The Convicts

                The other day someone made a comment-“I will never look at my marksheets ever in my life again! Why bother about these!” For a moment I thought it’s true. And then I thought- when I tell people that I have been a topper, that I topped my school, that I was amongst the top 5% in my class at the b-school I studied, it will all be insignificant. And I thought again- Actually, those marksheets were the outcome of a process, a process that was more important to me.                 I topped my school but I did a lot of other things as well- was chosen the best cadet and the best guide, won national elocution competitions and won medals in Karate. These things were more important to me. At that time, topping the school was just about that-topping! There was nothing else to it. I had to do it everytime because it had become a matter of my ego. And so it continued until 12 th standard. In the process I learnt a few things in Mathematics, Physics and other subjects but forgot t

For graduation, I left Satara and moved to Poona 6 years back. My sister followed me 3 years later. I stay in Mumbai now and my sister stays in Poona. My younger brother,Vijayendra, stays with my family in Satara.Vijayendra spends most of his days alone because my mom and dad, both work. My cousins shifted to a new place. A lonely childhood is probably the most terrifying thing to face. But when I read these lines written by my li'l brother recently, I realized that he can take care of himself. title-sugar on the window sill there was a time when i was down i noticed the caramel which was was brown made from the sugar on the window sill i started laughing because i was not so feeble feeble as the sugar turning into caramel i took the oath of keeping my soul on the highest levels to do wonderous marvels the end

                The first time I saw him, his eyes were red from the lack of sleep. Or probably from last night’s hangover- who knows and who cares! I was least interested in the untidy man sitting in the corner of the room, working on a laptop. We, I and my project partners, were standing in the ten by ten (10 ft by 10 ft) room of that office to get the PCB of our final year engineering project made. Our project guide in the college was a shrewd, old man who wanted us to work on the project because he could not make a chip work. He wanted us to do it for him, fully knowing that the chances of our failure were high. Though he could not teach us much about our project, he put us in touch with Mr.Manish Gupta, the person who made the finest PCBs in town.                 Gupta Sir was a great engineer. He knew the hitches in our project and we started working on the project with him. The second room in his office was smaller than the first one and th