One of the most inspiring things I have learned here at Info Edge is the amount of respect that everyone gives to the code. Cron scripts here are treated with emotions, talking to them while making them, feeling anxious when the script is running, appreciating the script when the results are good like a human and feeling sad when something breaks.
Also the lingo used here in normal conversations to discuss issues has a touch of typical informal-indian lingo that we used as kids.
"Wahan code phat rha h... mere server pe theek chal rha tha but live pe mar gya"
( The code is breaking there.. it was running fine on local server but died on live)
"Bohot sahi kaam kar rha h ye.. saara kaam sahi se kia isne is baar, jaldia bhi kardia isne.. good h"
(The code is working really good.. did all its work reall well this time and also took very less time.. nice). I love it here. :)
We use ubuntu here. When I first started using this OS a long time back, one feature that interested me was that of locking screen. I always imagined using this feature being inside an office with cubicles and preventing other colleagues from accessing your terminal when you were out for a coffee or something.
I just imagined it that way with no previous experience, just the picture I derived from american movies: just a manhattan style office, coffee vending machines, cubicles, terminals with linux with locked screens, those typical plastic window curtains, high rises visible across the window, etc.
Now that I spend 9 hours daily inside my Info Edge office and some of that virtual picture has substantiated splendidly. There are cubicles alright, coffee vending machines, my own linux terminal which I can lock whenever I go for a coffee or sandwhich; those exact curtains, and trees visible outside them. Its unreal. Its great here. The work is good, people are nice and everything.
I don't feel like I ideally should. It does feel weird, that of something coming to an end. But I've never really felt attached to anyone, place or thing, hence the apathy. What bothers me although, is the sudden change in schedule that is visible on the horizon. The shift from careless-college to a pensive-professional life. There is too much uncertainty.
The journey for the last four years has been very happening. Especially the first two years. The next two were sober. A little downward slant in my confidence graph which I regret sometimes. I port it to the reason of me leaving hostel. Had I stayed there, things would have been very different for me. You just don't abandon a house which you've been building from scratch for a very long time. All I was left with was a broken reputation, faded friendships and a confidence lost with time.
It was not that bad though. I learnt other things. I was able to give more time to my parents and stayed in a better health. So basically its a confused reaction I would give if someone asked me how it feels to leave college. Too many happy memories for sure, but also too old to try and relive them. As I told a friend once, "What you are missing is already gone" and telling this to myself always makes me feel much better.
There are couple of things I would regret though. I could never have a girl-friend in college. Not in the conventional sense, but a companion for mutual learning and caring at a respectful level. May be because I don't have the swag that ladies prefer. May be I am not that socially outgoing. May be the girls weren't good enough either. An engineering college is almost always the wrong place if you want to meet a girl of your taste. Too complicated, fuck it.
Another thing I would regret is my back in Optical Communication paper in my seventh semester. If you are a bad ass adrenalin junkie, boasting of a back does make you look cool and makes everyone else feel jealous. But if you are one of the jealous lot, and later try to be a bad ass adrenalin junkie when you get an unexpected back, its not the same. You try to act cool, but at the back of your mind, you can't get the guilt out of your system. You just try to convince yourself, that its a dream and it will be all right somehow. I can't drop the paper either, its a compulsory subject. I'll have to wait another year to get my engineering degree and that is if I clear the retest. This ruins the moment. Damn!
Meanwhile I was rummaging my old hostel stuff and found this diary. There were lyrics of a song written at the end which I remember writing two years back. Ironically, the song fits this situation and its a nice song too. I'll share it here along with the lyrics.
One of the earliest songs I ever heard. The tune of this song is like embedded inside my head. It plays back sometimes when I get up and look at the clock. The lyrics don't make much sense to me. Its just the warm, juvenile, dreamy emotion attached to it.
