Redemption!

Recently I read a book, "The Kite Runner", by Khaled Hosseini. With each page I turned, I could not resist but marvel the sheer articulation and story telling Hosseini is equipped with. The story is about a young Afghan boy Amir and his servant friend Hassan. The story entails how a random event on a random day defined the rest of the days of Amir and Hassan's life. It is a story of redemption, redeeming oneself of his doings.

As always, while pondering over beer (okay, Satan I confess, it wasn't beer, it was coffee) it struck me how the single event in my life defined the rest of my life. It was summer of 1998, I got myself a letter from University of Delhi, telling I have been selected for BIT (well, it did not say BIT at that time, but "BIT/BIS ke kitne saal, char saal char saal" is another story; for simplicity, it was BIT).

The kismet had it, Dilbert was to become my favorite engineer. I was to attend sessions about back care, and have nerds for friends; friends who think the answer to the question, ideal match is "Fedrer/Nadal 2008 Wimbledon final"; friends who debate how happy hours at the pub should be a function of Fibonacci numbers Beer(n) = Beer(_n−1) + Beer(_n−2) rather than a simple one plus one function Beer(_n)=2_n . On second thoughts, I also think Beer(_n)=2_n is too boring to be a function, if not Fibonacci it should be something like:

Beer(n,f,t)=2n+f+t
where n is number of beers ordered, f is the frequency, i.e. the number of times
one visits the pub in a month and t is how well you tipped the waiter on your last visit.

Summer of 1998 decided that staying in touch means staying in each others friend's list on orkut; it decided that my idea of fun would be to figure out linear time algorithms to accomplish the task at hand; it decided that my favorite book would be "The C programming language" by Booker price winning duo Kerningham and Ritchie (C'mon they chose Kiran Desai over KnR for the award?). That summer decided that I will ask a girl out on mail/chat , phew! am I not glad, I realize there is a better way to ask her out. Okay! she dumped me.... well not exactly dumped, its not dumping unless you first get along, right? :)

But as in the, "Kite runner", Hosseini says, "there is a way to be good again". Redemption is the key. A Chole Bhature ka thela? a knick-knack shop? an MBA degree? Hmmm... although Chole Bhature sounds promising, it might not work, unless kulfi-faluda is on plan too...

Tough choices I have presented myself with, but life ain't easy, is it?

P.S.
1. The Kite Runner is an awesome book.
2. I must find a better way to ask girls out.
3. Venture Capitalists for project Chole Bhature invited.