Friends make life worth a life!

“Hello… Sameer?”

“Akash! bro wassup. Where the hell are you?” Intriguingly Sameer asked. The two were speaking after long time.

“Nothing much. Same old, studies going on. I don’t know when these medical studies are going to get over! OK, dude can you come over to my place?" asked Akash.

Sameer checked his watch. It was 7:30 PM. “Now? Why dude, hope everything is fine with you. ” hopingly Sameer responded.

“Yeah all things fine. Was missing you. If you can come over, I would feel much better” Akash responded.

“Yeah I understand but I have to do some packing and then few….”

“You are coming or not? Why the hell you….”

“OK, give me 15 mins I will be there.” Sameer responded and kept the phone.
It generally happens that without listening to some grammar (slang words), Sameer doesn’t listen to the plans.

“Mom, I am going to Akash’s place. I will come in sometime.”
“OK. Come home early, don’t roam whole night out.” “Yeah! I will” Sameer left hurriedly.

Sameer kick started his Kinetic Nova and raced to Akash’s place. Sameer greeted aunty and went to Akash’s room, straight up. Was surprised to see Siddharth and Shalini there. The presence of Siddharth made matter suspicious. Sameer tried to start a conversation...

“Go to the terrace, Akash is waiting there!” Shalini beamed.
Sameer couldn’t understand a thing. He was confused. He didn’t say anything and went to terrace with his perplexed face. Climbing each step, he was thinking hard what could be the matter. He was full of questions by the time he reached the terrace.

“HEY!!! MANY MANY CONGRATULATIONS SAMEER. YOU DID A GREAT JOB”, suddenly group of friends came out from nowhere. Akash poped up, Siddharth and Shalini joined in no time. Handed Sameer a cool Levis T-Shirt, Deodrant and a Peter England T-Shirt.
Sameer took it still confused. He was surprised. More than surprise, he was not able to understand what exactly was going on. He checked with himself, his birthday. No that happened four months back. Ohk. He realized then. He became full of emotions realising he would miss his friends. Friends around him made him smile and the fact that he would miss them, made him cry. It was mixed emotions for him.

Sameer was leaving his hometown to pursue MBA from a reputed institute in India. The fact was yet to sink into him. He was supposed to travel in a week’s time.
Laughter all around. Every face smiling. Sameer’s heart was rejoicing. The heart was thanking each one of them million times, for being there and giving that fantastic farewell. Delicious food was served and people got busy. This is the only time, when these friends keep quiet and do the task religiously, eating. Except for eating, everything else can wait. Lots of clicks all the way happened. T-shirt got scribbled with all wishes and messages. It was one among the happiest and cherished moments of Sameer’s and everyone else’s life. Long live friendship.

fOoD fOr ThOuGhT: Friends make you realize how important you are. Their support can take you places and make journey of your life worthwhile. Good friends are like stars, you dont always see them, but you know they are always there! Treasure your true friends. Names of the characters are fictitious but the story is true. I have chosen these names as the characters resemble from those of Dil Chahata Hai, not completely, but yes to a great extent!

“Dil Chahta hai…hum na rahe kabhi yaaron ke bin…”

You will google, the way you never thought…

Be it meaning, information, places, maps, etc, we google it. “Google” has become synonymous with “search” on the internet. A fantastic company founded by Sergey M. Brin and Lawrence E. Page. It is now hard to imagine world without google. Gone are the days when I use to issue 10s of books from library, photo coping few of them and taking long notes, to complete school assignments. Today, we google it! But things doesnt look encouraging for google, going forward.

It all started in 1980s. Apple computers introduced Macintosh, the first commercially successful small computer with a graphical user interface. He naively discussed the operating system with Bill Gates. And as matter of fact and in the words of Steve Jobs, “…And since Windows just copied the Mac…” It was the brain child of Jobs but Bill Gates successfully copied and marketed it with Microsoft label, making huge fortune. But still Apple is far more superior when it comes to performance, processing, experience. From Hollywood to Bollywood, film making, processing, high digital stuff, etc would not have been possible, had it not been Apple. It is the “Rolls Royce” of IT industry. Steve Jobs made a mistake of sharing knowledge. He was betrayed and Microsoft became far bigger company than Apple.

History repeats itself. Steve Jobs is betrayed again.

Apple and Google are pioneers in their ambit of offerings. One has proved marvels in computer, operating system, music and phone industry while other is leader in search engine. Their path never crossed. Their mission was to limit Bill Gates and Microsoft till PC and do not dominate the online and phone business. Steve Jobs committed same mistake again. He invited Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, to join Apples Inc’s board. They worked together to ensure that iPhone has Google as default search engine. Google quietly built Andriod, an operating system for smart phones. Launched it on phones with HTC and Motorola, directly competing with Mac OS. Then it introduced the Nexus One, its flagship phone designed in close collaboration with HTC, which carried some of the designs and features like the patented multi-touch feature of iPhone. Google has challenged Apple Inc, by copying the very own features of iPhone. Schmidt did what Bill Gates did, two decades ago.

fOoD fOr ThOuGhT: I trust Steve Jobs, you will google, the way you never thought. Whenever this man has been challenged, the world has been blessed with out of box, state of the art, industry changer product. Be it ipod, iphone, itunes, ipad or the App music store. This guy will introduce an application, I am not limiting the scope by saying a search engine, an application that will change the way we search. I cannot think what it will be like but it will surely see Google scratching its head.

