Debugging Life

It was raining since Thursday evening. The dark blue sky, cold breeze, and sound of raindrops as if someone was constantly rubbing hands on your bedsheets. Satyam finished his office work. Oh, what a day it was. He was thanking god that atleast he got some forty minutes to cook his lunch that noon and feed himself. Until that point of time, those forty minutes were the highlights of his day. The smell of chicken breast simmering on the hot oiled pan. Aroma of Thyme, Garlic Powder, Paprika, and some salt was reminding him of his mom's culinary skills. The golden brown color of chicken was exactly like the sunset that he saw more than 2 months ago at Charles Esplanade right infront of Massachussetts Institute of Technology. The sunrays striking that dome of MIT across Charles, he used to think, was itself a metaphor. That he had to cross a river of mediocrity from his side of Boston to touch that MIT's coveted Sloan Institute of Management in some 3-4 years. Suddenly, he came to

Hey Stalker! I came across this beautiful poem by Wang Ping called "Things We Carry in the Sea". Whose excerpts are like: "We carry soil in our small bags; may home never fade in our hearts We carry names, stories, memories of our villages, fields, boats" And also another couplet: We carry old homes along the spine, new dreams on our chests We carry yesterday, today, and tomorrow... I always tend to feel a bit lonely whenever its major festival in India. Today is Dusshehra. I miss my small town. It's called Indore; the name of which is unheard by most people. When I was a boy, I used to be excited about this day. Used to watch Ramayan on TV and then would wear new clothes and wait for evening Pooja. Then Baba would take us to watch the Raavan. Sometimes at Jai Baba's house or at Dusshehra Maidan.  One time I remember, we went to Babu Bhai's house and he made us Kheer. He was a Qaadri (a Muslim), but that's the beauty of our town; people were knit tog

Lately I've buried my head in books. Mainly psychoanalytics, some fiction, and an autobiography. But this time, I'll be noting down my interpretation of this absurd but revolutionary idea given by Sigmund Freud which helps us to understand why humans in general are motivated to do things that shape their personality. I'm assuming most of you might've heard this idea of associating sex with behavioral traits by Freud. Now, if you're hearing this for the first time, it WILL seem very weird and gross. But Freud says, every child in some way or another sexualizes his mother. I mean not just in a sexual way, but he's attracted to his mother even in terms of emotional dependence. The reason being that, when a child is young, the only female interaction he gets is of his mother. And in the same way, he sees his father as someone who is taking care of his mother, to whom she is attracted. This makes the child to become like his father, because the child perceives his fa

Hey stalkers! Yesterday around 7 in the evening, I received a call from Katie that I got the job!! I don't want to reveal a lot at the moment, but it is a big financial firm headquartered in Chicago with offices all round the US. They're paying me decent money (not too much, but given that I'm just entering the corporate, it's good), plus 401k, bonus, and UNLIMITED PAID TIME OFF !! With the option to work from anywhere in the world - which I'll be working from BOSTON or MIAMI or NYC or CALIFORNIA... I mean they're very flexible as long as I'm getting the work done. Now, I'll start searching for apartments, a car, and finally a good lifestyle!! Let's see how it goes. Extremely grateful for the gods and this life. Best, S

For the last 2 weeks, my travel monkey was itching me a lot. And I chose to follow it's wishes. Which was to take a solo trip of Africa. But given the fact that I've to meet my family back in India, I decided that I'll travel for 1 week in December. The 2 travel destinations in my mind were Morocco and Egypt. Morocco because of the beautiful city of Marakkech and Casablanca. And Egypt for Luxor, Hurgada, Alexandria, and Cairo (Giza). So, I decided to give Egypt a shot because of variety of places to explore. In this post, I'll make an itinerary of my trip (which I'll keep editing as and when required)... just in case any of you need to follow it. Places New York - Cairo (Via Flight) Cairo - Giza Giza - Luxor Luxor - Aswan Aswan - Hurgada Hurgada - Cairo Cairo - Delhi (via Flight) Activities   (TBD... I'm thinking of Nile River Cruise, Camel Rides in Giza, Quadbikes in Hurgada... but have to explore) Budget (At the moment it'll be around 1 Lakh for a luxury t

