Farewell

Timid and stammering speech, wasn’t it? Something so normal, wasn’t it? Well, it takes a lot of guts to speak the truth, stark and naked reality. It takes some time to realise the effect of the happening present. That’s why we have reminiscences and regrets, about the past. Remember the day you proposed, or received a proposal? That feeling of love? That’s what I exactly felt. I was expressing my love in the most simple words I could.

It has been a wonderful journey with all you people, and maybe, a surprise farewell speech couldn’t suffice it. Maybe, a few more things to be said. The day I had joined Meccademia, I had no idea about what I was getting into. I had no idea of how deep impressions I could make, or how significant I’m going to be. I never knew the feel of it before. As the time passed by, I had learnt how to teach, more practically. If there is one strength I consider in myself, it is my capability to connect with you, speak (try to) a language which you consider yours. Thanks for teaching me that. Thanks for teaching me how to teach. I’m a good student and you better know how well have I learnt my job.

I had learnt how different atmospheres of students are. I had learnt to adapt myself, and my speech to students. Everyone of you is unique. I had learnt to sleep at 4 and wake up at 8, and still make my most productive days. This would not have been possible without the inspiration called you. A few of you should not have been studying science, a few should have been ‘learning’ science, and a few of you, well, though you don’t realise what you’re doing, you’re doing it well. I had been letting you know all these in person since an year, and if you still want a suggestion or comment, you know me.

I had learnt, in a very precise manner, how parenting affects a child. I had never realised this significance before. Maybe, one reason more I felt I had to be in India is that I had not been around with my parents for 6 years since. I had changed a lot, almost everything from what I had been 6 years ago. I felt the desperate need to connect back with my roots, wherever they are. You were all my experimental subjects, and may be someday down the line, I’ll be helping someone else, in a better way because you shared your stories with me. Don’t be surprised if you meet me someday, maybe as a parents counsellor, somewhere, when you’ve got kids to bring up.

I had learnt physics with a clear mind than you. I too never understood most of the great science back then. I had to mug it up. It just took a lot of practise and considerable observation before the clouds cleared off, and the sun shone bright. So will it happen with everyone of you. Right practise and allocation of ample time towards anything will take you to its own Everest. Some might realise that right now, some a year later, and some, maybe, a decade later. If I had been an appeasing wind, pushing the clouds away, even by the slightest amount, I would be highly delighted to having been there. The process of learning should never end, and till the last correction in calculations in SE-3 today, I had been learning. Thanks for clearing my thermodynamics, fluids and more, every single subject of which I had failed someday in my career. If my college degraded my intellect, it is you people, the handwork you have put into it (all my good students especially) and the dedication you have showed towards the subject, that has revived my love towards physics. So, in case I love physics, the reason is you.

I had understood how significant the people around a person can affect them. Your friends form an integral part of your life. You don’t realise how can a good group around turn a playful you into a hardworking good student, or a bad group around can make a random cheapo flirt out of a hardworking good student. Neither do I. But, I think parents tell you this, very precisely. Listen to them for once, you’ll only understand what big difference can these tiny points make, only after 20 years from now. If they’re telling you that some X is a bad influence, then keep away from X. Simple. It may take you a month or two to come out of that feeling, but it is worth the pain. EVEN IF X IS EQUAL TO A RELATIONSHIP.

I had always been a man of concept and handwork. It doesn’t matter to me what answer you get, as long as your procedure is right. I don’t care about the 99 you get, I’m more worried about the 1 you lost. If you had worked hard enough for 100, there is not a simple complaint I have against you. If may not pay you like an IIT-B, it may not take you into MIT, but, as and when needed, it’ll make you stand high above your peers. And on the contrary, even if you manage an MIT but do not give your best every day, every moment, someday shall come when you’ll collapse like a pack of cards. In Hindu mythology, it is known by a concept called ‘Karma” Know it this way. Whatever you do to the universe, it’ll return to you. Something like our law of conservation. So, do good, and leave. It’ll come back when it needs to. Maybe, like your really surprising farewell. I was so stunned by the way you had planned it. Whoever was the mastermind behind this, a special thanks to you.

