Pens and Pages

(Article written for 2017 issue of The AECian, Assam Engineering College) When Professor Satyajit Bhuyan asked me to write an article for The AECian I had absolutely no idea what I’d write on. What can I write for the magazine I was an editor of some four years back? What do I write for its readers that they haven’t read before? Having found no specific answer to these questions I sit down to write just the way I blog – pouring my heart out. When Bhuyan sir mentioned “The AECian”, it took me back to 2013 when I had worked relentlessly for it. At those times the students would write articles on paper, instead of MS Word, and submit it. Imagine the pain of first decoding someone else’s handwriting and then editing it, not to mention, the typing and re-typing required by the publishers. I remember having a discussion with Bhuyan sir regarding changing the submission method so that our writers submit soft copies making it easier for both the parties. Our tech-savvy professor welc...

For those of you who haven’t met me in person, I must, before writing about the miseries of wearing a bitch face, write why I say I have a bitch face. I am a plump woman with a round face and I vividly remember my batchmate at MDI, Nikhil, claiming that my “default face” is similar to a sad smiley, which implied people who didn’t know me would find it difficult to approach and talk to me. Similar were the thoughts of my Capgemini FLP (Freshers’ Learning Program) mate Alakananda who had said that if one sees me from a distance one gets the impression of someone with an attitude of arrogance. When a person is not smiling, it is quite understood that the person is either thinking something or listening or doing anything but not smiling. When I am not smiling people ask me, “What’s wrong?” I remember my first job at Capgemini when our senior Sashank would complain out loud, “ye ladki roti kyu rehti hai?” And since he would not give much opportunity to me to reply, I would jus...

It’s been days now since I wrote my last blog – not out of the lack of thinking-time but because sometimes I don’t find a charging spot in a train (my laptop battery sucks big time) or sometimes I am too sleepy when I reach my hostel after all the sight-seeing of the day.[Right now I am typing while sitting on the train to Paris from Stuttgart] Life has changed or maybe, I have changed. Only a few days earlier we were thinking of our student exchange program, planning of the places we would visit – Vienna, Paris, Santorini, etc; And now we are here living that dream of ours we had seen from before joining an MBA program. Oh, how I love myself to have dared to take this trip despite all the initial doubts of mine and worries of my loved ones. Oh, how I love myself today that I am almost a nomad traveling from one place to another, sleeping in trains, making a living room in train stations, with my backpack that has sufficient clothes to last me for two months. Of course,...

I was just going through my diary to find out what happened the same time last year. Here's what I found worth sharing. Food for thought for me. What about you? * "It doesn't seem like you're living a life, it's almost like you're travelling on a train with a destination unknown. You're sitting on a seat near the window looking outside, imagining how things are there outside, how is it like to live in the houses that you pass by. And when you’re busy noticing the outside, you at times do not pay heed to your surroundings inside the coach. And thus some passengers who got down at a station midway fail to capture your interest, or maybe it is because of your deviation of interest towards the outside. While at other stops new people get up, and you like their company, you share and you laugh. But sooner or later they get down. Because it's your journey, you're the traveler and they just accompany you for some distances. An...

When I packed my bags to shift to Hyderabad for my job, I was eager to meet new people and gain new experiences since it was the first time I was moving out of my home-town, Guwahati. I, indeed, met some really great personalities, made some great friends; I learned about their hardships and I told them mine. But in the short period of time that I was there, I failed to make friends with a few; one of them is Nirbhaya [ name changed ]. As soon as I reached Hyderabad, I rummaged for a PG near my office. I found a two-seater room, adjacent to two other rooms where four more girls stayed. The next day I checked out from the Hotel I stayed the previous night, to begin my stay in the PG. In my hurried search for a PG, I failed to notice the fact that the road that led to the PG I selected is always dark and deserted and hence, unsafe. I decided to move out the succeeding month itself. Those were the days when our training at office had just begun and we, the freshers, were...