Defense of a Nerd? - Not quite

So, finally I decided to pull myself off the slumber and write this post. Notwithstanding the testimonials of several people, I do not quite enjoy the (direct) spotlight, where the steps I take are being watched. Hence, I was dithering because I thought that this post has to be a place where everything I say has to make perfect sense and to get together as a watertight argument and defense of the way I operate. But then I realised that it would amount to me just being dishonest to myself and to anybody who would read this. Rather, I should just let it flow here, whatever I have to say.

First up, a foe-turned-friend remarked a couple of days back about how I was not a 'nerd', but a 'dork'. According to her, a 'nerd' is someone who's totally into technology and is very innovative there. I, according to her, did nothing of that sort and was, at best, academically better than most others. However, I see this argument at two levels. First, the terminology doesn't matter much, does it? For some, 'nerd' is a good thing to be, and to others it isn't. Dork, surely, is a good word to describe me - I'm surely socially inept and quirky. However, about me being 'merely' a bit ahead in the 'race to grades' would be an unfair characterisation. For one, creativity doesn't necessarily need to relate to technology. At the same time when Steve Jobs was changing the way we look at technology, lots of guys were working around the world to change the way we look at finance. 'Innovation' can be with regard to anything. It is true that in India, given the preeminence we give to technology, it is not a surprise that we'd look at the 'uber-nerd' as a tech freak. Nonetheless, I'm hopeful that it will change soon.

Now to more important issues. I see mischaracterizations as cases of misinformation. Hence, just because somebody scores well, doesn't mean that he uses all his time to study. At least I don't (assuming that I score well, which isn't always true). I've always made sure that I should not be like a dog to my academics; that I should always be the master. If you look at my schedule two months before CAT, it read somewhat like this: DreaMerger, GRE, Financial Summit, Rise of Nations, Financial Knights. I missed a lot of 8:40 classes the week before CAT, not because I was studying, but because I had played Rise of Nations till late at night. Two days before my CAT, I was up till 3 playing Rise of Nations. My 'CAT coaching' consisted more of discussing business issues with my teacher, rather than solving math problems. Whatever the CAT result be, I don't have a single regret. I did it my way, and that's what matters to me.

Another instance of doing it 'my way' were my internships. Working at Bandhan was the most amazing experience. It is not everyday that you walk with your leg below your knees in wet mud. It certainly isn't routine (for a Delhi boy) to sit down at the Howrah station at 5 AM and just look at the multitudes. My friends laughed at my second internship at SochYo!. Some of them, worked at big corporations and big banks and big names (note the repeated usage of 'big'). What I did was to follow my heart. Because it was a start-up, I enjoyed the work immensely. There was also greater flexibility around my working hours. The best part was when this internship experience was instrumental in my subsequent job interviews. Because I did what I did with passion, and because I learnt so much about the way people work and think, I was able to internalise all that information. So, I used my summers to do things I might probably never do again - visit villages and work for a start-up. And I was still able to fit them in the broader scheme of things.

Some people think that nerds study (if at all) to achieve some material gain. I can't vouch for everyone, but that certainly is not true for me. The day I topped the boards, so many people asked me what I had got as a gift, and I said nothing. The reason being that whatever I had wanted was already there with me before the results were out. Whatever I have wanted has been made available to me by my parents or my brother, results and marks and all irrespective. My parents hear about my academics only once a year - the day of the university results. Academics is otherwise never a topic of discussion at my place.

In this world today, most of us play to a certain other's tunes. We are all footballs of someone else's opinion. Some dance to the tunes of their peers, some dance for societal acceptance, some dance to the tunes of their friends and some for their careers. To my credit, I set my incentives in such a way that I danced to my own tunes and still ended up achieving what I wanted to do. In a microcosmic way, I solved a problem of incentives, something of a rarity in real world.

For example, if I've always liked Strategy Games - the tycoon games, Age of Empires, Rise of Nations etc. In fact, in one of the few instances of parental pressure, my IITian cousin hid all strategy games on my computer. Such was my craze! But then I saw that my aptitude for strategy games had a much wider application. I used it extensively at the Economics Society of school, and I've continued using it in college. Most recently, solving case studies (at least the interview type of cases) became so easy for me because I could look at the broader picture, just like I had to do in a game of Age of Empires. I did what I enjoyed, and I made sure I did it in the way that maximised returns.

