The Selfish Life

Recently I was reading about Arvind Kejriwal, one of the leading social activists leading the fight against corruption. Arvind Kejriwal was one of the leading guys behind the Right to Information (RTI) Act too.

Arvind is an IIT Kharagpur B.Tech and then he joined civil services in 1992 as Indian Revenue Services (IRS) officer. While working with the Income Tax department, he saw the widespread corruption prevalent there. He started Parivartan, an NGO for bringing in transparency in Government.

I am also an engineer and went to one of the IITs (for my masters). But our similarities end there. After reading about Arvin Kejriwal, I have realized what a selfish life that I am living! Our lives are too materialistic nowadays. We are busy buying a house, a car and then paying mortgages (EMI) for these in remaining of our lives. We are busy thinking how to get the next salary hike and how good will be this year's bonus. We are busy replacing the our old (CRT) TVs with a LCD/LED ones. We are just busy with ourselves and no time to think about the society. We feel we live a comfortable and happy (?) life. One day we will die and no one will remember us.

Arvind Kejriwal could have led a life like ours. He was an IRS officer and could have accumulated tons of wealth like other IRS folks. But he opted for a different path. He left his own comforts so that he can make  the lives of millions of his fellow country men less miserable.

Do you also lead a selfish life? Are you happy with it?

It's my life! Really?

I've just listened to the song It's My life by John Bon Jovi after a long time, perhaps after a few years. This song was one of our favorite songs during our college days. I still love this song. Only difference between now and ten years back is that I can't feel oneness with the song that I used to feel in 2000. It's not just my life now in 2010!

Ten  years back, I was a student at IIT Kanpur earning Rs 5000.00 a month from the government as scholarship. There was zero liability on my head, no income tax to be paid, no EMI to be given, no credit card bill to be missed, no frustration at not getting salary hikes, no late night calls to attend, no worry over sensex going down, no rat race at all. I was really free (free as in freedom) then to enjoy my life my way.

Parthajit's birthday and 10 years of our arrival in IITK

It was Partha's birthday yesterday. This day has one more special significance for us. Exactly 10 years back on this day, we arrived in IIT Kanpur for admission to M.Tech course. Partha and I travelled by North-East Express. We met Rajarshi there in the admission counter. We all got rooms in the top floor of D-block of Hall-IV. Next year Suman joined us in D-top.

We had a great party last night at Partha's residence. Rajarshi-Munmun, Suman-Sangeeta and Jyotirmoy-Gitika joined Partha-Aparajita. There were two little kids too - Rup and Krishu. While the ladies spoke about the real-estate market in Bangalore over coke, the guys went to their D-top days with the King of Good Times. Partha-Aparajita prepared very good foods. Overall we enjoyed a lot.