I wish we hadn't unearthed the past!

Its perhaps a human psychology that we always think that the past was good - how green was my valley! And from this thought comes the urge to unearth and re-discover the past. We think, how nice it would have been had we been able to rewind ourselves, go back and make merry again as we did in the past, when the days were more sunny and brighter! But an incident that took place just before I came here made me sit back and think...'ummmm...is it worth trying to unearth the past or is it better to leave them as they were?'
Sometimes its better that some things remain as dreams...if they are turned to reality then you feel you have lost something.You have nurtured a dream for so many years that you can't think of anything other than it being a dream - a sort of fantasy.My long cherished dream of studying in a typical English university has come true and I am so happy for that; but at the same time I have lost the dream forever. What I mean to say is that sometimes things make us happier when they exist only within our thoughts and fantasies; perhaps not so much when they are real and worldly.

This special incident that I am talking about is our visit to Bhubaneshwar, a city where my father worked more than 20 years back, just before I came to study here. My parents had contemplated the idea of visiting the place, the city, the house that we lived (as a tenant) back then. My father wondered how when everything else around changed, our 'world' - that place - in Bhubaneshwar changed. He was really excited when we were driving down to the city. I had faint memories of the place - our house, the road in front, the shops around. I could see the excitement and at the same time the nervousness in my father's eyes. On the way, perhaps, he was thinking of the sweet memories that had been associated with the place - when my brother and I were small kids; when the distance between the two places - my hometown, Chandannagore and Bhubaneswar which was barely 400 kilometers - seemed much more than the distance between London and my hometown today in that age of no-mobiles and no-internet; when my grandparents lived and my father would desperately try to visit our hometown at least once a month. My mother was perhaps thinking of the hardships she took during those days when my father was in office for the entire week and she had to raise us and wait for the Saturday and Sunday when we would walk into one of our favourite restaurants, called 'venasin' or the 'nehru children park', not too far away. She is more relaxed today with both her sons (me and my brother) well settled in life. I was kind of trying hard to relate the roads and landmarks with the very faint memories that I had as I was barely six or seven years old then.

As we drove down the different roads my parents kept noticing the different changes that the city underwent. 'These shops are new...they were not here then'....'This place was a barren land...things have changed', they noticed as we drove closer to our old residence. That the things really changed became more and more prominent as we arrived at the lane. 'Was this lane so narrow?' I was telling to myself. In my mind, it was a broad one...but here it seemed so narrow then. 'Where is the stretch of land that we had so often gone passed by?' We walked to our house...
The house changed. Its colour; it was two-storey then, now its three storey. The name plates in front of the house however said that the house owners did not change. Or is it?...Is it that their names did not change and like all other things they have changed, as well. The city's name did not change, but the city changed. The same can be said of the people as well. Perhaps apprehending this, my father decided not to meet them. He perhaps did not want to risk all his memories.
Time has changed and so does everything else.
I realised my father, especially, was quite disheartened with the all that was around. We then went to eat in another restaurant, which two decades back was the best in the town. Somehow the luncheon was equally a dampener. It was not at all up to the mark, especially when you compare it with the bill that we had to foot at the end.
On the way back few words were exchanged. Perhaps we all were trying to cope with the dreams that were lost some minutes back.

I, at least, later thought that we would have better not ventured on this journey. It would have been much better had we left the past as it were and not gone to have a peep into it.
And while I write this I think whether it will be prudent to visit 221 B baker Street in London. The last thing I would want is my well-crafted castle that I have so long built within me regarding that place of Sherlock Holmes vanish into thin air. Yet I am curious to find what that place looks like.
And the dilemma continues...

What a time to do an MBA!

The stock market around the world is crashing; the air is heavy with the words like liquidity crunch,sub-prime mortgage crises, the rising oil and gold prices, the falling interest rates by the federal government. And guess what? I can understand at least bits and pieces of it.
Today our second term got over. Theoretically its a clear boundary line where I can safely say I am half-way through. But practically, the course is more than 50% complete. the third and forth terms are more of choosing and studying your electives; even duration wise we are more than 50% complete.

I believe its human nature that when you understand things that you did not understood earlier, you feel a strange feeling of joy and satisfaction. You feel you have improved as a person, the days spent were worth it. I felt the same feelings many times in the past. These days this feeling enthrals me.
I am not saying you need to do an MBA to know these term, what I am saying is, I have realised that the MBA has injected something in me which makes the world clearer to me. I can relate to what's happening around. I know what the finance minsters said in the budget...they make sense to me now...a year ago, most did not (let me be honest)!

When I look back six months earlier when I first walked in, then I truly see an improved and matured person in me. Two more terms to go...I am sure the transformation will continue for the better.
It is the eagerness to learn new things everyday that makes me wake in the morning and never grin and grumble at the hectic schedule; it is the opportunity to explore the inexpressible inner peace of gaining knowledge that makes this life so special!
This MBA has enlightened me;had I not done this I would have not understood many things that keep on happening around me.But now that I am in the process of doing it, it feels like having those extra pair of binoculars which make things around look bigger, brighter and better - the distant things are not so distant anymore!

Its exam time!

Yes, now the days are becoming longer...the sun is less dominated by the clouds...so things are better and brighter. The tress have not yet borne new leaves....but soon they will.

But that's what the world outside in UK is. The atmosphere in the Full Time MBA Course of Cranfield University is pretty different. Its exam time! Its submission, assignments, review sessions, late night group studies and what not!

Somehow even after giving exams umpteen times, one would expect that the exams becomes more of a habit. Even if one drinks so many glasses of quinine for the last 25 years, one would no longer feel its bitterness and should be in a position to love and enjoy quinine. But the 'beauty' of exams is that it still remains a nightmare ending in a bright sunny day, otherwise called vacation or a thorn with roses in the form of the vacation that follows it.
Surely, its one thing that I , at least, have never looked forward to with excitement and eagerness. The world seems so cruel and unjust before an exam!