Among all the bed-time stories my grand mom has told me there is one particular story which has and will always be my all time fav.. The story goes this way – “It was a rainy day in the month of august… The only sound I could hear was the “Pitter patter of the raindrops”… then suddenly I heard a women cry breaking the deafening silence… When I ran into the bedroom I saw ur mom mourn in labor… With the nearest hospital being 12Kms away your dad rushed to call a taxi… By the time your dad returned you had made your way into this world almost 20 days ahead of the schedule…
Good evening Fellow toastmaster and my dear friends… this is me keerthy rajagopal trying to give my first ever project on “me just trying to be me”…
Both my grand mom and mom till day, say that from the day, when I was born till this day… I have one thing, which has prevailed… That is my “lack of patience”.. My mom says… “You did not have the patience to wait for the taxi to arrive… you just wanted to rush out…” .. Me being the smart one always have maintained one answer to all these comments… “Mom don’t call me impatient… call me an economic baby… not only did I save you hospital fee but also saved the taxi charges… how good am i??”
Well friends… my dad “Mr.V. Rajagopal” was indeed a shrewd visionary… he named me very correctly “Keerthy” meaning famous…. Not that am bragging, but I have always been famous… now it is on you guys to decide if I was famous in the sane way or in the notorious way… that must not take a lot of time I suppose…
As a kid I started speaking really late.. My parents were so scared.. they have walked up and down many hospitals to see if there was some problem in my vocals… Doctors would just say am fine… They could find the reason why I was taking this long to start talking.. My parents have told me that they had done all the poojas possible to hear me call them AMMA and Accha… then one fine day I spoke my first word… After that there has been no stopping… My dad now offers prayers to god requesting him to keep me quiet at least an hour every day…
During my school days I was in Madras… I still like to call it madras rather than Chennai because of no reason… During my initial days in school I totally detested the concept of sitting in front of books after returning home… to tell in the blunt form I hated studies… I found all the ways to avoid it.. During my first standard.. I ended up breaking my bones trying to avoid studies.. The end result was plaster of paris on my hands for months… But they were the most blissful months despite the discomfort cause by plaster of paris… No one ever compelled me to study…. So In my second standard I knew what I had to do in order to escape the monster better known as the books… I ended up cutting my right palm… my dad being the smart one did not fall into the trap and made sure that I study… Thus the saga began… 12 years of schooling… I was left with no choice but study..
In madras I stayed in the railway colony situated in nungambakkam.. It was here I met her… my best friend till date… my deepu… if I have to talk about the fun we had together… this 4 mins wont suffice… We were the partners in crime… and also called ourselves “The 420”… We have played oodles of pranks during our monkeying times.. Till this day the first memory that flashes in front of me when I hear madras are those with deepu… Then the D Day came when I had to relocate to thrissur for pursuing my engineering…. The day when I bid a temporary good bye to my friend of all times…
I did my graduation in Electrical and electronics from Govt. Engg College Trichur in kerala. Those were the years of learning, adjusting and molding… those were the years of transformation of a spoilt brat into just a brat… Ask the walls of GEC… they would tell my story… they would know that Keerthy had spent most of the days in the corridors, the hostel bed, the humongous gallery, the nearest movie hall… but surely not in her classes… Those were the 4 years of purposelessness…. And there is not a single moment of it for which I regret… In this journey my studies had became the pillion and fun the main rider.. I still have no idea how I managed to clear my xams without a backlog….
Being new to kerala… I had my own starting troubles… Since I was brought up in madras tamil, English and tit bits of hindi were the only languages I was familiar with… And people of thrissur have a dialect which is one of a kind… they speak Malayalam in really fast and sing song way… so by the time I understood the first part of the sentence the other person would have done with their talking… poor me… I was considered an alien… Thank god I met few other of my own type.. We ended up calling ourselves the NRK – non-residential keralites… During my college days I had a very common complaint from many of friends… actually speaking I also get it from some of my colleagues here.. The first impression every one had about me was “JADA” .. Well “JADA” in Malayalam means “ARROGANT”… I till this day have no clue why do I give such a bad impression about myself to rest of the world… is it the way I talk or the way I look…I have not been able figure it out till this day…
During my college days I participated in all the events right from elocution to war of words to dumb charades to ad Zap… I have made a mockery out of myself in many of the contest… but I learnt how to present myself in front of a huge audience… I had been a key organizer of many of the college events and it was here I realized what was my goal for life… it was these short and not so complex managerial experience I had then fascinated me to do my MBA some time down the lane…
Fun fact about me.. I have fell in and out of Love a zillion times during my college days… I have used the number “zillion” because the 10 fingers are not enough to count it… And all of them have not lasted more than a week… some of them were as short as 2 hours… this short time line is attributed to my really bad memory… after a weekend I see them again I don’t realize that I had a crush on them…
It was during these wonderful years I made certain relationships for life.. It was here that I realized that I could have a friend other than deepu… The amount of fun I had in my Ladies hostel is just beyond my words.. Be it just laying on the bed and talking or mid night coffee session or the weird dress rehearsals… I had fun all the time.. It was here I learnt to adjust… there have been days when 8 of us have slept in a 2 beds… Here I learnt to share, give up and embrace life in all its forms… Be it the lowest of the lows or highest of the highs… those 4 years built me for the bigger race.
At the end of my college days I got recruited into INFOSYS… I got posted to mangalore right after my training.. Believe me I was soo irritated cause of the posting.. I thought I had opened a damn pandora box… cause mangalore was so far from madras and it meant going home once in a blue moon…little did I know what was waiting for me in mangalore…here I learnt the important lessons of being professional, motivated and responsible…mangalore to me is a lot of things… it is my first project.. It is that part of my life where I was my own decision maker… it was my life of independence… I learnt to manage my money and learnt more about analyzing not just code but people… It was here I met the person with whom I would love to spend rest of my life with… now when I look back I have no regrets of being in mangalore…
At this point of my life am all set to take my next step… I hope to pursue my all time dream of doing my MBA in few years… These 23 years have done loads of good to me.. I learnt that life manifests its beauty and irony in a lot of ways that we cant comprehend ...all we can do is let ourselves be led by the wind...let urself free....ready to experience everything that life throws at u...expanding ur horizons continuously.. I learnt to experience life in all its forms…
