Did it ever happen to you where you put lots of efforts day and night for something you love but when the opportunity knocks the door, you falter?
I got such an opportunity when I got selected for the NIT badminton team during my 6th semester. People who know me personally second that I have always loved laying badminton. So much so that few fanatic shuttlers and I used to play up to 3 o clock in the morning during the chilled winter nights when everyone is hibernating in their beds under the Rajai. Man, I loved that game.
In September 2016, our NIT team went to play for the Inter Technical University Sports event. It was my first sports event playing for my college and was pretty excited. The energy was high, people cheering all around, there was this subtle nervousness, it has just been 5 minutes in the court and then BOOM!! Not sure what happened but I was on the floor holding my leg with pain. Everything happened so quickly that it took me some time to assess what had happened. I jumped for a smash and landed on a single leg. My knee could not take my whole body weight and I had a complete ligament tear. It was a disaster.
Long story short, I had to go through a surgery and took bed rest for another two months. By the time I returned college, I had only two weeks for the end semester examinations. I have to squeeze two sessionals as well. I passed with some seven pointers or so.
It is during the 6th semester of my college I started facing a unique situation. The situation is ” I don’t know where to spend my time. I had no idea what to do during my free time “. It may seem so trivial reading this but try getting into my shoes. All these years, I spent most of my time playing all kind of sports. I was not a movie buff, hardly watched any web series by then, had no girlfriend, nothing. If you ask me why not study? Well
From the very beginning of my 2nd year, I had developed a negative vibe towards computer science. The reasons being :
- I was surrounded by people who had computer science subjects like C and C++ in their school. They were grasping concepts quickly and made me feel inferior.
- Since I felt inferior, I started spending less time on coding and stuff. It eventually reflected in my grades. From 9.4 pointer in 1st semester to 7.7 in 5th semester, my grades dropped consistently.
I always found reasons not to study until I had an interesting conversation with one of my good friends, Utkarsh. I was strolling with Utkarsh and his UP batch one day where he asked me where are you practising coding? I said I don’t think I am interested in coding, don’t feel for it, it is not my cup of tea, I am not just that nerdy guy sitting in front of laptop, blah blah blah. He immediately said “Bhargav, khud ko c*tya mat bna (Bhargav don’t make a fool out of yourself)“. And the conversation actually made me rethink.
Man, not sure why it hit me hard. Like real hard. I would be surprised if he remembers something like this happened but dude that pushed me to think. I looked back and realized I had put no efforts what so ever and hence I cannot even complain. I went back to the room and started coding. I started performing adequately. Since there were no sports in my life, I spent pretty much most of my time coding. All I did was attending college, came back to the room, solve problems that’s it. I had stayed in college during the end semester holidays working on my communication and interpersonal skills, researching a lot and got into the very first company I was attended, Oracle.
When I look back, I found that the injury came as a blessing in disguise. Had I never been injured, I might not have spent much time coding and eventually not sure what might have happened. The reason why I narrated such a story is that sometimes we desperately want something to happen. We spend lots of time and efforts to achieve it when we don’t get what we aspired, it feels like the world around us is collapsing. Everything seems to be so difficult to handle. When I had the surgery, saying I was disappointed is an understatement. Like really really disappointed. Why did this happen to me, my family was also bothered, my grades dropped, I cant play the game that I liked for these many years. All around me seemed to be shattered. But boy, it made me stronger.
FYI, after joining Oracle, I won a gold medal in Oracle Hyderabad Internal Badminton Championship.
We all have had struggles. I know many of you who are reading, are struggling as well.
From losing jobs,
Bruised relationships,
Gaining weight,
infinite spiral thoughts,
Work-related stress,
Online meetings which feel like eternal,
Boredom,
to mental health, Covid-19 put us everyone in a tight spot. This uninvited stranger made us travel on an uneven road with unexpected highs and lows. Everything took a toll.
This pandemic taught us to appreciate all those small things in life. Having chai with friends in the canteen, freedom to be with someone whom you love, and made us realize everyone around us is fragile.
Times have been tough. Things are not going as planned at all, chaos all around, disturbances not letting you sleep, fear as elders are prone to virus etc. Boy, mark my words these hard times are going to make us stronger. When this whole pandemic thing ends, we are going to look back and feel proud that we survived a strange war.
Let that ray of hope inside you breathe with every passing second. We are going to come out of this with flying colours.
To all the people who have been pinging me asking my blogs, I have been lazy. I will try to become consistent. Thank you for all the support.
The Silent Killer 