Saturday 6 April 2013

Connect ‘n’ Disconnect : From Traveler's Diary


In this blog of connect and disconnect I wanted to share some of my experience about arriving and departure from one city to another or one country to another. The joy and agony of connect and disconnect process. Constantly I have been part of this process since birth. But two factors which primarily bulldoze once to move from one place to another are education and livelihood factors. While moving almost all carries the same intuition that one day we will return back to our root. But very few live up their promise and remaining ones find home in their new place. Sure there is more than one ingredient which compels us to find home away from home and nevertheless feeling of world as family also helps to settle. Besides everything travelling teaches us lot in life. Our knowledge about life massively increases; we experience variety of lifestyle and ways of doing things in our day to day life. Apart from learning we get to interact culturally and most important share/taste food varieties.
Twin City: HyderaBad & Secunderabad Andhra Pradesh
Kolkata, City of Joy : West Bengal


For education, I left my village at early age to join boarding school in Siliguri, West Bengal.  This is the place where I met a teacher whose teaching changed my life. She is so graceful and her art of teaching is phenomenon. I treat her both my teacher and also a mother. Twenty year passed and both of us have never missed to call each other to wish on Birthday and anniversary events. The boarding food taught me not to be finicky about food. Food is food and it can never be bad but of course we can categories in taste i.e. Sweet/sour/tangy/spicy/tasteless. Wisdom is not wisdom when it is derived from books alone. Unfortunately the school did not have affiliation to host board exams so I happen to leave the city and moved to my home state Uttar Pradesh (UP) to complete my remaining four years of schooling before hitting college life. The pain of separation from the city was more than what I had experienced during I left my village to arrive in this city. Eight years was well spent in this city. In 2000, I completed 10th standard from Bahraich (small town in UP) and 2002, 12th standard from Lucknow (capital city of UP). Meeting different students and people of different IQ really helped me to set goal viewing the capability and competition to be faced. I always believe that you are the best judge on your weakness and strength. But in 21st century we have to change the approach to match the pace of competition. If we work on our weakness and we believe that it can be turned into strength than dear, you are sadly mistaken! What we end up is with more mature weakness. So the new approach should be to focus on strength and learn to manage your weakness. Because it’s your weakness which keeps you sober. However I got another chance to travel West Bengal capital city Kolkata (city of joy) because I was allotted college in that state to complete my IT engineering from IIIT. Well spent four year came to an end in June 2006. This city taught me to manage my expense. I started taking tuition classes early morning and late evening up to 10th standard. But point to note is that I had 98% attendance in my college uniform all 4 years. I am sure many of you will laugh that college and 98% attendance. I must be a fool but it was only because I knew I will not get this golden time back in my life again so wanted to make most of it. My entire students were female. They worked hard and I did justice in teaching them. Best reward I got while saying good bye to city was that their parent’s eyes were in tears and they wanted me to ensure that I give them equal replacement teacher. So travel for the reason of education came to an end. Needless to mention street foods of Kolkata will beat restaurant.

I had job offer of Satyam for Oct 2006 but three ideal months was spent by a trip to Dubai which was sponsored by my cousin brother who had also financed my engineering studies. The reason to visit Dubai was to explorer market and try for job if possible. I remember Abraham Lincoln once had said How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.’ Hence the belief of studying in good college guarantees job shatters. I happen to meet a popular business jargon ‘EXPERIENCE in the initial two week of job hunt in UAE. And then I just left the idea of searching job and started enjoying the city and its vast culture to full extent. I returned back India via Karachi (Pakistan) with a night halt as the cheapest fare was of PIA at that moment. Hurray my brother did not ask me any reason and gave me some money to survive first two month and travel to Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh (AP)) for joining Satyam. Hyderabad is twin city of India i.e. Secunderabad, Nizam’s princely state. We get pearl ornaments and very good city with lots of places to visit/excursion. I travelled on New Year day to Chennai (Tamil Nadu) just happen to stay for 3 month in AP. It was New Year, 2007 & new place. Many of us think Chennai is rough city and also it not admired by many for its weather condition. I was used to similar sea coast city i.e. Kolkata so weather hardly bother me anywhere. I experienced Chennai for complete 1 year before travelling to Bangalore in Feb 2008 as intra company transfer. City is not rough that’s what I realised. One needs to adopt the city way to feel the smoothness. I happen to learn few daily use Tamil words and its use in day to day helped me gaining many localities people. Impressing local people is easy as they feel lot about their language and culture so showing respect gives natural acceptance. They appreciate my interest to pick their language and in turn I got my way through. It is fantastic city with immense cleanness all around and very well connected with state transport with cheaper fare. If you want to see people passion for movies then it is Chennai. I had experienced the release of ‘Shiva jee’ (blockbuster Tamil movies of greatest Indian Super start Rajnikant.) Only you need to be careful while travelling in auto. Or I will suggest better don’t opt for Auto as mode of transport in Chennai at all. Now I will not bore you with Bangalore story as this is international city and please experience you self about its weather and its modernity. I left Bangalore for good on March 10th 2010 and travelled to place where I am currently at on 31st March 2010.
Chennai, Tamil Nadu


Bangalore, Garden city, Karnataka
This blog is quite long is what a obvious feeling you will experience but believe me I have tried to cut sort to maximum. So keep traveling, if it does not help you in anyway then at least it will help you writing a better blog than this one on same topic.

Thank You!
Satender Kumar Mall
Twitter: satenderiiit

3 comments:

  1. " If we work on our weakness and we believe that it can be turned into strength than dear, you are sadly mistaken! What we end up is with more mature weakness. So the new approach should be to focus on strength and learn to manage your weakness."

    That's catchy. It will definitely leave these modern management gurus thinking who otherwise emphasis more working on the weakness.

    The attitude of trying connecting new horizons is very inspirational, and so is your story.

    Keep writing such lovely ones.



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    Replies
    1. Your comments are really nice and forward looking. Thanks keep writing.

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  2. So you traveled all this distance. I didn't know it. It is good, you saw many places and now you have experience and can decide which place you like. Don't stop looking at new places this will keep you awareness high.

    ReplyDelete