Toastmasters: Speech 4 – Cancer is lucky for you

“Cancer”.. I have cancer.. are you sure??

He asked the doctor.. I am just 25 – why would I have cancer?

But his cancer was confirmed.. the doctors were sure of the diagnosis – he felt a sudden vacuum in his stomach, he felt like someone had pulled the ground below his feet, he felt as if he was sinking in the abysss with nothing to hold on to.. Death did not scare him.. What bothered him was.. he would never be able to accomplish his dream .. his dream , the one thing that he had lived his entire life for.. the one thing that distinguished him from others.. the one thing that determined his very identity..

And with cancer.. his this very identity was at stake..

He still couldn’t believe his ears.. but as he joined the dots .. he realized that the big red stains in his cough,  the frequent excruciating headaches which felt they would burst open his head ,his septic sore throat, the chest x-ray that looked like a snow storm were all an indication…his cancer was true; this cancer was a long time guest not a short term visitor in his body system

Cancer further progressed in his body like the invader all set to conquer. It had already occupied the lungs, now it had also made an entry into the Capital of human land, his brain. Cancer even threatened the future of his next generation and he had to store his sperms to secure their future before he started his fight against cancer.

Cancer had allies too, in form of bad news that followed – his sponsors had backed off, he had no insurance,  and his chances of survival were given as 40%. Cancer was set to devoid him of career, money and Life .. all at once

Cancer was becoming a tougher opponent to surmount –Should he still fight?

He had every reason to give up… his body had no strength.. but he fought.. his peers did not believe he would be able to make it.. but he fought.. His sponsors had lost their faith in him.. but he fought. And to support him in his fight was his mother, his girlfriend and his friends

In a fight, strategy is important – it’s very important to know your strengths and the weakness of the opponent and accordingly strategize when and where to attack. To gain this knowledge he became a voracious reader, reading everything on cancer and its treatment. He devoured all the material available on internet, libraries, bookstalls everywhere. Knowledge gave him hope. Knowledge made him “self aware”. Knowledge gave him the strategy to fight. He also teamed up with the other co-fighters, his doctors, to implement the strategy.

Cancer made him weak, chemo treatment reduced him to a log of wood breathing chemical, cancer scared him to death but being afraid felt like a priceless practical education – it made him look at his life like he had never before

His priority had earlier always been accomplishing his dream –but now.. life took over; this disease made him ask of himself more as a person than he had ever before. Marriage, being a father, living a happy life with a small family became more important.

He was a simply a cyclist before, but Cancer added new purpose to his life – to be a Cancer Survivor

He not only survived the deadly disease but won over it…any guesses who he was… yes, he was  Lance Armstrong

And he accomplished his dream of winning Tour de France not just once, twice or thrice but record seven consecutive times

He hadn’t won it even once earlier before Cancer– he was physically much stronger then, but cancer made him mentally strong – cancer helped him drive his aggression – the worst tragedy of his life, Cancer actually helped him to accomplish his dream , Cancer was lucky for him

So do we have any cancer that has crippled us – that is preventing us from progressing in our jobs, careers, relationships.. its time to have a check and to fight out this cancer.. don’t give up for this cancer is there to make you stronger.. Cancer is lucky for you!

Thank You!

This was my 4th speech at Toastmaster – Praised for its structure, so posting it here. Inspired by Lance Armstrong’s book – ‘Its not about the Bike’.

Railway budgets… more trains and more garbage…

Mamata Banerjee today announced her railway budget for more trains. More trains.. so more passengers.. more wastage.. more tracks getting dirty..  and the process goes on…

Not that coming out with more rails is bad… but then why don’t they include some measures to get rid of this trash being created by the railways!! Lalu, for one, tried out by introducing Kulhads, which dint work out, owing to the infeasibilty of procurement and acceptability among the public. But obviously, that wasn’t the only means of reducing this trash. There are a lot more things which railway ministry can do… but no one simply seems to be worried…

Don’t you think.. this trash is simply building up..

Solution?

Increase awareness, set rules similar to no smoking, have dustbin well maintained inside the train as well as on platform, subsidise biodegradable wraapers and cups .. there is lots we could do.. but only if wee wish to..

These are things which govt doesnt really need to start off, but given that we , in India are so used to working onlyunder compulsion, if Mamata Banerjee were to give this a headstart, implementing this would be easier…

Caught in the rat race!!

A long due post … published today

Caught in the rat race-

Racing behind it all..

Unsure when i lost myself..

Unaware where i want to go..

I still run.. just as world around me passes by

I fear being left behind

If i were to wait and watch and see.

I fear being left out

If i were to wait and understand ‘me’,

The innocence seems to be getting lost

The uniquesness no more exists

I have become the part of this race

Something which i never wanted to be

I hate it when someone goes ahead

I compete with double the vigour

Though realising that what I compete for

Is to get back my place in the rat race rather than to be a better ‘me’

Fear was never what it was supposed to be..