Lately, I've been reading about some battles fought by the Indian army which basically shaped our international borders.There's one battle which struck me like lightning - The Battle of Rezang La (1962) which I first read about in a book, and later saw many videos. This battle, showed the exemplary courage of our men at Borders, and at the same time the questionable leadership of the then PM and army Generals. The WHY behind this reading Now, this battle, although is a part of history; we get to learn a lot of life lessons from it (and ofc strategic lessons). 1962 war with China started because of poor communication between the Prime Minister's announcement in parliament with the Army Chiefs, and unnecessary panic of non-army forces at the NEFA borders. And so the war begun. But again, as the war begun, PM Nehru had appointed his favorite BM Kaul as one of the generals of army, General Thapar as CoAS while replacing capable generals like General Thimayya and General Verma

Yo stalkers! Like always, you came here from my instagram bio, right? This post is a sequel to the post that I wrote exactly 2 years ago when I passed out of Medicaps - What Medicaps Gifted me? Where I wrote about the amazing people I met in that phase of life. As your intelligent mind might've guessed; I'm going to write about the amazing moments, lessons and people Boston has gifted me - exactly two years after the Medicaps post.! Buckle up, because this is going to be a long read :) Our graduation day! (L-R: Devesh, Me, Ritesh Bhai, Kanishk Bhai, Ashish Bhai, Him) Scene - Saint Germain Street (67-9).. Ashish Bhai is in the kitchen cooking for all of us on a Monday.. Devesh listening to KK and Atif while I'm playing my guitar on my desk.. Him working out in the hall.. It's around 9:30 PM. Ashish Bhai: Kya gaana lagaya Devesh bhai aapne! Me: KK ka Alvida laga na Life in a Metro ka please. Him: Bhai fatafat chal aate hai 2 minute me, fir baithenge. Me: Ek number bro! *

This Sunday, we went to Six Flags of New England. And maaaan, it was full of adrenaline rush. It had all kinds of roller coasters, spinners, drops, and whatnot! And then a pool to compensate for the scorching heat of July in Massachusetts. I think I went out with a bunch of folks after a really long time. This time, it was with Him, Abhijeet, Soma, Khusbhoo, and a couple others. I genuinely felt adrenaline pumping out and experienced how time stops when your body tackles fear face to face. When you're at a height of 40 floors, just hanging with a cable which rotates you like a toy in the sky - you just can't stay normal. You feel that you're flying - but you know you are just hanging with a cable - and if in case it loses the grip - you are dead. There's a lot of risk to it, but it is what that gives you a rush of trying it! Time stops; and you can experience every millisecond of breeze touching your cheeks; with no wordly sounds at that height; just the sound of wind g

Do you remember when you played video games during childhood? When the final boss arrives with all his might and tests you with every bit of his soul? It's like, you know you're going to win at the end; but it'll be tad bit difficult than the other levels of game. Something similar is happening lately. I'm in the final rounds of interviews, and the stress is inevitable. I'm very much confident to clear them, but there's a lot at stake; hence the stress. And this is the moment I generally resort to spend time with closest friends. But, as I said - this is the final level. Him is leaving for India next week - the one with whom I have spent countless nights discussing about things at my patio. We sat every alternate day till 4-5 AM gazing the sky, which was really the thing I looked forward to no matter how simple it seems to you.  And he being away means me having to fight this final boss by myself. Not like I can't share this with others - but they just can&#

