A Note of (and on) Gratitude

Often times, I believe, gratitude comes a little too late. Appreciation of a person or event or phase of life is mostly via the rear-view mirror as opposed to the windscreen. Employee farewell letters are often overflowing with gratitude towards peers to whom none of it was ever conveyed during the course of the tenure. It takes the demise of a well-known celebrity/individual for the entire nation to collectively showcase gratitude towards the achievements of any artist. I guess, it's often the (short or long) absence of the regular mundane presence, be it a relationship, hobby, convenience, or habit, that evokes feelings of gratitude.

Part of it is natural too - given the over busy schedules, tightly packed calendars, over-exhausted brains, it probably is not easy to acknowledge and appreciate all that we want to, and more importantly all that we should. Each thought has a seed - and this is being planted by a huge work milestone around the corner - completion of six huge years at a place where I had envisioned six months, at max. 

Truth be told, it has taken me a while to overcome the feeling of OMG WHATT on completing that daunting tenure, and transition into the excessive yet apt emotion of gratitude. At different points of life, during professional and personal conversations, the discussion of five-year plan or ten-year plan has invariably come up. And more often than not, the only response that I remember ever giving has been - "I see myself in a role where I am happy" (how appropriate is this response for traditional/ambitious career growth is a completely separate and (potentially) unrelated discussion). Today, I think I can safely say that that is a state that I am in (atleast 87.5% of the time) - which in itself is a huge achievement.

This tenure allowed me to grow beyond what I think I can be or do, allowed me to support and encourage people (especially women) to be more of who they can be - and to let the wider audience see their power, ideas, and confidence. It has allowed me to pursue things that I did not know I could enjoy, while letting me be okay with shedding ideas/aspects that I thought I had to be. So here's me expressing gratitude for something that is ongoing, something that is in motion, and something that is not yet in the past. May we continue to find spaces where we can feel like we belong and may we continue to create spaces where others feel belonged!

Is this a revival?

Truth be told, I had forgotten about the existence of this space since the past TWELVE years! It is only as part of some recent conversations that I remembered that I used to write, catalog, and maintain a repository of feelings and events - because that is essentially what a "personal" blog is, right? A digital catalog of one's thoughts and expressions as they navigate through the daily conundrums of life. 

I do not know how to write a revival post, and how it can summarize the events and growth of the past decade. I wish the Pythagoras Theorem could help me out here, but alas, I think it is for me to figure this out on my own ;). The one thing that has remained consistent though (as compared to the previous posts) - is the use of punctuations based emojis! Despite the absolute influx and (apparent) takeover of our lives by AI, I still find joy in the humble ':D's and ':)'s and ';)'s, while typing on a laptop/Mac. 

"AI" - maybe that could be the theme of the revival post - but I wonder how to dissect this complicated yet omnipresent term, and more importantly my ever-so-complicated relationship with it :D. Today, there is a huge buzz in the entire World with AI taking over, in terms of sophisticated chatbots, agents, automated workflows, etc. On the other hand, for me, AI still remains code - a bunch of files which can adhere to a human defined logic, which can be configured at will, and more importantly which can be "shut down" when required. The power of this code is huge - and so is the power of the humans who understand it, develop it, and execute it. Being part of the generation of researchers who saw this very field grow and evolve while being heavily involved in it - makes one wonder if my contributions should be more? :). But then, what are 'contributions' and who defines 'more'? In the current World of absolute non-linear chaos, trajectories, and blurred definitions, I guess it falls upon oneself to seek the meaning of such questions. 

I suppose it's safe to say that the transition from being a developer of AI to an adopter of AI is tough and not straightforward. It is difficult to segregate the working day from the non-working hours, difficult to segregate the job from the fun. Regardless of everything, I guess AI has done its job of silently creeping into all domains - including this revival post! Given its huge role in my past decade, it is only fair that the theme captures the majority of limelight :). 

