Abhinava and the Term-2 madness

My 10 month old son’s name is Abhinav Krishna and I call him Abhinava. My wife and son live with me on campus. As term-1 ended and term-2 commenced, I got a sense that things are really ‘picking up’. Several activities started happening at the same time and everything seemed important or worth being plugged into. Pretty soon, it dawned onto me – this is madness! I mean, it’s humanly impossible to get involved in even 10% of the various activities that seem to be happening all around me and it’s nearly impossible to ignore most of them!

The emails keep flowing incessantly; I find myself sieving through them to find what’s relevant to read and respond. The clubs have been formed and thankfully their mailing lists  filter most emails out. I am getting better at managing my inbox, which in my opinion is one of the main causes of this madness! Someone used the phrase ‘drinking through a fire hose’ to describe the ISB experience. I’ll say that it’s more like ‘drinking through a fire hose and then some!’ Because of peer pressure and other reasons, even though there is a fire hose that you are drinking through, you voluntarily open other new taps as well! It’s madness as I said!

How is everyone able to cope up with this? I don’t know. I presume a lot of us are drawing strength from our support system which probably was instrumental in our getting into ISB to begin with, be it your mom, dad, or other family members or friends. Plus, most of us are probably built to handle this stress, or built to learn to handle it. I must say that if we deserve a pat on our backs for getting into ISB, then we need another one for surviving it with sanity and learning!

For my part, I have to say that Abhinava plays a central role in my ISB life. Enjoying the father-son relationship is in itself so de-stressing and energizing (you guys should try it if you haven’t). But also when I see him play, cry and do what he does throughout the day, it is amazing to see the simplicity of his life vis-à-vis mine. I mean, have you guys ever pondered how a 10-month old spends his day? It’s brilliantly simple. In fact, it’s almost divine. Think about it: no pressure, no stress, no anxiety, no worry, no deadlines, no expectations, no  internal or external conflicts, no fear, and no regrets . Just erase all this things from your ISB life, what is left!??

The one common thing between him and me is that we are both learning new things – he is learning to stand, or to say ‘nanna’, while I am learning about conjoint analysis or Monte Carlo simulations. Ah, so someone said it right – the learning never stops!

- Sankar G Vyakaranam

No related posts.