Naturally Unnatural

There is a small aquarium in our house. It has around 12 small fishes. You know, the kind that reproduces a hell lot? Mom identified a couple fishes that are giving birth to young ones and once she saw the fishes eating the newborns immediately. So she took a small glass and removed the surviving newborns from the tank and put them in a separate wine glass. I pointed out that it was totally against nature. Isn't it the law of life that the mother fish eats some of its offsprings? And then it hit me, that the whole idea of an aquarium at home is unnatural. The fishes in it are not the kind of species that could probably survive in rivers/oceans. 

And as always, I wondered if I could relate this to something in our daily life. We often blame ourselves for doing things wrong, but what we don't realise is that it is okay to do wrong to sort out something that was already wrong. Why is it that whatever I start with, I end up concluding that there's no Right or Wrong in life..

Sometimes we think too much about not adhering to age-old rules. But look at how much our society had changed. With technology invading every nook and corner of our lives, nothing is natural anymore. And that probably means there is no point in holding on to the principles we once had. I'm not generalizing, but perhaps, there are some things that need to be changed. Because we are not anymore living like fish in the rivers or oceans. We have created our own aquariums. We cannot sustain our unnatural lives with natural perceptions.

This can be reacted to in two ways. First, go back to living natural, so that we can use our age-old principles, or Second, continue on the path of technological development and bury these perceptions. Today, many of us are trying to go back to how we used to live earlier.... trying to bring back the natural touch into our lives. But many more of us are finding happiness in the unnatural, and as a result, we are advancing towards that. 

About me, you ask? I'd probably be trying to find a balance between the two somewhere, because both of those extremes don't sound any comforting to me.

My Graduation Speech

I remember that morning, when we all filled into this hall two years ago, with curious faces contemplating whether we made the right choice joining here. And I'm glad to say that sure, we did. On this wonderful morning, we are all here on the occasion of our graduation and I would like to spend a couple of minutes--not more--sharing my thoughts.

When I think of our batch, I don't think of any one person. I think of a community of students and teachers, a family. A few days ago, I stood on the dais speaking to you all about fear, and it was amazing to see how encouraging some of you were. It gave me so much confidence. We all got an opportunity to develop our speaking skills, life skills and literary skills from our college. I am really grateful for that.

Deeksha has been more of a school than college, in almost all matters. We always got the same care and advice from our teachers here as we did at school. The way of learning and the weekly tests made it a whole lot different experience from school but that worked out in the end, for most of us. The canteen in the first floor used to be very small but the memories we've got from it are invaluable. And might I add, it had one of the best Gobi Manchurian I've ever tested! We do have a smaller infrastructure compared to other colleges, but if anything it only helped us build stronger friendships and meet our friends more often, much to the annoyance of our teachers.

I-Cube gave us a good opportunity to make new friends and discover out talents. I didn't really know I was okay at drawing until I managed to make some beautiful logos on the badges and some cute invitation cards.

I'm pretty sure most of us have changed, atleast a bit, in the last two years. I was an overthinking and stressed person at school. I always overanalysed situations and constantly struggled for perfection. As ironic as it may sounds, here I've learnt to take things lightly and only concentrate on my efforts rather than worry about the final result. The environemnt at school was much different from here and so were the type of friends' circle I was into. I met people who face way more problems than I could ever imagine and their struggles have been such an inspirtation. To be very honest, I learnt to love myself only in the last two years. I learnt that it is okay to let go of your principles at times, to relax and accept whatever comes your way.

In a couple of months, all of us will be busy with our future plans, with college and everything. No matter how reputed the college we get into is, we would always look back to the experince we had here because we aren't probably going to matter to those universities as much as we did to this institution.

I know I wouldn't miss you all because in today's techie world, we can kepp in touch everyday and I'm sure we would.
This is Sai Meghana, signing off.