What my age has taught me ?

            DIsclaimer: You may get bored!    

         The beauty of teaching is in the change of its colours periodically.  First three months, you have to  teach and parallelly learn to teach, the next two months, you have to  conduct examination and evaluate answer papers and then last one month you are set free to take vacation then the cycle repeats. I like the head and tail part of the cycle.  Of course, research has become a perennial activity that keeps flowing throughout the year. Publishing papers in scopus/SCI indexed journals  and sending research proposals to generate funds has become top demanding tasks. I don’t fret for this as I like the research part of the teaching much, as it gives much deeper clarity on what you teach. As usual,  I have meandered. Next Para will be on the topic !

                       Recently, I crossed my  35^th Birthday. I would not have come up with this post if my daughter was with me on that day. She had gone to Vellore to enjoy her vacation with my sis-in-law kids. Had she been there, she would have kept my mind busy by talking. We both talk like anything and I worked hard training her since her birth. Found really hard to have a man of few words as my better half, but he listens to me and admires my mokka jokes and laughs like anything but does not respond.  So, I decided to make my daughter talk like me. Like we train a machine learning model, I trained her since her birth by keep on talking to her even before she started trying to speak. Yes! I passed. Now I need not indulge in a monologue. I can expect the unexpected counters from her! Sorry I again deviated. Back again. On my birthday I was totally idle. Selva wanted to cook breakfast and lunch. So, I was busy thinking back my life.

                   I have noticed many changes in me particularly after I joined SRM. Until I joined here, I never ever judged anyone as I didn’t even know how to. I feel judging is not very necessary but then this component grew up in me as part of my aging process.  Sometimes, it saves you from believing wrong persons.  As a teacher and mentor for many students aged between 16-35 (B.Tech, M.Tech and PhD), I  get to converse with at least 50-70 ppl every day and I work with ppl aged between 25 to 58 . May be this experience built me this quality of judging. But what judging has taken off from me is the happiness to move forward. It is  becoming bit difficult to move with people after we get to know about them  and when in a job, you cant avoid anyone and you have to hold that fake smile! The worst part is that you cant find close and good friends very easily!. May be this is life and I am learning it a bit late!  Of course, I can’t be happy without like-minded fun people around me. I make sure, I have at least a small circle of like-minded friends both at workplace and at my residence but still its bit difficult to widen the network that easily by breaking  that hard shell. 

                  Before I owned this quality i.e before I was 30 years old, life was fully colourful seeing the positive sides of people. I got many good people. Yes! I would have definitely missed Selva!  He is the best! He can understand me even before I speak.  After my mom, he can translate my  mind  perfectly!  Still I remember how he was trying to even make me understand his intentions during our PG days, and give me courage to take up things till marriage!  And yes friends! I had the most enjoyable friends in my UG, PG and Anna University !. They are the best till now. I don’t have the  idea of implementing the judgemental quality  towards them at any cost!   They are ever green! Whenever a UG/PG/TACOLA(anna univ) friend calls, the same old happiness comes out and makes me feel younger every time.  I don’t think a WhatsApp or a facebook can fetch you true people or true happiness! May be they can show the number of people you are living around with

           I know what you are thinking? You are getting confused on what  this post is about? Even I am trying to find out the same, along with you. I think, I am trying to introspect on what increased qualities in me are trying to decrease my happiness. But after all, I think its not about the quantity and it is about the quality. I still find good, sincere  and honest ppl and I admire their qualities and try to imbibe it. May be the ratio has decreased a lot! 

So without confusing you further, I conclude my Introspection by rightly using the components or qualities that comes along with age without spoiling the happiness of life at any cost!.

Thanks for reading!

Subalalitha