We humans have a tendency to forget the things too quickly and I am no exception. However, there are certain moments which probably always remain in our brains, our hearts and our nerves for whatever reasons. If you are thinking that I am going to talk about love, ishq, pyaar-vyaar etc., then your guess is wrong.
Let me start with my own experience first. It was when my parents (my mother to be very precise) put me in a Dehradun based boarding school named Scholars Home. I was very excited to shift from my old Hindi-medium school to this new English-medium school in the beautiful Doon valley. My father was in no mood to send me far-away from him and he was quite shocked to learn about the news of I having cleared the admission test. Somehow, my father conceded to my mother’s demand to get me admitted in Scholars Home for the sake that I would get better education over there.
Now, the new phase of my life started. As a rule, everyone had to talk in English over there. Since, I didn’t know how to speak fluently in English, I used to prefer keeping my mouth shut most of the times than getting caught & subsequently punished for speaking in Hindi. It was one of my first few classes when our Economics teacher Mr. Pant came to teach the subject. As a rule, whole class got up and greeted the teacher with “Good Morning Sir” phrase. However, somehow Mr. Pant couldn’t help noticing my greeting style. In my own ubiquitous Gaon-wala style, I wished him Namastey with my both hands folded together. I still remember his words “Beta main tumhare sanskar samajhta hoon, par yahan pe sab tumhara mazaq udayenge“. After saying this, he started with his class session on economics. He was talking about luxury goods and suddenly he asked me to give some examples of luxuries. I thought for a while and came to a conclusion that I had heard that word or a similar one before. I started citing grease, oil etc. as examples of luxuries only to realize later that those were lubricants. My fellow-classmates couldn’t help stop their laughter after listening to my examples. And today, when I think about that moment, even I can not stop from laughing at myself .
Let me narrate you another experience, this time of my engineering college. Before I stepped into my engineering college, I hadn’t even felt the touch of a mouse, leave alone using it to surf the web. I used to get scared in my practical class of “Fundamentals of IT” and I used to search for the company of someone in the computer lab who could assist me in knowing the computer system better. Things rolled on and as the semester approached its end, we had to appear for the internal viva for the same subject. I was asked by our teacher if I had my mail id. I thought ” Hey Bhagwan, ye viva me mere se e-mail id jaisi hi-fi cheezon ke baare me kyon pooch rahe hain“. I faced the teacher and answered his questions somehow. That day I asked one of my friends, Varun Verma, to assist me make my mail id. Finally, I had my first e-mail id in the year 2003. I know I am talking as if I innovated something great, but frankly speaking, it was no less an innovative step for me. The main hurdle was pending yet. I was still to face the final practical exam of the same subject. I hardly knew any answer correctly in my practical exam and I after getting out from the computer lab, I broke into tears. That day changed my life.
I purchased a brand new HCL computer and started learning on my own. By the time I reached third year of my engineering, I could see my articles getting published in software sections of various International & National magazines. That was like a dream come true for me. No one had imagined that one who didn’t even know how to scroll a mouse could even get his software articles published in various magazines.
I am sure most of you would have also gone through numerous similar kind of situations in some form or the other. Those wonderful moments are our strengths and we can always bank on them to derive courage whenever we feel low. Let’s not forget those fabulous moments. I have made an effort to remember some of these moments by capturing them in my blog. Someone has rightly said that memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are and the things you never want to lose.
The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments. ~ Gustav Flaubert
