tossed and blown, walk on with hope in your heart, and you’ll never walk alone! This is the principle I live by and this has always been the Liverpool way!
**************************************************************
When Fluffy passed away in 2012, other than being completely involved in my work – both as a student as well as a professional - the only way I could get through the grief of her passing (and I guess even now) was by means of traveling and exploring new places, capturing moments and experiences, and appreciating the little things – they definitely matter. Eventually, as you grow older, you realize that the destination never mattered – it was all about the journey and who you made it with. I have always loved this analogy of how your life is like going on a continuous train ride with various stations in between, and how alighting at every station takes you on a different path. The variability factors at each station is what makes everything exciting, challenging and unknown – the way you experience and react to those situations and moments is what life’s teachings is all about. No one can predict the future, but if you can live through those moments, experience something out of the ordinary, learn from it and move on, your journey becomes that much more pleasant.
My first international vacation in December 2012 to Singapore with my parents was my first real exposure towards planning and execution of normal tasks other than something that was academic – it came at a time when all of us were still in a not-so-good state and planning for this trip came at just about the right time. It gave me an opportunity to connect with my parents on their likes, dislikes, places they wanted to visit, and understand things from their perspectives, while also figure things out for myself too. Dealing with your parents comes with its own set of challenges, because however old you are, you must still think about them as a human being who only wants the best for you. I realized that it was my solemn duty (as is everyone’s) to reciprocate their unconditional love and think about their well-being too – they’re not the same age as you are and so they may not be that physically active, their thoughts are much more evolved, they have experienced so many things in life that you have not and they constantly challenge your status quo – to think whether your decisions are actually working in your favor or not. The least you can do for them is to lend an ear and listen to their drawbacks and annoyed cries for help, especially as they get older. They are the only pieces of the puzzle who can give you their raw and unfiltered opinions and can speak out whatever they feel is wrong with their world. And I figured all this out during the trip to Singapore – the emotional maturity that I developed during such trips made me understand that life is more than just about yourself – that you are not the center of the universe, you are just a part of it who plays different roles in someone else’s and sometimes your own lives. While some of the itinerary planning was executed by the travel agent, a lot of the planning also revolved around what we wanted to do – especially when it came to booking flight tickets (Tiger Airways!), looking for accommodation (we eventually chose the Cultural Hotel) and hunting down food options because the hotel only provided a complimentary breakfast.
The trip to Singapore made me realize that sometimes we needed to adapt to some limitations as it deemed fit because we had very limited vegetarian options throughout the city - we’d sometimes need to have a very heavy breakfast, skip lunch and then have an early dinner and that meant that we’d have to live on 2 meals instead of the usual 3. It was then that I realized all the third world problems like hunger, food shortage and food wastage that many countries faced including the ones in India and I vowed to never waste food on my plate in any form. It was an eye-opening experience for me to appreciate all the things I had in life which I took for granted – especially things like keeping my stomach full. It also taught me that I did not need to be good at a few things (especially rock climbing!) and that it was okay to not be the best at them, after you think you’ve tried your best. Don’t get me wrong here – not every trip and experience should teach you a lesson – but more often than not, you’ll always learn something about yourself and it's important that you have the knack to figure that out by yourself. We sometimes just go on a trip and are just there in the moment. But how many of us actually have a retrospect on what all things could have been avoided, what went wrong and how we can improve for the future experience?
My parents had been to Malaysia during the 2013
October vacation (Dasara for my mother) and I couldn’t join them on the journey
since I had my 5th semester going on in full swing – it was a testing time for
me because it was the first time both my parents were going on a flight and at
the time, with the trend of so many flights either going missing or getting
shot down, I was extremely nervous. I even thought about what I would do in case
I was orphaned and started thinking about all the worst-case scenarios of how I
needed to handle things from the family’s front in case something bad had
happened. So many things run through your head and no matter how confident you
are in a situation, there is always that element of doubt that creeps in. I’m glad I had that experience because for the
first time in my life, I had the feeling that it could be possible that I would
be all alone in this world, without seeking help from anyone and I had to be
prepared on how I would tackle that problem should the need arise. During
December 2013, even I had been to Malaysia along with my aunt and cousins to
visit my uncle, who was settled and residing in the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur at
Vista Komonwel, Bukit Jalil and now the roles had reversed for my parents to
understand how they would feel about having their kid and what they would do in
case they lost me. Life puts you in many such awkward positions and it is up to
you how you want to handle it. Visiting a foreign country with your relatives
is a different ballgame, especially when one of your relatives has settled down
in the city. My uncle had been in South East Asia for at least 15 years of his
life and had only recently moved into his Games Village Apartment built for the
1998 Commonwealth Games. We had the accommodation and food options taken care
of by my uncle (so thankful!); I only had to worry about flight tickets and the
commutes from one place to the other and he handled that as well. I was incredibly
grateful for the entire experience because it meant that I could afford to now
go abroad by myself without being under the wings of my parents. Going to the
80th floor of the Petronas Twin Towers, climbing and exploring the Batu Caves,
appreciating the dominant Islam Architecture of multiple structures in
Putrajaya, a nice ride up to Genting Highlands and experiencing the island and mangrove
life at Langkawi were all therapeutic, especially after the rough semester that
I had. It was a nice opportunity for me to get to know my cousins better since
we had drifted apart as a result of my academic exploits – at the end of the
trip, I realized that the one element that you can always rely on when things
go awry is your family – your extended family included.
After I returned back from my internship in Europe, I was trying to cope up with my 5 week late start to the semester by scrambling to get my course registrations done on time, paying any late fines, completing my internship report and actually gathering notes from my peers for the classes that I had missed. Luckily, I didn’t miss many quizzes and graded assignments from my professors. While being on the 4-day trip in Europe, I used to receive a bunch of WhatsApp messages from my placement coordinators that my peers were getting placed in some of their dream and core companies and during the final day of travel from Zurich to Geneva, on the fields of an open grass lawn in Interlaken, I made a tough and what I think was an ethically right and gutsy life-decision to make. I decided to not sit for any of the placement interviews for companies looking for candidates from my department – one, out of respect to the companies and my peers because I wanted to give a fair and equal opportunity to those who deserved a chance, and two, because I had decided to pursue a graduate degree program abroad (be it from somewhere in Europe or the US). Companies at the time, depending on their budget constraints would pit one candidate against the other, and given that I had chosen to not appear for the placement exams, meant that I was unselfish and thought of people more than just myself. It meant that I would not be unnecessarily wasting the interviewer’s and the company’s time and efforts in choosing me as their choice, just because I wanted to have a safer and back-up choice just in case the graduate program route didn’t work out.
I want to directly address some of my peers who thought it was a good idea to sit for placements (and have a job offer in hand) when they had already decided to pursue higher studies, especially some of whom are now PhDs! Just because you are afforded the opportunity to have everything you want, doesn’t mean that you are entitled to take it – there are so many people in the world who are devoid of having such opportunities and it is a slap in their face when you do such things. You may think that it was okay to be selfish in life-changing decisions like this, but in the end, I always believe in the concept of fate and destiny. If it’s meant to be, then it’s meant to be. During such times, it is okay to take risks and not think about safety nets – a place you can jump back to. What’s the worst case that can happen if you didn’t get placed and did not get a university of your choice, even after graduation? You still had an entire year (maybe even more!) to figure it out and you could even approach the companies offline if they had any openings that matched your skill set. Not many of you are aware of this idea but when you back off from an offer in favor of another or when you choose to pursue your higher studies while also having an offer in hand, companies seldom try to make the effort to drop by for future and it impacts the relations that the company has with the institute. So, always think twice before thinking about pursuing higher studies. Some of my professors had even praised me for being bold enough to do the morally right thing and some even abstained from giving letters of recommendation to prospective candidates if they had already been placed in a company. I’m glad I was a part of the change and effort (along with a few others like Nithin Kamath) in my department that changed the mindsets of both the current and future graduating students as well as some of the esteemed professors in my department. Hopefully, it set a trend for people to starting making choices and to be confident in their choices from that time itself.
As the final year of UG studies began to narrow
down, and a new chapter was on the horizon for almost 80% of my peers, it was time
for us to concentrate on our major projects as well as celebrate all our
achievements until that point. A lot of us continued to work in the same labs
for our major projects, since it needed a collaborative workspace with our professors/
mentors to give us the right ideas to properly complete our prototypes. It was
also time for me to settle up my financial balances with the university,
especially my flight ticket refunds from my European internship exploits – since
our college was affiliated to the Central Government, they only later told us
that it was necessary for us to only travel by Air India and no other airline
to a particular destination. Each student had a maximum threshold for the
refund - if the ticket prices went beyond that budget, then they would have needed
to bear the remaining costs. As was the case with many of the students who
interned abroad that summer, they found that the Air India flight charges were
much higher than the flights they eventually ended up taking, and we were all in
a tug of war between ourselves and the Dean (R&C), Director of Finance as
well as then Director, Dr. Swapan Bhattacharya. We made our points along with
the necessary proofs and made sure that we all got refunded. It was the last
time anyone from the university could travel by a flight other than Air India
and apply for a flight ticket refund. I’m glad I was even a part of this
movement to stick to our ground and basic etiquettes and take matters even till
the Director’s table to get them resolved. I used my flight ticket refund to
cover for my graduate school application costs eventually. Now I don’t want you
to think of me as a rebel – I just believed that what we were doing was right
and had to make the necessary folks respect our points of view too.
I guess being involved in many things at the same
time – being an activist on different fronts, working as a UG Tutor/ Mentor for
the department’s Peer Mentoring Program, being 5 weeks late to the semester and
catching up on coursework – all came at a price. My preparations for the GRE/
TOEFL got hampered big time. I had to appear for these exams since all grad
schools abroad needed us to provide these scores as part of our application
package and given that grad school and higher studies was the only choice I
made for my career, I had to start preparing for the Verbal portion of the exam
since usually, Indians faired very well in the Quantitative sections. There just
wasn’t enough time to prepare – I had scheduled the entrance exams for mid-October
so that I had enough time to prepare my application packages and finalize on
the list of colleges I would be applying to based on the scores I attained. I
hardly had a month to practice my wordlist from Barron’s and I knew it wouldn’t
be enough because I was still getting back into the groove of academia. Many
things do not go according to your plan, and you just need to go with the flow.
With less than 2 weeks’ preparation, let’s just say that when the time came to
give my GRE, I did not fare well in my verbal section. As a result, I could only
rely on my CGPA earned at UG, my other accomplishments in my CV and Statement
of Purpose and the Letters of Recommendation from my professors to carry me
through the application along with a decent Quantitative score. My bad performance
in the verbal GRE also affected my performance in the reading and listening
portions of the TOEFL. Also, one cannot forget the fact that my stomach had
given up on me and I wasn’t feeling physically well (I’ve never told my parents
about this to date) after my European trip – my professor used to prepare some
soothing curd rice (with pickle!) from his place and bring it on every work day
for at least 1.5 months. Getting used to Indian food in the Indian environment
after having cheeseburgers in Switzerland had its toll on my body and I was yet
to figure out the reason why everything seemed gloom. But you know what – there is no point hiding
under excuses – and I’m looking to blame it on the timing of the application
deadlines as well as the fact that I was too late getting into the preparation
mood for the GRE. The fact of the matter is that I gave up one thing for something
else that was equally as important, and I had to be okay with and live with the
consequences – to continue to do my best with what I had and how I could make
my application stand out. Looking back, if only I wasn’t under that much stress
at the time when my VISA application got delayed and I had started to prepare
for GRE at that time, maybe things could have been different. I’m not going to complain
how everything turned out later though.
The final semester was all about celebrating the moments from the past 4 years of our life in UG as I embarked on multiple travel expeditions around Karnataka and Kerala with my friends, some of whom even became extremely close friends at the time. A few of us went on an overnight journey and visited the beach town of Gokarna, while exchanging stories through the night about the things we had done as a UG student and reminding ourselves how things could have been different if each of us were not a part of their lives. We had multiple such breakout sessions regarding how influential each of us were on other people’s thoughts and ideas and how it improved us, something that we rarely do now as we grow older. We all had so many friends in our early 20s, but that social bubble just started to become smaller and smaller as the days progressed. The annual class trip to Murudeshwar and Sirsi brought so many of my classmates together for one final time as we all bid farewell to each other and wished each other the best of luck in their professional careers and their personal lives. And who can forget about the 2.5 days’ trip to Alleppey and Cochin/ Ernakulam?! It was finally my homecoming after almost 20 years to a state I hadn’t been to since I left it – we first went on a full day boat-house tour along the backwaters with a few close friends of mine, as we discussed our priorities and tried to open up about some of the most embarrassing things we had done in our lives, while we gave our opinions on the subject. After exploring the town of Old Fort Kochi and Ernakulam, I sneaked past my group and went to Ambady Lane, and met with the owners of the house that I first grew up in – it hadn’t changed one bit. I spoke to them for like 10 minutes as they tried to first recognize who I was, and once they did, we exchanged some stories about the house, and what brought me to the town. I then got back to my friends who were biding their time on the Queen’s Necklace on Marine Drive and at Central Mall with a packet of banana chips from the same shop opposite the YMCA building. I loved going back to that city and that was the highlight of my semester. It was my roots to the city that made me like the city even more once I visited it even after 20 years. It was after this trip to Kerala that I realized that my love for solo travel – especially after I split up from the group. I didn’t have to rely on anyone else and I was left to navigate and do the things that I wanted to do – which was to go and meet the landlord of the house and give my regards to them. In a separate blog, I’ve mentioned how traveling solo on multiple occasions helped me deal with certain aspects and situations – you’re free to check out that blog!
I really want to dedicate this paragraph in my
autobiography to my 4D wing-mates at Grey Tower. All of them have had amazing stories
at NITK – for some, persistence and waiting till the last minute to figure out
what they wanted to do in life – and I’m glad that I got to know most of them
personally as well. We came to know each other through our common love for the game
of football and as it turned out, a few of them even represented NITK in
multiple football tournaments across the country, the most notable being the
inter-NIT tournament. We’d continuously have a good banter as supporters of multiple
teams – most of them were Arsenal and Manchester United supporters, and I was
the sole Liverpool supporter, and during the 2013-14 season, when Pool made a
run for the title, all of us wanted them to win. That group had a mix of some
of the best talents at NITK – one of them was an incredible institute level
chess player and another was an institute Gold Medalist for his branch of engineering.
We also had a singer in our midst and a violinist. Most of them were even my
classmates in ECE and they’d mostly depend on my note-taking abilities to
prepare for their exams. Being in their presence kept me grounded to the harsh
reality that it was okay to just spectate the game of football and give up
playing (due to multiple injuries that could have further torn my ACL), while also
enjoying the movement of the ball. They all knew how much passion I have for
the sport and that when I get into the game, I truly do become a part of the Kop
Army. Their common passion to not see their team lose while also playing the
game on the field, made me respect them even more. Their dedication to the sport
– when they went to practice everyday on the football field after our classes –
despite all the hard work needed in a branch like ECE made me hold them with
high regard. Let me assure you – they were all brilliant at what they did even
as a kid, and their NITK related football stories made me live their tale and
the game vicariously. There are times when you need to accept things the way
they and give up your interest in pursuing something because you need to first
be realistic about your physical and then your mental health. And they inadvertently
taught me to make that distinction.
