Ñarcissisш Vs $elf Conſidence

Those who read this post of mine would have known how I was tagged as a Narcissist and all my efforts to safe guard myself from the attack by maggie went in vain.Some one said it truely "always listen to girls and never ever argue with them, guy will always loose" I am following it and its quite helpful :D Anyways, I'm not sharing my "gyan" on this post; may be some other time.

Since the day I was labeled as a narcissist, I was doubting myself, is it bad to know yourself and love yourself ? Is it a waste of time to introspect and start knowing what is right for you and to discover the formula which would solve your equation of life !!! Did I over do it knowing myself much better then any one else could have done ?? or does it come out as a try to get some attraction by talking about myself ?? With the course of time I realized its not at all bad, its a positive sign, it helps me with the decision making and it keeps the spark alive that Chetan Bhagat talks about. With the course of time I learnt that there is a thin line between being Narcissist and being Self Confident.

According to Dictionary

Narcissist means : In ordination fascination with oneself; excessive self -love, erotic gratification derived from admiration of one's own physical or mental attributes !!!

Self Confident means : Sure of oneself; having no uncertainty about one's own abilities, correctness, successfulness, etc !!!!

So what to call a person who is in love with him self and does talk a lot about his abilities, correctness and successfulness, if not exactly that; then at least his learning and his approach towards the life. Or the one who is trying to figure out a better way to live life in the present world without compromising on the true goal of life , without harming and hurting any one. What would you call a person who has a self belief and is trying to do the right things knowing the obstacles on the way.

Yeah, i am exactly like that, I have some how figured out a little bit about the "Ideal or a Perfect"way to live life and feel like taking it to the next level which is letting others know about it as well, its not the easiest but still very practical as long as you know your self, I have been appreciated and encouraged to continue with it, but at times I try too hard to share the right things to others and ask them to follow it too and that's when the confidence turns into narcissism !!!

"No one likes to see the mirror when you don't look good in it",so when I tell someone to follow the right thing no matter what, my confidence of "to be good to others" turns into a narcissism of being good then him/her. So is it wrong to be confident and not sharing your confidence with others ? If it is that then let me be An Exception coz had Gandhi ji didn't believe in his values India wouldn't have got its Independence, had Bill Gates didn't believe in his Vision there wouldn't have been "information technology, had Google didn't believe in its "Innovation" I wouldn't have have shared this with you through blog!!!! Lets share the "Confidence, Values & Vision" with others and contribute to make this world a better place to live !!!!

Cheers !!!!

conVocAted !!!!

Continuing with this blog,after an hour of walk and with nostalgic feelings I slept around 2:30 AM with an alarm for 6:30 AM, so that I can wake up on time for the day I have been waiting for from last 5 years (1 yr prep + 4 yrs B.Tech) ,no one would have bothered to wake up so early and reach IIT D's Main building on a Saturday had it not been our Graduation Day,So I woke up and got ready as soon as possible; I thought I am doing wrong thing by wearing casuals on this day but to my surprise all (B.Tech) were just like that only !! Everyone was given an Orange gown with a blue hat , we called it Jaadu Dress , coz it was something like that only !! After an arbit photo session we moved to the ConvoCation Hall, Sat there for almost 3 hours doing nothing, just talking here and there, no one hardly listened to any speech coz we were given a written format of it, which we read as quickly as we could and used rest of time for more important things !!! (Gossiping and Sleeping) :D Yeah some of us really slept during the convocation address !!!!

One by one everyone was called by his/her name and were handed their invaluable, prestigious and well deserving degree :P Felt really touched when a handicapped guy with a walker came over to take his degree, almost everyone was giving him an applause and appreciated his determination and will. Sitting on the upper floor of the hall among rest of my friends,I was just counting minutes left before we would be called to stand in the queue and was just hoping that everything goes well and was praying for the Director who had the responsibility to shake hands and hand over around 800 Degrees,didn't wanted him to give up and say that he is too tired to give more degrees !!! Looking at the faces of the HOD's sitting there, I could only remember myself sleeping with eyes wide open in many of the lectures I had @ IIT.

After almost 2 n half hours, we were asked to proceed down and to line up for our turn.Standing in the queue I felt as if I am the captain of a sports team who just won a world cup and waiting to lift it, that was the level of excitement and emotions I was going through.I was like 70 % excited, 20 % emotional and 10% nervous, don't know why, my hand were sweating, i was thinking of how important this moment is yet we just had to control our emotions coz everyone was seeing us, I was suppose to shake hands with the director, bow towards our chief guest n just walk away !!!

