My graduation Walk

My blog page has been rusting for quite a while now on the lame excuse of lack of time. Well its time for re-opening on the joyous occasion of my graduation ceremony and as I head today to catch my long international flight to Cincinnati.

Rewinding even 2 years back, I would have never believed that the day would come for the "precious walk" - My Graduation walk". The story of my PhD saga like every one else was more of a struggle flavored to a large extent with moments of despair, sleepless night outs in the lab, solitary ponderings, depression, utter disappointments which God willingly got transformed later to sweet success.

"Success is sweetest to those, who have tasted failure". And this success of my doctoral degree completion is just a sublime feeling, having tasted innumerable number of hurdles and failures. I truly believe the statement that "PhD is about passion". Though I didn’t start off with this ideology in mind, the lessons gained over these few years have instilled in me this insatiable passion.

Having completed my degree successfully, i firmly believe that a revered PhD degree has more to do with perseverance than intelligence. :) I got more than what I bargained for when I enrolled myself at University of Cincinnati with MS degree. The initial years of my research were a constant test of my mind and inner strength.

Now the past 5 years rolls out like a fast moving reel of film. As a young fresh college undergraduate with a simple academic background, it was a huge stumbling block come up with new ideas. Any topic that you start on would seem as if it has been already addressed. One just keeps reading and reading research papers, which overwhelms you rather than instill any seeds of ideas. I still recollect the innumerable self-motivating hours that I have spent reading through inspiring articles of other researchers, scrolling over other students and professor web pages, awe struck at the amount of dedication a PhD demand, and constantly dreaming about the day when I would achieve the same. I used to desperately meditate for success and work hard towards it, hanging inspiring proverbs everywhere around my cube, signing my emails/messenger with inspiring quotes, reading lot of inspiring philosophy to offset the disappointments in research, disappointments of paper rejection. The work pressure, fierce competition, and constant motivation from my good friends kept me on the insurmountable task that lay ahead.

Along the way, I had to digest umpteen negative sarcasms trying to convert the nagging words to self-motivate me and prove my worth. I still cherish the soothing words of my dear friend who wrote me when I had not published even a single paper in first 2 years of my research that "Reassure your self thinking of a bamboo tree. A young bamboo shot take a long time of grow. You keep nurturing it and in few years it just grows to great unimaginable heights". (story in the end)

To summarize, the whole series of events over past few years has taught me so many things about life other than research. I am grateful to God that I have finally come through the long dark tunnel which just seemed endless with no ray of hopes.

This Friday, the June 13th 2008 is truly the most precious moments of my life. A fulfillment of my five years of struggle, a humble beginning for many more dreams and goals to achieve.





An inspiring short story sent by my friend
One day, a man was very much vexed. He went to god and told him that he is not interested to live. God told him about the precious thing he has given him - life. Man never understood. Both started persuading each other. Finally the irritated man asked God “ Tell me jus 1 reason. Why I should live?”. God told him- "That he created two seeds initially – Grass seed and Bamboo seed. He gave them both everything equally – water, sunlight. After 6months god saw sprouts coming up from grass seed. But nothing came from Bamboo seed. He waited for 1 year. Grass started growing taller and taller. But nothing came from Bamboo seed.No sign of life. But god never gave up. He waited for 2, 3,4,5, and finally in the 6th year he could see sprouts coming from bamboo seed.Within 6 months of time, Bamboo grew very tall. All these days Bamboo has been strengthening its roots and finally came up successfully. When I could wait for such a long time for my seed to come up. Why should u quit life???”.