As the title says, this post is an introspection into what makes me be so me, so different, so cranked up, so wild and unpredictable. Well here it goes.
My seemingly wild ways. along with my devil-may-care attitude stems from the fact that I had Sumit, a.k.a Appu as one of my best friends. The guy's one hell of a thick-skinned, ultra-cool guy who's a real cool dude to hang out with. He's got the wildest dressing sense, in fact, you could almost see him in shorts with a leather jacket in a freezing Kolkata winter. Yet, he wouldn't give a shit as what you think about his attire. He used to grow long hair before "Tere Naam" was released. had studs in his ear while he was still in school, i think in 7th or 8th. The guy could literally wear a flaming yellow shirt coupled with a dark short, have his hair colored all brown and yet chat around with people as if it were his 2nd skin. Not that I could ever do this on my own, but yes I have come close to emulating him, but on dance stages for those who have seen me. ;)
Next in line is my writing bug. This is something that is a gift from Mrs. Manjula Banerjee, Manjula Ma'am as we all called her, way back in my 5th or 6th. There was this chapter called "The Tiger and the Porcupine" and we were supposed to write down the answers for the questions at the end of the chapter. Speaking of "Porcupine", I still remember how my hair used to stand like porcupine quills after my monthly haircut, shining from the oil that Mom used to pour on my head before the bath. Anyways, we had to prepare answers for the questions by the time the lesson was to be over, i.e go over the lesson the night before, write down the answers in a separate rough book and then recite them in class once the lesson was over. So I had this answer written down for all the questions in the chapter, actually plagiarized them from the guide book. But the thing was that I wrote them down in my English. 3 out 7 answers chosen were mine, not a mean achievement given the fact that around half the class prepared answers. That's when it finally struck that I could also write, maybe plagiarized stuff but yes write them in my own words. Thus was born the writer that you see...
My reading habit stems from the fact that my Mom used to be manager at one of the book publishing agencies in Kolkata. She used to bring all kinds of novels, books, magazines from office for me to read and oh boy, wasn't it a jolly time for me. To see Mom bring in books ranging from pure philosophy to political satires was a joy in itself. I have been exposed to reading Adult stories long before I read "The Tempest". Now don't say that Shakespeare's play wasn't adult in its content or that "Macbeth" or "Merchant of Venice" or even "Romeo and Juliet" were adult in content. The preface to each of the plays had a breif description regarding the symbolism in the words. People should actually read the Prologue and Preface of any book. It gives insight to what the book might be about or the idea that the author to pen it down. Anyways, Thanks to Mom and Dad, I could read all that I want even during the exams provided I finished up my lessons before that. "Reader's Digest" was a ever present member in our household, I think there may be copies of old editions lying inside the bottom shelf of the showcase at home. Another thing that I would like to share, I got "Lady Chatterly's Lover" as a prize for scoring high marks in Maths in my 10th. For those who haven't heard of this book, please google it up(NSFW).
My love of lines of code come from Mrs. J Dasgupta's classes. She was a absolute beauty, 'sigh', miss her classes, hearing her voices and those class definitions of C++. I wouldn't say she was the best teacher for C++, but yes it was her class and those problems that she used make us do that had me hooked to writing code. Different types of problems, simple to solve and yet fun to figure out the way to solve it. Oh yes, it was fun trying print patterns using for loops, even variations from the original problem. That problem could be solved within 15 mins but the variations to the actual patterns was what had me spend evenings in the company of the for loop. Then B.Tech let my code dreams catch flight while it slowly killed the writer in me. Speaking of which, the fact that I could not pursue MassCom was one of the primary reasons I didn't give much of a serious thought to B.Tech.
The aloofness to pursuing perfection comes from the fact that I walked in company of giants all my academic life. Compared to them, I am but an insignificant speck. Thanks to them, I have gained so much both experience and mental strength. I know that I can be happy coming second, let others use my ideas. That is because the ones that really matter, would have already thought of a thousand other ways. It lets me concentrate on finding joy within lines of code and prose rather than in exaltation of my achievements.
Next in case study of Jo comes the craze for web and Python. This is one thing I would be ever grateful to Jazz. He was the one who thought it would be great to do our final project in Python instead of Java or C++. Thanks to him, I fell in love with Python. Javascript and HTML were thrust upon me for the IT lab in 6th semester. Well, Javascript and I go further than just lab, I am used to writing prototype scripts or designs in JS, rather than any other language, not that I am proficient in it.
I should be stopping this post for now, since it is already late and I need to go to office tomorrow, oopsi today.
This is Jo signing off,
Adios