Yet fear is what is driving me here..

Deep into this race, I try to come out…

But now I fear those around me, Would crush me out …

Life certainly wasn’t meant to be this……

My dream of a life was where i wud be free

Where I could be myself and live my dreams

Where the expectations of world dint bind me

Where I could live my heart out and not worry about those around

Where I could grow yet be not measured against someone else’s growth…

I search for such a life,

I try hard to find it around

Yet rats are just what I see

Who too are caught, just like me …

———————————————————-

This poem was inspired by my first and secondhand experiences. This poem was penned pretty long back and so reflects my feelings then.

Please Mind it!!

Scene1:

I was on my way back from some party with my friend in a rick. She had a plastic cup, she wished to throw and asked me if i mind if she just threw it out….. I asked her…” Don’t u mind? “She replied ‘I don’t mind’. Dear..please mind it.. it’s our surrounding u dirtying.. the same you crib about …

Scene 2:

I was travelling in a train..on my way back to Bangalore. Trains invariably don’t have dustbins in India.. and people love throwing things outside… .One of the aunties there was talking about how there is all plastic and bottles all over the track.. how miserable it all is.. true. i agreed

And then , the same lady, asks me to throw a plastic wrapper out of the window.I asked, won’t that add to the dirtying.. she replied she DINT MIND..it was as it is so dirty..(Please mind!!) i took it from her . but dint throw it out.. she asked y. And I replied that I would throw it at/near the station .. for the chances of it getting cleaned from there are higher than from the midway railway track…

Scene 3:

I am traveling in another train.. and I don’t let one of my friend’s throw bottle out of the train.. and then everyone around ends up giving me the bottle then throwing it out..Why.. Because I mind them dirtying the tracks.. but strangely enough they don’t.. Please mind it!!

Why is it that we don’t mind dirtying our streets but crib about them being dirty.. why do we just don’t take up the charge to not dirty it in the first place.. Y don’t we mind if anyone else dirties our streets..  why? Only when you mind .. you would stop dirtying them.. and you can hope no one else would either… Please do mind !!

IIM B Interview… a good interview which I dint convert :(

After screwing up my IIM A interview (supposedly)… I was hoping to make it big and give my best in IIMB one…
It was 26th Feb… my interview was at IIMB itself and I had reached the venue..1 hour 20 minutes ahead of scheduled time… kya kare… couldn’t afford to get late
I was the first to reach … and the wait was a real long one
Around 9.. almost everyone in our group had reached ..and we had by now developed a mutual understanding to let everyone speak during GD… we were then called in for the GD.. the panel gave a short intro of themselves, of what we were expected to do in GD etc..and then GD started…
The caselet was on
“Should India have projects like ‘chandrayaan’ when there is so much of poverty in India?”
It was a fruitful discussion (acc. to me), though we dint really conclude. I won’t describe the discussion for that would be very boring .Then was the summary writing, we were given around 10 minutes and those were pretty enough to write the summary.
I was the last to be interviewed… again a long wait.. so the panel asked me to go and take a round of the college , till my turn comes. Thinking it to be a good idea, I did go around the campus and then met my mentor there. Around 2.00 pm,I was called in for the interview which proceeded as follows-
Mr.A(Prof 1.. who asked questions)
Mr.B(Prof 2… who observed while I answered) & Me
Mr.A:Swati, tell me something about yourself…
Me: (For this question, I had prepared but there I ended up talking a lot more, since they never asked me to stop…I talked abt my company, abt me being a goldmedallist, my college,my final year project, Pankhudi(the NGO I am part of )etc.)
Mr.A:So Swati, Describe in brief your final year project
Me:(My project was on HandGeometry based verification system(HGRS)…which I described to him)
Mr.A:Why have it, when you have finger printing etc kind systems
Me:Finger print is more complex ,it is an identification system while HGRS is a verification system and also if the ridges of finger wear out, then the finger print system would fail…..blah blah
Mr.A:what is the accuracy of your system?
Me:onein thousand may have same geometry, but the fact that it is a verification system, this much accuracy is enough
Mr.A: So what does your NGO do?
Me:We teach computers to blind students…
Mr.A:But what use would it be to them….
ME:That would increase their chances of getting work… for if they know word, notepad, excel etc.. they can do clerical work well.
Mr.A:So is it possible for them to read through contents of tables in word?
ME: (Then I dint know this for I had not taught word to the students… so just answered that it should be possible, but I haven’t tried teaching that as yet… Now I know that it’s certainly possible, thanks to the JAWS software)
Mr.A: So Swati, you seem to have done your home-work well.. so tell me something about Vikasana?
Me: (Vikasana is the social service group in IIMB, and I mentioned about it in my SOP, so it was pretty easy to answer that)
Mr.A: You have mentioned that you organised ‘X’event in your college?
Me:Yes Sir.. I was responsible for organising Debugging event during ‘X’event.
Mr.A:So, you organised a part of the event… what do you do in debugging?
ME: (Described how we organised the event..)
Mr.A: So Swati , u did Kayaking. Do you plan to open up something similar here in Bangalore?
Me: Not sure sir. But If I have finance, I certainly would
Mr.A: If u do, do call me as well for I would like to learn it.(Smiles)
Me: Sure sir
Mr.A:Since you can’t do kayaking here, what do you do in your free time?
ME: I do painting..fine-arts basically..different kinds like…poster colour painting, glass painting, nip painting, ceramic painting etc…blah blah
Mr.A: Ok Swati.. lets get serious now.. how do you think the GD went
Me: (May be this question is what makes / break your chances… for this same question was asked in my earlier IIMB interview as well) I think it went fine sir.. We dint officially conclude but we were tending towards a conclusion.Overall it was good.
Mr.A: So why do u think ,were u not able to conclude?
Me:May be because, there were points being raised in between and same points were being discussed, after short intervals , so we dint conclude..
Mr.A: so u were satisfied?
Me: Yeah, it went on pretty well( may be they dint agree to this…)
Mr.A:Do u have any questions for us?
Me: (the question I had prepared on.. ) (I asked them about whether they do have something like  15 projects per year, as their web-site mentions..
Mr.B: (finally Mr.B spoke)(he answered my question well…)
Mr.A & Mr.B: Thank you Swati. Sorry , for having made you wait so long.
Me: It’s ok sir, thanks.
And the interview was over.. I had a pretty good feeling after the interview…It was more of a discussion than an interview.. and I had faredpretty well(that’s what I thought then ) but  then dint convert

