Inquisitiveness is an immature trait. When I was around seven, I used to wonder about things like 'who puts water inside a coconut?' or 'how elders sit stable while I kiddo cant stop spring around?'. This curiosity took form of questions to people around me. I took to a level where I got labelled as 'chatter box'. Quite a contrast to what I am now.
The culture where I grew up, folks constantly ask me what I aspire to become as an adult. They want to be amused if I want to become a doctor like my father. I once watched a science documentary on the TV channel. The documentary was about how scientists were exploring the solar system. It felt so amazing and made such a strong impression, I still vividly remember some of the moments of life during that time. Thats when I set my life's goal, it was to become a scientist! I was probably ten years then. I was so excited about my new goal, I started publicize it among my friends and relatives. Word spread so loud that even my bullies in the colony got to know about it. They stopped me one day on the street as they could not contain their amusement. Amused despite my history of failing in the school, I wanted to be scientist. They held me and asked if it was true that I wanted to be indeed a scientist ? I quickly and innocently replied yes. One of them with a smirk asked me to spell the scientist... I mumbled. The entire gang broke in laughter, I was almost in tears. Not too long that after that incident I ended ignoring about my goal.
I never liked studies, not a single subject at least until seventh grade. I rather get lost watching spiders and plants or stars. One fine night, when I was camping in the backyard under the stars with my uncle at his place in the village, I was wonderstruck on the magnanimity of the sky. Added to that my uncle fueled my wonder that these seemingly still stars would actually travel all night. I wanted to really see that to myself, I watched and watched the Druv star for quite a long time until I dozed off. Looking at how poorly my studies are going, my father tried changing schools and got me into tuition. Nothing worked until my tuition teacher sparked some interest in seven grade maths. His peculiar style of singing out the formula (a square plus b square is equal to 2 times a and b) started made me cherish that day's lesson. It did not seem that hard to remember and I started applying that on my homework. Voila, for the first time I could see that I can actually solve a problem. This teacher somehow seemed to have started my confidence and slowly he was able to influence me to get better with math. Those tuitions did not last much long, we had to relocate and I ended up going to a different tuition. The standard of students there was so low, they were showing much ignorant than me. Fortunate for me, that all helped boost my confidence because I was only one who seemed to sing back the formulas when everyone was dumbstruck. Math seemed to my friend, from nothing to one thing. I was striving to be loyal to friend back the math. Science joined me soon the ranks since I just had to realize that I always like science after all.
Studies did not seem all that terrible and a night mare until one day when I felt humiliated in my ninth grade. Social teacher arranged a game based on quiz. Students who dont answer a question get slapped by the one who does. I got slapped by a girl so hard that my ears were ringing slap even after long over. It was my ego that got hurt. I went to home, I stayed up long with social text book with history chapter alongside an english dictionary. It was my first time I actually was reading to learn and by heart. I burnt the mid night oil and next day I surprised my classmates because I was taking turns to slap others. I settled my vengeance and social studies started getting my soft corner. After all, it helped heal my ego.
My ego was stomped again in the same year when my one of teachers insulted me in front of first and second grade schools where he proved that they know better than me when it comes to the Telugu subject. This time when I got home, I was burning from inside. I wanted to start over Telugu. I ordered my mom to sit by side and teach me to be good at it. I started learning from scratch, i.e., alphabets. I could not never friend Telugu even till date, but I settled just enough. So was the case with English, I toiled but managed to settle barely enough to heal my ego.
All this helped me improve my grades a very little and a little a semester, but no was noticing including me. It was journey moving up from almost the last place. Ego was helping all along to help all better, and the climax of schooling time arrived. It was the final tenth grade exam. I toiled night and day, whole month along. It was not just math and science but all of them. I sweated and worked hard. So hard that I was reciting topics of the social studies in my dreams. And the judgement day, I landed in top ten percentile. By the time the results came out, all the classmates already bid farewell never to know of my accomplishment. Thankfully, I consoled myself it was not all about the competition with my fellow classmates. I was feeling better as I thought I saved my respect in front of cousin who could not do as good as me. I did not know my cousin and folks thought I cheated in the exams to get there.
It was the time where the goal would haunt me again since I have to choose a specialization. By then I knew doctor is not for me, especially after my dad expressed his commitment to tutor me in medicine himself. I did not want to ever imagine him educating me on intimate topics of human biology, a topic would soon happen after if I choose medicine as specialization. I wanted to be in an engineer stream rather. My father fought hard. It had to be settled as a lottery pick in the temple. I was blessed to be choose the engineering specialization. Next three years propelled my career like never before and I landed a seat in the top college in India. After four years later, I landed in USA for masters. I could not ask for more.
It was job interview time and I was struggling that entire phase. It was a Japanese employee of the company who invited me a lunch at a sushi place. I never knew about wasabi and thought its equivalent to Indian chutney. So I dipped a sushi into wasabi like how one dips an idli in the Sambhar. Oh boy, the second after I put that combination in my mouth - I jumped out my seat like a bull thats kicked up after a terrible inoculation. My nose and mouth pushed out heavy whip and leave you to you to figure out the rest. Fortunately the interview realized I'm much more than that or a piece of paper and extended an offer and so did another company. I choose the latter and moved to LA.
I joined as R&D engineer. I had done quite a bit of research work with publications already by then. I neglected that then until I ended up watching another science documentary years later. The science documentary is about the big bang which brought all my childhood memories about solar system documentary and how it inspired me to choose my goal as a scientist. Two things came out after the episode. First thing was what was universe like before big bang. My purpose until that point was to be a scientist. Strictly speaking I am not a scientist but had already put in the shoes to an extent that I wanted to consider that goal fulfilled. Which brought up the second thing. Now that I met my goal, what is the purpose of life ? These questions brought about my childhood inquisitiveness that created such a restlessness that it felt like its imprinted in my soul.
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