I’ll tell you a delight about freedom from people. It’s a dime, the one you feel when your parents go to work and you’re free to turn on your system for fun. It’s a coin, when you’re alone and free and get to hang out with your friends, or maybe your bae. It’s a 100 dollar bill when your parents go on a vacation for a week, and leave you at your bae’s place. It’d be a stack of those bills, the moment you get to your college hostels, like literally, you would be feeling it in your pockets. It’ll be a case of those stacks the first day you pick up a job. You can make a thin bed of that money, and sleep on it, if you wish.

But, not any of it is comparable to this joy I feel, for all the love you had shown. Along human course, we have developed a beautiful understanding of the universe called Mathematics. It gave us, amongst many other revelations, numbers, which helped us to quantify most of the things in our life. We can give a price to everything around today, including human kidneys, eyes and even life. But, just like physics has an end when someone why does the universe exist, the Math also has an end when we ask it to quantify human emotion. May be some gifts are more about the affection they carry than about their prices. May be, some gifts are worthier than most other salaries. May be, a farewell day’s love is more enchanting than a full year handwork you put to deserve it. May be that’s what John Green meant, some infinities are bigger than other infinities.

“I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful.”

Making it big

The dream of every child, and 2 parents, and an envy of a thousand more around. Well, there are a million questions when it comes to making it big. Everyone has a different perspective of it. To some, it is about being able to fill their tummy, and to many others, it is about changing the world. There are many names, and people out there who are making it big. You and I know them. You've seen them on the posters of weekly magazines, in newspapers, in social networks with random inspirational quotes by their photographs, and also speaking at TED talks.

There are a few we never knew, who are also making it big. No one knows that they had made it big. Imagine, I have a 12 year old son who's interested in playing cricket. I'm a middle class man and run my life around the office trying to save every penny. I see that the local world around my son claims he is a good player. I would work all day hard and drop him everyday at his nets, give him his nutrition and continuously answer the school for his absence. I would take the risk of making him one in a million. The day he does it, like Sachin Tendulkar or Saina Nehwal did, I made it big. No one needs to acknowledge me for that.

I am also the mentor aka coach of one of these players. I work all day sincerely and go over time to see this one in a million become the one-in-a-million. I've made it big, and I bet that not many know me. Behind this one-in-a-million, there are atleast 10 people who've made it big. The society around you, every person you've ever met, and all the butterflies around you make you what you are. So, don't look at a successful person alone. Look at the ones who were a part of his life. Even yhat freestyle poet by the pavement who's sung inspiration into him for a much needed moment had made it big, all for a coin.

It is very important for us to help create this environment in every step of life. Look at the colleges people thrive to get into, those that print registers for their prestigious alumni. Look at those big companies that every you and I want a job in. Look at those cool families we've always wanted to be a part of. All of them, in common, are environments that help make it big. They change the course of lives, and create different persons from random people being thrown into them. Their reputation, of these institutions, is primarily because they help make it big, and in the course, become big.


Many are making it big, by helping others make it big, through support. Be sure about who is it that makes it big for you. Strive for them. As usual, final decision would be that of nature, God as theists call it, and fate as atheists know her.

Adoloscence and after

A child has a mind that runs insanely. An adults mind is a marathon runner. It might not be as fast and instinctive as a child (read child brain) but it gains more stamina. None of us is new to this, but the issues that accompany this fact are interesting. One of them is our mind clock.

Mind-clock, as I prefer calling it, is a ticking machine right inside your brain that keeps counting moments, with some reliable precision, differing from person to person. It is this clock that makes you feel time. The clock that ticks a long boring hour in a tenth minute lecture before the lunch, and that runs like a Ferrari when you're on the bed or in the ground. As we grow up, especially in schedules and recurring time-tables, run timed goals and life's races, we learn to pace it right. It is a consistent habit you would find with most successful people. The subtle truth hides here.