As the clocks started to
wind down on my UG life, I started to get the results of my graduate school
applications and I could finally breathe a sigh of relief – I had placed a safe
bet from where I could pursue my masters degree, and I got the necessary admit
I was looking for. All that was remaining for me was to complete my major
project with high quality and my academic courses would be done. Only in the
final semester did I realize my love for walks to the NITK beach and the
Surathkal Lighthouse – I’d walk there with some of my friends talking deeply
about philosophical conversations about life, as we watched the sun set every
day and the lights from the port and ships light up. We would talk about what
it meant to be truly alone, especially when in the sea where you are confined
to your spaces and pretty much have nothing to do other than transport cargo
and heavy materials as well as be involved in some marine fishing. Our regular
dinners from GNPD at the lab before heading back to our hostel rooms and
retiring for the day, while having a chat on all things TV, grad school and corporate
life are things I’ll seldom forget. When I was approached by my classmates that
this could really be the last time that I could be on stage performing (it wasn’t!),
I didn’t want to turn down the opportunity and made some time in my schedule to
practice dancing for 3-4 songs for a performance at Crrescendo 2015 – I was
dedicated AF, bringing in all my experiences from theater onto the stage to
showcase my dancing skills with some facial expressions. I would say that I was
an average dancer who could make some moves, but with practice, I knew I could
be good at it because the most important aspect of some dances is to showcase your
emotions. By now, you would have figured out that it isn’t that easy to figure
me out because I do hide my emotions and do not share it with anyone (it remains
locked even now) as I feel that no one would care and that it is my own
individual battle – maybe writing this blog is one way for me to express one
side of that personality. After the performance, we ended up being the winners
for the inter-departmental category and it was nice to end it on a high.
Another ECE tradition that we continued to follow was the Chaman Day – a mini
Comic Con where we’d dress up and cosplay any character of our choice. I really
wanted to sign off from college as Batman as it would have been the perfect send
off, but eventually settled to be Bruce Wayne/ Oliver Queen to not make things
dark because I didn’t want to make things too dark when it was just a time for
celebration. We had all the fun we could have in the last 2 months of our UG
life and things could not have gone better.
When it was almost time to graduate, we had to attend the Ring Distribution Ceremony as well as the Graduation Picture Photoshoot and when some of us gave the last few sets of exams in our life, the harsh reality that it was the very last exam that we would be giving had started to set in. This was the endgame to college life. Before leaving NITK, I had an honest conversation with a few people as I had decided to pursue my graduate studies in the USA. It was a very deep and thoughtful conversation on how friends become increasingly important to your health and happiness as people age and how crucial it was to have supportive friendships in old age. Some of them were even elder to me by a year or two (they had prepared for a year or two of their lives to appear for the JEE again!) and had suggested me to create my own second and maybe even a third family wherever I went, because the ultimately reality is that after a point of time, you will lose your parents to old age and death, and when immediate support is needed, more often than not, you usually turn to your second family who is physically near you, than one who is also aging and needs to be taken care of. The old saying that friendships in your late 20s is like having a second family is very true, because your closest friends (sometimes your roommates) are those that have been there for you through everything. You’ll never have to worry about their intentions, or doubt their advice, because sometimes, they only have your best interests at heart. It is important to have such a group of closely-knit people in your circle because you can be totally honest with them, there will be an unbiased opinion on life choices and food reviews, and you’ll basically have multiple free therapists – people whom you can lean on in case you are having a bad day. Any time you have an awful day – maybe you get fired, or dumped, or out of a relationship – you know that spending time with them will cheer you up and put certain things into perspective. And when they are in need, you do the exact same thing back for them – it’s all about the action of give-and-take without actually saying the words. Over the years, you will go through many phases together – different jobs, different groups of friends, different preferences, but at the end of the day, these are your elite lot that you chose as your group – you made the effort to connect with them and vice-versa. When you start to look back on your friendships, you can’t help but think about how proud you are for having such beautiful, close friends to enjoy life with. So, wherever you grow through life, make sure you find that circle (it doesn’t have to be a group of friends – even 2-3 friends can suffice!) that you can easily connect to.
Soon after graduation, I had been on a relaxing trip to the Emerald Island of Sri Lanka with some of my friends – one of our mutual friends, Moushika had invited us over to her place in Nawalapitiya, a hill station on the outskirts of Kandy. The trip further accentuated my love for their ways of life since I found everything very similar to the culture, topography and climate of Kerala. The thick and dense jungles in the interior (the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage), some hill stations (Nuwara Eliya and Adams Peak), the coconut curry servings with rice and sometimes stirred fried rice, the tea plantations and processing factories near her place, and the serene blue waters and beaches along the coast with the Indian Ocean (at Galle, Colombo and Trincomalee) were all to die for. It was the closest thing I’ve had to a normal relaxing vacation without anything else on my mind and just being present in the moment. The pilgrimage visits and meditation sessions at the Temple of Tooth and the Rambode Hanuman temple made everything seem so calm and self-aware. The visit to Ambewala farms on the high mountain peaks made me understand the cons of the dairy production industry and how we continue to exploit animals for our selfish needs. I mean, it opens up a large can of worms, but few things need to be addressed as you see them and we had a brilliant back-and-forth philosophical discussion about how humans have evolved so much over the past 20 years with the advent of technology that we have forgotten how luxurious our lives have become when compared to other species on the planet. It begs the question of whether we are entitled to be born as humans and we should have the best of everything that the world has to offer – you do realize that the odds of you being born a human and reading this blog is a billion to one, right? If you can do something meaningful beyond what just brings food on the table and find a cause, a passion, a purpose, your sweet spot on how you can be an activist and drive change, and fight any injustice, then you can definitely be certain that your live has a purpose. As the famous saying goes – “Be the change you want to see in the world” and ensure that someone as well as you learn the consequences of your actions. We were so thankful to Moushika and her entire family for hosting us during that time and also for unknowingly giving so many life lessons that I could carry with me to the US. I’ll never forget the hospitality that was shown to us by both her parents, especially her father.
Should you go to graduate school right after college or should you take the time to first garner some work experience before you do – you’ll honestly need to look at your end goals carefully, and then work methodically towards achieving them. Grad school is a whole different beast – a marathon if you’ll say – and your race starts the moment you decide to pursue a graduate degree and so it was a difficult decision for me to choose graduate school over pursuing campus placement opportunities at NITK. In case someone needs some guidance, here are some thoughts that I went through before I narrowed down on eventually choosing graduate school and pursuing my higher studies. Before committing, you should really have a clear career goal and realistic expectations of what you expect to achieve – those SOP and essay questions on where you see yourself in 5 years are there for a reason. If your career goal is to become a professor, do your research to find out how many job openings there are in your field during any given year – it is a tight and competitive job market, so know what you’re up against – you will eventually need to land a tenure-track job and you’ll likely have to relocate when you accept it. If your goal is to work in the industry (pharma, data science, government, non-profit, or in R&D), you are likely to have greater number of options – not that it’ll be easy to get them, but you’ll have better chances – look up current employees to get a sense of their career paths – did they take time off between college and grad school? If so, how did they spend that time? If not, were they able to acquire work experience during graduate school? Set up informational interviews with people if needed – at least one or two will eventually respond.
It is also important to
understand how graduate school differs from college – you probably had at least
one advisor (and some professors and TAs) who regularly checked in with you
about your progress – while you will have an advisor in grad school, you will
have to take the initiative to ensure that you’re on track to meet your goals –
in other words, you are in charge of establishing your strategies and timelines
to complete your courses to attain the said degree. Know what makes a
successful graduate student – and this is crucial – it’ll seem like you have a
lot of flexibility in graduate school with very few requirements to be anywhere
at a specific time, but you’ll also need to possess the maturity to know how to
plan, on a long-term and short term basis – you’ll need to divvy up each day so
that you’re steadily working towards achieving your goals. Finances and funding
do matter - a terminal degree like a doctorate or a terminal masters usually
comes with scholarships and stipends. While master’s programs may offer
teaching opportunities, they may not offer scholarships and fellowships – you’ll
need to weigh the cost of graduate school against your future earning potential
and then figure out if you can afford to do that. Also know that there are
benefits and drawbacks for both choices and you should be OK with understanding
the costs of giving up the other option – some are universal (if you start
earlier, you’re likely to finish earlier) and some will be specific (how grad
school fits into your personal plans for example). Taking a break gives you a
(perhaps much needed) hiatus from school and frees you up to do anything you
want – perhaps you want to work, or travel and you will look forward to a
steady income and some free time. You’ll build your professional experience and
gain a working-world model for how to organize your 40 hour per week time. However,
the sooner you begin, the sooner you’ll finish – if it is for the long haul, an early start can help reduce
the effect of prolonged study on your personal life and you’ll also have the
momentum going on for you from your college days since you’ve been dealing with
faculty members ever since. You may not have the experience, maturity or time-management
skills, but living by yourself while undertaking grad school is a good lesson
by itself. And I knew I was in it for the long haul and to start early was
eventually my right choice.
When I started to get the
results of my selection, it was always a feeling of having “butterflies in my
stomach” followed by either elation or dejection. The first result – and usually,
they are quick with it – was an admit from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities
which heavily relies on your GPA during your undergrad studies. Once I got this
result, I abstained from applying to some other “safe-bet” colleges like UC
Davis, UF Gainesville etc. since I found them to be on the same boat (if not worse)
and because the deadlines for submission came after the results for University
of Minnesota. Over the course of the next two months, I got accepted into Arizona
State University, University of Maryland at College Park, the University of
Southern California and the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, in that order.
I also got rejects from UCLA, Georgia Tech, Harvard, MIT and Purdue, while I
didn’t even apply to Stanford or UC Berkeley, knowing that my GRE and TOEFL scores
weren’t good enough. I was absolutely gutted with the rejects from UCLA, Georgia
Tech and Purdue, but that’s OK – I knew that my performances in the GRE/ TOEFL
weren’t up to the mark and I was fine with it because if you are given too many
choices, it becomes rather difficult to choose from. Eventually, it came down
to either becoming a Wolverine or a Trojan. When it boils to choosing two
esteemed universities, there are a few things to keep in mind – your career goals,
maintaining school and life balance, program delivery, faculty specializations,
cost of tuition and living with financial aid options, facilities like state-of-the-art
labs, a proper accreditation and reputation, and the opportunities for research.
Being in Southern California would have given me a better exposure to multiple
semiconductor companies in the Bay Area, but it would have been much difficult
to look for internship opportunities in a crowd where approximately 400 resumes
would look almost identical. The class size at the University of Michigan was
almost exclusive, the research outlet was on par with USC when it came to the
department of electrical engineering and the alumni network was strong and
comparable with USC too; only thing holding me back from joining Michigan may
have been relative grading (which was also prevalent in USC) with a smaller
class-size. In the end, it was the weather in Los Angeles (it was almost on par
with Bangalore) and the rapport I built with my potential roommates at USC that
was the huge deciding factor in finally choosing Los Angeles as my new home. It
also helped that my cousin sister Ramya Ramesh had also just recently graduated
from USC too! Also, there were three USC Bangalore WhatsApp groups (there were
like 300 of them!) and it was a nice feeling conversing with the core group –
the main bak-bak group as we were called was composed of Snigdha (who
eventually joined Cornell), Anirudh, Srividhya, Faraaz, Chapte, Namrata,
Madhuri, Adit, Suraj, Sindhu, Ankit and myself - we’d constantly troll each
other as a means of fun! We even met a couple of times in Bangalore at Cubbon
Park and at the Viterbi India Welcome Meetup to get to know each other better
and to also maybe look for roommates in the interim. Before I left to USC, I
had multiple reunion parties with my 10th standard, 12th standard and UG
classmates as it could be a long time before I met them again in my life.
Moving to USC and Los Angeles was no different from moving to Geneva – we had to follow the same drill – book an affordable apartment room, get our I-20s from the university and our passports stamped with an F1 visa from the US Embassy, buy common kitchen items and pack appropriate clothes and food for the first few days. My group of roommates (5 in an apartment) were absolute sweethearts – always helping, caring and making sure that none of us ever slept without having our dinners. Before heading off to LA, we all first met at Lalbagh to discuss all our likes and dislikes, the processes that had to be followed and things that we planned to share and not buy redundant stuff. We all even went to each other’s places in Bangalore to meet our respective parents and families – for me it was a new experience altogether, but it was quite understandable why we all met – they wanted to get to know the kids with whom their children would be spending their graduate lives with. I was the eldest of the lot and only I had the experience of living away from my family until that point in time, and me being the matured adult that I was, at least gave them some amount of belief that their kid would be okay in dealing with it all, especially that we’d now be a team. One of our mutual friends, Namrata as well as Avanee, had joined the summer classes hoping to get a head start on a few courses and graduate early, and we could rely on them if we needed any help. Also, my cousin Ramya had planned to fly down during the weekend from the Bay to help me get settled in by ensuring that I had whatever was necessary to flourish and prepare for life as a graduate student. I left India, for the US on the 5th of August 2015, catching an Emirates flight from Bangalore to Dubai along with Faraaz, my traveling companion. My other roommate Ashwin Chapte had arrived a day earlier, got the keys to the apartment, but could not set up the electricity in time for the night, and so, he stayed at our friend’s place. Faraaz and I spent the whole night at Dubai International Airport walking up and down all the 3 terminals hoping to snap a good deal at one of the retail shops, but to no avail. The next day, on the flight to Los Angeles from Dubai, I met the 3 musketeers who eventually became my closest friends from USC – Seema, Milana and Surabhi (or SMS as I used to call them) – and a couple of others who came in from different places – Delhi and Mumbai as we had planned to commute on the same Prime Time shuttle to our apartment complexes. Unluckily I got caught at customs and my bags were searched and I lost touch with them since none of us still had a working SIM on our hands. In the end, they all ended up taking their own Prime Time Shuttle and I ended up reaching my apartment around an hour after they all left. It was a good experience to go through everything all by myself, without the use of technology and sort things out. When I reached home, I was pleasantly surprised to find electricity and Wi-Fi being setup in our apartment that day and it was already a good head-start as I started to get accustomed to the timings in LA and the associated jet-lag that came with it.
The next day, both Ashwin and I first went to the Bank of America branch, right down the street and opened our respective new checking and savings accounts while also transferring most of the money loaded on my Forex card to that account. I then reported my presence at OIS (Office of International Services) where they acknowledged my I-20 and other documents while ensuring that everything was in place and in order. I then got to know that I had to attend the Viterbi school’s orientation session as well as meet my graduate advisors at the Department Electrical Engineering while understanding that I could register for my Fall classes too as they were getting filled really fast. I dropped by the USC Card Services office to get my ID card done since it would have given me free access to enter any USC building at any time of the day – and especially when you still had no furniture at your place, why wouldn’t you want to use the comforts that were offered? Also, having the USC Card as well as reporting early came with an added bonus – we could visit the Natural History museum for free and also avail the services of the Campus Cruiser from 7pm to 2am. Once we found a group who had completed all their USC related tasks for the day, we all got together, used our USC card to visit the Museum for free (it was right behind USC and it was the first and last time I’d been there!) and then, we started heading towards Figueroa Street and our homes, looking for an opportunity to quench our thirsts, have a good meal – and it was my first introduction to Subway (I hadn’t had a sub in my life until then) – and welcome the rest of our roommates – Sreekar, Nikhil and Rajesh – as well as the remaining kaandhan who had travelled with them (almost a 100 people from Bangalore on that flight were coming to USC!).
My cousin Ramya had caught
an early Saturday morning flight and dropped by my place while we were at the bank
finalizing the remaining details for my remaining roommates, as Ashwin and I helped
them set up their bank accounts. Given that it was the weekend, they couldn’t
get the administrative things done at USC since it was a weekday only sort of
thing. Now that my sister was here, she got us through the whole process and offered
to help us in multiple ways – she first introduced us to the Cash app that
allowed us to transfer money to each other. She then sponsored our travel costs
around the city for the weekend and walked us through everything that was
needed at home – first in helping me get a new unlocked phone, and then starting
off an AT&T Family plan with my roommates (this plan still exists even
after 5 years – talk about loyalty!) through the AT&T Store on Wilshere. We
then took off to a nearby Walmart after a bland but good lunch at the nearby Dennys,
where we bought multiple things needed for the house like a table, pole lights
for each bedroom and the halls, kitchen and bathroom essentials, a drying area
for our towels, a shoe rack and pillows/ pillow covers. We used to switch
between taking the 7-seater Lyft v the 7-seater Enterprise while always
ensuring that we had enough trunk space at the space for carrying our stuff. In
the evening, we shopped for some essential groceries at Ralphs (Cereals and
milk was my go-to breakfast after experiencing it in Switzerland too!) and took
off with some of her friends to Rodeo Drive and the nearby Sprinkles Ice-cream
shop, as she tried to catch up with some of her yesteryear grad school friends.
