Tag: school

Untold Story Post 79: Accepting Imperfection (ENGINEERING VERSION)

IMG_9480

In Year 2013 I came to Australia and the first ever Job I could land with was for Nikesh Patel in Hospitality Industry as a House Keeper in Oxygen Apartments Brisbane.
In the start I was ashamed to join the job as the fake “ENGINEERING PRIDE” was stopping me from accepting the reality of life.

Engineering Pride is most common stigma in India and that is because “ENGINEERING” is a reputed Degree, but way more Engineers get their Degree every year than the number of Engineering Jobs available.

Thus Engineers are Forced to work in a Industry where they had no prior knowledge or skills about the Industry. And Since no skills are installed in the Engineers they had to start with very low position with minimum wage jobs. Another common
thing Engineers do is to compare their success with the Top Notches Academic Student of their own batch and live in self Guilt of underachievement. These two forces of “low start” and “underachievement” along with the socio-logical pressure
coming from society accounts for “ENGINEERING PRIDE” self implying that, “the job offer in Hand is below my dignity to work”.

Thus in My case I was a Bachelors in Technology in Biotechnology and Housekeeper in Hospitality Industry basically means a clearer. Thus mentally it was me going down certain level of work ethics (which I had none to start with).

But when there was last $160 left in account and
a decision to make weather to pay the $155 Rent or Buy Bread for the week, working for the Job Offer in had was a no brainier choice. During those weeks I was so ashamed of myself that I decided not to declare what I was working as to my friends, relatives and even to my own family. It took me years to get out of the “Engineering Pride” and then set my life progress accepting the reality of life, learning more skills to gain different variety of jobs and keep uplifting yourself time to time.

In the mid year 2014 – 2015 I met with my 2nd boss Mazin Albassit, in the same Industry and fortunately same venue. And Since this time I had the skills and experience already, so convincing him to get the job offer was very easy than the initial struggle I had in year 2013.

Then came the second stage of learning work ethics which is called “KNOWING YOURSELF”

I remember in the start of days of his business days Mazin was so focused that he spent time to understand the working style of each and every staff he had. He concentrated and spent time for continuous improvement of every individual and whole team under his supervision. I sometimes still hear good stories about him that how he went out of the way to take a step further and help his staff when they needed of him.

One of the one to one meeting I had about self reflection changed the way and direction of the work culture I got exposed to. I remember this meeting word to word as if it had just happen yesterday.

He sat with me with a pen an paper, and explained to me how I would understand the concept of Industry where we were working at that stage. He drew a straight line in between two points saying “Thats an Ideal work position and working culture where only Robots can work. With 100 percent accuracy and consuming the least amount of time.” Then he draw a parabola meeting the same starting and ending point, saying, “this is your working style, you want to achieve the perfection and therefore consume a tremendous amount of time to achieve that.” Then he drew a Diagonal line from the starting point to a random interference in my parabola which dint even touch the ending point. He continued, “You are a human. Learn to accept that. This is where I want to you work. Consume a moderate amount of time and finish all task in had for the day. Sometimes it is OK to forgive yourself for not achieving the perfection you aimed for. We all will achieve the Perfection one day with more practice and more and persistence, but today is the day where if you invest all the time one task you may never be able to complete all what you have in your hand for the day. Thus believe in yourself and learn to accept minute imperfections in life as well as your work”

The results of that meeting dint get immediate affect but eventually I was able to absorb the learning value of what was been taught to me that day. Since childhood in India academically we are so forced and focused to achieve the 100% result in life that we fail to accept or even appropriate the imperfection.

Your academic life goes in aiming for getting 100 out of 100 marks the field that you fail to observe that only one or two students in each batch actually made to nearest 90% of that academic culture and rest all are between range of some of self guilt, jealousy, comparative nature, and non acceptance of reality of their result.
In our minds the person achieving nearest to perfection becomes a hero that we fail to support our own mates who couldn’t even pass the examination. I am not demeaning the high scores for their academic excellence but I am just appreciating the existence and acknowledgement of all the students who could not come under the perfection bracket.

The same academic culture we try to implement in our working ethics and thus live in the same guilt of not achieving perfection or comparing our misery with the top notches of your surrounding who could achieve that perfection. Thus Knowing, acknowledging and accepting yourself is important and accepting imperfection is way more important.

With the Guidance in my work culture, I definitely did not transform into Steve Jobs or ended up having the urge/need for end to end control and coming up with a great product like “APPLE”. But, I was and I am “Tapish Dongre” somewhere in between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates work ethics and positive that one day I will make a recognisable contribution in the world.

