Looking Back...

This year 5th of April, it would be 3 years that our project article was published in Deccan Herald. Every year, this day brings mixed feelings in me. As the year passes by, the good news is that we are still great friends – the bad news is we are running in different directions. I may or may not attend any meet of my college - AMC Engineering College for what so ever reasons, but I can never forget the valuable assets that it has given me – Friends for a lifetime.

It was during one of our sixth semester days, when Mohan, Vishnu & I sat on the stoned parapet wall discussing how different or innovative our project should be. At a time, when none of our peers even thought of a project, we were thinking of many things which could be done. While Vishnu n Mohan were telling this idea of traffic signal stuff, I was constantly thinking how big projects could be accomplished at our engineering level. Infact, we almost thought of having a project of 16 members – 4 in each team, each team working on a module and finally integrating each module to get one spectacular thing. Even today, those thoughts invoke weird emotions in me. Today, as I look back, I regret so much that I couldn’t nurture that courage I had in those days. None of us thought of subjects or marks – we knew how to pull through them.  There were teams which people had formed based on their convenience. We had to see how best we could squeeze in some better talents of the class. Then we had Venky coming in, making our team of 4 boys. Now the lookout was for a girls team :)

Having Shravan in a team was definitely a hindrance for any other girls to join (atleast during the engineering days). No point in discussing those reasons. Going ahead, we found a group having Swathi and 3 others (not all were girls) in that group. We started off with a target of 16 members, ended up having atleast 8 members. Our first meet was at my home – I think, mom had prepared Pulav and payasam for lunch and we discussed around 2 major ideas.  After some more rounds of meetings in the next few days, we were all looking for an external mentor, who could assist us in implementing our ideas. One day, it started off with a bad fight, and I almost made up my mind to break-off with the team, and then joined back, followed by a car accident and finally a long session from dad.

Later, we proceeded with the planned stuff. One morning, a team member – calls and tells that her family is not confident of our idea pulling through successfully. This is what I would call a loss of security. It takes guts to think and be different. Anyways, as usual one more meet to decide the future.  We could not let her go alone and she had to be accompanied by someone else. So after a lot of confrontation with everyone in the team, it was decided 3 people would be kicked out.  So from 16 to 8 to 5, here comes the final team – Mohan, Venky, Vishnu, Swathi & Shravan.  Reduction of members didn’t lead to reduction of work, because 5 could not be accommodated in one team, and we had to do 2 projects, but with just 5 members. Effectively, each person had to do extra 3/5th of their normal work.

This is the best filtering process, which any team could have undergone. We, five of us had the end result in mind, and others became secondary. It was like a baby for all of us, but everyone still had his/her style of nurturing it. Great teams are known for great co-ordination and co-operation amongst team members – but I think my team was great, for not having those. There were hardly any meetings which went without a fight or which went without disagreements. And if any meeting went smooth, there is all probability that either Vishnu or I would not be present in the meeting.

Finally we ended up finding a mentor, and our project started full-fledged. We had to travel every weekend for the project work, as our mentor was a bit far-off. Saturdays became very hectic, as we all had to leave by 8 and by the time we reached back, it would be around 10 or sometimes 11 pm. I still remember the day, where we were working on a particular module and it was just not working, and none of us had lunch till the time, it worked – and finally it worked around 5pm, and only then we went for lunch. Venky was literally shouting out of hunger. I think Vishnu was not present on that day. We all ate like hell at the bakery. That was a true team spirit – I don’t think we, ourselves could show that level of commitment if such a situation comes now. This doesn’t mean that people had no vested interests. Every one of us had vested interests, but ultimately this project facilitated those interests.

Ours was one of the first projects to be completed in our college. Finally on 5th of April, 2007 we could make it to one of the reputed newspaper in Bangalore. I don’t consider our project a success or a great one because it was recognized or published. But it was not a joke to pull this off. If I go back and look into my diary, I do recall that each day was an issue by itself. At a personal level, this project has been an eye-opener in many ways. Not every student gets to work in a team like ours. I don’t say this because it is luck – it is just because not everyone can pass the litmus tests which we passed; not everyone can survive the filtering process, which we survived. We all had literally put our relations at stake at many stages of the project. This project had everything – emotions, stress, strains, technicality, relations, love story, separation anxiety, midnight counselling sessions, all types of misunderstandings, EGO clashes, etc...

In every stage of my life, it has been a challenge to choose friends, and I have always failed in doing so. When I look back, as a bystander, I realize that I hardly have friends, but the ones I have are the best I could have ever got.  Henry Kissinger once said – “A diamond is a chunk of coal that is made good under pressure”.  I met my friends as a chunk of coal, the pressure of time and circumstances polished us, and what came out were diamonds. These are the diamonds, which time has gifted to me.

However, there is still one thing which pricks me continuously, we didn’t pursue our dreams, we changed directions, we changed priorities & got trapped in unnecessary things. The dream is still a dream, and I won’t let it die. I still have hopes to re-create the magic on a bigger scale!!!

So,

Mohan - hold on to your land;

Vishnu – hold on with your ideas;

Venky – don’t spend too much on your bike;

Swathi – build your network;

&

Shravan – will continue to sleep more – to dream more. Hahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!

But wait... Some more diamonds are on the way…!!!!