I had met Ramya after nearly 3 years (the Brahmopadesham was the last I had met
her) before she took off on her Master’s journey in 2013 and it was really a
cool experience to bond with her again (since we belonged to the same age
group!) especially given that she had just recently started working at Oracle
and had bought a new Mazda-3. Ramya was my financial support system throughout
my time at USC – always ensuring that she paid my tuition on time through the transfer
of funds to USC Financial Services! The next day, we all had our cereals for
breakfast and my sister, being an alumni of the Ming Hsieh Department of
Electrical Engineering, gave us a campus tour of USC, giving us insights on which
labs had computer systems to work with (WPH was one she had suggested to us),
especially given that SAL and Leavey would be occupied most of the times. She
also gave us some tips on where to look for on-campus jobs once the demand
opened – the libraries, the hospitality sections, the dorm buildings (where she
had worked), the bookstore, the gym and other locations as we walked throughout
the campus making a mental note of the location of important places where we
would need to be heading to. It all worked out for the best – when we entered
the bookstore, all 5 of us filled in our application forms, and were all called
for an interview that very afternoon – we had to thank Ramya for helping us secure
some means of income so quickly that it also gave us a head start in the SSN
application process. In the evening, we all went to Westwood, the home of the
UCLA Bruins to celebrate our first on-campus job together at Diddy Riese. We
walked around the fancy buildings of UCLA as my sister was clearing some doubts
that my roommates had about course selection for the first semester, and the semesters
after. All 6 of us (5 roommates and my sister) had taken up the same program –
Masters in Electrical Engineering - and it was really nice to see her bond that
easily with my roommates while she gave them tips and tricks on how to manage
Puvvada’s EE457 course. All in all, I don’t know what we would have done had it
not been for Ramya’s help throughout the weekend – so, thank you Ichu (our
family’s nickname for her!) for all your help during my grad school days!
Before the semester had
started, we had ample time to prepare for the demands that graduate life brought
with it. To set up the apartment and make it habitable, we bought a rice cooker,
5 bed boxes with mattresses through a bulk order, a second-hand TCL 36 inch TV for
some fun and of all things, a landline phone (coz why not? – AT&T gave us a
TV and a landline connection as part of our Family plan. Setting up the house
was one thing – taking turns to cook lunch/ dinner was another and we were so
methodical – I even remember that we burnt a plastic container by trying to
heat it in the burner oven (it was so well deformed!) and with multiple experimentations,
we all got better with time. Rajesh’s sambhar/ huli was to die for, Chapte’s
gunpowder and pasta, Sreekar’s Mysore elements and Nikhil’s tomato rasam kept
the South Indian and Karnataka flavor alive within the household. I on the other
hand, would try some experiments on exotic food items – things we’d normally
not have in the household like Bhel Puri, Gobi/ Paneer Manchurian, Vada Pav,
etc. The good thing about us being roommates was that we all complemented each other
really well since we also had similar schedules to work with. As part of
getting to know each other, we undertook multiple travel expeditions around the
streets of LA with different sets of people, but also making sure that we all
stuck together as a team! After the UCLA expedition, we explored Hollywood –
the Walk of Fame, the Dolby Theater and the TCL Chinese Theater, while gulping on
some Ghirardelli Ice-cream at the store right next to the El-Capitan theater
and Jimmy Kimmel Live. On another day, we went to the Griffith Observatory to complete
the Hollywood Sign Hike with a group of friends from our core USC Bangalore
group as we reached the summit of the mountain to the tune of the city lights turning
on and giving us the rewards of a well-earned 7 mile to-and-fro hike. On yet another
day, we went to Santa Monica on the tram with yet another group of friends as
we soaked in the necessary Vitamin D and the multi-cultural crowd thronging to
the Pacific Coast beaches – it was the first time after a long time that I had
really enjoyed just gazing at the endless horizon and watched the sun set. To start
off the semester, my roommates and I joined Namrata to the Cheesecake Factory
at the Grove, to celebrate her birthday and to start off the semester in style!
We knew that once we were in the groove, we’d have no time to venture out to
the city as all our schedules were packed to the brim.
As the semester was
about to begin, I gave my placement exams for both EE457 and EE477L because I
had already completed some credits for a similar Master’s course during the final
year of my Bachelor’s degree. I had passed both the exams and had the opportunity
to take up the advanced level courses – the problem was that we did not have that
many advanced courses that were offered that could count towards my degree – my
sister had also recommended me to just take up EE457 just because the professor,
Prof. Puvvada was extremely good at what he did and that the USC experience
would be incomplete if people did not take his course. Following her advice, in
addition to EE457, I registered for EE577A under Prof. Nazarian (having 0
knowledge about Cadence Virtuoso) which required me to pass EE477L and for EE508
under Prof. Wei Wu – an introduction to Nanofabrication and Lithography, with
the impression that I could aim for some wafer manufacturing positions as well
in the future. Once I registered for EE577A, I was directly competing with the
2015 Spring as well as Summer admits who had already taken up the EE477L lab
course in their previous semesters and had gotten accustomed to the EDA tools as
well as gave them a head start with design for the major project for the course.
Some of them had even taken up the in-demand EE560 course over the summer under
Prof. Puvvada that EE577A was a walk in the park. Being one among very few guys
in that group of students who had cleared the exam was a little daunting, but also
rewarding at the same – Prof. Nazarian had recommended me to Prof. Mark
Redekopp and Prof. Weber and they gave me the position of a course grader for
their foundational Bachelor’s degree course, EE109L – introduction to embedded
systems – by the end of August, I had a couple of jobs amounting totally to 20
hours per week as I tried to juggle between my academics and my on-campus jobs
(some people – also I, having gone through it – do not recommend you to do
that!). As September approached, we celebrated Ganesha Chaturthi at the Hindu
Student Organization and sang hymns and bhajans to the Elephant God – it was
much needed as it kept things grounded after such a rocky and happening start
to the semester. Milana and Seema had called me over to their place to celebrate
Surabhi’s birthday – it was the first birthday that I remember celebrating at
USC by cutting a cake and applying it over someone’s face. And in the middle of
it all, we had to content with Prof. Puvvada’s EE457 course as well – there would
be constant assignment submission deadlines – even if the course didn’t teach
me much, it taught me a lot about time management and committing my tasks as
per schedule. When mid-terms came, as part of EE577A, we had to start
implementing the schematics as well as the corresponding layouts (most of which
are already handled by the APR tool in the industry) for the 5-stage pipeline
and a perl script that would automate the parsing of a text file containing
assembly commands into micro-code for the instruction decode stage. Again, I felt
like I was doing some donkey work but it did clarify the need to serialize and
optimize things and make sure that there were no DRC violations – it got me
involved in the nuances of back-end development. There came a time somewhere during
the mid-semester exams in October when I thought that I couldn’t manage to do
the theoretical EE508, the too in-depth EE457 course and the tool intensive EE577A
on top of already working on multiple on-campus jobs, while also managing the
harsh reality of even cooking and maintaining the apartment. Life as a graduate
student was starting to take its toll!
But you know what? I knew
I thrived under pressure and I knew the importance that the first semester had
in my course structure as well as in my ability to land an internship for the
summer and my professional career goals. So, it was important that I could
rightly place my priorities in the hopes that everything would work out for the
best. When it comes to the Master’s program, it’s all about strategizing your
limits and how you can tackle different academic scenarios – especially when
you are taking 9 credits (and sometimes 10 as was the case with my roommates
and many others!) in your first semester. I topped my class in the EE577A mid-terms
and I knew I could concentrate less on the course, and so, I started to
concentrate on my other two courses – especially in EE508 which I was at the
time performing miserably – I had to step up my game in the course to score well
and pay attention in class. The problem was that the course was so theoretical
in nature that sometimes your mind wandered off – if I had the chance, I may
have taken the EE504L course instead, but we ran out of registrations for the
course. Also, when I approached my Master’s program, my only thought was about trying
to build my overall profile, because I knew that I had enough technical
knowledge to get me through some of the courses which I had already performed
well in. Not to sound too arrogant, but some choices had to be made and I was okay
to live with that. The fact of the matter is that everyone who came for grad school
are usually geniuses, and you need to acknowledge their presence too. Relative
grading would have played a major part in the final grades (as was the case!) but
that was okay; as long as you did the best that you thought you could, with
what you had, that’s all that mattered. We celebrated our roommates’ birthdays
at our place as we got through the Navrathri, November and the Diwali season –
there was a small sense of discomfort in the household due to the multiple
commitments we all had, but in the end, when we all went to celebrate Diwali at
Bovard, it gave us a feeling of being together and being there for each other,
through the toughest of times. I was personally also going through something at
that point in time – I missed my parents for the very first time (yeah, I know
you’re reading this ma and pa!), and to have my roommates carry me through the
situation at the time was something I will not forget. While a lot of folks
were busy shopping during the Thanksgiving season (some even lost their stuff
through car break-ins), I tried my best to prepare for the finals and complete
all the major projects with good finesse – eventually landing with straight A’s
across all 3 subjects – it was the first time ever (and probably the last) in
my life (UG included!) that I scored straight A’s in all my courses and that
feeling that you made your moneys worth was one of the most surreal feelings in
the world.
Second semester had the
most nightmarish start to a session that I could hope for. I had signed up for
a couple of very intensive courses – EE557 and EE577B under Prof. Dubois and
Prof. Draper respectively with a Reduced Course Load structure in the hopes
that I would need to even prepare for interviews for internships. I had to risk
doing that because at the time, I only had two plans in mind – to either get an
internship and graduate in two years, or to complete the summer-course and graduate
in 1.5 years. With all this, I even continued to work at the Bookstore and be
the course grader for the next batch of students who took EE109L. What came off
as a surprise for me was that EE577B was completely practical in nature without
an element of theory associated with it and the course structure was designed
in a way that only involved a major project and nothing else – usually, for EE577B,
Prof. Nazarian would have some theoretical portions/ exams and have some sort
of mini-project at the end (a DDR5 memory sub-system), but with this course
structure, I was dumbstruck and flabbergasted. Again, I was up against folks who
turned out to be my TAs and mentors for EE457 and EE557 and I knew it would be
a difficult task, especially when it meant that one small failure in the design
process could result in me missing out on a good grade. The major project was
about building up a CPU sub-system from the grounds up using System Verilog – a
communication channel, a CPU core, a Network-Interface component to interface multiple
cores through the NIC and the communication channel and finally, integrating
all elements together for a multi-core subsystem while also going through the tedious
process of back-end development – to meet timing and gate count goals and get
the design through APR (auto-place and route) while performing the industry
standard LEC checks through Conformal. It sounded daunting but we were up to
the task. The problem was that as far as I was concerned, we were graded harshly
by the TAs – especially because we had a
working CPU core that was as close to the SPEC as that they had expected, but
one or two improvements would have eventually got us to the Golden SPEC. When
we got a score of 28/100, our hearts melted, especially after all the hard work
we had put in to get things working the way we thought it was supposed to work –
yes, we deviated away from the SPEC and that needed some point reduction, but
not by that big a margin. The grading was supposed to be on a scale of how well
we coded and developed RTL from the grounds up and to test if we were
eventually good H/W developers who could spot issues with elaboration,
compilation and lint. None of our code was even looked at during the evaluation
process and all that was looked at was to see how many tests passed through
their regression process with our code - and I had a problem with that. How are
we as students to know the quality of their test-cases?! What if every test in
their test suite was just trying to test some sort of WAW, WAR hazard and if
none of the tests passed? I even brought up the issue with my professor who
eventually went on to prove that his TAs didn’t do anything wrong, but I made
my points clear and well heard of, especially with the limits on the number of
people working in a group for the project. Sure, we could design everything in pairs
(Avanee was my design partner and tried her best too!), but we also needed to develop
the testbench infrastructure to verify if everything worked the way it was
supposed to, and that was the difficult part of the whole process –the test
vectors were provided only after the evaluation was completed. For a course structure
that we had for a subject like EE577B (which was NOT verification driven by the
way!), if the course was designed in a way that the test vectors as well as the
expected final outputs of the main memory for a given kernel was also provided
(as is the case in the industry now too, where we have a full-system reference/
golden behavioral model and the design SPEC tries to use it as a method of validating
their sub-system), our lives in designing and meeting the constraints set by
the course would have been much better. I’m not cribbing or venting out my
frustrations here – for a product that usually takes almost a year to develop
in the industry with all the resources possible, how were we as master’s
students expected to do everything from the grounds up without some additional
help? It was probably one of the worst times of my academic career because I
completely lost the plot, not thinking that there could be consequences in
other areas of my development too. Seeing such a score brought down my confidence
big time for the other course as I failed to recover again through the semester.
All I could do then was to hope that I could just pass and get through the semester.
The Oscars after-party and the spring break day-trip to Santa Barbara and SFO
(where some folks got caught for overspeeding on a Stang) couldn’t have come at
a better time to take me away from the chaos of my academic future and I was
glad I had my friends and roommates to help me sort through my mid-semester
crisis.
With all that drama from my academic career in EE577B, the biggest
difference I could see in myself was that my self-confidence was utterly shattered.
My midterm performances for EE557 were some of the worst I’d ever given – some of
which were extremely silly and careless as I crumpled under pressure. For a moment
in the semester, I had even considered the prospect of quitting grad school because
things were just not going according to plan and I knew that I wasn’t at fault,
but it was my circumstances. I usually try to maintain a positive exterior and
mindset and ensure that nothing can break me, but during certain times, I
realized that it was okay to break down, express yourself, share a part of what
you’re going through with the people whom you feel most comfortable with –
people who will not judge you but see you for who you are – refresh and start
things new with a clear mind. To this day, I remember how I was a drama boy as
I cried to my parents but in the end, I’m glad I had my roommates, Avanee (who
was also going through the same issues with me!) as well as one of my close
friends, Surabhi who would at least lend an ear, understood my situation, and help
me deal with my existential crisis despite all the madness they were going
through. Failing the two courses and not meeting up with my own expectations
would have been an embarrassment to the high standards and demands that I usually
set for myself (the writing of this blog included!). We had some Ugadi
celebrations at our place as we went to the Malibu temple to rejuvenate from
the hectic and cramped schedule that we were facing. After coming back from the
temple, I realized that I had to just switch to the basics to get everything
back on track! And to this day, it was that comeback that I am most proud of –
to truly believe and embody the motto our institute - to being a Trojan, to fight
on and to give it my all, no matter the circumstances. And I think it was that
drive that eventually got me through the semester on the academic front and got
me some decent grades for both courses. Even though I didn’t get a single call
for an internship opportunity from anyone in the industry that semester despite
maintaining good grades (coz I had straight As until then!) from both UG and
Masters, I understood that sometimes it helps to have influential contacts
(nepotism does exist!) in the industry to eventually help you get to where you
wanted. I also realized that there were calls from the industry for diversity
and inclusivity at around that time and the hunt for an internship became even more
difficult. Ultimately, the stage was set as the semester was drawing to a close
and I resigned to the fact that I would be spending my summer at the institute and
continue with a summer course to continue to be eligible to stay in the US on an
F-1 visa. If needed, I could have skipped the summer course and returned to
India but after the semester I just had, I couldn’t face my parents knowing
that they had paid (and were continuing to pay the interests!) their hard-earned
money, but also with the fact that I wanted to get done with my Masters early,
graduate in 1.5 years and look at the opportunity for an early start to my
professional career. Glad I took this option in the end!