Only because of past experience and learning with different teachers in life, when I was given a position to run a team, I could accept the imperfection among individuals in my team
without getting mad on my team members or myself, learned to move on, complete the task and be ready for(if) I get another day in hand.

With this hope I sign off believing in Mazin Albassit words that, “Yes one day we will achieve perfection but today is the day to accept who you are and complete the task for the day.” You may never have a tommrow.

Have a Great Imperfect Day Guys
#tapishdongre #utsp

UTSP 78: The Thin Light Air

 

This Story won’t teach anything Good. In fact it is the opposite of Good. Thus not sharing names for this story at all.

In India, a Holiday is celebrated called “Holi” which is festival of Colours for Kids, Fire & Crackers for Young Adult and Food, sweet and drinks for the Adults. But another class of age group comes in between the Responsible Adult and Young Adults who celebrates this festival in unique manner than others listed above.

So weeks before this festival in the year 2009-10, I was in mid of my Engineering and in those days living away form the family gave extra freedom that give you wings. I did not have a television neither a laptop on those days so whenever I feel extremely bored I use to hit off to my neighbour’s house where bunch of more College mates use to live.

They had a 19 inch CRT display TV and in those days that was enough to keep more people inside the house than outside. One such night I went to their house and the house was unexpectedly quite. Only two guys chilling out and watching news with mid loud volume. We never watched News unless something exciting is going around and Zee/Star News people are presenting the story with extra spice than its required.

Suddenly both the guys started laughing very slowly.
I watched there was nothing funny on the news channel…still I thought let me continue to watch what’s the funny thing about?
Then the two guys started laughing more..

I imagine and asked “are you guys laughing on me??? I am looking odd??”

I looked myself in the mirror hanging on the cracked wall, and saw I looked awesome. I had the confidence of a stud that if I go out and say hi to girls outside at least 8 out of 10 will reply me back.

I said, “fuck you guys”.

They started laughing more and more.

I enquired what’s wrong with you what are you laughing at?
In the mean time they laughed so hard that they couldn’t even listen what I was talking.

They laughed uncontrollably.

I said screw you guys and I left the House. Saying “fucking crazy people.”

Weeks later I came to know they had their first “ joint” on that day.

After that I wanted to know what is the feeling like? Why they couldn’t stop laughing and curiosity shifted from what the were laughing on to, to what I would be laughing at when I have my First.

Later the same year on my Birthday I did have my First Joint. I remember I was laughing so hard for no reason and my cheek was like hanged on laughter mode that it hurt-ed to bring back to normal mode. I fought with my Girlfriend for no reason, and next day work up with a huge Hangover and Hunger to eat more and more. Ya everyone tells you not to smoke weed, no one tells you the side effect.

The end of Engineering had series of fortunate and unfortunate but unforgettable events, and as I said nothing good can be learned from this post and in fact that post is opposite of good. But opposite of good doesn’t necessary means bad. It’s not always white and black and sometimes a grey area in the story and life too. (Apart from where I saw my house door moving everywhere and I couldn’t find the way out 😉 )

So by my personal experience I would say that Drug Abuse is definitely bad, but if you know your limit and have control over your risk factors then getting high on a small dosage is not extremely bad either.

Story about the two guys who got high on my neighbour house is, for one who could controlled it got in a stable life and made the most out of it, the other one who could not, unfortunately lost his place of residence, lost his continuity of education for a while but still getting back on his carrier as of year 2018. But I am sure they both have interesting versions of their story when they were high.

Signing off for now
Ex Stoner (or future ex – stoner)
And Yours truly

#tapishdongre #utsp #engineeringlife #vip

Untold Stories Post 77: The Noise

 

Only for this story I request everyone that please don’t quote character’s real names even if you know them personally as sometimes Mystery gives more fun in ambiguity.

I have to tell you one, two, three or 4 stories about THE NOISE, but before my story I should
tell and warn every reader that when taking about the noise, every inexperienced person can tell better stories about the same topic which I cannot compete in lifetime
Thus only my target audience for this post is limited to semi-experienced persons 🙂

So listen bro, Just Listen Bro…!!! Credit: Kenny Sebastian

Story 1 or the 1st Noise story started when I was in class IX probably in the year 2006-ish. I was living in Ordnance factory medak Yeddumailaram, a place little far away from twin city of Hyderabad and Secundrabad in India.

