Kaka

Today I’m here to admit one of the biggest mistakes that I was about to make. For the first part of the story I do not deserve any respect for what I was about to commit. The second part of the story is about the inspiration that I drew from a person I know by the name of Kaka.
Kaka in our language Marathi means uncle but this person was our Math professor and he liked students calling him ‘kaka’ rather than Sir or Prof. Paranjape, by the way that was his real name. He is by far the best person I have met in my entire life. He helped me battle out the horrors of Engineering Mathematics 3.
In my University (Pune) if you do not pass you course in the sophomore year you are allowed to keep term and attempt the junior year, but if you are still failing in the same course you cannot go to the senior year.
There were terrors about this subject that surrounded me all the time. Right from day one since I stepped into my engineering college, people had been telling me that EM3 won’t even let you through your sophomore year, forget about the difficult courses that you would be facing in the junior and the senior year.
I was pretty regular and rarely missed any of my classes. I had all my notes down, but as I'd start solving the questions my mind would go blank, weather it was proving an equation or deriving a formula I just could not get to the conclusion. Seemed as if all the formulae were entwined in my mind and I did not know which one to use.
Kaka knew my difficulty right from the beginning ever since I had joined his class. He would go over again and again explaining things that I found difficult to understand, at times he would almost look like the man in the picture. My friend Manoj and I would study together and if we had any difficulties, we'd visit kaka’s house and he would happily explain things back again.
Three days before the exam we are nervous, we were able to solve math problems sitting at home or in the library but what if we are unable to solve it in the exam, if we fail we were going to loose one whole year and there was no alternative, "how do we face our parents if we fail this time, how do we face the rest of the world and what about the challenge we accepted from our friends that we would get ourselves through this subject", all these fears made shivers ran up and down my spine, and all these feelings would be an obstruction while taking the test. Suddenly I had a plan in mind. "We are going to cheat this time" I told Manoj , and this is what we would do when the question paper is distributed in the class we write whatever we can in the first 30 mins, then I would slowly slide the question paper under my tshirt and excuse myself out of the class to use the restroom and hand the paper to another friend who is already waiting for me outside, he would get the paper solved from some other brilliant student, make a reduced photocopy out of the answers and return back in one hour and this time my friend Manoj would fake an excuse and visit the restroom where he would find two copies of the all the answers and the question paper that I had let out. But who would that brilliant student be? I did not know anyone who would do that for us. We thought for a while and once again my evil mind came up with another plan. Why not make Kaka solve the paper for us.
That same day Manoj and I went to meet Kaka, we were a little hesitated but we told him our plan. At first the old man stayed calm, he went into a deep thought. After he came out of his thinking he looked at both of us, we looked at each other and then I told him. "Kaka, we'r gonna pay you for the job". He looked at us and simply said, "what are you afraid of, EM3? thats it? You guys have attended the classes regularly, did your homework on time. What is it that you should be afraid of? Let yourself know that you are equipped with all the weapons you need to destroy the mighty demon EM3. Enter the examination hall as if you are entering the arena and have no fear to what ever that comes in your way. I know you will pass this test, never give up and never quit.".
I felt electric current run through my body, I was charged to fight this demon so called as Engineering Mathematics 3. Kaka's three minute speech was so powerful that it got us all pumped up, full with the motivation that we needed.
It wasn’t just engineering mathematics 3 but few other difficult subjects ahead that I fought bravely and passed all my exams by being true to myself and to the ones who had faith in me.

Bonding with strangers

My dad traveled through a metro rail from Pune to Mumbai everyday for work a few years ago. The day I was supposed to get my Visa stamped at the US Embassy in Mumbai I traveled with him. When we boarded the train at Pune Junction there were few people in the compartment but as a few stops passed many people occupied themselves closely on each of the seats. It was nothing new since many people travel on work and business purpose between Pune and Mumbai daily, but I was surprised to see them communicating with each other, most have them were working at different offices but they had been traveling together for minimum three years. By spending four hours in the metro they had formed a dense network, every member in the group interacted with each other in the group. Not just that, they played cards, sang their favorite songs and shared their breakfast meals with each other. I was listening carefully to their discussions; it ranged from politics to sports, from household budgets to education etc. Although it was not a workplace but these people including my Dad were involved in a cohesive bond where a single thought ran through their minds. Another factor what made them bond together was an economic class compartment in which they were traveling, most of the individuals in the compartment were financially close to each other, thus sharing values, opinions and beliefs became easy for them. Then they would get off at their respective stations and meet once again the same day or the next to share their experiences... it was amazing to witness such friendship ties.

Image taken from my trip to Chennai- India for a trade show with my Senior class in Engineering (BE).

Pullover

Language is governed by rules. There are two basic rules that govern meanings of words and the order we use to convey a certain message. Constitutive rules and Regulative Rules.
My observation is the on the constitutive part. Constitutive rules tell us which words represent which objects. There are many advantages of experiencing different cultures but sometimes the same words mean different in the same language. Two years ago I was making my first trip out of Pittsburg- Kansas ever since I came down to the United States. My friends and I were driving down to Dallas that day and we were just about to enter Quapaw OK, I still remember that place because we ended up getting a ticket for over speeding in the downtown there...
But this story is not about that; a funny incident took place that made us realize that English is indeed a funny language. We had just entered Quapaw and we heard the siren and saw the police following us. After a few seconds my friend who was driving told me that he is asking us to ‘pull over’. I was not sure of what he meant and kept quiet, we pulled over and had the police came to our car, after an exchange of a few words and papers we ended up with a ticket for over speeding. The cop allowed us to advance the journey. Before I asked my friend to show me the receipt for the ticket I asked him. “Where was the 'pull-over' involved in all of this?” He was confused and simply replied “What?”
I told him “when the police vehicle was chasing us, you said something about the pullover”. To me the only meaning for pullover was the one that I was wearing. When my friend said that the police officer is asking us to pull over, I did not hear it well and probably that was the reason why I miss understood what he said. Both of had a good laugh and with that I added another American jargon to my dictionary.