Spring session had just come to an end and I couldn’t be glad that it was all over. We had registered for our summer courses and it was one of the most demanding courses at USC – EE560, a Digital System Design taught by Prof. Puvvada which ended up being very similar to the course I had just undertaken – EE577B. Before semester started, we had around a week off from the craziness of the previous semester and so, we decided to go on a 4 day road trip to Northern California and Nevada, while dropping off a few of our friends who had secured internships in the Bay. I said my final goodbyes to Surabhi (who interned at Cisco) and Seema (who interned at Intel), my support systems through the tough times, who decided to fly down to the Bay for their respective internships. 7 of us – the 4 roommates because Rajesh had trotted off to India, Suhas TP, Akhilesh (our honorary roommate) and Monisha (one of the course toppers at USC!) – had started to head off to the Bay in two separate cars along with Madhuri Murthy and Anirudh Sairam (also interning at Intel and were roommates!) who were going to be dropped at San Jose to pursue their internships. One of the cars was going to be dropped off at San Jose airport and the other, a 7-seater mini-van which would continue through the rest of the journey would return back to Los Angeles. Because we were afforded the opportunity to travel later in the mini-van, a few of us diverted away from the route and visited Big Sur and Bixby Creek Bridge before heading to the Bay. We stayed at Anirudh’s and Madhuri’s apartment for the night in the hall while indulging in a delicious dinner at Curry-Up Now as both Anirudh and Madhuri treated us for their accomplishments. The next morning, after we dropped off the other rental car at the airport, had our breakfasts at Madras Café on El Camino Real and left Madhuri to deal with her internship, we headed off to Muir Woods and Point Reyes National Seashore, and skip SFO since all of us had already been to SFO before as a group. We walked past the tall pines and coastal redwoods for around 2 hours, while talking about the semester we were about to undertake and how things could have been different if we had also got internship positions. Having that conversation kept me grounded to the reality that things will not always work out the way you wanted them to and it was our innate human ability to understand that and move forward. At Point Reyes, all of us had a moment to appreciate the horizon from the cliff-tops, appreciate nature and think that there are things that are much more important in life than school exams. We had booked a huge cabin room in South Lake Tahoe for the night and while enroute to Tahoe, Seema had suggested me to stop over at Folsom and Mylapore (with it being her hometown and all!) for some delicious South Indian delight and to check out the town that she grew up in. It was my first ever visit to the city and I fell in love with it the first time I visited it – I still remember us giving the car to Monisha as she started to drive on the wrong side of the road and how we recovered from that drive. Though I appreciated the South Indian Thali at Mylapore, due to my traveling sickness through the mountains, I had vomited most of the dinner on the side of the road. We settled well into the cabin that night as we enjoyed a warm, peaceful and comfortable night (Lakeland Village Resorts at Heavenly!) each with our own beds and rooms; and we could afford to pay for the cabin as the winter season was just about to end and the summer activities were just about to start! The next day, we had our brunch at Nikki’s Chaat Café as we scoured our minds and bodies on the lakeshores of the private beach in South Lake Tahoe, and my boy was it heavenly! The drive up on Emerald Bay Road, our small hikes at Inspiration Point and Vikingsholm at Emerald Bay as well as our exploits at Squaw Valley (all the snow had melted!) kept us occupied throughout the day as we made the long 8.5 hour journey from Olympic Valley to Nevada through Reno and some desert terrain. One of the most exciting drives of the evening I’ve got to say was when Google routed us through Silver Peak instead of Route 95 in Central Nevada. With no town in sight and us being literally the only ones in the middle of the desert on dusty graveled roads and the distant moonlight given us company, it was an unforgettable experience as I guided Akhilesh through his drive as his shotgun. We had planned to stay over in one of the hotels in Las Vegas that night, but we started to get news from three of our friends in the mini-van that their grades for the course on EE577A were being with-held due to a possible issue of plagiarism and infringement of common code between two groups of people, as they started to panic. If I were in their situation, I’d have protested to stop the journey and head back to Los Angeles to deal with the situation the next morning once we reached and they were in agreement too and I could understand their frustrations having gone through some myself the previous semester. But since we were anyway just 2 hours away in Area 51 – no we unfortunately did not find aliens or any secret bases! :/) from Las Vegas and the route back to Los Angeles was taking us through Vegas, we decided to stop in Vegas at Caesars Palace for around 2-3 hours. We decided to have our dinner at one of the Subways, walk down the Strip, soak in the colorful lights on display at the Bellagio, MGM Grand and the Palace and distract our friends from their current predicament for at least a few hours. The reason we did that was because it was already a continuous 8.5 hours’ drive in a mini-van – and I had driven half the way to get us to that point and stayed awake throughout the journey as the shot-gun. Nikhil had volunteered to drive us back home that night, as we left Vegas at 2.30am to reach LA at around 7.30am (there was very heavy morning traffic all the way from San Bernardino because it was a workday) and it was probably the only time I have ever slept in a moving car in the US, without knowing anything for more than 2 hours (Thanks Nikhil for bringing us home safely!). In the end, it was all just a small misunderstanding on the part of my professor and the plagiarism tool and my friends were let go eventually (though they hadn’t done anything wrong!).
Till date, no one that I knew had taken up EE560 after completing EE577B (it’s usually the other way around) – such was my love and faith for RTL and H/W logic design that I would one day be working on this even in the industry. A lot of the folks who took EE577B with me in the spring semester eventually took up the Verification course (EE599) put forth by Prof. Nazarian, but I wanted my resume to be different and stand out even more, and I wanted recruiters to know that I was looking for opportunities in RTL design and nothing else even though it took at least ~5 years for someone to be proficient in RTL design in the industry. I enhanced my digital hardware design skills through the course and tried to do something I may have done had I pursued my internship – after the course ended, I really thought that I may have learnt much from the summer course than from any internship that I may have pursued. Summer came with the added restriction that I could not be a course grader for EE109L (since the course was not offered in the summer) and given that we could work for 40 hours per week with an on-campus job, I had to leverage my experiences from the Bookstore and look for opportunities elsewhere to cater to my living expenses. I eventually found work at the USC Bookstore at the HSC – Health Sciences Campus (it was a 35 - 40 minute commute from USC Main Campus one way) – as I was working my usual 9 to 5 job – it ended up being an 8am to 6.30pm job with all the commute included. I didn’t want to work all 40 hours though because it would have taken a huge toll on my physical health and so I tried to balance out my already tight academic schedule with my on-campus job schedule - 2 days of classes and preparations with 3 days of 8hr shifts at the HSC Bookstore while completing any home-works, assignments and lab works throughout the week in the evenings with some help from Srividhya who was my lab partner for the course. After a torrid Spring session, summer seemed to just about match it in every aspect but this time I was well prepared after having gone through the experience of the design project in EE577B. When the Independence Day weekend came, even though I had to prepare for my finals, I needed to take my time off to be with my family and relatives as I had gone to visit my uncle and aunts who had traveled from India and were gathered at my cousin’s place in Thousand Oaks – she had just given birth to Srinidhi – and with Ramya on the verge of getting engaged (I couldn’t have been more happier for her), it was a good time to celebrate the reunion of Saroja’s blood yet again. After earning straight As in my finals, I decided to work the full 40 hour shift at the HSC bookstore for the next couple of weeks, hoping to earn and save on for some living expenses in the future. In the lead-up to my birthday, my sweetheart roommates (who created a fake Gmail account and emailed me as Steven Gerrard, – lol, I appreciate the extra effort you guys took!) gifted me seats to the Liverpool v Chelsea friendly at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena which was again an experience by itself. Right after my shift at HSC, I took an Uber to the historic Rose Bowl in Pasadena – it was a solo trip and I had a wonderful experience at the game and even though Liverpool lost the friendly, I felt a part of the Kop family as I watched Jurgen and his boys led by Jordan prepare for the first full season. My mobile phone had died down and I had forgotten to take my power bank to the game and I was stranded at the Rose Bowl with no means to get back home (it was a long 25-30 mile drive back home!). It was getting late and me being the independent guy that I was, did not want to depend on anyone while understanding that walking through the neighborhoods would eventually take me to a main road later. After walking nearly 3 miles for nearly an hour in the posh area of Old Pasadena, I noticed the hospital signs on one of the roads and I figured that with the infrastructure in place in the US, we would have had at least a departmental store in the vicinity. It was almost going to strike midnight and I started to question – which store would remain open even past midnight – only Ralphs and Vons came to mind. While walking towards the Huntington Hospital (which I eventually discovered later), I stumbled upon an open Vons – I quickly approached the store manager and one of the cashiers and asked them if I could borrow their Type-C mobile phone charger to just charge my mobile for around 10 minutes so that I could book an Uber/ Lyft back home – the kind cashier obliged and even kept the store open for an additional 5 minutes past midnight – it was my birthday at midnight and it was the perfect gift that God (yes, I immensely believe in the Supreme entity!) and the Universe had given me. After this experience, I believed in something called the Universe gunning for me from afar and keeping my soul in check. I knew that I could count on myself to do the right thing, to have the presence of mind to proactively think about myself in any dire situation and to find my way back home even if I were lost through some basic understanding of geography and civic senses.
Final
Semester – EE658, CSCI570, DR
Being
involved in Garba + AIS, Football Game (SC v Cal)
Finding
full-time jobs and failing at job interviews
Right after our Diwali
celebrations at AIS, I had started to work on my resume and thought about the
prospective future of graduating from the Master’s program without a job in
hand and so, I was preparing to move to the Bay Area with my cousin as I planned
to search for a full-time job. If that didn’t materialize, I had planned to
head back home to India, hoping to land myself a good job in a competitive
semiconductor market. None of those on-campus career fairs seemed to help since
representatives of every company at every stall gave the standard reply of
applying online to their application portal. I was so fed up the job search and
the fact that nothing was materializing that I just started to focus more on my
academics and perform well in my Algorithms paper. While I was standing at the long
line at the career fair to talk to one of the representatives from Intel
Corporation, I got an email from Kamal Sinha, a Graphics Hardware Power
Architect at Intel, Folsom regarding the fact that he had received my resume
through a referral (thanks Poojitha!) and that when the opportunity arose, he’d
give me a call – so in a way, that didn’t seem so bad! The SMS trio helped me
navigate through the tough times I was facing because my roommates themselves
were facing their own battles of finding co-ops/ internships. I used to bomb my
job interviews often, and interacting with them often helped improve my spoken
and communication skills (yeah, they don’t even know they helped until now I think!)
because most of the times, we’d only speak in Kannada in my household – it was
not that I wasn’t technically adept, it was just that I went into my shell and
couldn’t communicate my thoughts that easily with the interviewing folks as
they failed to comprehend my thoughts. Talking with Seema, who was an Indian
American and being in her presence, gave me some much-needed confidence in
slowly down the pace at which I spoke because usually it came down to that. To
stay away from the stress of dealing with everyday job search, Seema and
Surabhi joined me at the Staples Center to finally watch the LA Clippers take
on the Portland Trailblazers in an NBA league game from the gallery section, as
we continued to get to know each other better. Thanksgiving was fast approaching,
and I had started to prepare for my interviews and a week before Thanksgiving,
Kamal had decided to call me for an onsite interview to meet the team and
interview with them on the Monday before Thanksgiving after I had cleared the
initial phone interview with Amit Karande. As I was setting up my travel
itinerary for the interview, Ruchira Liyanage tried to poach me into their team
given that there was a slot open for a full-time role in their team as a front-end
RTL design and verification engineer. Michael Norris from her team contacted me
on Thursday for a phone interview and 15 minutes after I spoke to him, Ruchira
and Brian Ormson had called me for an on-sight interview and were wondering if
I could catch a flight that very night and be there in Folsom the next day (the
Friday before Black Friday) for the in-person on-site interview. It seemed like
this team wanted me more and I was desperate to lock-in my job as well. While
setting up my travel plans for that interview, a third team also swooped in –
Jaya Mishra from CDG looking for designers in front-end, back-end as well as
validation. While it was mind-boggling to see all three teams come in at the
same time and I was beyond thrilled that I was going to Folsom to attend all
three interviews, I also had to remain grounded and focused on the job at hand.
I had an on-site interview scheduled on Friday morning from 9am to 2pm with
Ruchira’s super team of interviewees – Gregory Jahn questioned me on some
verification concepts, Ruchira herself questioned me on some RTL design
questions from a block she was owning at the time (something that I currently
own as a UO!), Saikat Mandal who questioned me some concepts from uArch, the
Tomasulo algorithm and created artificial scenarios for OOO scheduling, and Andrew
Downsworth, my alumni from USC, questioned me on timing and power convergence!
I’d say every hour of the interview went smoothly but for my lunch interview
with Brian, who at the time lied to me that they were interviewing another person
since they had 2 spots to fill (they only had 1 spot to fill and were pitting
us against each other!) and had preferred the other candidate over me. It was
Ruchira who stuck her ground (thanks Ruchira!) and said that I had better
technical prowess and eventually, Brian extended me an offer at the end of the
day. I had interviewed with Jaya’s team that very day as well from 4.30pm to
6pm and they too had extended me an offer after 6pm, but I made them aware that
if Ruchira’s team extended an offer to me, I would choose them and that’s how
it went. Knowing that I finally had a job in hand, I kept my parents and
friends informed and their excitement, screams and tears of joy from Bangalore
and Los Angeles could be heard all the way in my hotel room in Folsom. I stayed
over the weekend at the same hotel as I explored the city of Folsom and got to
know it better – Seema had asked me to check out her elementary school, Goldridge
Elementary and send her a pic of the place, as I watched USC thrash UCLA in the
rivalry Thanksgiving game from a rainy Northern California. I gave my interview
with Kamal’s team on Monday as I aced through their questions on power
optimization techniques and I was on my way to South Lake Tahoe when they too had
offered me the job of being a Power Architect. And now I had to choose which
career I wanted to pursue – to thrive in Jaya’s small team and grow on all fronts,
to specialize first in verification and then move slowly to RTL design (which
was honestly my dream job) in Ruchira’s team, or to become a Power Architect
under Kamal driving power convergence across various SKUs interacting with different
cluster managers (this seemed nice too, but I didn’t have clarity on how I
would be contributing to the team) - it was at inspiration point at Emerald Bay
State Park in South Lake Tahoe that I decided to choose Ruchira’s team at Intel
as my first ever job in the industry! I had a nice plate of vegetable biriyani
at Mylapore on the way back to the airport before heading down to Los Angeles
and meeting back with my friends and celebrate my news with them! Seema and Surabhi
had dropped by my place to meet me in person and congratulate me on finally
nailing down a full-time job – after everything that I had been through, it finally
happened! And I’m glad that I never gave up and as always persistence is key –
it is never in my DNA to give up, is it?
As life at USC started to draw its curtains and I graduated with a Masters Degree in December 2016 (although not an honorary one!), one of the biggest learnings that I will take from the entire graduate school experience is about living in the moment and dealing with rejections. Some people are turned down (for one of their dream jobs) and it stops them from ever trying again, but others bounce back from rejection in ways unimaginable to the human spirit, stronger than ever before. It is natural for everyone to experience rejection of some sort, but only mentally strong and emotionally matured people use that pain to grow stronger and become a better version of themselves. Whether you are excluded from a social engagement, or you were passed up for a promotion, or people straight up reject you for a job or as a companion, rejection hurts and the way you respond to it could determine the entire course of your future. The key thing to overcome rejection is to acknowledge your emotions – rather than suppress, ignore or deny the pain, admit that you’re embarrassed, sad, disappointed and discouraged – you need to have the confidence to deal with uncomfortable emotions head-on, which is essential to coping with discomfort in a healthy manner. Even if you have been stood up by a date, or someone you like turns down your request (not that I was, or maybe I was – who knows!) trying to minimize the pain by convincing yourself that it was no big deal will only prolong your pain. I viewed rejections from job interviews as evidence of me pushing myself to my limits to get what I eventually wanted from the experience – it served as a proof that I was living life to the fullest, and giving it my best – some of us expect to be rejected and not afraid to go for it even when we suspect that it could be a long shot but the fact of the matter is that, if you never get rejected, you may be living far too inside your comfort zone and you can’t be sure that you’re pushing yourself to your limits. One of the things that got me through my phases of rejection was to treat myself with compassion – rather than think “you’re so stupid for thinking you could do that”, say “I’m glad I did that” and speak to yourself like a trusted friend while drowning out your harsh inner critic by repeating helpful mantras that will keep you mentally strong. Another thing I learnt was that I couldn’t let rejection define who I was – I didn’t make sweeping generalizations that I was incompetent for a role just because one manager or the one interviewing me said so. I wouldn’t conclude that I am unlovable just because I get rejected by a single love interest. I kept rejection in proper perspective – one person’s opinion or one single incident should never really define who you are and it is important that you do let your self-worth depend on other people’s opinion of you – just because they think something about you, doesn’t make it true. And in a way, I’m glad I got rejected from those prospective jobs because that is how I now continue to succeed – to prove them (as well as my haters) wrong. I ask myself “what did I gain from this?” rather simply tolerate and acknowledge the pain. I now use rejection as an opportunity to learn something new about myself and an opportunity to move forward with more wisdom. And USC was responsible for that! Being a Trojan is something I’ll cherish.