A newly couple got married and moved into top floor of my friends house. At teenage time we had very few things to play thus we figured out the detail research on THE NOISE time.
After dawn, Me along with my three other school buddies quietly climbed over the Roof Top and sat there for hours together to finally listen to sweet moan in female’s voice saying, “Vaddu, Vaddu, Vaddu….Vaddduuu..!”
Since I did not know the language Telugu at that time, my classmate explained me that “Vaddu means ‘No'”. Never got chance to talk with that couple but this became our school group’s favourite secrete activity to listen to The NOISE by climbing neighbour’s house rooftops.

Story 2 jumped forward to year 2013 when I entered Australia for the first time, I started living a Student Accommodation and I was so scared even to move out of my house and talk to my housemates. At night around 2 am my table started
shaking.
The table was kept in such a way that it touched with the wall connecting to next room. In dark light I initially thought that I am experiencing Earthquake and I cursed myself that I should have learned about Australia’s Geography
before boarding flight to here.
But then started the Noise along with the assumed earthquake. People reading this post and never had chance to visit Australia, let me tell you a speciality of houses here. Most of the houses here are made up of wood,
and compartmentalisation of room is done by thin wooden walls. Thus if anything is happening in Room next to you, in most cases you know or can hear what is actually happening.
And I should compliment the couple’s stamina that the noise continued passed 3 am along with a broken table lamp of my room which I had to replace when even it wasn’t my fault. The next day when I talked with this couple the girl was more of a bold attitude and gave an apology to be loud last night and the following afternoon as well. Where as the boy just gave a smirk smile with no words.

Story 3 goes to year 2016 when I was working in a retail restaurant at Brisbane Airport and my manager and the morning crew were also a good story tellers. Since I was the guy who use to do morning shift where
I found all other staff over experienced on THE NOISE degree,
I found myself got in conversation of what is socially called as “G-Talk”. That day I realised that even girls/women are good story tellers on the topic “THE NOISE” too. Two of my favourite dialogues of that conversation are “I cannot even remember how many times kids have walked upon
when I was with my husband.” and “My kid said, I heard Mommy there are funny noises coming out of your room in the night.” I know not workplace conversations, but truly speaking these conversations made me love my workplace and realise that,

“Fuck…at different stages of life, we understand a very different approach to physical relations.” The same word “SEX” can be mystery, anxious, rage, love, compassion, pity, need, regret, shame, achievement,
and can hold many other meanings depending upon the age and experience of an individual’s life. I could imagine that day what I would feel when someday in future at that right age
and time I have to explain my kids about intimate relationships.

But before I conclude, there is a 4th story when I was on other side of the “THE NOISE” prospectus

In Year 2017 when me and my partner returned back to Australia from India. We got complimentary Personal SUIT at Somewhere To Stay ” before actually getting a house to move in. The place was really good and thus we relaxed a bit.
The following night we started cooking at Common Kitchen and started talking to random strangers i.e making new friends and we realised that people were quoting our room number and explained brilliant stories about the “NOISES OF LOVE” .
For a second I looked at my partner and she looked at me and we started laughing a lot feeling extremely proud of that moment to be the Secret NOISE creates. We were the Smug of the day 🙂

Please feel free to share your “THE NOISE” story on the comments below.

Enjoy Your day, and Happy Week Ahead.

#utsp #tapishdongre

Untold Stories Post 72: Inception of Brilliance

(from writing weekly to writing monthly now)

Because My father had a transferable job, I was able to experience what I experienced. I always cursed the transfers but at last I am thankful I had them in past.

Recently The Popularity of Cursing Education System in India is Increasing Day by Day. Mostly the Education system in Primary/Secondary Schools along with the most popular mass production of Engineers in India. The discussion which was once local talk of diss-stress among school mates or pass-outs is now been done Globally. Seriously in Jan 2017 (shooted on very different times) I could find 6 presentation on very popular TED talks by very successful people in their respective field pointing out, researching, digging and explaining why the education system in India is worse.

Various presenters also explained In-spite of Poor Education system, Indian Brains create Excellence when placed abroad. This post is of-course not explaining those points as you can find them on TED Talk by browsing on Google/Youtube or TED website itself. Untold stories posted by me at least are more about the learnt experience by individuals on very small detail topic which is untold because it is either so small or extremely simple that mostly remains unnoticed or mind just ignores it.