IIM A interview :(…surprisingly I got a convert:)

Now that I have cracked IIM A, I  ponder what was the best thing that happened in the interview that got me here…..
It was the most important day of my life , the day of my IIM interview and it happened to be on Mahashivratri (Thank you God, for helping me out )
To give you a basic idea of how IIM interviews are, they are usually panel interviews, with 2 professors per panel. For IIMA, there is no GD, instead one has Essay writing followed by panel interview.
In my case, the essay topic was ‘Indian youth should absorb positive western influence’. We were given 10 minutes (officially) to write the essay… though it felt as if the ending bell rang in just 8 minutes…..relativity u see .. Einstein was correct!!
I wrote about how western attitude towards work, their professionalism is indeed worth learning, there is lesser corruption out there and how we should imbibe these qualities  but certainly not at the cost of losing out our own uniqueness etc……..not so gr8 an essay… but ok..
I was the sixth to be called in for interview. It was the day Oscars were going to be announced so after the essay, we all were discussing about what all Oscars would Slumdog win… whilethe first one went for the interview. The overall response of people interviewed was fine..  so we too were not expecting much of technical questions(the most dreaded ones ).
I was then called in..there were 2  professors seated.. both in their 40’s( a guess).. one who seemed to be a stats professor and another was  from Poona itself(as I later found out).. and here is what followed..
P:So Swati… why is fergusson college called Fergusson college?(What a question to start with!!.. I did my 12th from Fergusson coll, Pune… that’s why  the question)
Me:Sir, as I recall Fergusson College was established by Mr.Gokhale and Tilak and Mr.Fergusson was some officer then… who exactly.. I don’t remember..
P:But you are sure, Mr.Fergusson was some officer?
ME:unn… yes sir.. as I recall.. he was some officer indeed.
(Truth:Mr.Fergusson was governor at Mumbai(some officer indeed ) and he had then donated a princely sum of Rs.1200/- for establishment of Fergusson college… that’s why “Fergusson”)
P:You are from COEP ,right….so which is the monument in front of your college?
Me:There is none.. as to what i rember sir.. which side you talkin about…
P:There is, ofcourse… u don’t seem to be looking around Swati… what u used to do in college?
ME:which side sir… outside college?exactly opposite?
P:May be not exactly opposite… but going towards BoatClub road?
ME:????? (I was totally confused by then…)
ME:May be ahilyadevi  holkar ..near holkar bridge.. or Gokhale smarak….
P:IS it Gokhale Smarak?
ME:Not sure sir.. may be it is….
(Truth:There is no monument in front of COEP… we had ‘Sir Vishweshwaraya’’s statue inside COEP then.. in front of COEP main building and .. COEP being divided into 2 halves.. COEP itself is there in front of COEP …anyways .. I was indeed super confused by then!!)
P:Ok Swati.. which is the college between fergusson and BMCC?
ME: sir.. JRVGTI.. no but its inside FC’s campus itself..
Sir.. IMDR.. no?
P:No.. there is some other college…
Me:MMCC… but .. even that is beyond FC.. not between..
P:It’s ok… Mr.S.. any questions you would want to ask her…(P now looks through my certificates)
(Truth: There is Gokhale institute of foreign languages in between FC and BMCC… now as i try to figure out why he asked me this… may be he wanted to help me out with previous question of ‘monument’… but then there is none indeed )
S:Swati.. describe the work that you do…
Me: Sir, I was initially doing the migration project. Our company makes accounting software for US and Canada, so for the ease of testing, we made a tool to convert US-Company files to Canada company files. Now I am doing the debugging work.
S: So u are into testing..
ME: No sir.. we developed a tool for ease of testers. So we be developers…
S: and now u doing debugging… a very boring work .right?
Me: No sir.. there are challenges involved even in debugging..
S: What kind?I don’t think there are any…
Me: To understand someone else’s code…to find out the bug and then make changes..its challenging enough..
S: why take so much pain.. why not jus remove the wrong code and put in the new one…
ME:It’s a very old code.
S:what.. 100 yrs old something(Starts laughing )
Me: No.. around 10-15 yrs old.. and very big code and removing a part of code can have many implications so it’s advised to rectify the code rather than remove or replace it.
S: OK. So in your application you have wriiten , u were a gold medallist… so tell me.. what is a fourier transform?(the most dreaded question….!!!)
Me:( I gave  the definition and formula..)
S:ok… but explain me in layman’s terms .. why is it required to have fourier transform?
Metried explaining.. but it wasn’t satisfactory enough…)
S: Mr.P ,I am done.. U may ask any more questions if you want.
P:So Swati … u did kayaking.. so wat other kinds of boats are there in your boat club(Finally the question, I was waiting for )
Me:We have scull, double scull… kayak… canoe… (and explained the differences as well)
P: Thank you Swati.. have a chocolate … and next time find out which is the monument in front of COEP..
Me:Thank you sir.. yes sir.. good day…
And I left..
I was so upset… i felt I had screwed my chance of making it to the best B School…..
And on 10th april.. I get the good news… I crack it!! Though I don’t understand what was it … that got me through.. but whatever it was…Thank you God.. for getting me through

