A couple of months back when i was on the brink of completing my Bachelor's in Computer Science & Engineering..i realized the meaning of smiling and working in the face of adversity. I have undergone everything that can possibly go wrong for an undergraduate student..right from a system crash just before report submission..to last minute faults in the project code..to attendance troubles..to the drought of notes and books just before the final semesters..to sleepless nights..to constant powercuts..to battery back up for 5 mins only..to inability in the intake of extra greasy hostel food..to sleeping on the hostel roof with the company of melodious mosquitoes..to being broke(almost :P ) ..to crying in solitude..and all of this in the blistering heat of the summer of 2012.
Summer of '69 were the best days of Bryan Adam's life and Summer of 2012 was memorable for me..though for all different reasons. When i shifted to my new hostel in the beginning of Final Year..i was very excited to get the room on the top floor with two of my besties. Awesome well ventilated and well lit room with balcony and terrace just a step away. A perfect setting for my poetic mind. Initially i would just sit and enjoy the awesome view i got. My Apple Ipod acted as the best companion during my quests of soul searching and finding hidden meanings of the simplicities of life.
Days passed and Summer came..days became hotter and more humid and nights were frequented with power cuts.Being on the top floor our room soon got transformed into a blast furnace. My college timings were from 8 am to 1 pm. And after reaching from college..it was like having lunch and afternoon siesta in a burning kiln. Deadlines for Final Year Project, the most important endeavor of an Undergraduate Engineering Student's life were fast approaching. Me & My Friend Sangita were attending classes on Android Application Development during that time and our class timings were in mid afternoons when getting an auto rickshaw is as difficult as finding an oasis in a burning desert.
The heat took away our appetite..and all that i wanted after a long day was some light dinner and a peaceful sleep both of which was impossible as hostel food can never be light and subtle and sleeping at night in powercuts is as good as starting a war with the mosquitoes.
My project was based on Radio Frequency Identification and it took us quite a long time to find a proper hardware for the same. There were times when on holidays me and my team mates went to college and slogged over the coding, design etc of the project the whole day..only to find that our hardware was incompatible.
One fine day after resolving major issues of our project and with final semesters approaching soon..day and night slogging took a toll on me. I was down mentally. In order to refresh myself i started watching a movie in mid afternoon..with my project report work side by side. And bam..the current goes..and my laptop with 5 mins battery back up shuts down in no time..With a damn! in my head..after the current comes..i restart my lappy only to find that it has crashed and on the top of it i realise that i havent created a backup for the project report.
My lappy is formatted the same day..and minutes before completion of formatting..current goes again..stormy weather..current will be gone for few hours and my lappy is still in the crashed state and my report is yet to start all over again.Was it a nightmare??
No it was not and i accepted it. My laptop was finally ok after hours of hard work.My Report was finished within 2 days. 90 pages report. I learnt that some things work out just in time no matter how horrendous it might be to achieve it.
That night after the usual powercut I slept on the hostel terrace with my besties on my side..i took a break..we chatted the whole night..we giggled..shared our secrets..caught up on all that we had lost..with three mosquito coils around us guarding us..and in the cool breeze of the midnight we fell asleep..only to wake up early morning to the songs of a frantic cuckoo who was desperate to wake us up. Unlike the alarm we can't put a snooze on a real cuckoo..In short we can't change certain bits of life yet we can definitely wake up smiling to a new day :)