My school days in Kendriya Vidyalaya, Eddumailaram were though struggling, but were very different than what I observed and experienced in other KV’s attended by me. Constantly we were told something and fed into our unconscious mind that “KV STUDENTS ARE THE BEST” On a random day the school Principal would take a mic and explain we have the best resources for you and we will always be working hard to get you the latest technologies. This school by location was in a very aloof area, I mean to say there were not enough competitions where we could interact or cross compare and confirm that what our Principal is saying is true. We observed our surrounding which looked clean, technologically high, teachers wise well resourced and thus we believed what ever is told to us is true. The next things was that we learned sharing, and thus even if 1 student achieved higher goals which were definitely impossible to achieve by all as everyone had different talent. But by the law of sharing that person was made to stand on a stage, appreciated and then asked to share the victory with everyone. The students being obedient and non selfish that time use to share their victory. And instead of Reporting one student from this School scored high or gained the victory, the reports were made that KV EDDUMAILARAM HAD WON,i.e including all teaching non teaching staff and student had won the award. We were inside the Inception of Brilliance. We all believed we are brilliant students and thus worked hard to achieve excellence.

After that when I moved to other KV’s again due to my father’s transferable job, I met people and teachers who would quote, ‘…….this is the reason why people say KV school students are dumb.” “………. this is the reason why we don’t have enough technology and resources”
That was the first time I learned or believed that yes these are the reasons why we are dumb or week. But years spent in KV YEddumailaram kept my mind strong that We are Brilliant Students, only here there might be lack of resources..

After years of this incidents I forgot all the points I momentary believed to be true. On a phone call with my mother Tejashri Milind, she quoted a recent appreciation that “Even with limited resources, government schools education and non investing a huge sum of money in private expensive schooling your both kids(me and my sis Kritika Milind) turned out to be excelling in their respective fields”

That moment was like a Reality Distortion for me, I googled some KV pictures and found, that Infra structure of the Schools I studied was worse. I could see now the broken benches I used to sit 10 years ago are still there. Some School Teachers who may or may not be excellent in teaching/preaching are still in Board Websites of KV Group. We had only two computer labs having 6 to 10 working computers and 32 classes full of approx 40 students to use that resources. YES EDUCATION SYSTEM, TEST, PRESSURE, MUG UP SYSTEM, GIVING CHANCE ONLY TO TOP 1% HIGH SCORERS and KILLING THE DREAMS OF other 99% is a system which will fail in this advancing world which appreciates all possibilities.

But one teacher/one person in a life time, who momentary can sow a seed in a Child’s mind, who can create an Inception that the child, every child is Brilliant is what makes people Excel throughout the world.

Today I dont even Remember the name of Principal but I appreciate the wonder he Created which kept me and the whole school going.
Hope Every Student Meets a Teacher who have the power to create this Inception….

Untold Stories Post 66: Searching for Job Part 2 – Higher Living Approach.

 

Necessity is the Mother of Invention, heard it many times in life and now was the time of application. Not being selected in Campus and Rejected the offer of Private Agencies left me to force myself in searching other path which are usually not so often after completing Engineering. I heard of People preparing for Civil Services but as Biotechnology my field of study not being in any of the list of Civil Services acceptance list kept me away form that examination. Still due to father’s wish I appeared in Couple of Civil Services examination and as expected did fail hard. My search and search took me states of India and I came to know along with my three Engineering friends that It is possible to directly join a PhD after completing B.Tech Degree. You have to appear in an examination
called CSIR. CSIR stands for Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. Qualifying this examination will lead you to directly pursue PhD after your Bachelors(Graduation) where as the Common Taken Step is to Do your Graduation(4 years) then Masters (2 years) and then PhD (3 to 5 years).
I was going to save 2 years of my carrier path and be ahead of the competition.

Applying to CSIR-NET was not only saving my two years of carrier path but also providing me with 18 to 25,000 Rs per month tax free income in my account as a stipen which is not as good as doing a job but better than what I would have possessed if I qualified Gate (8 to 10,000)

I attempted GATE for three times along with CSIR about 5 times in a row. The best part of shooting two birds moving in opposite direction with one bullet and not truly understanding or accepting which is your favourite bird to shoot is: You will not be able to catch either of the two.