 Finally, passed the masters!!!! You might be thinking it's not a big deal, right? Keep reading. So, I took a final course called Machine Learning in Finance; where we had to perform stock market analysis and design trading algorithm and strategies. Which was pretty much done by me with ease. But the final exam, my god! It was full of rigorous statistics, various tests (GARCH, ARCH, MACD, RSI, AD Test, KS Test etc), plus some core machine learning concepts. The catch was, the exam was online; and everyone used google to excel the exam. The class highest was 100, mean was 93. BUT, yours truly didn't cheat. I honestly wanted to test myself in this exam. We were technically supposed to attempt it without google, and since the course was worth 7000 dollars, I had already decided not to cheat. I mean I can get a 100 had took help from the internet; but what's the use of those 100, right? So, I gave the paper with utmost honesty (usool ka pakka insaan); and I ended up getting clo

So, since the last two days I was thinking about an analogy, which I believe holds true to some extent. I believe to a large extent that we become like the Gods we tend to incline towards. For example; in parts of India; like Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Himachal, Uttarakhand and parts of Rajasthan and Maharashtra which fall near central india (where I come from); we generally worship Lord Shiva in various forms (Mahakal, Vishwanath, Tryambakeshwar, Mallikarjun, Baidyanath, Bheemashanakar, Kedarnath), Lord Hanuman, Kaal Bhairav (particularly in Ujjain), etc. - where people tend to be more aggressive, and believe in a life full of grandeur, and are more stiff when it comes to culture, and don't see material wealth as the primary motive of life. As compared to the counterparts of Gujarat, and Mumbai (and that part of Maharasthra) where Lord Ganesh and Lord Krishna are worshipped by the masses. Which is pretty evident. Gujaratis and Native mumbaikars are a bit sweeter, with g

Yo stalkers! Writing after long long time! It's almost the end of June. And life's been a roller coaster, frightening but exciting. I like it this way. PS - I GRADUATED!! Next target is MBA... but after 3-4 years.. I want to be a VP in a good firm by the time I reach 30.. This inspiration came from my previous manager during my internship in Portland. She did her MBA from MIT Sloan.. and is a VP... she seems too young to be a VP... I want to outperform her... I want people to take inspiration from me.. I'm targetting Cambridge, UCB, Fuqua, IIMA, IIMB, UChic, and a few more... but that's for some other post.. I've realized a lot of things about myself, while nearing graduation. I realized the cost of ambitions. In a journey to make it big in life, I have sacrificed a lot of interpersonal relationships. I don't even know how it feels like to be at home, to connect on a deep emotional level with mummy, papa, dadi, baba. My life revolves around making it big, which

A lot has happened in the few months that I've not written anything on the blog. I traveled back to home (India) for some 20 days and then returned to Boston again! Lived for a month in Brighton, and then right now again near university. Many things happened in these 3-4 months.  GOA Went to Goa with Modak, Bhonsle, Tiwari, and Gangrade around year end. Had the time of our lives. Didn't partied in goa. We just relaxed at Ozran, Morjim and Anjuna. Gladly, my psyche matches with my homies and we avoided cliche places like Baga, Arambol, Calangute etc. I can't even describe in words what was it like. Attended Lucky Ali Live. I stood at the very first row and guess what?  We made eye contact and he sang a couple of lines of "MAUT" while staring at me. I'm not kidding. I've the video on my phone. He also hummed O Sanam, which I've uploaded on YouTube as well.  Anyway, the concert was just 10% of the trip. Tiwari and I strolled on the empty Anjuna beach at 3

 So, I'm writing after months. And we've stepped into a new year. Or I will rephrase it: The increment in Gregorian calendar year, which is an abstract concept in my mind, which is marked by earth's completion of a circle around the Sun. Which again isn't a circle because sun itself revolves in milky way, and milky way revolves around the galactic cluster, which also revolves around some gigantic cosmic body and so on. So, yeah. It's just an escapism of us mortal humans from our daily lives. But yeah. I'm keeping aside this critical side of me to ask one question - does new year necessarily has to be accompanied by a new version of yourselves? Personally, I don't want that. I mean yes, I'd work on a couple of qualities, but I won't change myself entirely. I mean, that's my individuality. And I should be proud of it, which I am.  I ask this question to you. Do you want to change your entire persona in 2022? Ponder! Also, life updates. Left Portlan