The One Which Goes Up, Has To Fall..
It’s been a month and a half since I came back to Chennai and started my journey of my own. Let’s go for a little recap. I caught my train last August 3rd, and reached by the next day, Sunday. Being the first Sunday of August, it was Friendship day. I got down from the train in the early morning at 5AM at Chennai Central, and started towards my hostel. I turned on my Data on my Xype, and surprisingly, hundreds of messages from many were flooding my phone for friendship day and I was pretty excited :) . Most of them were from Chetna, about our friendship and it was very touching to read them all while I walked to the bus stop to catch my bus. I replied everyone back for friendship day, and came to the Hostel. I was expecting a few changes in the room as I was out for 15 days, but nothing had actually changed. Everyone were sleeping while I rolled in, and I was feeling comfortable already. Although I was a little tired, I threw all my bags and started getting ready to move out. Skipping my breakfast, I boarded the bus and went to Express Avenue to meet Arumugam, who had come along with his cousin to buy her a new mobile phone. We were roaming around EA, and clearly I could feel myself a lot weaker than I was a month earlier. I had been rapidly losing weight, when I weighed myself for the medical report which was to be given at ICAT, I was just 50 — I had lost around 5 kgs in a month or so. Me and Arumugam, went to Zaitoon (a memorable restaurant, first visited along with Chetna) and we ordered a few dishes for lunch. Although I was crazily hungry, I couldn’t eat anything, both of us wasted a lot of food just like I did when I went with Chetna, but we paid the huge bill. Later on, he started back to his home and Around 6PM, I went to adyar to meet my Consim Friends at the Besant Nagar beach. First I met Abi after a long time, Ishwarya was on her way. Chetna had called me to come to the Adyar Bridge, we’re we could meet up and move to the beach, but after so many twists and turns here and there, All of us — Me, Dharani, Santhosh, Chetna, Ishwarya and Abi met at the Besant Nagar beach, and adding another twist, we decided to goto the White Pepper restaurant at Adyar back again. As I was not feeling hungry at all, I couldn’t eat anything. I just ordered the Arabian grape juice and others had their dinner. It was the first time, we had combination of us, in our Consim life history. Santhosh was telling about his plan of quitting his job and how he is going to prepare for his exams, and all of us were sharing our experiences together. After the dinner was over, I had to run back with Santhosh in his bike to INOX where I was supposed to watch The Conjuring with Vijayakanth. The movie was pretty awesome, I loved it and I was ready to watch it again with my other friends. The loooong day finally got over and I came back to hostel at the midnight.
First Day at ICAT,
It was August 5th, the first admission day of my school. First, I went to my office to get my acceptance letter, bid farewell to all then came back to my hostel. Then I prepared myself and started moving to ICAT at 2PM taking all my certificates in my bag. After reaching ICAT, I was told by the receptionist (I was shocked to know that she knew my name) to wait for an hour for the admission process to begin and I was sitting in the lobby thinking how my future is going to be. With high hopes and dreams, I looking at everyone roaming here and there, talking about games, games, games and I felt I was in the right place to start my mission. A UG junior had came and sat near, I gave a small talk with him, how the classes are going and I was astounded to see his drawing in his art board. He said the classes are superb, the staff are teaching everything well and he is very glad that he joined ICAT. Later on, the receptionist called me and said to move to the auditorium where all things were set. I went to the Auditorium and took one of the front seats along with another guy. He was moaning why everyone is so silent here and he started talking to me. To my surprise he was from Coimbatore and we were discussing a lot while we were sitting. Within a few minutes, I started thinking that I have actually got my first friend at ICAT and things are going great. We both were having a lot of fun in the hall, commenting at others, behaving like a rowdy and such. Soon, the session started where one of the Heads gave a small introduction to ICAT and he told us to move to our respective classrooms. And that was the end of that boy, I do meet him now and then in the canteen but we don’t actually talk much.