This is what happened and I Never Cleared either GATE nor CSIR. Along with the emotional troma of not having a Job after Graduation, now I was failure in various examinations too. This situation if you can imagine is adding more and more demoralising emotions to already a student who think himself as a failure and struggle to get out of this situation.
But most of all is “Your Own Relatives”

It is either “Your Relatives in INDIA” takes your constant care and asks about your where about throughout your life, or my observation is true that they Get somehow activated when you are failing in life and comes with ridiculous questions like “How are you doing? or What have you decided to do in life? or Indirectly asking parents that what your son is going to do now?”
I was having struggle to understand these relative actually care for you or they enjoy watching your failure and come to poke you in your weak time. As whenever you are getting Successful in life, the relatives somehow disappears in their own life struggle and forgets about you for ever. (Ya there are exceptions to this theory but those days I felt my observation was not wrong).

The next thing I did was is done by most of common students who are so failed in after several tries, I started to run away from things, running away from Relatives, Friends, Problems, and Even Parents.

I locked myself away from Parents and very less of my friends actually had accesses to my whereabouts. When you are alone you somehow get time to speak to yourself. Usually people talking to themselves seemed mad. But being Mad is what is needed sometimes to take your first step towards success.
And though not adviced by any doctors and psychiatrics but I urge everyone to please find time to talk to yourself, tell yourself what you want, where you want to go, how you want to be and don’t trust me, just do this experiment of talking to yourself alone where no one is Judging you, the true answers come along out of your heart.

I remember in one of alone conversation that once I wrote a page on my dairy with only 1 line on it. The line was
“Money dosn’t have power to push me out of my country but one day I will myself.”

I don’t actually remember the state of mind when I wrote this line in past, by reading it today also it conveys multiple meanings, but on that day I had solutions to all my issues. I selected only 1 exam to get me out of India, and that was IELTS, decided to give 100% of only 1 try to check do I really wanted it. And to my surprise I actually worked hard for it. And even while working hard I dint realise I was doing it as at time It was of my Interest.

Read in many books but finally came to my understanding that if you do the things which interest you, the work is half way done. Your interest puts all the efforts in the work and a Simple Engineering Production formula is “Demand Pulls rather than Supply Pushers”

The demand to experiencing another Country, the Demand to Learn more in life, The Demand to finally stand out the 1 million of Engineers crowd pulled so hard that I cleared the IETLS in my first go. Some of Worlds top 100 university were ready to take me in. And I selected Queensland University of Technology to Pursue my Masters in Biotechnology.
At that time my thought were, lets get out of this corrupted system of Job Hunt and 18 to 25000 Rs I can earn even if I became a Floor Cleaner in other country. And as there is no social stigma of “What Your Son is Doing” as long as I am happy, I will achieve more than what I have aimed for.

Don’t ask me how I managed to gather funds, how many doors, banks, relatives or Agreements I had to sign up for, but I did Manage to get to Australia.
The life was at Higher Living Approach but some basic question of “Searching Job” were still Answered.

#tapishdongre
#UTSP

Sorry Readers I couldn’t keep up to my promise and instead of publishing this article on 5th September, I was only able complete my writing on 5th October.
I again would find time and publish the last part of “Searching Jobs” towards the end of this month.
Thanks for your Patience – Tapish Dongre

A Never Posted Letter…

To

C.D.Grace

Principle K.V.O.F.Ambajhari

 

Dear Madam

I wrote you many letters in my mind and erased it off thinking of what if you’ll find the truth behind my affectionate way of writing to you, but today I feel so different inside myself.

I was an average student of your school. Scored 73% in my 10th and 60% in 12th grades.

Played none of the sports taught by the professor, never involved in any co-curium activities and I still neither knows what I will become in my future life. Accepting your rules and following them at one go was something not possible for me.

You pointed out many demerits in me and never ever appreciated the qualities I possessed. I loved to challenge and disprove every statement form your mouth against me.

You made my mother cried. You made my father scold me for no mistake of mine. You made your discissions to be imposed on me without my willing. Your almost destroyed my childhood.

Professor(Pandaya Sir, Mathematics Teacher) at school even warned me that I will never ever cross my 12th examinations at my first attempt but I did.

Personally I hate you the most in my life but I must admit you are the best teacher of my life

You taught me many things what I never wanted to learn. You made me what I am 2 day and I am proud of what I am.

In spite of your several rejections, I proud to be ACCEPTED by the world.

Thank you

Thank you for coming into my life and show me the worse I could experience at that age. I pray to your god that please never ever create a wonderful teacher like you.

Sorry that I cannot follow the bible as it says “to forgive”

But I promise of a day that you will be proud of me.

Though I am not interested to ever see you face again in my life but still I promise of an appointment with you after your death. Let it be haven or hell I will pay a visit to you.

That’s my promise.

 

Yours sincerely

An Average Student.