And then the moment arrived, my name was called and I walked to the Director and surprisingly he said "Congratulations Ashish" and I was surprised,just for a moment I thought how does he know my name, does he really remember everyone's name or is it just mine ?? Anyways, I bowed to the chief guest and walked away,really wanted to celebrate the moment right there on the stage but couldn't, and as I thought, everyone was congratulating each other just out side the gate, everyone had a broad smile on their faces and were hugging each other, on the way back to my place I hugged everyone I could, even those who were still in the queue waiting for their turn. We reached our places and found a photographer standing there, irrespective of what was happening down there, we shouted and asked him to capture the moment with our degrees in hand, and luckily he did !!! Same process kept on going till the moment when final Undergraduate was given his degree, we were already shouting and making noises while he was on his way,the funny guy looked at us and thanked us as if we were congratulating him for his degree !! :D It was very hard to control the emotions and yeah the Hat too coz we just wanted to take it off and throw it in the air !!

After 15 mins or so our names were officially added to the book of Students who passed out from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi till date !! It was followed by National Anthem and by some Sanskrit Shloks, all the profs moved towards the exit and as soon as last one was out of our sight we did it, yeah we took off our "Jaadu Waala Hat" and threw it in the Air,we laughed, we shouted,we made lots of noise,we congratulated and hugged each other and slowly moved towards the exit !! It was all Orange outside, no parent could have sighted his son/daughter and same happened with me, I ran two complete rounds of the place before I could see my parents, though on the way I was able to get my self clicked 4-5 times in some or the other group of friends,couple of times me with my degree !! ((Snaps are still be received to be uploaded))
So finally after many many Kodak moments, we all settled and bid farewell to each other, moved with our parents or to respective homes, taking back with us the memories of "IIT Delhi's 39th Convocation" and a happy ending to the four years of Journey through ups and downs,successes and failures, hard work and commitment and ofcourse hell lot of fun !!!! What we also took with us was our very precious and well deserving Degree which tagged us as an IITian for ever !!!

Note :

1) Some feelings can't be expressed in words and I had many of those which are yet to be expressed

2) The word "Well Deserved" is not over rated and might be explained in the future !!! :D

3) Many pictures are yet to be received and would be uploaded as soon as I get them

Kaala Jamoon !!!!

Wow !! This is cool, I can blog from anywhere now even when I'm in middle of a lake or even when I am in some private place or else while having a choclate fantasy like m hving rigt now. The reason being very simple, I got my new black berry a.k.a 'kaala jamoon' wid unlimited acess to the internet :) already installed yahoo msnzer n gtalk; so can b online @ any time and anywhere !!! Though I have been given this for official purpose but I think I can use it more efficiently and make full use of the technology n time !!!

I hope I will blog more frequently from now on wid live telecast of wats happening around me. I m walking on a busy road of hyderabad so let me jusr sign off for now n reach to my destination safely !!

Enjoy and have fun !!

Cheers to black berry :)

IIT Delhi Revisited !!!

Firstly a very sorry to the handful of readers of my blog for not posting anything from quite a some time now.I was having my very good days and not very good ones, my system was down with fever so was I, had 4 days off from office so couldn't really access anything and all this while i kept thinking of hundred of blogs i wish to write but just couldn't pen down anything.So I am still clueless about what to write.Anyways let me try....As I mentioned in my last blog about my Convocation so this blog might end up about those final 4 days ..or rather 'Masti k chaar din'

It was 6th of august when me along with my 4 college frens boarded the train from secundrabad and excitement to go back to college was on our faces. More then going back to college we were more happy to meet college friends and 4 days of no work and complete fun. Skipping the details of 24(+2) hours of journey let me brief about my days and psuedo days (nights) in my alma mater, IIT Delhi. Reached friend's room in some hostel at around 8:30 PM, didn't had any lunch or dinner that day during the journey so was bit hungry, but just after usual hugging n all i was told it is supposed to be a party tonight coz its sort of reunion of 7 of us :-) , don't know why i just forgot all my tiring journey and got on with the things, walked all the way from hostel to main gate, around 2 kms, reached the nearest hang out place (SDA) and got things which would let us enjoy for the rest of night ;) So here we were once again , one small room of our hostel and around 8 guys sitting on one bed and every other possible place , but there was something different about this night, some of us were in formals, no songs on high volume, we were just gossiping about how life has been in last two months, how it feels to be working and how is it different from college life and may be we were enjoying far much just being with each other after a long time. I don't remember when did i sleep off in between all these talks but i do remember that i was a bit high and i went to meet my juniors and other friends from my year who are still in IIT. It felt great, so relaxed, so enjoyable and was always smiling :)