Now, for the trickiest bit. Why don't I party like crazy, let my guard down for a moment and be lost in joy? I don't quite know. Firstly, the idea of losing control itself doesn't appeal to me. Losing control - to people or to inanimate things - isn't really part of my DNA. Does that make me 'boring'? Well, even if it does, I think I would prefer being boring.

Hmmm .... this didn't quite come out like I wanted it to. Maybe this will continue some other day, or maybe I would have moved on.

The Dreadfully Heavy Whites

I thought today evening that I'll write a post titled 'Defense of a Nerd', primarily because of a certain someone's relentless attack on my lack of things to do last night. However, something more pressing came up, something that might go out of my memory unless I put it down here. Here's the deal - this is about me!

A bunch of elderly neighbors came over for an evening gossip to my place. Then they got talking to my parents about me. This is fairly regular conversation when people who've not met me before - they get talking about the boards and all. Then, my dad took out a bunch of those newspaper clippings and showed those to them. In one of them, I'd talked about how I washed my own clothes. Honestly, I didn't remember till I got reminded today.

But when I was reminded, I could almost feel that dreadfully heavy whites (the DPS, RK Puram trousers) in my hands. I can remember waking up really early morning at 5 in the winter to go to school from Ghaziabad. But all that feels distinct. However, it gives me a sense of pride and a sense of self-esteem.

Now, success and failure come and go. Often, we sit down more with the failures than we do with the successes in life. But that bit of harsh living back in class 12th made me a bit resistant to failures. Yes, I do fail very often. But my entire response to failures has changed. I'm able to pick up the pieces and rather than move on, get back harder to the tast. Now, that might not be the best thing to do. Sometimes, it's just better to move on and let bygones be bygones. But these days, this is what I do and I'm happy doing it. Some day, I might realise that this is wrong and then I'll change myself accordingly. As I wrote in my last post, I'm not attached - even to my behaviour.

As a postscript, the earliest instances of this 'rising from failures' were my quizzing escapades in school. There have simply been too many quizzes that Kritika and I went for, and in each one of them we failed (to Kritika's credit, she won three quizzes - three times when she went without me in her team). But there was this 'big thing' lying in the future that kept making me get back to quizzing. I think that is why extra-curricular and co-curricular competitions are important. They teach you to deal with failures.

After this 'brief' thought, I'll get back to 'Defense of a Nerd' the next time.

My Greatest Journey

One of the few quotes that I remember is this one from The Namesake - "The greatest journeys are those that bring you home." At first, I found it very typical of a pravasi bangali, especially given the author's ethnicity. It was after the class 10th boards that I watched the movie, having read the novel a couple of years earlier. Now that I come to think of it, the quote reflects the deep significance that is attached to the act of returning home.

However, in life I have carried around a slight burden of rootlessness. My father's job in the navy prevented me from calling any one place 'home'. Where is my home? Is it where my parents reside, a place where I have not stayed for more than two months of my life in all? Or is it Delhi, where I have spent most of my life, but where I don't have any permanent residence? Even if it were Delhi, will it be Luytens' Delhi, where I spent almost all my childhood, but where I know I can never return? Or will I make a new home in the other parts of Delhi?

Yet, every time I cross the area around Chanakyapuri, an area I grew to love and admire, there is always a slight heartache that grips me. There is a feeling of a 'lost childhood', not in the sense of a childhood that I didn't enjoy, but which I can barely revisit. It is like a relic - it has been so strongly cast in stone that it now seems totally surreal. Every time I go towards Dhaula Kuan, I sit up excitedly to look at DSOI and S P Marg. Today as I go to the airport to board a flight back to Kolkata, I would be waiting for when the Airport Express Line crosses DSOI. The last time I stayed at DSOI for a couple of days, I went around the S P Marg area and revisited the temple I used to go to, the shops I used to buy from and the lively buildings that were once part of a 'home' - the only place I call 'home'.

Indeed, going to those areas is the greatest time of my life. It gives me a sense of relief - that even though I may have passed that extremely pleasant time, there are others growing up there who would enjoy what I enjoyed, who would play where I once used to play and who would probably face similar curiosities as I once did. My journey wasn't unique - in fact, a lot of Army kids probably have an even more rootless existence - and in those numbers I find comfort.

The good thing about this rootlessness is the objectivity it brings to me. Once you do not have a 'home' to be attached to, there are very few things you can be attached to. Friends, success, failures - nothing inspires attachment because the greatest attachments have been broken down before. It is truly my biggest weakness and my greatest strength. It is my raison-de-etre and that is how I will now look upon it.