Realisations, Birthday, Acceptance :D

I'm sitting and writing a post long due. Long long long due. But finally I have come to write it and hopefully would even complete the same ;)
There are so many things that I want to make note of, share with you, but I'm not sure in what light they will be taken. That's the first learning for me, whatever you say or do, those who have to take you in the wrong, will ;) So start being chill. Those who want to understand will find a way to and those who want to hold you responsible for utterly ridiculous stuff will do so anyway. So chill.
Continuing with the same, the people who want to be there, will. The people who want to care, will. After a point we should stop trying. We should stop trying to get that person back into our lives, if it mattered, they will be back. I'm not saying break off all relations and create a wall just to see who manages to climb it. No. What I am saying is that if you have tried enough to save a relationship, it's time you stop. And trust me, you'll know. You'll know when you can't do anymore, don't kill yourself at that time. Cause each one of us is different and each one of us react in a different way to various things. If people cared, they'll find a way back.
We have such a short time here. Such a short time. I had such amazing fun on my birthday and the only thought that was in my mind at the end of the day was, "Why am I not this happy everyday? ".
I've recently come to realise that this blog of mine has started becoming melancholic. Probably because I have started becoming like that. But not anymore ;) This birthday taught me a number of things. All of which have just pushed me to just let things go. To just thank people for the slightest of things that they do, they don't owe me anything, do they?
Even a minute spared by someone to wish me is a big deal. It is. It truly is.
I feel happy after this birthday. I feel free. I feel light. 
I think we should stop forcing people to do things. Especially for celebrations. It's a celebration! If someone wants to be a part of it, they'll say, else you'll know ;)

It's just that it's so easy to say all this, so easy to feel all this for two days, but this time this feeling is here to stay. It's time to be happy with oneself and even if a single person cares, it's time to cherish that ;)

It's time to take control. It's time to get things in place. It's time to get yourself in place. It's time to let go of all the negative and it's time to smile bright :D

Thank You for making my birthday so amazing. Thank you so much :D

Don't jump right into it.

I have never talked about anything "technical" here till now. But today, right now, I NEED to.
I have to tell you, never jump right into it :P Never ever. You are given a problem and you directly jump into it and start coding ? Bad idea.
I have heard a number of people tell me this, but you don't learn till you experience, right ? Dont do that :P
The immeasurable happiness you feel upon completing something really quick is one side, and the level of frustration you feel when your realise you made the smallest error possible is indescribable.
Think through the stuff. Think it through properly. It's not gonna make sense right now, it never did to me either, but once you experience it ( I hope you don't, you'll understand everything :P ).

There is nowhere where this post is going :P Absolutely none :P
Oh, and if by chance you are working in the Pattern Recognition field, which requires training and testing samples, my humble request, please look at the data carefully. Those sincere looking bunch of bits will make your life hell in a second and you wouldn't even realise it! You'll just be left cursing yourself as to why you didn't pay "attention to detail" before.

Think it through :P

I need to go back to fixing the stuff I have "hurriedly" messed up now. \:D/

We're all in this together.

