What I love about myself

It sounds more like an interview question but ismein meri koi galati nahin hai. Dimag abhi bhi interview mania se bahar nahin nikla hai. I don’t remember when the grand job treat was but not more than two weeks. I wanted the title to be “What I hate about myself”, but when I reviewed my blogs, I found out that there was too much of negativity in my writings. As many experts suggest, “Attitude changes Altitude” Hence it’s a conscious attempt on my part to write about good things, write positive and think positive. Some MBA grads may accuse me of using only the S of SWOT (Strength, Weakness, opportunity and threat) analysis, but I plan to come up WOT in recent future.

So what are these things that I love, in other words I am trying to be “Apne moohn miyan mittu”. As all great men have a lot of things that they are proud of, and I obviously being one of them, so I do have a long list:

• I know what are my limitations are: This may sound a weakness to most of the achievers who have exceptional caliber, but for a mediocre to have great achievements, I believe this is one of the basic necessities. I owe a lot to this quality of mine for whatever bare minimum I have been able to achieve in this short life. When I know that I can’t be one of top 500 rankers in JEE, I am not going to solve the toughest of the problems. It gave me an edge in my JEE examination and I achieved my target of being ranked ~1000 with a .02% deviation. If the answers of a chemical engineer are as close as 70 to 80% of the real answer, he is an exceptionally talented guy. So it was a great achievement for me to be JEE rank 1002. “Aur Poot ke paon to palne mein hee dikh jaate hain”, as you all know.

But as all strategies back fire if used more than once, this one also did in my CAT preparation. I only prepared the easy things and expected the paper to be easy. But the paper only had tough questions. And only exceptional people make history, not mediocre. I was all out in the first over of the match. Can’t be helped….

Hmmm… But this realization of my limits is also the source of my energy. It empowers me with enormous perseverance to go on and on and on and on until I reach where I am destined to.

• I am not an egoist: Yes I can claim this rightfully. There are many people who don’t like asking the way when going to a new place and like to wander around till they themselves figure out, where and how to reach. I am not one of those unduly high self esteemed chaps. I don’t mind asking the way, confirming it and reconfirming that again.

It’s a simple analogy. But I prefer asking rather than inventing the wheel. This is the reason that I owe other people a lot more than what most people do. I learned all my JEE mathematics from two people Deepak and Ashish. They solved the questions and I learned the tricks because I some how realized that mathematics is not my cup of tea.

Not being egoist allows me to be rational in situations where people can get highly emotional. I don’t mind loosing in a table tennis or Age of Empires or cricket match, but my friend manish would continue to play until he wins and atleast proves to himself that he is a better player. It allows me to tickle other people’s emotions, (which I don’t approve of myself) but sometimes you can take the liberty with friends…because they are the best of the god’s creations.

• Non emotional, objective and liberal attitude: I make die-hard efforts to have all these constituents in my personality. I have been called eccentric, firangi and what not because of these qualities. These qualities are an asset if I can fully develop them. Everyone knows about them but how many of us actually try to practice.

Who doesn’t know “Vinash Kale viprit Buddhi”, but still we get emotional whenever there are difficult decisions to be made. I don’t know about the origin of my ultra liberal thoughts but I seriously plan to put them into practice. I believe that whatever freedom I have in a relationship, should be available in equal terms to my counterpart. It gives me more freedom and enhances the freedom of others as well. But this is all theory, so I have to wait for future to unfold itself and tell me, who is right? I or my friends who shrug away my thoughts saying…time changes every one!!

• My diverse choice about everything: I like to make friends from all corners of the world, listen to all kinds of music, eat all kinds of food (only vegetarian), and roam around to all corners of the world (up till now its only India). I can’t live at one place for longer periods of time. 4 years stay at IIT has also started to get a boring tinge.

Personality is a Pandora’s Box. The more you know the more complex it gets and hence quest goes on and on. I hope to find out a lot about myself in recent future because these lukkha days are “Toofan ke pehle kee shanty”. A lot is going to change in coming days in and around me. Its not something I intended to do, but that’s the way life is. I hope to put my life back on the track soon, but patience is the virtue that I have to cling upon.

ak