To the wall…

I am feeling sad, and thats in itself is a rarity. I do not feel sad for long times, but if I am writing this then it surely means that I am feeling sad for longer period than normal. Do I know the reason, I surely do. Last week, I gave a paper presentation, it went well and more importantly I found that mine was one of the best, at least worth a place in top three. Judges were quite impressed, and I felt that I did a good job, despite of being alone as my team mate could not make it to presentation. She, my team mate has always stood behind every participation and even got ready for spending Rs. 400/- as registration amount for paper presentation (whole techfest) so was I.

Now, a smart man can easily comprehend that I am feeling sad because I could not get a podium finish. And this is second time in row. I wont say that the competition was rigged, because that I think would make me a bigger failure. The paper is about water purification using nano technology. Though on surface it looks quite a simple idea, but it does have its own trickiness.  Somewhere inside this loss hurt me deeply, oops it still pains. And at the same time I feel sorry for the girl (my team mate) who stood behind/ahead/left/right as a good team mate. I feel disappointed that we could not reap any prize out of our two outings. When both the times I felt that we had a handful of chance for a podium finish. This project is indeed my dream, though I do not know how am I going to achieve it, as the paper was more in review in nature, than a concrete research. As a dreamer, and as  team member I feel sorry when my team members efforts (of all sorts, cash, kind) aren’t met with returns, which sadly so have been the case for past two times. I would like to thank my team mate, she has been wonderful to support every participation of ours (three in number if I count rejection at first stage for Delhi IIT techfest).  At the same time I would like to say, that I am sorry for our losses.

Story isnt complete, though I felt that it has, only yesterday morning when I was at height of feeling disgruntled. Somehow I felt that things arent going my way, and concept isnt attractive enough, though as per research point of view I shouldnt have thought like that but, the child in me was yearning for praise since long time. The story isnt this, and I apologize for regressing. Story is that, yesterday evening when I was almost sure that I was going to drop this project out of my mind, I got hold of Sunday Times of India and as I always do, started reading the paper from last page. When I came on I think 4 or 6th page, I read an article telling that India is going to suffer water woes severely in coming years, I changed my mind. I am going to hang on, longer and longer…probably till I find the solution. Frankly speaking, I do not know how is it going to come, what am I going to do, but one thing for sure there is enough magic in this world to let it happen. Potable water for everyone, every child, every men, women just for everyone. I can not see an what position of podium I will be standing, but what I can see is that I will be part of a solution now.

If I would have won this competition I would have hung my project for another one, another brilliant idea, because I have firm faith that every product have a fixed life. Though my vision was piped but fittingly the age of my paper had arrived. Truly so, now, its time for my project to evolve to another level, next level and I am not going to hang it. Though I might feel that I was undone by something or other at these competitions but I know I have enough fire to take this project of mine to another level.

What happened yesterday, according to me was part of a magic, bigger magic where I have a set role to play. Everything fitted each other so brilliantly that I could only smile when I saw that article. To sum it all, I have only one thing to say; I tried to leave hope, but hope wasn’t ready to leave me.