My day started at 8 in the morning with coding and debugging, pretty much like the last two. After three hours of working in which I could hardly move a thing, I was more than releived to find Peter knocking at my door asking to accompany him to the free Brunch by BDE. BDE is the students' association of this college, And it is nothing like the associations we have back there in India. They organise frequent treats like free food and booze, parties etc. The campaigning for BDE elections itself quiet resembles the royal indulgences and luxuries enjoyed by the nawabs of India of yesteryears known for slavery and hierarchy. Serving hot breakfast of your choise in bed is one example. Imagine waking up to a cold winter morning, curled up in the bed underneath the layers of cosy blankets, crippled by the winter cold, and the next moment you feel aroma of melting cheese and steaming coffee tickling your nose. And then digging into a baguette freshly made in a boulangerie, soft inside and crispy outside. The very thought has left my mouth watering. Too bad I wont be here to experience these french royalities.
Coming back from brunch, full and content, I again hid behind the laptop trying to get my code working. Then Peter suggested some possiblity based on differnence in character handling of a file by Linux environment than in Windows, hence suggested me to try my code on Windows. No clue what that meant, rather found it contradicting, as I was coding in Java, which is supposed to platform independent, but having tried everything else, I gave it a try, and the code really worked!!! I was too happy to care about platform independence of Java or the peculiar character handling by Linux. The code I had been endlessly working on had finally worked !! Who cares about Java !!
Then I came back to my room, swelling with self admiration and pride, and wanted to call papa and tell him all about it. What exactly my code did, how silly I had been to have made certain errors(which earlier seemed to be obvious errors, meant to be committed) and how intelligently I cracked all problem and go on, till he too starts seeing the whole thing the way I was. I messaged him to come online and sat infront of the skype screen waiting for him to come, and meanwhile framing sentences and contexts in my mind to give him precise details and overview, and in the manner that would make him feel as if he himself had lived the whole experience, that he would understand and appreciate the hard work and would make him feel proud of myself more than I was feeling. But then time trickled by and papa didn't come, and so did my excitement. And after a while, being sure of some glitch in the internet at home, I went back to work. All the excitement faded away . All that I wanted was to run back home, back to my family. Its been 3 months now that I am in France, but never before I had a craving this bad to be just able to hear their voices. I have enjoyed all along in France, making friends, discovering a new culture, enjoying the newly found independence, but in the end I want to go back home, to that feeling of belongingness, to the warmth as well as scoldings of mumma, to a strict as well as freindly papa, to a brother who irritates and yet cares for me, to people whom I love.
And then about an hour later, papa came online, and my happiness knew no bounds.At first, I pretended to be angry for their being so late, but being to overwelmed soon gave up and started the long babbers on my program. It was only after talking for about an hour that I was sattisfied and ready to put down the phone.
In that wait of just an hour I realised how incomplete I am without my family. All that we achieve holds importance as long as we have someone to share it with. When we know there is someone there who would relish and celebrate our achivements as if his own. When we have someone to go back to at the end of the day, whether or not our efforts of the day have borne fruit.
To finish with, I would quote what papa said today. We should prioritise our life as first, then comes money, followed by bussiness(or work). Money can suboordinate work, but neither money nor work should suboordinate life. You should work to live, not live to work. And defining life, he said it consists of you at the centre, closely surrounded by the circle of your family, and a very distant circle of society.
Big wheels keep on turning
Carry me home to see my kin
Singing songs about the Southland
I miss Alabamy once again
And I think its a sin, yes
Well I heard mister Young sing about her
Well, I heard ole Neil put her down
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
A Southern man don't need him around anyhow
Sweet home Alabama
Where the skies are so blue
Sweet Home Alabama
Lord, I'm coming home to you
In Birmingham they love the governor
Now we all did what we could do
Now Watergate does not bother me
Does your conscience bother you?
Tell the truth
Sweet home Alabama
Where the skies are so blue
Sweet Home Alabama
Lord, I'm coming home to you
Here I come Alabama
Now Muscle Shoals has got the Swampers
And they've been known to pick a song or two
Lord they get me off so much
They pick me up when I'm feeling blue
Now how about you?
Sweet home Alabama
Where the skies are so blue
Sweet Home Alabama
Lord, I'm coming home to you
Sweet home Alabama
Oh sweet home baby
Where the skies are so blue
And the governor's true
Sweet Home Alabama
Lordy
Lord, I'm coming home to you
Yea, yea Montgomery's got the answer
No comments:
Post a Comment