The next day was even more surprising, it rained all day in delhi, all roads were jammed to the max, had to run for 2 kms in that rain to reach college at 3 PM, coz we had so called rehearsals for our convo, i don't think i ever tried to reach somewhere so punctual, anyways I was 15 mins late and found out that all B.Tech are still on their way, don't know why i ran so much !!!! Reaching convocation hall I only realized that all B.Tech guys have been asked to sit on the upper floor, don't know why IIT Admin treats us so differently may be coz we are not Ideal IITians but still take all credit of it :D

Anyways, half an hour into rehearsals and we were already getting bored coz it was Matkes & Phadoos turn for rehearsing and we would be having the same after 90 mins, so without wasting any time we moved over to our nescafe for a bigger get together, around 200 B.Tech talking loud and laughing out louder, everyone having something or the other and no one knows who will pay for it, I myself had a maggie and an ice tea, don't know who paid for me :D After 2 hours of talking and get together we reached our places back, did some rehearsal for 10 mins and back out enjoying :D

The night followed was the one I missed most after leaving the college, I was out for a walk at 1 AM in the night, I went to nescafe,saw someone's Birthday Celebrated in a typical Hostel Style, I had my midnight snacks at the Canteen, went to main building and felt nostalgic about the infinite late night and early morning walks we had,I couldn't have so much freedom of living anywhere else except @ IIT D. On the way back to hostel, I saw a group of guys walking in the middle of road and chilling out,some guys playing basket ball in the court, some one was trying his hand on tennis and I just wished I could rewind the time and stay at this place for one more year without loosing anything !! I was happy to be Convocated very next day yet I didn't want to go from this place, All I could think was how to make this happen; though at the back of my mind I knew its impossible unless i decide to be a Prof at IIT :P !!! So I came back to hostel and went to the bed thinking of the "Convocation Day : 9th August 2008" !!!!

Kal, Aaj aur Kal !!!!

The title of the post is being adopted by an old hindi movie starring Prithiviraj Kapoor, Raj Kapoor and Randhir Kapoor (if i am correct), the movie was about thinking of 3 different generations and problems related to them but being inspired by Pritam's music, I think I would be let off for any charges against me for using this tittle for my own purpose.Anyways, I am not going to write about 3 generations coz I dont have any, I am youngest in the family and still single :D , so you might have guessed by now kal, aaj aur kal here refers to my past ,present n future !!!

Since I haven't posted any thing about my school or college life any where on the web world, I take this opportunity for it to be one of the very few, to pen down my experiences during school n college days. Though it was one of the main reason of my "Past Blogging Career" to write about it coz I could share my views about my Happy days and Not so Happy Days but i couldn't. Anyways past days are gone and life is all changed now, with no more college days and no hostel life but still, I think I am left with 4 days to write about it, 4 days coz after exact 4 days I would be graduated and would be officially Tagged as B.Tech from Civil Engineering Department of IIT Delhi for ever !! Yeah Yeah I'm having my convocation on coming saturday !!!

Those who know me from my school days would hardly believe that I actually made it to one of the Premier Institute of India and actually managed to complete that in the alloted 4 years, coz I wasn't into studies till I was 17, I still remember March 2003, Indian Cricket team was in south africa, It was India vs Pakistan on 1st march and I saw every ball of it, knowing that I have my board exams from 19th of March. I saw every match including India vs Australia,the final of it,on 23rd March, I saw that till 3 AM in the night and I had one of toughest exam on the very next morning at7:30 AM (if required I can share details of that too :D). Before the year 2003, I never thought I need to study for my living coz My father is working, my brother is a genius so why should I work hard when I already know my "safe' future, another reason being the least expectations from me since I never used to touch my school bag when I was at home, always busy playing cricket, going here n there and one more important thing which you might be thinking of, I was never into gals, I was in a guys school, wasn't much interested into Tutions and all, always tried to study by myself so hardly interacted with girls. Actually I was so stupid that I couldn't really figure out why would a girl (who now i think had a crush on me) try to talk to a rude and arrogant person like me, so I just ignored her and went on :D

(I know even you calling me stupid now)

