“Incentives”…. This word stole the limelight for the past 2 weeks… Pantry, bus, forums, newspapers … everywhere… ‘Incentive’ was always at the top among ‘Trending now’ topics in the world of IT. Ok ok… Am not reminding you about it… So this made me do a quick introspection about how I actually landed up in this IT world.
Flashback (bgm and spiral graphics to be added)
Age 6 and below
During my kindergarten days and initial classes, me (as well as other kids) regarded the aunty (teachers were called aunty during kindergarten days to create a friendly atmosphere 
) who taught us rhymes as ‘The best’ and ‘The most knowledgeable’ in the world. Anything they say would be holy verses to us and we followed them like mice behind pied piper… If they put a star in my notebook, my day was made… So it was similar to impressing the royals at the courtyard and getting rewarded… I loved being the royal when I grow up… So ‘teacher’ was perfect!
) who taught us rhymes as ‘The best’ and ‘The most knowledgeable’ in the world. Anything they say would be holy verses to us and we followed them like mice behind pied piper… If they put a star in my notebook, my day was made… So it was similar to impressing the royals at the courtyard and getting rewarded… I loved being the royal when I grow up… So ‘teacher’ was perfect! Age 7-10
‘Every cloud has a silver lining’ and this period was used to hunt the ‘silver lining’ in me. All competitions, sports, cultural events were tried…. Finally, elocution, extempore speeches, poetry recitation, on the spot writing… Anything to do with ‘writing and talking’ were discovered as my silver linings… No stage fear equals apt person for ‘welcome address’ and ‘vote of thanks’… I did the honours…Events were incomplete without me and I ended up as the ‘most popular kid’ in the junior set… Seeing me on stage, people (parents of other kids and teachers) remarked ‘She can make a good politician in the future’… I became ‘Indira Gandhi’ in the next fancy dress competition as well as in my future-Aish dream. I loved talking, writing and enjoyed having people with guns around me to protect.
Age 11- 15
Now we had sub divisions in Science as general science and social science… Subdivisions and specialization continued.. This period had made my dreams bigger and better… Debates made me feel like ‘I can be a lawyer’ I felt I can even convince Columbus to believe that America wasn’t discovered yet but I didn’t like the black coat costume though… Serving people… Mother Teresa… Yes… Option open…Next was ‘getting a nobel prize’ and featuring in my social science book Now comes the serious finding… I loved reading about space, planets, ET, UFO… I started doing more groundwork and realised the field as ‘astronomy’ (I could hardly pronounce it at that time)… The breakthrough was at my family doc’s place when she asked me ‘what do you want to become when you grow up?’ I replied ‘Astronaut’ (with the thermometer in my mouth…I still ponder how did she decipher it)… She was stunned(so was my mom, as she didn’t know it till then) Doc quizzed me to find out whether I really know what I told her moments ago and I passed the test (lawyer in me showed up) 
She remarked, ‘This kid is very very smart… I have seen more than 100 kids and everybody had a standard reply, ‘Doctor’ ,’Engineer’ , ‘scientist’, ’teacher’… But your daughter was the only kid who was different… Mark my words, she’ll go places’ (‘She will go places’ lingered in my mind) From then on my cupboard was getting filled with Space books, cassettes, videos, article-cut outs, astronomy games ( thanks to my NRI relatives… Actually I made their jobs easier… They didn’t have to think much about my gifts… It was obvious 
) So finally now, it was an ‘Astronaut’ who is going to get a ‘nobel prize’ and end up in social science book.
Now comes the serious finding… I loved reading about space, planets, ET, UFO… I started doing more groundwork and realised the field as ‘astronomy’ (I could hardly pronounce it at that time)… The breakthrough was at my family doc’s place when she asked me ‘what do you want to become when you grow up?’ I replied ‘Astronaut’ (with the thermometer in my mouth…I still ponder how did she decipher it)… She was stunned(so was my mom, as she didn’t know it till then) Doc quizzed me to find out whether I really know what I told her moments ago and I passed the test (lawyer in me showed up) She remarked, ‘This kid is very very smart… I have seen more than 100 kids and everybody had a standard reply, ‘Doctor’ ,’Engineer’ , ‘scientist’, ’teacher’… But your daughter was the only kid who was different… Mark my words, she’ll go places’ (‘She will go places’ lingered in my mind) From then on my cupboard was getting filled with Space books, cassettes, videos, article-cut outs, astronomy games ( thanks to my NRI relatives… Actually I made their jobs easier… They didn’t have to think much about my gifts… It was obvious ) So finally now, it was an ‘Astronaut’ who is going to get a ‘nobel prize’ and end up in social science book. Age 16- 18
While I was gearing up to be the future ‘Kalpana Chawla’, I learnt that Physics and Maths were the heart and soul of ‘astronomy’… I was comfortable with the heart but the soul scared me to death… I tried finding out a way to check if heart without soul is possible (apart from vampires)… Result in vain! The astronaut in me still prevailed (prevails) but biology took a front seat now… Scientist/ Doctor + nobel prize… Dream revised!
Age 19- 22
Board exam results declared! No more doctor dream (don’t ask me why … its self explanatory 
) I was offered BDS and I remarked Eeeeewwww Noooo and turned it down (mistake I might correct if I go to the past now) All this while, right from age 6, I always had a flair for english … Be it competitions or just attending English classes… I loved every moment… But I didn’t look at it as my separate field of interest… Now I gave it a thought ‘Why don’t I become a writer’… But I was told, ‘Get a professional degree, stabilize your life and then venture into your area of passion’. I found it convincing… Result : engineering… Again branch…I told, give me a stream that makes me to confront with my enemy(maths) who spoiled my dream less… ‘IT’ was the option! ( numerical paper was 1 sem less when compared to other streams)
) I was offered BDS and I remarked Eeeeewwww Noooo and turned it down (mistake I might correct if I go to the past now) All this while, right from age 6, I always had a flair for english … Be it competitions or just attending English classes… I loved every moment… But I didn’t look at it as my separate field of interest… Now I gave it a thought ‘Why don’t I become a writer’… But I was told, ‘Get a professional degree, stabilize your life and then venture into your area of passion’. I found it convincing… Result : engineering… Again branch…I told, give me a stream that makes me to confront with my enemy(maths) who spoiled my dream less… ‘IT’ was the option! ( numerical paper was 1 sem less when compared to other streams)
3rd year end… Campus interview… So I realised, just cos I had all the above mentioned qualties ..Ability to talk and convince people about deadlines, writing skills when it comes to mails, ability to invent new things (defects and logics), teaching skills in case of presentations, helping without expecting rewards (remember my Mother Teresa dream)…. It made me a perfect IT material
Got selected in the first IT company that visited… And the rest is history!
PS: My little little dreams were ignored in an attempt to make the post shorter
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