When Destiny Sends Its Helpers

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Keep running. The right people find you on the way. At different stages of life, you’re confronted with different challenges. And each time you cross a hurdle, you feel that familiar sense of accomplishment. It’s tempting to attribute that success to your own skill, tenacity, and willpower — to pat yourself on the back and feel proud of how you handled it. But when you zoom out and look at the moments where you somehow managed to trump the odds, a quieter realization sets in: It’s never just you. There is always an unseen army that shows up at the right time. It was 2005. I had decided to pursue my Master’s in the US. I picked a few schools in the Midwest where the expenses were manageable, and that’s how the University of Missouri–Rolla entered the picture. But funding was still a massive question mark. I hadn’t secured any assistantship, and we didn’t have the means to pay out of pocket. We went from bank to bank, hoping for an education loan. Each manager aske...
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Aaj ka vichar...

It was 6:30 in the evening. All of us were feeling cosy due to the warmth of the snug rug adorning the living room of the apartment. All of us were lazing around after another tiring day running between the university and the apartment. We got into a long conversation. Guess about what! The talks were centered on India, India and India. Politics, condition of roads, owning independent houses, fields, farms, temples, food served in South Canara temples, Dharmasthala, Sringeri, Udupi, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kancheepuram, Kanchi madam ( Mutt), Jayendra Saraswatigal, corruption, concerns, goodwill, railway lines in India, Indian economy, Impact of Chinese goods in the United States, textiles in India, Why Chinese bikes didn't hit the Indian market?, Assembly and Lok Sabha elections, Sri Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Golden Quadrilateral dream, state highways, national highways, use of local dialect in the respective states and what not!!!

An Indian atmosphere is certainly recreated here. A general feeling of being abroad is not evident at all, the way we carry ourselves. A lot of discussions on day to day topics in India coupled with the fact of being in the Indian hub has made it very homely till now here. Arguments, counter-arguments, facts, quotes, teasers and light hearted discussions has added an aura of Indianness in all of us to a large extent.

What fun to get into these animated discussions!! But there is a pitfall too! At the end of the marathon session, we happened to see the clock ticking. Believe it or not! It was 9 PM, which means that we had a Hard Talk for two and a half hours without realising what in the world we were upto. We were lost in this conversation.

Of course, the sad part after all this is we had to buck up to help ourselves with rice, dal and curd rice!!

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