**************************************************************
The way in which I spent my time from the time I graduated from USC to the time I started working at Intel will never be easily forgotten since I gave my goodbyes to some folks whom I may never meet again in my life. Sreekar, Nikhil and Rajesh had headed back to India for a well-earned winter break – Sreekar would start working at Apple and Nikhil at Samsung Austin to complete their co-ops during the spring semester. Ashwin joined me at Intel Folsom as a co-op, but Rajesh was unable to find an internship for that semester – so he stayed on at USC to complete his DR and graduate from the college while looking for full time opportunities in the interim. Around the same time, a lot of us graduated at the same time - Seema, Milana, Anirudh and Avanee included and we were destined to move out of Los Angeles to pursue our professional careers. One of the days during the winter vacation, I remember going around the city of Los Angeles and accompanying Romil, Seema and Milana to Café Luxxe and Santa Monica as we watched the sun set metaphorically on the far horizon, hoping that life in some way would keep us all connected. Milana had a full time offer at Intel Eau Claire in the same team that she had interned in during the summer and as we dropped her off at the LAX Airport while she was heading back to Bangalore, the harsh reality that we’d be doing that to a lot of folks started to kick in. As we said our goodbyes, I remember accompanying Seema to a hotel in Orange County (where she had to present a paper of some sort for other friend’s of hers) and I wanted to explore the outlet malls at Orange County hoping to snap a good deal post the Thanksgiving season. It was also time to officially say goodbye to Anirudh and Srividhya as we all went to the Library Bar to celebrate our accomplishments of graduating from USC. There were only a few of us remaining behind in the city and since I was done with everything from my end (and so was Seema!), it was time to celebrate! While a lot of folks had planned to go to India for the winter, Chapte, Joshi, Avanee, Seema and myself had decided to go on a long road-trip to the town of Aspen and the rocky mountains in Colorado to celebrate the advent of winter. And boy oh boy was it one of the best trips and vacations that I’ve ever been on!
I’m not going to lie – I
was a little nervous with the 5 of us going on this trip because Seema knew only
me well (she may have known Chapte a little since he was my roommate) and it
was a new group of people with whom she had never interacted with before – within
the first 15 minutes of the trip, we all bonded so instantly like as if we had
known each other for years! The route to Colorado luckily didn’t require us to
carry snow chains since the weather was slated to be okay. We chose Skurt (I
know, you may not even have heard of it before – it got acquired by Fair!) as our
primary rental car company since they had pretty cheap rental costs per day. We
packed the trunk with our large sized suitcases as we also had to deal with the
cold weather that was heading our way. Knowing very well that Chapte and I would
be the only drivers throughout the trip, we had planned to take turns driving
the whole way. We drove through the night from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, which
was our first halt for the night. While we were on our way there, we talked
about our stories about living in Bangalore (all of us were from Bangalore!) as
we reminisced through our times in India while constantly listening to the
A-team by Ed Sheeran being played on loop on the car’s audio system. We had
stopped at a Subway outside the city limits of Las Vegas at around 2am as Chapte
slowly devoured his 12-inch sub to ensure that he stayed awake because it was
his turn to drive us from Vegas to Zion National Park – our first stop on our
long road trip. As soon as we got into the car, Seema, Joshi and I who were already
on the backseats slept for about an hour (it was a good power nap!), as the mountain
times went 1 hour ahead of PST. We reached the entrance of Zion at around
5.30am and it was still pitch dark and we had to find a way to spend around 1.5
hours in the area before the sun rose – Avanee and Seema had suggested that we
could just drive to an open coffee place to have our early morning coffee
(because it was much needed after a full night’s travel!) and maybe use their
restrooms to brush our teeth and wash our faces and it sounded great – the
problem was that there was no such place in the nearby vicinity that was open.
However, we did end up finding one shop very close to the entrance that would
open at 6am and we were the first customers for the day! We waited as long as
we could at the store and as the early signs of day light started to come up,
we knew we had to be there at one of the most photographed spots to view a
sun-rise from – the Zion Human History Museum. It was the most beautiful
sunrise I’ve seen to date, with sun rays cutting through the canyons and
hitting the big boulders at acute angles – we all realized how lucky we were to
catch that sunrise and staying awake the entire night certainly helped! After
the sun rose, we went to multiple points on the Floor of the Valley Road and didn’t
have to pay the entrance fees to the park (because we arrived before sunrise!) –
as we appreciated the views at the Court of the Patriarchs, the Emerald Pools,
and partially hiked the Weeping Rock Trail, finally culminating in the views of
the Valley at the Temple of Sinawava. We struck the now infamous and customary
Abbey Road pose right in front of the Court of Patriarchs as we then decided
that to be our standard pose as the trip proceeded. We left the Valley Floor at
around 10am back to Springsdale to have some breakfast and while doing so, we
freshened up in the restrooms. We had to make the tough call to abandon our
plans to Bryce Canyon National Park since we had to reach Glenwood Springs in
Colorado on time before any potential late-night hailstorm weather broke lose. The
shorter route to Glenwood Springs was anyway snowed in and so, we had planned
to stick close to the inter-states because their roads were usually cleared and
were snow-free. The 8 hour long drive through the snowy terrain was so nice to
drive in, but I felt incredibly sleepy in the middle and had to give over
control to Chapte to drive for around 2-3 hours until Whipup. As is usual, the
sun set early (at around 4.30pm local) and after it got dark, I took over the
drive until Barbara’s Airbnb at Glenwood Springs – and boy were we happy to
have completed that whole day in one piece! We knew the morning views of the
mountains in the background in Glenwood Springs would be exquisite and so, we
were primed to get up early before the sunrise to soak in those views, after we
had a scrumptious dinner at the Nepal restaurant with some much needed Himalayan
and North Indian food. By the way, it was also Akshay Joshi’s birthday at midnight,
and I had tried to slip away from everyone to buy a plum birthday cupcake from
an open bakery nearby, as a surprise, but to no avail. In the end, we just
ended up wishing him a very happy birthday to end the night as we finally headed
off to sleep in the warm and cozy house that Barbara was hosting us at.
The next morning, I was
probably the only one who was awake as I watched the sun rise and took in those
beautiful mountain views in the background. We ended up going to Aspen that day
and to Maroon Bells, another gem of a photogenic spot in the high snow mass landscape.
We visited the Buttermilk mountain and eventually walked around the area where
the road taking us up to Maroon Bells was closed – it gave us the feeling that
we were in a winter wonderland with snow fallen all over the place, and the
llamas, hens and snowmobiles giving us company. We knew that a snowmobile tour
was out of our budget at that time, and so we headed back to the Aspen Highland
Ski Resort where we bought a snow-lift day pass that would take us to the top
of the mountain from where we could get good views. The views at the top were
worth our shenanigans on freezing to death while going up the open-aired snow-chair
lifts and that was an excitement by itself! After coming back down, we headed
to the Aspen Mountain Ski Resort to ride up the Silver Gondola to the top of Mt.
Aspen and the Sundeck restaurant where we eventually had our lunch – a slice of
pizza and some fries – the pass that we had paid for our lunches too and we were
glad that we used it to the fullest! The views from the top reminded us of the
little things that we had to go through in life until that point to reach the
peak and the views from the top were as splendid as ever! Akshay was having the
birthday of his life as we tried to get some hot chocolate from the restaurant before
heading back down – problem was that the shops had all closed, the coffee
machine was still switched on and we didn’t have any cash – the cashier provided
us the hot chocolates on the house as we celebrated it all as if we had
accomplished something big! After coming back down, a snowstorm was predicted at
around 6.30-7pm in Aspen and so it was necessary for us to move away from the
area as fast as possible. While my travel companions kept Akshay Joshi
occupied, I went to the nearby Paradise Bakery and got him a small cupcake,
pretending that I was going to a store to get a beer for myself. As we started
to move away from Glenwood Springs towards Denver and Colorado Springs, which was
our stop for the night, we got caught in a snow storm while enroute on the I-70
for about an hour (driving through that road was one of the most difficult
drives I had to go through because the wind shield wipers got stuck, but as we
got to lower elevations, everything started to clear up – we just had the great
escape from being caught in the storm and to celebrate the occasion, we had a
grand dinner at the Cuisine of the Himalayas in Bergen Park, near Denver. We cut
the birthday cake at our Airbnb in Colorado Springs as we said good night to
each on the event of a very happening day! The next day, we visited the Garden
of the Gods and climbed up the road to Pike’s Peak – the problem was that we
couldn’t get to the summit due to snow and high and dangerous winds at higher
elevation – so we ended up walking on a frozen lake for around half an hour as
we then got back down and started to head back towards Albuquerque after an
Indian buffet in one of the restaurants in Colorado Springs.
Once in Albuquerque, being fans of the show Breaking Bad, we visited Walter White’s house and as stood in front of it, the landlady had opened up the garage and had started to threaten to report us to the police for trespassing on private property, but we got the photos that we wanted and bolted off from there. We also visited the Car Wash that Walter bought as well as the offices of Saul Goodman, before eventually calling it a night as we munched on some delicious Mexican food in Albuquerque before driving late into the night to the Ramada Inn at Flagstaff, our familiar hotel from our trip to Arizona. Since we arrived late that night, we decided to take it easy the day, as we drove down to Sedona, explored a couple of trails and headed back to LA via Phoenix, Seema’s new hometown. While giving the car back to Skurt, we had to give the car in a very clean and drivable condition and so we had started to find car-wash parks in the town of Cathedral City and Palm Springs – none of the shops that we were trying to reach out to were open, with it being Christmas Eve and all! We finally found one as we ended the trip on a wonderful note, having survived the trip and made memories worth a lifetime! As I recount these memories even now, I can’t help but wonder we all got along so well throughout the trip and the rapport we shared will never be forgotten. We had all celebrated the New Year together and had also been invited by Nandan to his place for a delicious round of idlis and his Mangalore styled sambhar and chutney. We all even went to San Diego together and watched Seema’s favorite movie, La La Land with her for the last hurrah, before we gave her a proper send-off to Phoenix by going through all the touristy spots in LA (especially the points on the Angeles Crest Highway were La La Land was shot!) all through the night, despite the heavy downpour. Seema was one of the easiest and quickest people I could bond with as we shared all the bad things as well as the good ones, had some things in common, as we lent an ear out to each other as we spoke and kept things simple – as we said our final goodbyes reminiscing the days I taught her how to drive an automobile, we promised each that we would keep in touch at least once in two weeks and maybe meet in LA often when possible. As Ashwin and I headed off towards Folsom for our internship and full-time jobs, we decided to drive up in a cargo van with Sreekar, Suhas TP, Rajesh and Akhilesh while transporting our baggage, and our bed as well. We had also rented another car to take us to Folsom, as we had decided to again head back down to LA (since my start date was fixed for February 6th only!) once we sorted and settled everything at our new place in Folsom. We all went to South Lake Tahoe, Napa Valley and the Mystery Spot as well as Carmel by the Sea before going back down to LA – Ashwin wanted to attend the career fair and I had returned since Seema had planned to come to LA that weekend too and it’d have been a nice reunion of sorts. And as I left to the Greyhound bus station, I said my final goodbyes to LA and to Surabhi, one of my best friends during my grad school life, who just got me and understood my flaws and pointed them out, and helped navigate through all the tough times by lending her ear to my frustrations, and I appreciated the friendship we shared.
I finally reached Folsom
and became a part of the industry and I can’t help but wonder the steep ramp
that I had as a recent college graduate who had absolutely no knowledge about
3D Graphics nor Verification methodologies. The first day (and week!) had the usual
set of professional procedures and given that Graphics was something entirely
new in my portfolio, I found it incredibly difficult to deal with the tasks given
to me since I had absolutely no idea about how to write assertions, sequences
and cover-points, having had a strong foundation in digital system logic design
from my master’s degree. I’ve got to say – it was a struggle and I am glad I went
through it because I don’t think I would have put in the efforts to learn had I
not been in the presence of 3 great mentors – Ruchira, Eric Hoekstra and Greg
Jahn - through those first 6 to 8 weeks. I strongly believe that those initial weeks
and the rapport you develop with the team are the most crucial weeks of any
employees’ love or hate for the nature of his job. They always motivated me to
do the right thing, keep educating myself about how things worked at Intel and
how important it was to keep continuously learning and maintain a close group
of friends outside of my work colleagues whom I could rely on in case things
got bitter. They say that you spend almost 45% of your lifetime in the company
of your colleagues and if you do not get along well with them, things could
become difficult in the future. I’ve got to say – I think I became too
comfortable with my group of friends from USC when I joined Intel Folsom – I didn’t
realize that all my friends in the group that I was a part of, were only here
on a temporary basis and that they would eventually look for better career
prospects elsewhere. Nonetheless, I had a good rapport with all of them, as we
would casually meet at each other’s apartments for game nights, birthday parties
and karaoke nights. We’d all have lunch together as a group and talk about various
things related to pop culture, Indian drama and music as well as the nature of
work and full-time openings in each other’s teams. I also remember that we went
on a hike to the North Table Mountains in Oroville to get to know each other
better, but as time went on, I knew that I had to start detaching myself from
that group, since eventually they were all planning to leave. On March 18th
2017, I made an investment in buying a Metallic Cosmic Blue Honda Civic from AutoNation
as I viewed that having a car in a city like Folsom was a necessity for the
long term future of my stay here. Since I now had a car to commute to anywhere
I wanted, it became much easier for me to get to work, get groceries on my way
back, travel around nearby places and may be even move away from Iron Point
Apartments, the place I was currently staying at and save up on rent. Having a
car in a country like the US comes with its own set of advantages but it also
meant a huge deficit on my savings as well as education loan clearing potential
as I also had to pay high auto-insurance in addition to the car financing and
interest costs. It was time to start adulting and manage multiple aspects of my
life as and when I was tested – both on a personal and the professional front.
Since my friend Surabhi helped me through my tough times at USC, I thought it was my duty to do my bit and help her out too with her struggles as she tried to battle through the semester and put in the efforts to finally graduate. Both Seema and I would make the travel at least once every month to Los Angeles during the weekends to keep a check on her and to ensure that she was doing alright, given that we were both only an overnight journey away. And with my love for driving and the fact that I now had a car made things so much easier to commute to LA any time I wanted – I didn’t mind covering the 5-and-a-half-hour journey to Southern California. I was still involved in mentoring some of the board members at AIS USC for that semester, helped them gain traction with some of the alumni and helped organize the USC Bollywood Night event at the USC Indoor Basketball courts some time in mid-April. Around the same time, all four of us – Romil, Surabhi, Seema and I – had been on a drive to the Pacific Coast to El Matador State Beach as we discussed our mid-life crisis and how all of us coped with being “alone” and still being together with a group at the same time. We also realized that we all had multiple best friends and as a result we’d sometimes get a lot of hate from people who thought we were abusing the term, which admittedly sometimes made us question if we were a bit strange. But then we remembered it was so awesome that we could rely on a squad and that haters are gonna hate – especially because every BFF you have in life is different and contributes to your well being in a different way. One who will always keep it real and give it to you straight up, with no BS. The fun one who always gets you into trouble. One who you’ve probably known forever that they become your soul-friend like your sibling. One who is so much like you that it seems ridiculous. There’s always one you know you can have frank conversations with, where you never need to feel embarrassed. And most importantly, one whom you trust your life with that always has the best advice at a time of need. We understood that with multiple best friends, we just didn’t need to rely on one person and that we could all talk to each other and express ourselves freely and if you’re lucky, you’ll have those people who would drop everything in their life to help you grow. Those who become your “best friend” are the “best” because to you, everyone is equal. We realized that we’d be there for each other no matter the consequences and it felt good to have a group of friends whom you could empathize with. Even a couple of days earlier (she knew that I was busy working on a major project – basically this blog), Surabhi had called me up just in general to catch up, and when she came to know that I wasn’t eating food properly at the right time, she even ordered food from afar hoping that I’d get back to eating at the right time – such small acts of kindness and generosity means a lot to me and I couldn’t be thankful to have such an awesome group of badass friends!