Later on, I moved to my classroom along with my classmates and I was feeling a lot more like a student, almost forgetting that I was an employee just 15 days back. My HOD gave a formal introduction to how the things are going to be and till date, it was the last day I saw her at ICAT. I did not wanted to have the same image what I create everywhere and so I was a bit more talkative, straight away I expressed my talents and my experience to everyone, especially to the staff. I was believing that everyone of us who joined this course, has a dire aim to become a Game Developer and you’ll see soon why it became wrong. The first day at ICAT went extremely well, I went back to my office and shared my experience to Ishwarya and Abi. Later, Chetna, Arumugam, Prince called me and I was telling the same to them. I was really loving my day with ICAT. As the days moved on, we were having Creativity, Idea Generation, Art and Management Classes for our game development. One day, My Sir was taking a class on Idea generation. He told us to close our eyes and told us to start imagining things as he kept saying a few words at 10 second intervals. The motive of the game was to find what kind of persons we are — critical, logical or creative. He gave the words Water, Tree, Bird, Eyes, Fire. Everyone started thinking of the objects he told, within seconds, he told to open our eyes and asked what came to our mind just after he uttered a word to us. Many told a few scenarios, a man burring fire near a tree with a bird, a lake with a tree nearby and a bird flying, etc. He was classifying many of them as creative and logical. Some even mixed up Eyes with Ice. But in my case, I was not thinking of anything at all, I was just plotting the objects on my virtual art board and immediately thought of a scenario combining all of this. I felt like I was not so good at any of these things, and when he asked me, I told exactly what I was doing. I told him that I imagined a paper filled with all the objects he said and after he said the last word, I combined it to a scenario which is — a bird crying on seeing its house burning in the tree. He was a little surprised to hear my answer and told me that my answer was both critical, logical and creative. He added that everyone should try to think the same way and the funny thing was that others asked me to help them to think like that. That little spark which sir told, gave me a little confidence that I was meant to create and design games and that I can do this.
Enough about ICAT,
Every evening I started going to meet Ishwarya and Abi, as I felt very lonely as the days pass on. I began to realise none of my classmates are like me, they have their own future plans and it was like they are not actually fully into gaming at all. I fell into a team that doesn’t interest me at all, and worse, my teammates mostly never come to class. I was feeling a lot empty, I felt I was wasting a lot of time. I began scheduling my tasks in my Calendar Application on my MacBook to help me get more productive. I began repairing my downed websites and started a little bit of Android. But the pace was not the same with what I used to have. I was extremely slow, I started sleeping a lot, wasn’t showing interest on anything. More on this, a little later, I’m totally vexed about this.
On August 15th, the Independence day, Me, Ishwarya, Dharani, Santhosh, Abi, Vijayakanth went to The Conjuring movie again (for me, it was the third time), it was kind of fun to see Ishwarya getting scared to death. Later Me, Ishwarya and Abi tried to goto Sowcarpet to buy dresses but we ended up buying them at Spencer Plaza. Me and Ishwarya enjoyed the massage seat for Rs.20 which was put up there and we wanted to go for it once more. We forced Abi to go for it too, but as I expected she didn’t like it. We were walking here and there in the mount road and I was noticing a shop named Punjabi Dhaba. On seeing Dhaba, I was remembering all the things Chetna was telling about Dhaba when I went to Ludhiana. I was even thinking of going there but it was a small shop, so I was not opening my mouth to go for it. On the way, we were discussing about the things we were doing the last Independence day. The days when we were roaming TNagar, forming a human train running in between the crowd, having a lot of fun. Ah..old memories!. Later on, Ishwarya and Abi started back to the hostel and I went to INOX to watch Aadhalaal Kadhal Seiveer movie. Vijayakanth was already there and we couldn’t get any tickets and so we booked tickets at Sangam Cinemas and got our bus. To our surprise, Ginu George and Mohammed Kazzali were sitting behind us in the bus and when we asked where they were going, they said they are going to Punjabi Dhaba, which just freaked me out!! Just that afternoon, I was thinking who would ever go to such a small hotel like that, now I was literally seeing three people on their way to taste the food there, based my enemy Zomato’s recommendation. After watching that worthless stupid movie of my lifetime, I returned back very late to hostel.
A lot of things happened this August, a lot of good things for my friends and a lot of bad things for myself. Here’s a very quick summary of what happened this month. Abi got her M.E Embedded Systems admission at Sai Ram Engineering College, she got her very own smartphone and she moved to Chromepet. We had an awesome blast for Ishwarya’s birthday at midnight, one of the most memorable birthday events I’ve ever had. Had a fun pooled conference call for Chetna’s birthday and met her at the Besant nagar beach at the early morning. Went to Coimbatore with Abi for the first time, as Chetna and Ishwarya used to keep telling us an year back. Watched my mentor’s movie “Jobs” along with Arumugam to relinquish my lack of confidence, and become sturdy again to face the upcoming future. Went Started to live a life on my myself without being salaried and stop dreaming to buy things when I see electronic gadgets in malls.
In my next post, I’ll describe the above in detail but now, back to what this post is all about. Clearly, The one and a half months I spent here, is definitely not the life I imagined. It’s worse than the worst. Although my dream and ambition is still strong, I believe I took a wrong path by choosing ICAT, as the education is definitely not good as of now, I did not get a good team to work with and worse, I couldn’t concentrate on my other works either. In addition to it, my hostel is getting worse, I feel like a kitten trapped in a house of rats. We are in deep search of a new home in Adyar and I believe things will better soon as the days pass by. A little more things to be noted, my blog will now be regularly updated every Friday afternoon, and a dedicated Android App is soon on its way to your smartphones. Stay tuned..