Thursday 4 October 2012

The Root 3 Syndrome



    Any Indian girl would know that one of the toughest things for us to do is escape marriage. You get a certain age, and all people want to hear from you is- when are you settling down. They don’t care about how well you are doing in life or if you are doing well at all. When you try to evade the question politely then the next question you get asked is if you have someone special in tow? If you don’t have any exciting info then people think that you are being sly....its quite an ordeal believe u me.

       So I generally have been dealing with this whole gang of uncles and aunts who get all quizzical every time I visit my folks. It doesn’t matter that you are doing well for yourself (one of them was mortified to hear of my promotion last year. In her view the more i earned the more difficult it would be for my folks to find a right guy for me!). Don’t even ask me how they reacted to the news of me taking a year off for studies. All I can say is that i love my folks for understanding what I want despite the dissenters that they have to suffer back home.
        What irritates me is that these are the persona non grata, who are not even remotely connected with my life. Yet their loud and opinionated self is hard to ignore, especially for my parents who have to deal with them socially. I am so glad that i can escape the torture of their presence for months at a stretch.

       The irony is that I do want to settle down. I miss not having a company, or someone to share my thoughts and life with. But i don’t want to settle into marriage out of pressure from some rogue elements. We are each a unique person (pretty much a Square Root of 3, in our own ways). We have our weaknesses, and our imperfections.  We wish we were different, a square or an integer. But we clearly are not....just when we come to accept ourselves the way we are, the hunt to find someone like us begins (for conjugal bliss). The beauty lies in finding another Square Root of 3, who will make us a whole number. Someone who will make our rough edges smooth....someone who will accept our ‘irrationality’ and make it rational. I call it the Root 3 Syndrome...someone who will complete us(sigh).
But what if i make a wrong choice and end up with a 3 or a 9? Then i will just be longing to become an integer all my life.....scary scary thought. To say ‘yes’ or not to say ‘yes’, thats the million dollar question, my friend.


Ps: Root 3, concept is obviously not mine. Its inspired from a poem by David Feinberg, and featured in the movie Harold and Kumar-Escape from G’bay. Here’s what the poem goes like...
...........................................................................................................................................
 I’m sure that I will always be
A lonely number like root three

The three is all that’s good and right,
Why must my three keep out of sight
Beneath the vicious square root sign,
I wish instead I were a nine

For nine could thwart this evil trick,
with just some quick arithmetic

I know I’ll never see the sun, as 1.7321
Such is my reality, a sad irrationality

When hark! What is this I see,
Another square root of a three

As quietly co-waltzing by,
Together now we multiply
To form a number we prefer,
Rejoicing as an integer

We break free from our mortal bonds
With the wave of magic wands

Our square root signs become unglued
Your love for me has been renewed

Dubai- So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Its been awfully long since I last blogged! one too many updates pending...

So well first things first, our Dubai stint finally came to an end on 28th Sep. 5 and a half months seemed to have passed in a jiffy. i personally hated my Dubai experience. I think International City, China Cluster had a lot to do with it....having lived in a desert for 8 years of my childhood (Ajmer), i really did not think that Dubai would be so bad for me. But i think super hot climate, hard water, lack of freedom all together dont make for a great stay. I had been waiting to get out of the place like how.

But a big thanks to the people who made my stay their tolerable, and at times fun too. My relatives (Reena di and Anil ji) were really very sweet and helpful. The SGI Gulf group was a great bunch to meet (specially Sadhvi, Anuj, Gayatri and Abhinav). And ofcourse, my MBA batchmates who wouldnt let Dxb and its sadness dampen their spirits! Thanks a ton, people.

Am i being overally critical of Dxb? Maybe, i did have some fun moments, shopping was divine,clubbing was not bad either...(but the weather was quite a killjoy-there i go again)

Well, need to update on all that has happened since i last blogged....ARP, Exams, Alumni meet, ARP presentation (not in that order)

Project-Not Bombing Again, which had been initiated with much fanfare, helped me a lot in getting my act together....waiting to see if it helped me in getting better grades. But i did feel much better prepared than I had expected for each exam (though I did not write 2 papers that well- OB and IM)...i think a great deal of my prep had something to do with Rajeev's bible/quran cheat notes. I did the whole thing of group study, discussions, paper solving and what not...(so happy with the effort :D). I just wish that i would stop ruining my good preps in the exam halls.

Exams got over on the 20th of sep, and then began our (Rajeev and mine) super quest to finish the ARP (Applied Research Project-aka acid reflux proposal). We managed to finish a write up of about 47 pages by 21st morning-(yep, that quick) and sent it for approval to our mentor. And finally a full report of 77 pages, with 1% plagiarism and an original piece of macroeconomic model was ready by 22nd night! Hows that for great writing, people. Barely caught 40 winks for those two days. Rajeev, overdosed on Red Bull, and looked like a Martian by the end of the report. He deserves a gallantry award for putting up with my obscene levels of anxiety. A noteworthy mention here wld be that of 'Daddy' (Madhusudan) who 'inspired' us to come up with an original ('legit'-mate) regression model for our report. We got by with a lot of help from our frens..

ARP presentation was good too, with a lil hiccup in the start though.  In short, all things that i had been losing sleep over, went off pretty well.

Before i realised, it was time to bid adieu to dubai....i know for sure tht i will never miss that place. having said that, i did grow fond of some people there, and will deeply miss their company.

singapore awaits us now.....eagerly eagerly looking forward to what lies ahead :D