Hemal Modi's Diary

IT’s graduation day tomorrow!!! Yipeeeee... I’m feeling so so so so darn excited right now! Hhhahaa feeling so enthusiastic with butterflies in my stomach!!! Hmmm... what’s going through my mind now?! Hahaha thinking of all the last minute preparations that I did during my graduation at IITB... hmmmm and the moment I "walked" to receive my diploma and the presence of my family and friends In the audience at the commencement ceremony… wow… that was amazing! It was truly a great feeling to hear my name and then walk across that stage. I had made my parents proud. That was the best part of the day. [The worst part – I had to depart with no clue whatsoever when I shall see my buddies again in my life – I really miss that feeling of togetherness]

I went a little crazy last month due to the excess workload, but I am loving it... I have never enjoyed my work so much... or was I trying to escape from something?!

Last two weeks I was totally freaked out... I didn’t have a clue where I was going… I stopped all the activities and decided to take a break from everything and just concentrate on one project at a time. I took baby steps and I am glad I did that and just managed to finish everything on time. But in the process I did manage to hurt some people, who I care about the most. I even got a few hate mails and some people even managed to ignore me. But I hope I shall catch up with them soon.

Sometime I’m a very hard person to really get to know. I just don’t like to be vulnerable. It’s this fact that really hit me on the way home. I have to live and try to change the reasons because the results are already evident and present. It is really hard to be lonely especially when you are partly to blame. I think I’m a very nice and funny person but have many superficial relationships because I’m afraid to put myself out there. In retrospect, I see that in college I have made tons of acquaintances and know quite a few people but when I try to boil down the "real" friends, I have less than a handful. This again was hard to swallow. I always held myself as the person who took the harder road, but looking back it was just the easy road that I made harder. It was always easier to be angry or mad at someone else for the reasons my life had sucked, it is so much harder to look back and see that it is what I did in those times that has shaped who I am today and I’m not fond of the mold.

Somewhere during the beginning of graduate school I realized that I was slowly becoming dumb. Unless the questions asked of me by others regarded the world of civil engineering, I couldn't be bothered to answer. Previous to graduate school, I felt well-rounded, eclectic and even knowledgeable. Back during the undergraduate year at IIT I read philosophies, classics, and the occasional trashy romance just to keep it real. I listened to a whole variety of songs, ghazals, talk-shows and whatnot. It was only during my summer internship that I found myself listening to the thoughts in my head, nothing else, and they're not even original. I'm starting to wonder if I'm becoming one of those people who become content and fail to grow any longer. I felt as though I'm losing myself. So I started blogging and decided to take up six graduate courses instead of the recommended three courses.

I began to write for hours on end and words seemed to flow from my fingers faster than my mind could contemplate the syntax that would organize the thoughts. Now, I find myself repeatedly pausing to write even this blog. I can't think of synonyms, antonyms, and hell half the time I can't even think of a word to begin with. I think "you know, that word, the one that means... God, what does it mean, I know what I want to write... but I can't think of the words."

Are college graduates more likely to dumb themselves down? Do we become more accepting and forgiving as we get older? Am I more tolerant? Is this a good thing?? Is graduation the death of education?

Aargh... you might say why am I writing all this... Honestly speaking, I myself don’t know… But I guess I just wrote down what no one says aloud... I don’t care if you fail to relate to my feelings... but this is what I having been going through for the last few weeks and would like to maintain this here for my record.

Words of wisdom:
I was having a discussion with siva few days ago, late in the night and really he made me feel that I was right in understanding the importance of my decisions. I think you should always want to be better, and be "good". You always want to find yourself making good decisions. Everyone is always trying to make the "perfect" decision and to be honest, they don’t exist.

You have one life, live it. I find life would be a shame if you looked back on it and said "I think I would have done that differently". That is no way to live and regret is a feeling that you shouldn’t have. You made a decision, good or bad. Remember this: You are always one decision away from making a "good decision".

Now a question I have for you is this. What are you living for, what inspires you and are you not doing things because of what others may think? Are you only inspired to do things for money?

If you have nothing in life that inspires you and you are just living for how others think you should live: It needs to stop. Find something that makes you feel worth living for and go for it 100%. If you see a good cause in life, go for it and never look back. Don’t listen to what people think and stop living for other people. You weren’t made for that. Believe me, you were not made to work a crappy little job, get hammered, do drugs, find a partner, get married, etc. Yet why are you living for that? Because other people are and they make you think this is the way?

In closing this was the motivating message from my friend. You are a good person, not a perfect one. You make good decisions, not perfect ones. Live your life for you, for your inspirations and not for others. Because if you don’t, you will miss your call in life and that my friend will be the biggest failure of all. Love you lots.

Tatha says: "abe u have great potential, but its ur maverick thinking that doesn't let u concentrate on one thing. If u did, u'll make it really big.. remember my words!!"

Aninash says: "hathoda tab maarna hota hain..jab loha garam hota hain"

Thanks Siva (guide), Tatha (philosopher) & Avinash (friend). If I had a star for each time you guys brightened my day, I guess I shall be holding a galaxy in my hand.