Anyways being shortest in my friend circle and youngest at the home, I had a fair bit of advantage and also some disadvantages :( . So here I was with no aim in my life, no specialty, no idea about the future and more importantly I wasn't confused coz I didn't want to do anything at all. (People get confused when they want to do many things at a time). Some positives about me where, I was consistent with my results (83 %-85%), I loved maths and still do it, was very short tempered (yeah i take it as positive,continue reading you will find why) and had an attitude to be happy with himself, I never compared myself with others and I still don't !!! So after completing my 12th and with a good enough rank in one of the competitive exam, I was all set to join the best college of my state in best possible branch, but some how I wasn't happy with it, coz I didn't want to belong to the same group of students I shared school with (My Best friends being exceptions), so I thought of doing something big, some different with out knowing what that "something" was. Here I must thank my Brother (I know thanks is too little word), he some how used my short tempered nature for my benefit and asked me to do a simple thing, clearing a exam call JEE !!!! I agreed and moved over to Kota, the Mecca of JEE Prep, with only thing in mind and to prove my brother that I am not that stupid as he thinks, I studied n studied, 16 hours a day, for next 9 months, i didn't know where JEE would take me to, do i really want to do that or not, I had no idea !!! But then with nothing in my mind and "Something" to do, I chose it to be that way !!

So after all the hard work and exams, on 18th June, results were out and a very happy excited voice (my brother) told me my rank, and I went into depression, I was as low with my average energy as my brother was above , so I spent next 3 days without having food and sitting in one corner of my home, without talking much, my parents trying to cheer me up and It effected my the least !! I am sure you would be surprise that I behaved that why after clearing JEE, but thats how life goes when you don't compare your self with others and keep high expectations from yourself !!!

I finally felt nice when I was given a Nokia 2100 as my gift, and I told my parents i wont study any more now, I would just go and enjoy my college life, the promises that I made to myself were 1) I would atleast have one very good female friend in college (just a friend), was too keen n curious about it
2) I won't study coz I am already in top 1% of India's Science maths studying students and since college is the fun life, i would just enjoy the life !!!

As it turned out, both of my Promises/ assumptions were wrong, neither was I good enough by nature/behavior to be someone's friend nor was I one of the top 1 % of those students. It all went wrong for the first two years of my college life, primarily coz I forgot my basics, I started comparing myself with others and I tried to be what I was not !!! So I just wasted 2 years of beautiful college life, I wasn't able to be friends with my hostel mates, could never talk with any one of my college girls (Though its diff. that there were hardly any1 I felt like talking to) and since I had so many pre assumed notions that everyone found me so weird and strange person to company with. Out of shear frustration from academic system and life in general, I convinced myself to live for myself and be myself, no matter what everyone thinks of me, that again turned out to be wrong decision and don't know why I started with a fair bit of introspection and broke all rules I had for myself, it went for a month if i remember correctly (May-June 2006) and finally realized what my exact problem was. I was trying too hard to change myself and to be what i was not.I had always been positive and hard working individual then why did I try to take short cuts, why did I try to behave the way others would like me to behave, knowing that I can't be that !!!

So after two long years, I finally improved myself or rather started behaving naturally, what i really was, I was able to use my strengths for my good be it working hard, be it positive attitude,be it just helping others or be it just behaving like a general; kind and humble person. I could see the change with in me, i was feeling more happy about myself and about others too. Most of the person whom i met there after liked my company, found me a good person, some one who they can trust on, a nice person to talk to and a person who can make them feel positive about everything. This went on for the next two years and I feel very very lucky that some friends did change their perception about me and accepted me the way I am. I was very lucky to have this person around me, coz he is like a mirror to me with a different perception about everything I thought and it helped me correcting myself many a times !! At some point of time in my college life, the word "Friend" was the word I used to hate coz more or less it covers every kind of relationship but now I love this word for the very same reason.

I am getting a bit senti now, knowing that I would be meeting all of them in the next 2 days, feels really happy to go back to college and meet all of those who did help me making me a better person !!! Things which I wanted to write but missed writing this blog would be updated very soon !!! So keep checking the space out. The most important part of the post is in the next paragraph so continue reading...!!!!

Learning

The Primary reason to write the post was to share what I learnt all these years, during my school and college life ... and the following thoughts are my own personal feelings, i'm not expecting you to agree with all of them.

1) Attitude is one of the most important thing in life, coz it reflects how you would react when you are pushed against the wall.

2) College days are the most memorable and wonderful years of life so just enjoy those knowing where you heading.

3) Always remember your Basics and use your strengths !!! Act and work the way you naturally do.

4) Always keep less expectations, it helps you to enjoy what ever you achieve and your attitude decides the next step.

5) Never have pre assumed notions about everything, believe in facts and figures coz things are not always the way you assume them to be.

6) Change is the only constant thing in life so accept the changes as they come !!!

Thats enough for this post, I am already getting late, got a train to catch in just about couple of hours, All comments (good or bad) would be appreciated !!!

