What's on your mind?

I’m swamped by thoughts. My mind is inundated with thoughts. This is “anti-writer’s block”. I don’t know where I’ll be after a 9-10 months. I don’t know what I’d really love to do when I graduate from college. I know when I was in class 11/12 the one thing I aspired was to become an “electronics and communication engineer” or “Aeronautical engineer”. The reasons for fascination with these two branches were quite fuzzy. I knew quite a few successful “electronics and communication engineer” and my love for fluid dynamics which still remains unrequited led me to consider Aeronautical engineering as a career option. Nevertheless, I had to take mining engineering as my undergraduate course at IIT Kharagpur. Man proposes God disposes!

“Ends are ape-chosen; only the means are man's.”

Just 6 years before, the one thing I desperately longed for was a seat in IIT, now I have it. After spending more than 3 years at IIT, I think I was eccentric. However, I did devote around 3 years to get into IIT. The silver lining is that I stand a better chance of being absorbed in a high-paying company than most of the students in India. Ultimately, an average middle-class youth’s dream is to get a good job after getting the very important degree, necessary evil. Ends justify the means, perhaps.



At present, I’m confused. I don’t know what I really want to do with my life. It’s like you have choices and choices and you don’t even have a slight preference for any of them. In such situation, it’s better to let others decide, not you. Exactly! When I was in class 10 it was all easy for me I was good at mathematics, science including biology. I knew I’d choose science stream but my parents chose engineering for me, as it’s easier to be an engineer (according to my parents, though!). Nobody’s complaining they knew more than me, at least then. My current problem I’ve N no. of choices and I know much more than my parents or any other close person in my life whom I can speak out my heart. So, it’s all me who has to decide.

1. Sit for CAT—Go to IIM.

2. Forget CAT—Sit for Campus Placements—Take a job which pays you the most.

3. Sit for CAT, Sit for Campus Placements— decide afterwards, what you want to do.

4. Higher studies—Figure out in which Field.

5. Go to Himalayas— forget the materialistic world; become a spiritual, motivational speaker.

6. Consider all the possible permutations and combinations of the above 5 options—Choose one.

My recent trip to Mumbai isn’t helping either. It has made me realize that I don’t know a lot of things which the “Kewl-people” talk about. I’m a bad conversation starter. I can’t talk about my favourite writers and poets, I haven’t read much. I can’t differentiate Rock, Pop, Jazz and whatever forms of music exist. In short, I’m a boring person, I cannot entertain you.

I have tried few things just for the heck of it, like swimming, tennis and jogging. I didn't like any of them. I don’t know what I love; I don’t know what I want to do with my life. I can stop thinking and follow the herd, but I don’t want to do it either. It is that phase of my life when I probably need to wait, have patience and leave it to the future. Perhaps!

However, I’d love to choose one thing and take a leap of faith.