Life changing turns

I always believed that there are always a multitude of factors or causes for the way events take place in life and I, at least, cannot trace back the seed for a particular event. An example to simplify this statement would be, say, you decided to become a film maker. When asked why you reached at such a conclusion, any rational person will back it up by saying that so and so happened and hence I came to that conclusion. In this instance may be after watching a movie or being inspired by another film maker or the idea of sharing your vision with public audience, etc can be said. But does it mean that it is the sole and foremost seed of your decision? I doubt it. In fact I am very positive it is not, because I attribute it to a variety of causes. First, this interest might have been there innately in you, it just needed a catalyst or a series of events made it to bubble up. Second, based on your past karma and a bunch of other present actions of yours, the future had to be such for which this is one of the turn points. Third, just like a life is a course of events, this event will trigger others in your life and so this is one of those triggers. I can think and come up with a few other possible causes but anyway the whole point is to illustrate that the major incidents or events that stand out in life, though are kindled by a multitude of cause-effect scenarios, everyone surely remembers the outstanding cause. I would like to share a couple of such turn points in my life.

One of such events was my entrance into junior college (+2 after tenth grade). The place where I come from has/had a huge craze about the entrance examination into Engineering colleges. This test was competed by a large number of students after +2. So, to get a good rank to secure a good branch in a good college of engineering, the junior college or +2 school played a pivotal role. When I say good, at that time it meant a division (computer science or electrical, etc) and college will yield a job immediately after you graduate. I think it had nothing to do with how much knowledge you gained or what difference it made to your life. Anyway, I being the topper in my class in the tenth grade and receiving a gold medal as an honor for the same, was very much excited and ambitious of joining a good junior college. I initially had high hopes and joined a college which coached for IIT. The entrance exam I talked before was a local or state level but IIT is a national level entrance test for engineering. Immediately after a week or 10 days, I couldn't cope with the classes at this college. The reasons being the college already started a month or so back before I joined and everybody knew what was being taught. Second, my tenth grade was a different syllabus (CBSE) and as a result I didn't had background in the concepts that other guys from a different syllabus (SSC) knew. Third, my first encounter out of the cozy, all stranger environment, where nobody knew me. Whatever the reasons were at that time, I later attributed it to my very low self confidence and fear, which led to my weeping in tears on the tenth day or so to go to college. My brother, older to me, jumped in and talked to the college guys and relieved me of the entire situation. I didn't had to go to that college anymore. Having chosen that initial college myself and dropping out later which cost my father some money, I then didn't dare to speak out another choice of mine. I wanted to go to anyone which my father liked. I didn't even dare to think of an alternative. Just to be clear here, my father never did anything like forcing me to something in this event. It was all purely my thought process. So I was all set to join a college in which my father had acquaintance and my brother went to same. One evening my brother suggested trying a different college. I told him how father might be angry if I tell him now about my second choice. But my brother insisted and asked to just talk once and see. I told my dad and he said that was fine with him. I happily joined that college and am happy to-date that I did so. I don't know if things would have been better or worse if I opted the other one but I can vouch I enjoyed the journey at my brother's judgment. This was a turn point for me and my brother is the outstanding person for it. I attribute a lot of good things that happened in my life to him and mostly the significant events which changed or happened to me. I will not be discussing all of them in this post. This one was one of those events. 

Second one was my selection of school in US. My whole view of thinking took a different angle after I attended the classes of Narsi Reddy Gayam, to whom I went to get coaching for GRE. He was the first teacher in my life to give a complete different view of things. Though the class was for only a couple of months and that too an hour and half each day, I learned a lot more than all my years of schooling or college till then. I haven't met a teacher that far to whose class I would wait very eagerly. This excitement was more to know about the new things he would tell in his stories and the new ideas he ignited in me while trying to explain about the different words and their origin. There was no internet or google to my access at that time and even the use of internet was very sparse overall. I haven't read any books outside of school/college curriculum and didn't knew much about outside world too. So, whatever he taught was fascinating. All this and his successful entrepreneurship coming from a low background left to a deep positive impression in me about him. I applied for a few schools in US to pursue my masters and after getting admissions from a couple, I didn't know which one to opt for. Just by looking at the name I was about to go to the one in Texas but for some reason I called Mr. Narsi Reddy to take his advise on it. He said both UTD and NIU are of equal value but then inclined towards NIU as he felt it has good stuff for computer science and I think a few of his students previously went for it. Before the phone call, I had all the imaginations of going to Texas and I psychologically prepared myself for that. After that phone call, it was like a complete upside down for a few moments. I then decided to go to NIU without any further analysis or research and I am so glad I did that. Today whatever I learned as a programmer or am earning is because of the classes, I took at NIU. I could hardly program when I graduated from my bachelors in India. I got educated for free too at NIU with all the tuition waiver and assistant-ships. I undoubtedly can say I learned so much more in a semester (or even during a single assignment) at NIU that I couldn't do in all four years of my bachelors. So, should I say that the action to go for NIU, which led to the current life, was because of past karma or because it was bound to be so to decide my future or destiny or my irrationality or something else, how am I to say. The only thing I can say is I attribute all this to the words of Mr. Narsi Reddy Gayam. He is the lynchpin of that event in my life. 

Out of all the cause-effect relationships which lead to the continuous changes in life every moment, the above are two great peaks that stand out of those infinite  in due course of those events and I am indebted to the aforementioned people who I believe are the ones have done it for me.