Life sure is a Ferris Wheel....atleast for me.

The title has been borrowed/plagiarised/copied/inspired from Charuta's blog. Ack to Charuta. But the last 4 months have made me appreciate the analogy even more. Its been over 4 months of my graduate studies here in the US and it now feels like my ferris wheel has been 'not so gently' pushed, in fact it has been pushed pretttty hard. Great news, good news, ok news, not so ok news, depressing news, not so ok news, ok news, good news and back again to great news. The cycle goes on and on and on. You cant help yourself but just ride it. We enjoy the ride on its way up but become all grumpy on our way down. OK, maybe its incorrect to generalise, just replace the "We/our" with "I/my" in the previous line.

The last 4 months have been quite a learning and humbling experience for me. The disappointments were sad,depressing and hard to swallow, but the little moments of success did cover up for the disappointments, well almost. Us humans are so filled up with insatiable hunger, to the point of being haawrat(marathi). As the ad goes "Thoda aur chalega", everytime we lose something, we say, well atleast itna to milna chahiye tha. And when we get that, we say, ok this is fine, but should have got much more. I mean, when will this ever stop? Guess, this is what makes us humans go higher,deeper,faster,stronger etc etc. but it also brings in a sense of incompleteness, unhappiness.

Veered off topic, the point was the 4 months have been an education in itself. With 3 years of work experience, you get used to a certain way of life, enjoying on weekends, not thinking to much on daily/weekly/monthly spendings, eating out without the guilt.....all this changed. Coming to gatech, I soon realized that life aint that simple. My hopes of job and/or funding vanished faster than ummm...well something that vanishes fast.(hehe, couldnt find an analogy.) Rejections at job interviews, refusals and banishment from professors' office, all were bitter pills to swallow. Small incidents like the one at the grocery store when we had to remove some items from our basket as we didnt have enough money or the one at Macy's store when the security person mocked at us when we told him we had no car were unthinkable just a few months back. I had learnt my lesson. I had come to the US with some assumptions. The assumptions proved to be incorrect. I feel much more grounded and humble than I was ever before. Now the weekends dont hurt any more:)

Last week, seemed to find favor with lady luck and the ferris wheel has come a full circle but this time some things are different. I dont know whether to celebrate this little moment of success because I fear, that the dark clouds might just be around the corner, waiting for the moment when you think, things are fine. And then, they turn up like uninvited guests to ruin your moment.Gita(not the female, but the book :D) talks about the state of sthithapragya. I do understand its relevance, all the more at this moment.

I think this time around with a few things going my way, i will be wary because the ferris wheel just keeps on going up and then down and then up again. I know that "This too shall pass", but deep down I hope that it doesn't.