April 21st 2017 and I had gone to SFO airport to pick up the two most important people in my life (even now), as they had flown in from India to attend my graduation; it was their 25th wedding anniversary that year, and so I gifted them whatever I could manage – the latest generation of iPad. They were so proud of the man I was becoming that they had even prepared their answers to the question on purpose of visit to the immigration officer – instead of stating that they were just there to visit their son who lived in Northern California, they were beaming with pride, stating that they came to visit me to partake in my graduate and commencement ceremony. It was so nice to finally meet them in person especially given that I still hadn’t been to India over the past 20 months – this was the only time they could make it to the US since my mother had been newly promoted to the Head Mistress of the High School at SVM and given that these were the summer holidays. Even though she still needed to help with the tasks of being the administrative head of the school from far away - like signing Transfer Certificates and certifying the 10th standard board results – she placed her priorities right – she was first a mother who wanted to celebrate the occasion with her son. My father at the time was at the fag end of his career and I’d been begging him to retire, and retire he did – after a long stint in the sales and marketing business, it was time for him to lay back and enjoy the rest of his retired life, while maintaining his good health. I couldn’t be gladder when they came – I had some of the best Indian food I could dream of, often heading back home for lunch and spending time with them before getting back to work. In the evenings, we’d go to places nearby as we soaked in the sunset views from El Dorado Hills and Folsom Lake and sometimes, even Sacramento, as we did some shopping from Target, Walmart and other retail stores. All our weekends were jam-packed as my parents had only planned their stay for 4 weekends – my mother had to head back early to school to complete some administrative work for the next academic year. The first weekend they arrived, we had been to South Lake Tahoe and Olympic Valley as both my parents experienced snow for the first time in their lives, often shivering and coming up to me to get all the warmth that they could. The next weekend, we had been to my cousin Ramya’s place in the Bay Area to meet her and her new husband, Dhananjayan as we planned to explore all things in the Bay – before reaching her place, we visited the Livermore temple (which was sort of like our Tirupati). The first day, we had been to SFO to enjoy everything that the city had to offer while dining at Dosa and Saravana Bhavan in the evening, and the next day, we had been to Santa Cruz – both the beach as well as the Arcade – Monterey and the Bixby-Creek bridge, before shopping at Carmel by the Sea, and eventually headed back to Folsom – not before stopping at the Sai Baba Temple at Milpitas. The weekend after, we had an early 5am start on Saturday (it was my first ever 5am Saturday!) as we headed off to Yosemite National Park (it was my first visit to the park) and get mesmerized by the beauty of granite and sand-stone formations and the exuberant and ferocious Bridalveil Falls. We went on a couple of small hikes in the Yosemite Valley before eventually calling it a day and heading back home – we had an amazing dinner at Thai Paradise – it was the first non-Indian meal that my parents had tasted and they loved the green curry and the spicy fried rice with tofu as it reminded them of elements of Kerala and Sri Lanka food with coconut milk. The next day, we had been to Napa Valley – to Castello – to celebrate my graduation as we all toasted to our family’s achievements until that point – it was the first and last time that I drank wine (La Fantasia!) with my parents. We finally ended that weekend by going to Point Reyes National Seashore as we sat there looking at the large ocean, the horizon and the beautiful sunset to cap off 3 amazing weekends spent well together.
The next week was supposed to be an incredibly short week at work for me as I had planned to take 3 days off to attend my convocation (commencement) at USC in LA. It eventually turned out to be a 5-day weekend as we first drove down to Moorpark to visit my cousin Nandhini, her husband Subhash and her new-born Srinidhi. As we all exchanged stories from our lives in the US of A, we couldn’t help but wonder how far all members of the Saroja family had come to finally end up where they are right now. The next day, we drove down to San Diego from Moorpark as I really wanted to show the city that reminded me a lot of Ernakulam and the backwaters of Kerala to my parents. After visiting Balboa Park, Old Town SD, Coronado Island and Seaport Village, they concurred too as the Island gave them vibes of Kochi and the village made them think about Ernakulam. Visiting La Jolla Cove and Beach for sunset while munching on Bhel Puri (we packed Bhel Puri and came here) was unforgettable as we then came back to Nandhini’s place to retire for the night. The next day, as we all hugged each other and said goodbye, Nandhini and Subhash gave me a gift card as well as a greeting card for graduating from one of the toughest courses of my life and I couldn’t be more grateful – such small acts of kindness meant a lot to me. We roamed through the city of LA as I took my parents to Griffith Observatory, the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the Dolby Theater while finally walking in the park at Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area to soak in views of DTLA, the San Gabriel mountains in the background and the sunset. We then headed to our Airbnb near Koreatown to get ready to attend the graduation day party organized by AIS USC. Once there, we realized that we would not be able to find parking in the vicinity of our Airbnb and hence, we parked my car in front of Mardette knowing that it would be safe there. We celebrated that evening with all family members of all my close friends as we finally bid goodbye to USC. The next day was the convocation with Will Ferrell delivering the commencement address – we were slightly late for the start of the ceremony but eventually made it as we first attended the morning address, then, the Electrical Engineering department’s afternoon congratulatory luncheon, and finally, in the evening, the degree conferral at the Galen Center – as may name was called out on stage, I remember dancing to the “Champion” song as I heard the loud cheers and whistles from my parents and friends in the audience. It was one of the best days of my life as I could see how proud my parents were of the guy I had become – their sweetheart only kid, living their dream! As a last surprise for the final hurrah, I drove my parents to Las Vegas (they only knew about it half an hour in to the journey as I missed the exit to Sacramento and headed towards Vegas) because they really wanted to go there and experience the fancy architecture casino like and betting atmosphere of . We ended up spending a good 2.5 hours at Caesar’s Palace, the Strip and the Bellagio before making the 8.5hour long journey back home to Folsom. The next day, Ramya had visited us to congratulate me and to say her goodbyes to my parents, and had suggested that we could drop by their place in the Bay Area that evening to make things easier for me to drop my parents at the airport – my parents had their flight back to India on Monday afternoon. Before reaching her place that evening, we again visited the Livermore temple (which we felt had a really powerful and damning influence on us) and as a final thank-you before they left to India the next afternoon, they bought me an iPhone 7 as my graduation gift and I couldn’t be happier. There’s a reason why I haven’t upgraded my iPhone yet and I do not think I will ever upgrade my phone in the future too just because of the sentiment the phone holds – these small things do matter.
Once I made the move and switch to live at the Falls at Willow
Creek from Iron Point Apartments everything seemed to have changed all at the
same time. My previous group of friends with whom I had shared a close friendship
had all left Folsom at around about the same time to pursue better career
opportunities in the Bay Area and San Diego. My previous roommates – Ambujan
and Suraj – were wrapping up their 6-month internship and heading back to their
universities for grad school. At the time, I felt like I knew absolutely no one
outside of this circle and had started to get this feeling that I had to start
afresh. As soon as I moved to the new place on July 22nd 2017, my friends Seema
(she had an Intel conference in the Bay Area) and Surabhi had driven all the
way from the Bay on my birthday to cheer me up – we eventually ended up driving
down to Los Angeles from Folsom for the weekend, as we celebrated the birthday
in grand style – visiting Artesia for some comfort food, chilling and swimming
by the pool (after nearly 9 years!) in one of DTLA’s premier apartments Medici
where my friend Romil lived, and going for a fancy dinner somewhere in North
Hollywood! It was the experience of making a sudden plan and then sticking to
it as well as road tripping with two of my best friends that I will cherish
from my 24th – something that got me through the initial few days of my stay at
Apt 1117. I remained distant from everyone in Folsom, not wanting to know more
about people my age and was in my own zone, as I concentrated on completing my
job at hand and contributing to my team in the best way possible. A lot of my
existing roommates at Apt 1117 had started to move out as they had completed
their internships too – most notably Eshwar and Sai Mohan – and we were ready
to welcome our final roommate into the fold, Prathamesh Shinde in September. As
people left, it was just me having to deal with the fact that I was going to go
through life by myself, as I used my job and work to deflect the real emotional
stress I was going through. I didn’t know at the time that I was depressed until
going to work, socializing with friends and getting to know other people felt
like a struggle. Having lived through some of it myself, one of the most
important things you can do to help yourself with depression other than
medication and therapy is to develop a strong social support. For some, this
may mean forging stronger ties with family or friends knowing that you can
count on them to help. For others, a support group can be important, and it may
involve being in a community group that meets your needs. The more stress
reduction techniques you use, the better as it reduces your risk of becoming
depressed. Maintaining good sleep hygiene and improving your eating habits are
extremely important in the fight as well. When Prathamesh finally came home in mid-September
after graduating from NCSU during the summer, I initially didn’t have a good
impression of us getting along as easily as we eventually did (sorry bro, I
know you’re reading this, but it wasn’t me, it was you! No JK! :p), but as I
got to know him better, we became really close, especially given that our lines
of work almost aligned in our respective Graphics Teams. I started being
involved in a community of new friends and opening up to them as I slowly
expanded from being the timid, shy individual sitting on the single desk tables
by the side of the café during lunch, to being a part of a round-table
conversation, and it was Prathamesh who brought me into the fold and gave me
that small push to join the group – that was how I met Savni, her roommate
Darshna, Rachita and her roommate Shikha. He may have not known about it, but
it helped me a lot! So, thank you Prathamesh!
Nobody wants to battle loneliness, anxiety and depression at the
same time, and so, in case you find yourself in any of these tough situations,
seek help and call out to your friends and inner circle that you’re not doing
fine and practice more self-love – that was something I wish I had done more
often. As a survivor of depression, anxiety and tension, I want you to know
that depression can surely drain your energy and leave you feeling empty and
fatigued. If you need to wallow, wallow but do so constructively as suppressing
your feelings and emotions is ultimately unhealthy – you could consider writing
or journaling what you’re experiencing too as it sometimes diagnoses the cause
of such a feeling. You cannot allow today’s mood and thoughts to belong to
tomorrow and you need to accept that while some days will be difficult, some
days will also be great and having that positive outlook for a fresh start
tomorrow is key. Assess the parts of yourself instead of generalizing the whole
– instead of thinking about the one thing that went wrong, push yourself to think about the many things that went
right. Do the opposite of what the negative irrational voice in your head tells
you to do and use logic as your weapon, while addressing each thought
individually as it occurs. Set realistic and attainable goals while
rewarding your efforts once you achieve something noteworthy – recognizing your
own successes is a very powerful weapon that only few possess. Creating a
routine helps you feel in control of what you’re doing and ensure that you do
something that you enjoy – it could be anything that relaxes your mind – even speaking
to your loved ones counts. You could even break your barriers and try something
new entirely as you challenge your neurons and alter your brain chemistry – volunteering
for a cause or an organization is a great way to make new friends as well as
beat depression as it gives you a purpose. Meditation is a great way to help
ground your thoughts that helps you improve your sense of well-being and feel
more self-aware and connected to things happening around you. If nothing else
works, consider clinical treatment – talking to a professional about what you’re
going through is not wrong or taboo, after all, the profession exists because
there are a lot of people like yourself going through the exact same feelings. By
the way, if you’ve made it this far into the blog, know that you can always message
me if you need any sort of therapy from my end and thank you for making it this
far, it means the world to me.
Another thing that kept me away from all the anxiousness, panic and depression were my travel expeditions and experiences I shared and garnered with the Intel Geek Skwaad – the eternal trifecta of Intel employees from Eau Claire, Chandler and Folsom. What’s so funny about our 2017 expeditions was that all of us had been to each other’s ooru some time or the other - whether we meant for it to happen or not, the Universe made sure that it somehow happened, and the stars aligned. For the Labor Day weekend of 2017, we had all travelled to the dairy capital of the US – to Milana’s winter wonderland town of Eau Claire, tucked away in the middle of Wisconsin. I was truly humbled and grounded about how down-to-earth and sweet (much like Milana) the people of Wisconsin were because I had only ever lived and traveled on the west coast throughout those 2 years until then. It was the perfect setting for Milana to thrive in – being away from the hustles and bustles of the competitive Bay Area crowd and surviving independently in her 1 BHK apartment away from her friends helped her get to know her local community better. When she had driven all the way from Eau Claire to Minneapolis just to pick Seema and me up from the airport, it spoke volumes of our everlasting respect for each other. Since Milana couldn’t make it for my 24th birthday to Folsom, we had a small birthday celebration after we reached her apartment and as a birthday surprise, she revealed her Tamil name to us all (and no, I swore to secrecy that I wouldn’t tell anyone!) – I had never had a cobbler in my life before and it was a pleasant surprise. The next day, after we shopped at the local farmer’s market right outside her apartment complex, we embarked on a 5-and-a-half-hour road trip to the Windy City as we first stopped at Madison for some scrumptious Indian food and then proceeded on. The best thing about Chicago was the night life and the deep-dish pizzas as we went up the Chicago360 to capture the brilliant nightscape of Downtown as well as Lake Michigan, and while we were up on I don’t know what floor, we watched the Fireworks show at Navy Pier from one of the best seats in the house. We then did the Chicago tilt, a box that tilted to an angle of 18 degrees as I faced my fear of high-rises and conquered my Vertigo issues. Before calling it a night, we went to the Sugar Factory, and danced at a couple of night pubs while munching on some fries. The next day, we had a healthy and nutritious breakfast at the Medici before exploring the city of Chicago during the day – we parked Milana’s car at the parking structure and walked around Millennium Park as we were awestruck by the grandeur of the Bean, and early signs of Fall colors at the South Garden and the South President Court – we then caught an Uber to Navy Pier and the Addam’s Jane Memorial Park, where we had a splendid view of the Chicago Riverfront and DTC in it’s grandeur as though we were in the middle of Lake Michigan. We waited patiently (with a wait time of almost an hour) on the Navy Pier for our tables at Giordano’s and when the deep-dish pizza finally came, we knew that our experience at Chicago was complete. Before we headed back to Eau Claire, we ordered yet another deep-dish pizza to-go from Lou Malnati as we picked it up on the way and left back. Milana and I shared the drive and I had taught her a few tricks on how to drive in the night in case she was all alone and if some moose came by on the freeway. The next day, we took things slow, enjoyed an ice-cream at Chippewa Falls and planned to go kayaking on Lake Superior’s Apostle Islands National Seashore, but in the end, as a result of heavy rainfall in the area, our plans got cancelled and we just took the ferry to Madeleine Island and explored the island in our car – and that was why I loved hanging out with them, the ability to adapt to a new plan and enjoy the experience when all of us were together. As we headed back to Eau Claire in the night, we finally tried out the most famous cheese curds (it melted in your mouth) of Wisconsin to complete mid-west experience! Before I flew back, we explored the Mil(l) City of Minneapolis and walked over the Stone Arch Bridge as I enjoyed my Mexican food at La-Loma Tamales, a fitting end to our Labor Day weekend.
