There comes a time when in twilight hours one likes to retrace the trail of footprints from the edge of today to the precinct of yesterday. I did so after 50 years of my journey in academic and professional world. I revisited the thoughts that guided me, recalled the events that changed the course of my life, and remembered the people who made me what I am. In the nostalgic frame of mind I felt the urge to capture the snap-shots of memory before they fade out in the haze of oblivion. This has reminded me the numerous helping hands I had held to be where I am today.
I wrote a book SCHOOL OF UPNA LIFE (SOUL) to commemorate 50 years of my graduation in Engineering from Harcourt Butler Technological Institute (HBTI) Kanpur and 25 years of my association with Birla Institute of Scientific Research (BISR) Jaipur. After graduation, for theThe varied experiences that I gathered have given another dimension to my professional career. My sincere gratitude to my schools and workplaces, my teachers and my superiors for what I am today.
So far it has been a wonderful journey. I gratefully remember my teachers who so patiently prepared me for what I am today, and to take societal responsibilities, among other things, I value in life. They have infused in me the sense of learning to think big, extend the limits of vision, and achieve the ends. I am still learning to fly with my feet firmly on the ground. On this occasion I remember my family and friends for giving me so many joyous moments. Gratitude is a sentiment and an agreeable emotion. I can only smile and give them a warm look, and say, I am most sincerely grateful to you for the overwhelming generosity showered on me.
To commemorate 50 years of my graduation in engineering, my friend Subimal Sinha Roy sent me the following:
Nostalgic Imprint
Graduation is a great memorable moment
Much cherished and seems so recent
Though fifty years have silently passed
It has not gathered any layer of dust
For it served as a solid stepping stone
To leap to the coveted height all alone
With indelible memories of teachers
Whose help is etched in my mind forever
The fading faces of the classmates stay in
All dispersed, in vivid past they remain
Books that enlightened, showed the way
To academic success making brighter day
All these so very graphic, focused so near
In nostalgic imprints across time they appear.
To celebrate 25 years of my association with Birla Institute of Scientific Research Jaipur my friend sent me another gem from his repertoire.
Decoding the Decades
Decoding decades’ enigmatic designs life makes within is
Discovering the turns life takes at times unforeseen
All journeys have a beginning and an end unknown
Some finish listlessly at obscure destinations forlorn
But some never seem to end ever
For they remain as the energy of flowing cascades
In the mountain, and never see how and why the curtains of time fall
Trying to discern why the journey began after all
And toiling to discover in vain the destination destined
End for some is the end of extending the line ordained
Where time freezes and the beginning begins
At all times at the end which consumed by the beginning never comes
You charted your course from a distant modest abode
Not knowing where the destination is hidden in a code
And travelled miles to where you deserved to belong
Decades later you started walking the garden pathway
Fostering the memory of the beginning nurtured to stay reached
Where the western winds blow the desert dust
But they couldn’t blanket your creative zeal by their gust
Nobody knows not, even you, if it is destiny or irony or coded drive
In decades’ design
Furrowed a pathway for you to cross the rocky ledge and thorny bush
In turn, to travel to realm of dormant eminence, or recognition
In two and a half decades, time has slowed, making you stable and stronger
The sand grains of the hour glass made for you to last are coated with
Indelible colours of nostalgic past, hang static
Watching you create timeless dreams innate
The heavy burden of petrified time can’t decimate
You crafted a space on a new stage you made your own
Decked with unique imagination and pure satisfaction
Giving shape on a bare canvas
A mosaic of creation that was coded in design in you for decades of oblivion
Harsh western winds turned the pages of calendars
Days melted in stream of months and months in years
The decadal layers enfolded the nascent aspirations
Carving the vividly delicate profiles of literary horizons
Unexplored so long and full of potential
Promises call you the way orange sky does when the sun rises
You travel on the path you made at the new dawn
Let the new journey bring you closer to the horizon
Let it continue till the haze of the desert dust fades
The western winds stop stowing the years into decades
Let your unending journey embrace eternity sublime
Someday someone would decode the decades’ design and discover you
For the world at last
You will then rise from the desert dust.
School Of Upna Life 