Summer Internship Experience - Taking it to the Next Level : Part 1

Rohan was pretty excited while stepping onto his new office. It was a necessary rite of passage for most of his batch-mates aka summer internship. To the contrary, Rohan had concocted many stories in his mind about the forthcoming two month experience.

Rohit’s precarious mannerisms were not a new thing for the bunch of his colleagues at his office. Pleasantries exchanged and formal introduction made way for some work. He was allotted to prepare a comparison table for various types of solar energy capturing technologies. He jumped into the sea with minimal assistance.

If you put in 35 minutes of work, 2 minutes of water-cooler break, 20 minutes of work and then 3 minutes of washroom break and repeat each of them in the very same order, it would be exactly the same as what Rohan was doing at the office for the first week. After the end of the first week, he had also spent one weekend which he thoroughly enjoyed but something was missing!

Getting past the Monday morning blues as he started to frantically search the internet for various solar technologies he heard a voice. Yes, a shrilling female voice. “Hi, this is my workstation” said an exquisitely dressed lady. “What? I have been working here for the last 1 week” stated Rohan. As it began so it must have an end. To their rescue came the Head of the office. “Jhanvi meet Rohan our new intern, and Rohan this is Jhanvi our Legal & Compliance Officer” introduced Mr. Sharma.

Rohan and Jhanvi sat beside each other. Two days passed and nothing happened except once Rohan politely declined an offer made by Jhanvi to have orbit chewing gum. He immediately regretted his move as a reflex.

---------

“Jhanvi, do you know of any good place for lunch?” enquired Rohan. He gathered all his skills and charm to appear nonchalant with not much success. “Umm… have you tried 10 Downing Street?” asked Jhanvi. Rohan replied in negative. “Rohan, you must go there, it’s awesome” suggested Jhanvi. “Would you come with me” he uttered as if someone put those words on his tongue.

After thinking for a while Jhanvi accepts, “Yes, of course let’s have lunch”.

…

They have conversation on almost everything under the sun. Changing the world, working for helping the starving African children, following a set of principles and literary preferences were discussed to name a few. Everything seemed normal and just as a good lunch should go.

Jhanvi leans sideways, rest her elbow on the table and starts playing with her hair. “Now, that we know each other and are friends let’s take our friendship to the next level” suggests Jhanvi.

Rohan gives a puzzled face and waits for her to tell more about the “next level”. “Are you on Facebook?” asks Jhanvi.

To be continued…

Image Courtesy: http://www.bignbest.com/gift_ideas_on_date/

Don’t worry, I’ll be fine!

Every phenomenon is contiguous and hence it has to end. The very idea of contiguity leading to continuity keeps this world sane, full of hope. I’m reminded of the movie “The Shawshank Redemption” in which the lead protagonist says “hope is a good thing...maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies.”

When you come to a residential college campus, you don’t realise how experiences will transform your life by shaping it bit by bit and changing it nibble by nibble. More so, in case of a campus that boasts itself as the biggest and oldest of the Indian Institute of Technologies (IITs).

You do not need to worry, as I’m not going to pass on my nostalgia so soon. I have almost 2 months of stay at IIT KGP, left with me and I would try to make you all cry when I publish my last blog-post as an IIT student. Be prepared!

The agenda of discussion in this post is fear. What is fear? How do you define it? What is the psychology of fear? What is the physiology of fear? How to cross the barrier of fear?
Fear comes from unawareness and ignorance. In most cases, fear is the first form of self-defense mechanism a person exhibits. We generally don’t understand this, but if we stop the fear emotions from coming to the fore, it gives us phenomenal strength to handle apparently extraordinary tasks with much ease and poise.

The realization I gained in the past month is that we can win against any kind of fear, we just need to keep on pushing us to do the task which we fear doing. In my case it is primarily darkness. Hence, I started lonely early morning-late night walks around the institute (can be read as 2.2). Remarkably, I was able to take lonely walks without a sense of fear, I started enjoying the friendly but mysterious sights of Owls; I started stalking them.
I decided to give the final test, as I’d won over the fear of darkness. According to Vatty Da, there is a lane which leads us to National Service Scheme (NSS) office, from the National Cadets Corps (NCC) office. He asked me to go there, as he considered the place as one of the few inside institute which can frighten a person like me, even if I have decided to be strong and brave.



The very next day, I took the call and ventured out on the presumably scariest lonely walk of my life. I was quite normal and nonchalant just 1 foot away from the passage. As I stepped in the purview of the lane, I started shivering. However, there were many more things to worry about that day. I was pre-occupied with lots of ideas and mental conflicts; this fuelled my will power and neglected all the pats on my back, apparent whispers, weird voices and eeriness of that place. This was not the end of it.
As I was returning back, I would have been hardly 10 meters from the lane when there was a distinct screeching voice which tried too hard to divert my attention towards itself. My will power and presence of mind was at its peak and I didn’t pay much attention to that voice which was trying to convey the message “I’m at severe pain, help me!” even if I was not able to hear it properly and the source wasn’t generating any understandable language. Needless to say, it wasn’t a sane idea to go that place for validation of my interpretation. I just went ahead, while the voice kept on following me as if I’m not moving. When I reached near Vikramshila building complex, all the dogs inside the complex immediately started barking at something behind me and after that the voice was no more heard of. I showed tremendous guts and presence of mind to accomplish this achievement of successfully completing the lonely walk to NSS office gate and return back normal.

In the hindsight, there was something very eerie, spooky and scary about that lane which I cannot explain neither you can describe even if you do muster up courage to go there alone. Whenever, I talk about it or think about it I start shivering the same way as I was shivering while walking along that old, almost abandoned lane. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine!

Disclaimer : Try this adventurous lonely walk to NSS office, at your own risk and will power. My advice is that you must not go there between 1 AM to 6 AM

#Original Quotes : #1...1

"You have nothing to lose, nothing to gain...the journey has no end nor any beginning...it's a perpetual circle"


PS: Self-explanatory; I'll share whatever comes to my mind, and which I consider as worth sharing, and is original (not copied from anywhere), obviously!