Stay happy and keep smiling !!!

Enjoy the life and I hope I would have a great time !!!

Happy Friendship Day !!!

Its been really long (exact 4 days) since I wrote my last blog !! 4 days is quite a long time for me, considering the number of thoughts and Ideas that come to my mind in a single day. There is one true thing about blogging, most of the posts are written when blogger is not in his/her best of moods, same was with me, last 4 days have been good for me and even though I had so many good things to share, I didn't felt like writing coz I just kept thinking how can I write them "perfectly" !!!

There is one more thing I thought after reading so many other blogs, I wish to keep this blog always full of positive thoughts; motivating and learning experiences with some humors stories in between.As I wrote in this blog & this blog that i like to help people around me, I would make sure who ever read my blog signs off with a positive feeling about life and about himself, may be this is one of the reason I created this blog.

Anyways yesterday was "The Friendship Day" and it was one of the best that I had in last 4-5 years and the reason being I didn't remember it :D , though I was wished by a good friend of mine @ Midnight only but still it was not in my mind for rest of the day, I got calls from least expected school time friends and was really happy talking to them. It always feels nice when unexpected things happens, I used to expect calls n mszs when I was in college but yesterday I didn't expect any call and at the end I got a call from everyone :-)

Today, while sitting in office, don't know why but I wrote testimonials for two of my best friends of school time, their name being Tanay and Sanju. I met them 2-3 times in last 5 years but are still close to me and when ever we meet or talk, we just get on with things rather then complaining about not being in touch or whatever, and this is onething that I learnt from them and really feels lucky to have these friends !!!

There is another group of friends that exists in my life, the online ones, those whom I first met/talked on some messenger or on some social networking site. Out of those,there have been plenty whom I have met in real life also, some of them are still very good friends, I call some of them as my sister/brother and some being just in talking terms. There is onething that everyone who has/had an online friend would agree on and that is you can share your feelings, your thoughts, your secrets and your day to day life without much of hesitation (exception being your personal details). Once you get comfortable talking to him/her online, you feel there is a person who can listen to you without expecting much in return, you feel like being online at the time when your friend is, you just create another world of your own which seems to be more ideal for you then the real world, primarily coz you write the rules of that world and those rules are just applicable to you and no one else, you can break them, you can manipulate them and also you can have two different sides of you at the same time,talking to two different online friends.

In short you can just be the way you want to be rather then what you actually are and hence forth the online world seems to be more beautiful. But after being an active member of this online world for the last 4 years or so, I have found another thing in common between all the guys and gals, they all are "Insecured" , they seek for some one whom they can talk to and can share their feelings/desires, though the reason for this insecurity can vary, one seeks a brother or sister in a friend coz he/she is the only kid at her home and both the parents are working, other may be insecure because he/she is getting less attention from his parents as compared to other siblings, another one can just be the fear of talking and sharing things with parents or some one elder, one can look for a companion coz her/his friends have one and he/she cant find one of her choice in real etc

Even I was one of those insecured souls at one point of time in my life, and I did the same thing, or rather I perfected it to an extent !!! I don't have any hard feelings for the guys n gals who chats and believe in online friendship coz I know its in human nature to share things with some one, at least one person be it friend/sibbling/parents or just a pet, but then is it advisable to seek for that one person among thousands of strangers ?? There is just one percent chances that you get a right person to talk to, the main disadvantage of online chating/friendship is the rest of 99 % of conversations one have with strangers !! Thats where things get really bad or in common terms we call it "Bad Experiences", more n more of such incidences makes us feel very negative about the world around us and many of us grow with an "I Dont Care Attitude", this attitude is perfectly fine when it goes to cyber world but it does start affecting our day to day life n some how either we become very irritated and frustrated or we create a shell around us with restricted entry !!! In either case it doesn't do good to ourselves !!!!

Anyways, would just like to share that I have had my share of good and bad experiences, have managed to make some really good friends or rather friends for life. In the end, only thing that matters is what you learn from bad experiences and how to transform a good one to a better one !!!! So just be careful next time you talk to a stranger, never let him/her effect your life in a bad way !!!!

Happy Chatting, Happy Orkutting ....!!!!! Stay Happy and keep Smiling !!!!

Note - 1 : I was addicted to chatting @ one point of time !!!

Note - 2 : I am not a Chat Guru n Dont have any Fundae of my own, I was just 1% of those good people to chat to.

Note -3 : Nothing has been written in the blog keeping a single individual in the mind !!!

Note - 4 : Everything written is my own personal opinion/learning and by no means is intented to hurt any one's feelings