And our time together did not end there – the following week was our friend Surabhi’s birthday and we had all planned to surprise her – Seema had flown in from Phoenix to SFO and went straight to Surabhi’s sister Sindhu’s house in South San Jose and while I drove from Folsom to the Bay, I picked up Milana from SFO airport. At around about midnight, we reached Surabhi’s apartment and rang her apartment bell one by one – Seema first went in, followed by me and then Milana and we had a grand party – she was so inspired by Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, that her cake was based on WW – he partied late in to the night listening to each other’s stories, watching some random YouTube videos and dancing to the Music Billboard’s latest hits. The next day, we visited Sindhu’s house as we had a scrumptious birthday feast and, in the evening, we visited the Shoreline Lake Park and drove around in bicycles around the Google campus. Before the night was about to end, we had a birthday celebration dinner at Inchin Bamboo’s Garden very close to North Park, as we Namitha joined us for the celebration and we followed it up with a karaoke night by singing at the karaoke bar for a couple of songs – the Summer of 69 by Brian Adams and That’s What I Like by Bruno Mars. As the night wrapped up, we danced to the tunes of some Bollywood music at a local disco in Downtown San Jose, as we all celebrated our friendship and our oneness to be there for each other no matter what. The next day, we all had a wonderful breakfast at Saravana Bhavan, before heading to SFO and walking on the Golden Gate Bridge. We also went on the crooked Lombard Street, before we dropped Milana at the airport and headed to the San Jose Rose Gardens, as walked around the place, thinking about all the wonderful things we had going on in our lives. I dropped Seema at the airport before heading back to Folsom. And no, that was not our last meet up that month – before we met again at the end of the month to celebrate Seema’s birthday in Phoenix, I had been on a solo trip to South Lake Tahoe as I welcomed the first snow of the season. I had already told Seema that I was coming to Phoenix that night and that we could go to Antelope Canyon and Horseshoe Bend the next day, but even though Milana wanted her showing up to be a surprise, Seema figured out that Milana would be joining us too. The Geek Skwaad reunited yet again as we made a quick stop at Tempe before heading to Seema’s apartment at Chandler and joining Deepthi, her roommate and Prakaram, her then close friend, for a night of dancing at her apartment. We all shared the drive the next day knowing fully well the heavily occupied day that we had planned and as the day wound down, we were both mesmerized by the speech that Seema gave as part of her 24th at one of the restaurants in Flagstaff and how we could build upon those same principles in our lives too – she talked about how to seize every opportunity at every obstacle you faced, how the universe conspires to just make things happen and the importance of surrounding ourselves with people who not only accept our crazy personality but also enhance it. She also said how doing things alone can be intimidating, but also strangely empowering and to not expect anything from anyone, to believe in karma and to keep your dear ones close. I have a video of her speech too (as part of Seema’s World!) and it’ll continue to be a very near and dear message to the both of us as I now re-watched it, all the while typing everything up on how she inspired the both of us to just be the best versions of ourselves in the end.
The next day, we went to Prakaram’s own house as he systematically went through the things he needed to do before buying the house and how it was important to invest in a house to build your future in the US. We then went for a Golf session at Top Golf in Tempe before dropping Milana at the airport. Seema and I then went to Papago Park and hiked to the top of the Hole in the Rock and viewed airplane landings from there. We then hit the streets of Tempe and climbed up A-Mountain as we appreciated the sunset and the airplane landing strip from the top of the mountain before she dropped me off at Phoenix International. We all met again a fortnight later in LA to celebrate Romil’s birthday and to celebrate AIS Diwali as alumni of the institute as Seema hosted the show yet again. For the Thanksgiving Weekend, we had all decided to go to the Pacific North West and ever since that trip, my relationship with Milana and Seema grew even stronger – whatever happened during the trip will remain close to us, but let’s just say that it wasn’t the most pleasant trips that we have all been on. There are some trips that will always have a top billing due to the memories and experiences you have gathered, but there are some that you would want to forget, and this was one such trip for me. A lot of the folks had planned to complete their Black Friday shopping at the Seattle Premium Outlets in Tulalip since they were heading back to India over the winter break and even though I joined them in their shopping spree, I stayed put hoping to save on my expenses since I had everything I ever wanted. We had visited all the usual tourist spots split across two days – the Gas Works Park, Fremont Troll, Pike’s Place Market, the First Starbucks Store, Gum Wall, the Waterfront, Pioneer Square and the Underground Tour while experiencing views of Downtown Seattle and the Pacific from the top of Space Needle. We also experienced snowfall at the top of Mount Rainier near the Henry Jackson Visitor Center at Paradise before heading back down. I had a severe case of vomiting that night as I struggled to keep myself awake having had some food poisoning and I swore to never again have Kashmiri/ Peshawari fried rice in my life again! I was fine the next morning and after having had a good night’s sleep, we visited the Snoqualmie Falls, Lake Sammamish and Kerry Park before completing the trip and heading back home. For the December holidays, the three of us along with Surabhi had a nice little reunion again in Southern California hoping to still recover from our previous Thanksgiving Weekend trip as we all travelled together along PCH, met our families and friends at various corners of California, and visited multiple tourist spots throughout the Golden State. Both Milana and Surabhi had finally come to Folsom and had stayed over at my place, while Seema stayed over at her childhood friend Sruti’s house in El Dorado Hills before we went to SLT the next day and back to the Bay a day later, as we finally bid goodbye to 2017, hoping that the new year would bring us good fortunes and keep the glue of our friendship even stronger.
2018 was probably the most lull year of my entire life and if you’ve
seen my Instagram posts, you’ll know what I am talking about! But in a way, it
was not as bad as I had thought it was, as I understood the meaning of taking
it easy at work and building a strong relationship with my colleagues, my boss
and my manager. That year, I had focused completely on my professional and
career development goals, hoping to make a name for myself and shine in my team
by finally contributing significantly to the products that we were supposed to
deliver. My mentors, my micro-architect as well as my team members gave me the
right opportunities that I wanted to do – the validation of a completely new architecture
of the pixel shader scheduler as they also gave me the time and space to learn
and grow through an undergraduate course on the introduction to computer
graphics by UC Davis professor, Ken Joy. They gave me the confidence to grow as
an individual as well as be involved in the design and decision-making process.
As the year went by, I could feel the difference I was making in the team when
compared to the previous as I had been entrusted with multiple responsibilities.
I had soon become an irreplaceable asset, which is one of the most important things
to have the luxury of at Intel, especially when people get reassigned to
different tasks, working on multiple front-end and back-end related enhancements
and optimizations as I could finally understand the microarchitecture at the
granular level. It was the year when Liverpool finally made a mark and reached
the Champions League Final but lost painfully to Real Madrid. It was the year
of the FIFA World Cup played in Russia, when France finally won the title after
20 long years! It was the year when both Ronaldo and Messi were knocked off
their perch by a hard-working Croatian maestro. It was the year when Intel
turned 50 as we celebrated the Golden Jubilee across all our offices spectacularly.
It was the year where I understood the true meaning of being in love with myself
and when I started to think about me more. It was the year when I learnt to
draw boundaries between work and personal life. It was the year where I just
put my head down and focused on achieving my micro-professional goals. When I
turned 25 and had a quarter-life crisis at an ice-cream parlor in Sacramento
(Leatherbys), with my parents calling me up at midnight to wish me, and my best
friends by my side both in person and virtually calling me up from Wisconsin,
how else can you dream your birthday to be? In the moment, I could tell what
all felt important at the time and how grateful I was to have such a great
group of friends who understood that the little things in my life mattered, without
even me telling them about it. I could sense the difference in my personality
and the shift in priorities when compared to my previous birthday, as I felt more
closer to those I surrounded myself with.
Amidst the chaos within, I even found the balance. The balance was about making time for the people I cared about because only those that extremely cared for you would make the time for you as well. If someone didn’t think you mattered in their life, they wouldn’t make the effort to visit you and be physically by your side no matter how far they are from you. Even though I was physically distant and didn’t travel around as much as I would have liked in 2018 (except for that one-day solo to Crater Lake!), I was still well-connected with my two best buds at the time, often enquiring on how they were doing and how they were dealing with life’s misgivings. It was Seema’s birthday weekend and the Friday we both arrived was a combined bachelor-bachelorette party for her roommate Deepti and her now fiancée Prakaram as we partook in the festivities since we knew them and the things they had gone through as a couple to get to where they had that year. Despite all the things that were going on, we even made time to go to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon as Milana had wanted to go there ever since she had seen April and Andy make that impromptu trip on P&R – no thinking, just being stupid – too bad we couldn’t show her the mountain with the faces of the President on them (only hardcore P&R fans will get the joke!). Also, how many people in the world can tell that they cut their birthday cake sitting on a cliff with the Grand Canyon in the background while making so many lip-sync videos and dancing to ratchet songs? Hopefully not many, else Seema will kill me, lol! For the holidays, I took the entire 11 days from Christmas Eve to New Year off, as I had been told by my lead to just take a chill pill for all the work I had put in – usually 14-16 hour workdays to get that first promotion under my belt and Seema had invited me over to her place in Phoenix to celebrate Christmas with her (till now, we have always celebrated Christmas for the past 4 years!) and to sign off the year on a high. Both Nilanjan and Rashika Madan had joined me in the long road-trip expedition from Folsom to Phoenix as we left Folsom at around 1.30pm and eventually reaching Phoenix 14 hours later at 3.30am in the night. It was the season to just celebrate our accomplishments that year and I felt the need to treat them at the Four Peaks Brewing Company for just being there for me through the tough times I had faced that year when isolating myself from the rest of the world! Just visiting a zoo and the Desert Botanical Garden after such a long time in Phoenix was humbling and grounding because the company made the experience worthwhile! That Secret Santa party, attending the Christmas Mass and driving those birds on the streets of Tempe on Christmas Eve, kept all our spirits high as we wished each other a very merry Christmas and hoped for the best!
I’ve not spoken about this to anyone before but I think now is a
good time – on February 11th 2019, I got a call suddenly from my mom that my
father had been taken to the hospital and while she was attending and listening
to the doctors frantically, my school principal, Ms. Hemaa Narayan spoke to me
with a calm voice and said that my father had had a heart attack while he was
on his morning walk at the park right opposite school and that he had undergone
a quick stent insertion procedure into the blocked coronary artery at Apollo
Hospitals. While she was delivering the news, I just froze as I didn’t know how
to react as she kept giving me more confidence on being strong in the situation
and being there for my family. All my friends were at home and I wanted to
scream at the top of my voice, but I couldn’t. All I did was pray and be
thankful to God that my father was self-aware of the blockage he was having in
his morning walk and immediately called up my mom when he was feeling a little
uneasy. You know, being the only kid to my parents, who is like 10000 miles away
from them, I really did feel very helpless and knew that I couldn’t do anything
but trust the process and the medical procedures already in place. I had
absolutely no one by my side in case things took a bad turn and most of them didn’t
even know about the situation until I said it out aloud now. I am glad that I had
some of my family members immediately arriving on scene and helping him and my
mother out, through all the extraneous work like sorting out the medical
insurances and other costs involved. Once I finally Facetimed him, I breathed a
sigh of relief. The attack has had a drastic impact on all our lives including
me – people have always asked me the reason why I now never have a pizza or
abstain from having alcohol. Well, you now have your answer – it is to honor my
dad after all the things he had gone through and the fact that it ran in the
family. There were major lifestyle changes too as my father drastically reduced
his long walk hours to minutes, as he consumed his medications (which thinned
his blood vessels) in time and reduced the intake of salt. I too became extremely
conscious of what I consumed for food and had a rude self-awakening moment with
a perspective on the things that mattered to me and how important it was to
speak my mind of to someone about my feelings and emotions – often to myself. That
life was too short to keep things the way they were and that I needed to
accomplish something more than just lame day tasks at work. That in the end,
everyone dies and between now and then, in what way I could make my mark. Every
time I relive this incident inside my head, I get reminded of the Oscar
acceptance speech that J.K. Simmons gave when he won the best supporting actor
for Whiplash and it goes something like – “if I may, call your mom. I’ve told
this to like a billion people or so, call your mom, call your dad. If you’re
lucky enough to have a parent or two alive on this planet, call them. Don’t
text. Don’t email. Call them on the phone. Tell them you love them and thank them,
listen to them for as long as they want to talk to you” and it pierced me
through the heart like as if I had the heart-ache. Even to this day, some of my
colleagues at work address me as Aravind and I am never even bothered by it
because I like it that they call me by my father’s name – I am his legacy! After
all, whatever I achieve during my lifetime is his legacy too! And my mother’s!
And Fluffy’s! As a family we have always been of the notion that we all have an
equal share in each other’s successes and that is the basic and core family
value that I’ll take with me until I die – that it is never an individual’s
achievement, that there is always a team behind anyone’s rise up to the summit
because it is that team (your family!) that prevents you from sinking down into
the ocean once you rise up.
After my father got the clearance from his doctor to fly to Folsom
from India (they had already planned to come even before the heart attack incident),
I couldn’t be more thrilled that I would be meeting my parents once again in the
city I loved living in after nearly 2 years. That year was my last attempt for
a H1B visa through the company and my back-up plan was to return to my hood,
Bangalore and work from there while being together with my parents and my family.
Folsom has indeed always been my happy place – with multiple trails nearby, and
everything that we ever needed less than 15 minutes away, the best education system
in California, with one of the best semi-conductor companies in its vicinity –
and I could see why my parents liked living in a city like Folsom against
living somewhere in New York (where we ended up going at this time!) or San
Francisco. More so, it was the people who made it habitable - the people at work,
the people in my social circle and the people working in supporting roles in
other organizations. Just being in the presence of people at birthday parties
and living through those moments meant something – now you may argue that that is
true with any place and that you will always favor the place wherever your
friends are, and I’m not going to disagree with your notion. But the homely
atmosphere that the place creates along with the idea that this area was a good
place to retire and settle down is what makes this place better to live in.
2019 was definitely the year of traveling around the US as I visited multiple places
in Southern California – most notably Santa Barbara and Solvang which I don’t
have good memories of, a solo to New England, a family trip with my parents to
Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks as well as the East Coast covering the
Niagara Falls, DC, Philadelphia and NYC, and the Labor Day Weekend trip to
Alaska to experience my favorite national park of all time, Denali and the Northern
Lights. Being thoroughly involved in the planning process for all these trips
as well as multiple birthdays – starting with Komal’s and Savni’s birthdays in
2019 and ending with Prathamesh’s and Bhargavi’s – kept me distracted and
occupied from the hustles and bustles of daily life as a lot of my friends – Vishnu,
Rachita, Darshna, Komal – in Folsom left for better career opportunities and
new ones entered the inner circle – Milana (yeah, she moved to Folsom from Eau
Claire), Renu, Ishaa, Meghana, Lijitha and Ruchira. Having said that, I think I
was able to do all this just because I was glad that my H1B visa got picked up
in my final attempt, giving me renewed faith and confidence in myself and the
universe – after that point, I realized that everything happened for a reason, as
I continued to believe in the power of manifestation. After the attack on my father, I felt the need
to detach myself from my friends including my best friends since I didn’t want
them to feel burdened by my pain and to ensure that they looked after their best
interests in mind, while I looked after mine. That’s how some friendships got strained,
and some others grew closer. I went on multiple solo trips as a result, because
that was when I really felt like myself – I could experience the world on my own
terms with no one around me and appreciate my love for nature and myself
without anyone influencing my decisions. As I completed my solo to the Livermore
temple on my 26th birthday (after a failed attempt to go solo to Crater Lake), I
had also remembered my birthday that year for other reasons – my yesteryear
friends from USC had come to town to visit South Lake Tahoe – I had met Sreekar
and Rajesh after a really long time (~2 years later) and while heading back
home to the Bay from SLT, they made it a point to stop over at my place to
finally celebrate my birthday on the right day (you finally nailed the day
guys!), even though it meant that they would reach home at around 1am. That
meant a lot, especially for the efforts that everyone put in to just drop by and
partake in the celebrations.