Be childish.. sometimes:)

It’s so much fun to try out stupid things . To do the stupid childish things .. one might not do normally but does feel like doing , in the sub conscious mind. It’s real fun to be childish at times and it’s even said.. “What use being grown-up when you can’t be childish sometimes!”

I remember the first time we had a meeting with our manager at my company.. first meeting after 2 months of training.We , a team of around 10 , had gathered in a conference room .There were a bunch of print-out papers lying there on table..and I just felt like making a plane out of it, and I did.. ..that was stupid rt.. making a plane.. rt when manager is about to enter!!

My hand- made paper plane was ready and all set to take its first flight when Mayur remarked” Arre niche se uda..manager aa jayenge!!” But me seemed to be in no mood to take heed of that. I flew the paper plane and it landed.. right at the footstep of manager(the worst I could have imagined ) and the manager remarked” Swati, some rocket science going on??”And the whole of conference room burst into laughter.So Stupid of me right… ,  but i didn’t really regret it.. I just wished to do it then and I did.. silly but it’s fun to do what you really wish to do.The only side effect of this incident was now every time my manager meets me, we do laugh out on the rocket science incident

The feeling of having given vent to your childish desires, is seriously good:) Many a times, even you must have experienced, how we really wish to try out something.. but the feeling”Log kya sochenge!!” just doesnt let us go ahead with it.If here , we  just imagine that the world involves just us and no-one else around( just like a child does), trying out becomes much more simpler.. chalo enough of philosophy and GYAN:)

Today , I and my mentor had gone to this mall, and we were coming down the elevator and my mentor remarked” I wonder what it must be like to go up on this elevator” and I said”Try out!!”. And my mentor did.. I tried but couldn’t gather the courage   to go up the down-bound elevator(It’s  pretty difficult…Hats off to my mentor!!).And then, while going up the elevator, I was like ok..I would try out going down this one.. this was relatively much simpler:)and I loved the experience.There was a guy coming up the elevator and I was going down.. he looked at me..then at my mentor.. again at me .. again at my mentor.. and I and my mentor burst out laughing… How stupid we were .. but it was damn fun.. It was like going against the tide.. seriously!!

Great fun it is to be childish and to go against the established ways ..at times And as long as you don’t hurt yourself or others while doing .. childish things.. the thought”Log kya sochenge” doesn’t reallymatter. So the next time u feel like doing something  regarded as “childish” by grown ups(like you ), do give it a try!!