"Minutes tick longer and days tick shorter."

Consider a simple day. You wake up, get ready to your school / college /office, go out and work all day and return home. Needless to say, the clock races around when you gave a variety of things to do, a large different set of instructions for your brain to handle, and relatively slower at works that repeat themselves in a day. These presumptions considered, we complain of long work days as our brain tunes itself to the recurring pattern. We get tired by the end of such days, postponing most of our activities to weekends. Results being, a large variety of activity towards the weekends which snap off in a blink. The weekdays become longer due to recurring processes and weekends shorten due to variety.

Let us consider this over time. Remember your childhood? Being a child, writing the same date at least ten times over a day, each time in a different mood and thought process, makes us feel the years had been longer. As we grow, in a focus oriented world, we decrease the number of thoughts and increase their depth. As we store these thoughts down a memory lane, you'll be surprised to notice that you remember a twenty x to have been shorter than a Y teen than a z year child. The years run faster.

In reality, you can witness this happen in a child. Pick a baby 4 or 6 year old and observe. The child who's been sobbing about a toy train 20 seconds ago is merrier playing with mud and cake. A grown up? No. The grown up buddy rather sulks around a thought over and over, giving lesser time for others, leaving the mind bored. If boredom and monotone are your complaints with growing older, then, "this" is your problem.

Summing the theory up,

1. Mind clock works based on your moments, it ticks faster when your mind has more areas to explore, and bores during iterations.
2. Mind-clock accelerates with age because of the depth of thought and reduced numbers.
3. The problem with most of us is that we reiterate a lot during the weekdays and mourning shorter weekends. The solution being, doing varieties on weekdays, and lazily sleeping on the weekend. This will reduce the illusive effect of shortened weekends.

The other side

The poor peasant wants a nine to five, with a cushioned ride.
The urban man, he who flies high, misses the countryside.
The priest wants a new smartphone, one to track his time.
The resource wants to be left alone, to listen to heavenly chime.

The rich man wants his tender son, to walk down to the school.
The poor man shades his son from sun, waiting for climates to cool.
The good boy who carries his lunch, wants a full day fast.
The poor guy wants to see, how many burgers would he last.

The village head flees to the town, to be mister anonymous.
The entrepreneur wants a crown, and craves to be famous.
The urban kid finds the cotton cool, flaunts it off to friends.
The country kid wears jeans to school, the one he lavishly lends.

The bachelor geek misses his mom, and her handmade food.
The homebound guy feeds his tom, as he walks to eat some good.
Oh, the irony, my bitter sweet world, you wish to be a perfect place.
I can bet all my household, utopia hates her own grace.

Around the hill is a circular pass, for the world to ever stride.
And there always is the grass, greener on the other side.

The Golden Necklace

The golden necklace long and sleek,

sleek as a thread and equally meek, 

meekly subdues to the ups and downs, 

down the desert's folded gowns. 

The gowns bordered in sparkling beads, 

beads that house the perfect meads, 

meads made out of inhumane deeds, 

deeds of the rich and greedy breeds.

As far as the hovering falcon can see, 

the sea beyond being the end to thee, 

the necklace adorns the lands free, 

free from the humanity's selfish glee. 

The glee in the shiny bead is clear, 

clear from the mask of natural shear, 

shear we attribute to our earth dear, 

dear we say though we consciously fear.

Trees we plant along the paths to travel, 

the travel to the shores of fine gravel, 

gravel wherein the stories unravel, 

unravel the tales when there was no gavel. 

The gavel of nature is inaudible tonight, 

tonight when she sings her weakest plight, 

plight to back off from the wildest fight, 

fight that shall end man's glory's flight.

Planting trees in the driest of deserts, 

deserting forests in the richest soils, 

soiling the faces of earth so strange, 

strangest shall be our race to her.

The golden necklace and emerald beads, 

may look pretty on the bride who leads, 

but shall hurt when you kiss her neck, 

and you would be turned off in a speck.