Image Credits: Nilanjan Guha, The Indian Germ Illustrations
Let’s just say 2019 had a lot going on especially after my birthday as after 4 long years in the US, I had finally planned to visit India some time at the start of January for about a month’s time, during the “off” season away from all the clamor of professional working conditions. While preparing to go to India, I challenged myself to wake up every weekend and make my life more interesting and actionable during the Fall season by indulging in many solo and group trips to nearby places. I guess those starry, chilly and aurora-rich nights at the Olnes Pond Campground in Fairbanks really awakened the traveling spirit in me – after that Labor Day Weekend, I just didn’t care who all joined me in my expeditions but I was determined to commit to the task and complete my goals, while making sure that I planned and visited TJ’s frequently every Friday to pre-heat food for all those outings. From September 27th to November 30th, I indulged in a continuous 10-weekend streak ending at the Thanksgiving Weekend, by heading outdoors and try to be more connected to nature and friends while appreciating the finer things in life – I realized that was my escape from all the chaos. For the first weekend, it was Seema’s birthday weekend as the IGS reunited yet again to visit the V. Sattui Vineyards in St. Helena along with the O.G. gang. The weekend after, I had travelled to the Bay early on Saturday morning to visit my niece Aarna, check out my sister Ramya’s own house for the Navratri Golu and catch up with my friend Surabhi. The third weekend was my first outing with two of the best hobby photographers I knew – Nilanjan and Ishaa – a fall retreat to Hope Valley and Zephyr’s Cove to check out the sunrise and the amazing fall colors that the place had to offer. The next weekend, five of us – Prathamesh, Ishaa, Jay, Milana and I – had left early in the morning to Lassen Volcanic National Park to complete a couple of hikes around Lake Manzanita and Paradise Meadows, fully aware that the roads in the park were slippery from the snow that had fallen the previous night – it was my first ever trip with Prathamesh to any place ever. Another weekend came as I woke up and witnessed the sun rise on the Johnny Cash Trail while at Folsom Lake and Dam. The weekend after, I had travelled to Donner Lake – both the viewpoint as well as the lake – with Milana and Renu, as we continued to Yuba City’s Sikh Gurudwara to join Nidhi, Shikha and Rajath for the annual Sikh Nagar Kirtan. The 7th weekend comprised of my trip to Mammoth Lakes with Ishaa, newcomer Pujika and my roommate Anand – it was my first ever trip with Anand. The next weekend, I took it slow and went solo to Apple Hill – to Delfino Farms and Boa Vista Orchards as I snapped the early morning sun rays through the green apple orchards. I had joined Nilanjan, Shreyaa and their friend from the Bay, Ashish on a 10.8-mile round-trip hike to the summit of Mt. Tallac – one of the most difficult and strenuous hikes that I’ve gone on to date, as I was severely underprepared in terms of my outfit, my shoes and the amount of water that I carried – it was the experience of a lifetime to soak in views of the blue lake from the top of the highest mountain in the region. And for the finale, I had traveled to Portland, Oregon with my roommates (that was my first trip ever with all my roommates!), Nilanjan and Ruchira as we joined the entire USC kaandhan for the Thanksgiving Weekend, hoping to snap some great deals, buy stuff for some folks in India and treating myself to a mirrorless camera as I joined the Sony Alpha family. After we were back in Sacramento, I attended the Chainsmokers concert at the Golden 1 Center (which was my first concert experience in the US) as I rounded off the 10-weekend challenge of constantly being on my toes. It made me realize that having a deadline and setting a goal is extremely important to me as it keeps me driven to achieving it – once I achieve it, I don’t get that sense and the end-game feeling of having something accomplished that I had to committed to, but it keeps me motivated to somehow get there. Even writing this blog/ autobiography kept me challenged and motivated as well, as I set a hard deadline of December 12th to get it released, and even though I am still typing all this up at 5.10pm the evening before the deadline, I wouldn’t have made it possible to finally call it done, had I not actually set a hard deadline.
The holiday season was upon us and it was time to celebrate. And boy oh boy, we had so many parties during that season, in addition to the birthdays that we celebrated. Almost everyday seemed to have some variant of a party as all our spirits lifted from December 18th to New Year’s Day. We celebrated the joys, the mysteries, the sorrows, the pains, the anguishes, but most of all, the togetherness that we would be there for each other some way or the other in our times of need as well as times of celebration. We danced our way into the new decade, hoping that it would present us with the most important of years in our lives as we would have needed to step up our games and become more responsible adults. Once we attended Nidhi’s bachelorette party at the start of the year in Napa Valley, it was time for the Homecoming – after 4 years 5 months & 12 days of leaving the motherland, I had my first international trip – a trip back to the place of my origin. The golden boy as my parents referred me had finally arrived (drum rolls). Going back home in that flight, was such a fulfilling and completing a full-circle moment for me as I actually did literally complete a trip around the world – first leaving Bangalore to Los Angeles via Dubai and then heading back to Bangalore from SFO via Hong Kong. When I had that first real taste of Idli, Vada, Masala Dosa and my first sip of Filter Coffee from Thaaza Thindi and Brahmin’s after those 4 years, all those 8 years of being away from home had some meaning. Once I reached Bangalore, I had to take care of a few administrative offices in some of the Government offices, and also create multiple joint accounts with my parents, for further proofs of documentation for an Indian citizen living abroad, so that when my parents changed their home in the future, I could change my permanent address in India to reflect those changes too. We then went to Chennai for my H1B visa interview and to catch up with some of my cousins, relatives and friends (and their parents too!) as we went to the Marina Beach one of the evenings hoping to catch the sun set in the direction opposite to the beach. Once I cleared the visa interview, we went to our holy pilgrimage temple, Tirupathi and Tirumala, where I had an F2F with Mr. Venky, hoping that the new beginnings to the year on a stamped H1B all worked out in terms of good health, prosperity and success. Once we were back in Bangalore, we visited multiple restaurants in the city while relishing the local cuisine and after nearly 4.5 years, I went and met the love of my life at her grave as I shared my experiences and stories with her in thought, hoping that she was proud of the man I was becoming and that I was continuing to live my life happily, the way I dictated it. And I’m sure and convinced that she heard me too! We then went to Pune to visit my cousin Nandhini (and Srinidhi) who had returned to India on the expiry of her husband Subhash’s visa in the US and had a wonderful time interacting with them all. We all then took an Ola to Shirdi, our go-to place to get all our prayers answered as we meditated, and met His Holiness, Shri Sai Baba and his samadhi, first offering our gratitude for giving us the life that we wanted and then, asking him to take care of my parents while I wasn’t close to them. We then visited Shani Shingnapur, a place that we have always visited whenever we went to Shirdi as we acknowledged the presence of Shani in our lives and ensured that we could thrive despite anything negative thrown at us. As the days were counting down for my departure back to Folsom, I went to many grocery shops and departmental stores for some essential shopping and met a few of my relatives and close friends in Bangalore, before catching the flight back. And mind you, it was a testing time – the novel Coronavirus Disease had just blocked air travel within China and with my return being uncertain, all I could pray was to some how make that trip back to SFO via Hong Kong without any travel restrictions being enforced. Mid-February, as I made my way back to SFO with my N-95 mask, I could notice the emptiness in the streets of both HKG and SFO as the disease had soon become a global pandemic!
You know, 2020 probably was the right time for nature to fight
back and bring calmness into our lives and teach us our manners and question the
abstract notion of entitlement and privilege. COVID-19 as it soon came to be
known as, became the talk of the town, as I lived in self-quarantine for the first
two weeks after being back from India via Hong Kong, often listening to Andrew
Cuomo and his press conferences, as he managed the dire situation in the state
of New York. As soon as I arrived in the city, to keep myself busy, I made it a
routine to get out into the open and jog everyday along the Humbug Willow Creek
Trail, as I facetimed my parents, talked to them and showed them all the beautiful
sights that I encountered. And I don’t know about you – I think I’ve thrived
until now in 2020 and in Folsom. As the number of COVID cases (both affected
and those who passed away) increased world-wide, we slowly had stay at home
orders being enforced, as we shifted our work environment to the comfort of our
homes because the nature of our jobs afforded us to. Think of all the lives
that the lockdown impacted and how the economy went into turmoil. Think about the
front-line workers risking their lives to ensure the containment of the
disease. Think about all those mid-class and below poverty line families who
are now starving of hunger due to their unemployment. None of us in our
generation have really understood what it was like to be in a war, and this was
war – a bio-war between the survival of our species and the enemy that wasn’t
even visible to the naked eye. And if there was ever a time the world – and I mean,
the world – needed you, now was it – for you to fight through it all, you had
to stay at home and maintain very minimal contact with others. Let me assure
barring 20-25 people whom I know personally well, I’ve had a distant
relationship with the rest of the folks anyway and I realized that 2020 was the
year introverts triumphed. 2020 has given us all enough life lessons to learn
from – it was the year to effectively stop and take a backseat – your routine
life continued to happen, but everything surrounding you slowed down – it was
Mother Earth’s revenge and the Universe’s way to let us know that we had to
slow down. Now more than ever, I’m thankful to all those Dark Knights who saved
my life during this season. The experience of living through 2020 was all about
being grounded, taking in and appreciating certain moments and being grateful to
those select group of friends who helped you grow as an individual. Writing has
played a huge part in my life and personal growth and when I log into my inner being
as I have over many years, the downloads I got were just incredible. Unconsciously,
what you may see in this autobiography is probably just a part of brain just
wading on and on about my unconscious mind as I tapped into my divine inner
wisdom and brought it all out into the open. 2020 also made me think about the
mistakes from my past as I invested more in my personal growth – something that
enriched my life and traveling solo and with a known small group was one of
them. I had traveled to a bunch of National Parks this summer as I welcomed fall
and maybe even the first sights of winter at Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand
Teton National Parks. If you needed others to invest in you, you first must
invest in yourself and you’ll need to practice gratitude. Say thank you and
mean it. Like really mean it – the phrase has become such a common lingo in our
day-to-day lives that we’ve suddenly lost the meaning behind the two most
important words to feel good about yourself. I’ve always considered myself
to be a nice person but over the years, I feel like I’ve allowed myself to be
taken for granted and then, I’ve felt some sort of deep resentment for it that it portrays me to be cold-hearted and guile. 2020
made me realize that it was okay for you to say NO to people in case you’re not
interested in their line of thought, as I established clear and strong boundaries
on things I wanted to do. The best thing about 2020 is about expecting the
unexpected – that is the understatement of the year isn’t it?! – and that some
rules are not meant to be broken.
As the past two months have shown me with my fellow members at the Hobby Launchers Club, I’ve had the opportunity to cross my barriers and explore a side of my personality that I didn’t even know had existed. If you are aware of the MBTI personality test (I took this test only in 2020), you’d have figured out by now that I am an INFJ – an Advocate, a Counselor and a Protector. INFJs are known to be gentle, caring, complex and highly intuitive while being artistic and creative, living in our world of hidden meanings and possibilities. It is the rarest of all types of personalities across the world and I’m glad I belong to that rare breed who is not only different, but someone who embraces it and believes in what’s right. I place a great importance on having things done in an orderly and systematic way and I put in a lot of energy into identifying the best system to get things done, and constant define and redefine my life priorities. I also operate on an intuitive basis which is entirely spontaneous – I just know things without being able to pinpoint why and without detailed knowledge of the subject at hand – I usually know when I’m right about certain things and as a result, I put in a tremendous amount of faith into my instincts and intuitions. Like other INFJs, I do have an uncanny insight into people and situations while I am protective of my inner-self and those around me – only sharing what I am supposed to share, often being quite private and typically difficult to understand as I hold a part of myself from others. I am genuinely warm as I am complex and I know I hold a special place in the heart of the people that I am close to, who can see my special gifts and depth of caring. I am highly concerned for people’s feelings and try to be gentle to avoid hurting anyone in the process as I tend to be very sensitive to conflict and may not tolerate it very well. Situations which are charged with conflict sometimes drives my peaceful nature into a state of agitation or charged anger as I internalize conflict and experience health problems when under a lot of stress. As a result of my strong intuitive abilities, I trust my own instincts above everything else – it does portray me to be stubborn who has a tendency to ignore other people’s opinions, but in the I do listen to and respect everyone’s point of views on the subject. I believe that I am a perfectionist, who always doubts if I am living up to my full potential and if I can make myself better in some way – I am rarely at peace with myself as I believe in constant growth, and never take time to revel in my accomplishments. I understand that I a strong system of values and need to live my life in accordance with what I feel is right for me. In deference to the Feeling aspect of my personality, I do think that I am gentle and easy going on the people around me, while setting incredibly high expectations on myself and never compromising on my ideals. INFJs are natural nurturers – patient, devoted and protective – and in the workplace are known to show up in areas where they can be creative and independent – they have a natural affinity for the sciences (since it makes use of their intuition) and can also be found in service-oriented professions. I quickly jotted these 10 rules (cliched with the number 10, right?!) to live by to achieve INFJ success – to feed off my strengths and do things that allow my brilliant intuition and service-oriented manner to flourish; to face my weaknesses and overcome them, especially when striving to use my judgement against my internal ideas and intuitions rather than as a means to disregarding other people’s ideas; to talk through my thoughts and put them into perspective and taking advantage of discussing some pressing issues with others; to take in everything and not dismiss ideas prematurely; to understand that when I get angry, I lose, and even though my passion and intensity are strong assets they can get harmful if I fell into the “Anger Trap”; to keep an eye on the big picture and to watch out for my obsession to detail; to be accountable to myself and not blame my life problems on other people while looking inwardly for solutions; to be humble and judge myself sometimes more harshly than I judge others; to assume and expect the best from any given situation and not dwell on the dark side of things; and finally, to relax and learn how to effectively unwind while engaging in relaxing activities, taking care of myself and sometimes, just letting things go.
**************************************************************
As I now hit the 5 figure mark, I can’t help but wonder all the moments that have brought me here – like everyone else, I’ve lived through joy, excitement, despair, pain, hate, love, gratitude, anxiety, loneliness and despair. As I got older and wiser, I realized the role I played in the society and how the world would be if I didn’t exist. Have you all ever wondered what kind of world your immediate social circle would be having if you weren’t a part of their lives? I also got to realize that my social circle reduces drastically as I move from being an innocent kid to a financially and mentally stable adult and that I should be okay with the circumstances surrounding me because I only had control over my actions and not anyone else’s. Yes, you will feel lonely, you will feel anxious, you will be desperate for help, you will need someone in your life you can vent your frustrations out to, but in the end, you will need to understand that you have yourself – to be in the right frame of mind, your relationship with yourself is of the utmost importance. It’s a scary world out there and if you have thrived till now, you will be able to thrive in the future too. You’ll experience the same set of emotional distress again, maybe multiple times, under different circumstances, but the fact of the matter is that you live, grow and adapt. Arjun, what I want to see you accomplish in the next 10000 days is to at least live half the kind of life that your parents have, to constantly push yourself to your limits, to make the right calls and decisions as you deem fit and live through the consequences of your actions. What I also want you to do is to help your parents through their old age and be there for them as they’ve been there for you throughout your life, make a name for yourself in the industry and be a socially responsible human being. Show the best versions of yourself and improve upon your worst demons and you’ll be fine! I hope that someday, when you read this autobiography again, you get the courage to deal with life’s problems, to face them head on and give it your best like you’ve always done!
So, that's me! A part of my life unfiltered through the past 9999
days (was it a bit too much?!)! I had so much fun blogging through all my
memories as I revisited them through my writing and how I now relate to these
major throwbacks! As I enter the elite 5 digit club today, I would like to
believe that I will continue to cling on to and appreciate these memories and
experiences - safely preserved and locked in the back of my head - while truly
acknowledging the role I play in my life and the lives of my immediate family,
and how I could use many such life lessons for the future as I hope to build
upon my life through the shared experience. I still think that I am the same
old guy as before when I was 5, living by the same moral codes and values that
I garnered as I was brought up by my parents - to be grateful to be alive every
day, to be kind and generous to everyone especially to those in need, to be
happy and healthy, to collect and continuously learn from experiences, to think
intuitively and for myself while appreciating other's POV, to be humble and to
let actions do the talking, to put in my best efforts for an established goal,
and most importantly, to leave a mark on someone's life! Because, in the end,
you will only be remembered by those that you leave your mark on, for at some
stage through history, your story is bound to be lost. That's why I wanted the
first 1/3rd of my story to be documented somewhere - and this was the right
platform and time for it! You Only Live Once is the old thought process - it's
not just about living. I say - Create and leave a legacy that you're proud of
when your time comes! Not all heroes need to wear capes and every story needs
an epic ending - that's how legends are usually born. So, here's a constant reminder
to you Arjun - to keep your head down, to continue to keep pushing your
boundaries, to be comfortable in your own skin and ultimately, to give it your
best! Only you know best what happens when you give it your all! No one wants to
be a villain in their own story, but if the world needs you to be a villain,
stick to your core beliefs and abide by them - your lavender Lacoste T-shirt is
a constant reminder of all things that you can carried forward from the past.
If the world still believes that you're the villain, you can take it - because
you're not just a hero nor an ordinary man - you are The Dark Knight
Archer!
Comments
Post a Comment