Hello !
I've been travelling in the metro since the past ten days or so, during the Office hours to reach my internship location. It takes around an hour just in the metro itself. Now, during the initial days, I had all sorts of things in my mind, "Why am "I" doing this ?", "Why is life so competitive ? " and God knows what not. I mean, there were quite a number of things in my mind on the same lines. It's not like a sudden epiphany or something, but within three four days, I started seeing familiar faces. That woman who would sit and watch movies on her Samsung Tab ( who would be in the metro when I would get on, meaning it takes her even longer to reach her destination ), that group of three women who would enter the metro together and NO ONE would be spared of the observation that someone new has come in ( :P ), that old lady who carries her laptop with her and refuses to sit when someone especially gets up and offers a seat to her. The pair of friends, one of whom has recently gotten married and is often applauded by the other one for managing both house and office work. All these people, and so many more. I am sure if I be a tiny bit more observant, I will get to know about many more such people. All regular people, getting up at 7 in the morning to catch the 7:40 metro, so that they reach their offices by 9. All of them have the same story. Broadly, all of them are the commuters of the 7:40 metro.
Sometimes we feel, that it is impossible for someone else to understand what's happening. We give petty issues so much importance, so much importance that it seems like nothing worse could have happened. That day, I was going to board the metro and the escalator was not working. Early morning no escalator. And immediately what do I say to myself ? "Oh God, that's the worst thing that can happen, taking the stairs early in the morning", and within half a minute, I am laughing at my own stupidity ( The security guard checking me that day surely thought something was fishy seeing the goofy eyed expression on my face ). I don't know whether you do this or not, but I do and I have started consciously keeping a check now :P
My point was, we feel it's impossible for someone else to understand what's happening. You know what ? We all are going through our own battles. We all are just so same. I don't know, it's like things have started making sense all of a sudden :P No, I haven't lost it and probably this clarity won't even last for long because seriously speaking it's too difficult to look for logic in this haphazard, ever-so-fast, competitive World anymore.
It's just that, there is this quote from the book P.S I Love You by Cecelia Ahern, if you haven't read the book, I request you to read it, if nothing else then just for this quote :P I read this around six years back and loved it right then, just yesterday I re-read it and suddenly it seemed absolutely perfect. Here's what it is:
"The thing to remember is, even if we are all alone, we are together in that too."
It just brings some sense of peace to realise that you are not alone. You have someone with you, you don't have to do it all alone. Look around, there will be someone, someone fighting a battle similar to yours and if that's not the case, then everyone is together in being alone as well ;)
It's just beautiful.

Stop running away.

Stop running away from your insecurities.
Stop running away from your fears.
Stop running away from the hardships.
Stop running away from your tears.

Start facing the truth.
Start searching for facts.
Start expressing yourself.
Start pulling together your act.

Stop being rude.
Stop being cold.
Stop being dis-heartened.
Stop putting a hold.

Stop lying.
Stop assuming.
Start trying.
Start thinking.

Start smiling more.

Start being there.

Start spreading love.

Start showing you care.

Start accepting errors.
Start amending mistakes.
Start extending your sunshine.
Start living again.

Start experiencing everything around.
Stop running away from life.

Start living openly again.

Start experiencing life.

Put on your Superman robes

Exam-time is just around the corner. What scares me more than the exams are the project deadlines :P It's interesting, as soon as you get into the third year in IIIT-Delhi, exams lose their importance and projects become the all-important of many courses. It is a great thing owing to the kind of hands-on experience it provides, the experience it leaves us with, but then of course, the work is also there :P

Anyway, so I was just thinking of all the exam-times which I have spent in this Institute, that is whatever I could remember. The only thing that I can remember from the first year, is the NSIT labs, staying back after some exam to sit together and study. Also, the late night calls to people in the hope of understanding stuff which makes sense only at 2 A.M in the night. Studying together on Gtalk, on group chats, "Kab tak jaag rahe ho ? Yaar mujhe 10 minute main call kar ke jagah dena. ". Amazing. Amazing time that was. I can only smile whenever I think of those times. The same can be said for the second year I believe. Till the time we did not have electives and most of the courses were same, such was the state at the time of End-Sems. The calls lessened as we took the Hostels, but well that part is for another post. I don's think I would have made it through those five end-sems without the kind of people that were there then :P

And then, the last semester! The only thing that I remember of the last sem, first sem of the third year, are the PROJECTS! I dont remember sitting together solving problems, discussing solutions to questions or anything along those lines, but what I do remember are projects and that too loads of work just towards the end of the semester.

Where am I getting to ? We are entering that crazy-no-sleep-too-many-projects phase of our semester. It's just like ten days till the end of the sem and it's time to put on your Superman robes. It's time to get into the oh-I-am-so-crazy mode and start working like that's the only thing left in life :P
It's not something that we can't do, for sure. We have done it before, we can do it again. We just need those robes ;) And everyone, mind it, everyone has their own set of personal Superman robes.  We just sometimes tend to forget to put them on, or forget where we placed them after last using them.

Get them out. Dust them. Put them on. Get working \:D/