Dropouts are better than the finishers, aren’t they?

When you see the list of dropouts who made it to the top, you feel, oh really, isn’t the list impressive. Henry Ford –Ford Motors, Bill Gates-Microsoft, Larry Ellison-Oracle, Sheldon Adelson-Las Vegas Sands Corp, Larry Page-Google, Kirk Kerkorian-Tracinda, Michael Dell-Dell, Paul Allen-Microsoft, David Geffen-Geffen Records, Steve Jobs-Apple, Richard Branson-Virgin, Subhash Chandra-Zee TV, Jerry Yang-Yahoo, Mark Zuckerberg-Facebook, etc. It’s a long and a very impressive list. Almost every company is leader in its industry. An interesting fact, the age of people when they dropped out is between 12 to 21 and on an average it is 17 years. And the average age when they reached the pinnacle, is 32 years. When you are really young, new and naïve, hit it hard. That doesn’t mean you cannot do if you are grown up now. Just that you have more responsibilities now.

So what makes them so special? In my opinion, they were already graduates. They dropped out from the college indicating that they were capable enough to sail through in this dynamic world. They are beyond a degree, books and class rooms. They gave finest institutions to the world. They knew what they wanted to do. They knew where their heart was. They had courage to follow their guts. They had the capacity to risk their life. You don’t get chance to get into Stanford and Harvard schools every day. Yet they did what they did. Had they completed their designed courses and colleges, they would have been working in some company with a lot lower salary, lot lower satisfaction and killing their creativity and belief without feeding it enough.

Steve Jobs, among the most influential, biggest industry trend setter, dropped out because he didn’t find value in the class rooms. Schools should not be meant to train or discipline minds, it should encourage pushing limits of mind, exploring and traveling uncharted territory. Life should be made disciplined, not mind. A disciplined mind would always think lot of times before venturing into a risky preposition, resulting mostly in postponing the idea.

There are people who have dropped out but do not figure out in the list. I guess they really needed degrees to make it big, if at all they wanted to. They lacked in passion and vision. They lacked in energy and belief. People who are trained and made it to big, well they were supposed to. They were trained to make it big. People who are trained and yet to make big, well they need to do things differently now. They need to do things the way they never did, to achieve what they never have.

fOoD fOr ThOuGhT: Listen to your heart and do what you want. Don’t get bogged down because of society. At the same time be realistic. If you know that you are not a Steve Jobs, nor you have an idea, nor you have any clue what you want in life, follow the herd. Be in majority. Complete your degrees, make your parents proud and be satisfied, otherwise take risk and do what you want to do!

School Days!!!

"...playing hide and seek, hiding just behind those trees... the very ground were I use to do mass drill in my white half pants early morning in chilling winters... there I was exactly there, playing cricket with my exam pads and ball made of stone, handkerchief tied with rubber band... the flag hosting pole... celebrated 10 years completion of school, 15 years ago, on the very ground... the class room, the benches... 6th A, 8th A, 10th A... my class rooms... the lobby... hahah... I use to make this lobby worth-a-walk by standing outside for not doing homework... the very classroom where I had my first ever crush... she was my maths teacher 7th standard... where biology classes were very interesting and history always brought lot of sleep... forgetting notebooks because homework was not done, every month new homework notebook without finishing the previous one... remarks in dairy for not bringing roti-sabji in tiffin, standing on bench for unpolished shoes...fighting with friends every minute...promising to be there for lifetime... speaking in English was considered as showoff... where 5:30pm bell to go home was most awaited thing... Cycling so fast to beat all the two wheelers and even four wheelers..."

This holi, when I went to my hometown, I visited my school. Reached there an hour before the day was to start...visited all the classes and the lobby with my best and school friend...was there after almost 10 years... sat on the bench of class 6th section 'A'...middle row, second bench, corner seat...close to girl's seat on the next row... the blackboard...the tiffin basket holder...everything same... Prayer started at 11 o'clock and then 15th Adyaya of Geeta and the national anthem...

Teachers were the same, I must say most of them... met after 10 years but never realized...chatted long and short...saw one of the exam papers bundle lying on the table...reminded me of the "total" we use to do of all the exam papers again and again, hoping the .5 mark will make a difference, writing everyone's marks at the back of the "rough copy"...tracking the topper... hoping to score high in next exam... promising dad... but never studying... after all there was always more than studies in life...

School days are the best days of anyone's life. You are ignorant. You are a kid. You are unaware. You are childish. Your heart is pure. Your character is gold. You don't have any responsibility...except for passing the exams... every other thing was taken care by parents... BEST DAYS!!!