Chapter 2

I am a big fan of Quentin Tarantino movies. Apart from worshiping every aspect of his film making, I find his narration absolutely compelling. He narrates the story (usually) in the form of  chapters and in non linear fashion. That is perhaps what I am also trying to do in this blog and I have absolutely no shame in copying his style. I believe copying and crediting the source is the purest form of admiration. So, the previous chapter ended with me deciding to study aerospace engineering early 2005. However, I ended up enrolling for a bachelor in mechanical engineering in 2008 in a local college in Hyderabad. In this chapter I am going to jump in time and focus from 2008 to 2012. I will come back to the proceedings between 2005 and 2008 in an other chapter. I am doing non linear narration for the sole purpose of paying homage to my favorite director and also trying to build some suspense! 

To say that I was disappointied with my college and study program was an understatement. Firstly, it was not aerospace engineering. Secondly, I never wanted to study in that college. In fact, I never wanted to study in India for that matter. More on this in an other chapter. The zeal I had to be an aerospace engineer never died with my dissapointment though. It only increased and I started reading/learning with a renewed vigor. I reached a peak in the middle of my first year of college. Then this slowly decayed within one year of my education. During this one year, I slowly started to make a lot friends and still stay in touch with most of them. Till today I am not sure if my zeal decreased with an increase in me spending time with my friends. I gave a lot of though on this many times but finally realized that I am too small within the fabric of this world to come to conclusion. Rather I realized that having those friends was one of the best thing that happened to me. 

This went on for a couple of years but deep down I was waiting for an opportunity to work on something substantial related to aerospace. Then,  a fateful thing happened in the summer of 2011, after my third year of engineering. I managed to find an internship in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in NITTE Meenakshi Institute of Engineering in Bengaluru. More precisely, I had to work in computational aerodynamics. This was the right opportunity for me foray into the world of aerospace. This internship offer happened only due to my close friend Hitha Nanjappa (who is an avid blogger: https://thelostlander.com/). She suggested this internship program and I took that opportunity to learn something new in a field I was dearly waiting to work in. Even though the work was conducted only for 3 weeks, the prospect of combining simulation methods (CFD) and aerospace engineering was very novel for me at the time. I thought this could be a field I could try to do masters in. Within six months, I figured out where I wanted to study my masters and the only place I could think of was RWTH Aachen University in Germany. That place offered a masters program for simulation science which was a logical extension of my internship program in Bengaluru. The fact that education was free in Germany only helped me more. In fact, my application was dripping with passion for simulation and aerospace that I was the first student to be admitted in the program. Within 9 months of being admitted to the masters program, I found myself on a flight to Germany. Little did I know that I would end up where I am right now!

Chapter 1

When I was 12, I read two famous books from Mark Twain: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Perhaps the spirit of the titles of these two books made me decide on the title of this blog entry. At the same time, I am sure some people might be ticked off that I have included "south Indian" because I could be hinting at the divide between south and north in India. Trust me (even if you do not know me), that is not my intention. I only want to emphasize that I am a guy from the south of India who moved up north in Europe and settled (at the time of writing) further north in  Norway. I just have a flair for a little bit of drama and juxtaposition!  

At the time of writing this blog I am settled in a small town (or village, feel free to pick your choice!) called Sunndalsøra in the western part of  Norway. I am currently working as a Research Scientist in Hydro Aluminium. The word 'Scientist' is something I take pride in and something I wanted to be one ever since I can remember. Now that I have become what I wanted to be, I realize that my journey in getting here, more specifically to living in a small town in Norway, has been quite eventful. This is something I deeply reflect on and felt I should summarize the key events that lead me here. At the same time, for a reader of this blog, the final destination is revealed. However, the path I took, sometimes forced to take, which lead me here is still unknown. Perhaps the suspense is interesting or maybe its just a dull story. However, what I can assure is that we will travel through time and space! 

I love movies and have always stayed up to date on the latest movie releases. Sometimes there were some specific movies which I was waiting for after watching the trailers or movie posters. In 2004/05, one such movie which caught my attention was Swades. I was in my high school year 10 at the time of release of the movie. At that time, I had a penchant for mathematics and physics and at the same time I had real passion for biology. In the education system I was present at that time, we had to decide if we wanted to go in the direction of engineering with mathematics and physics or medical stream with biological sciences after finishing class 10. I am sure there were many other options but we did not have the guidance necessary to show us there were any. That's how messed up our education system was, probably still is.  Anyways, coming back to me, I had not really made a choice if it was engineering or medical stream. It was during that time that the trailers and movie posters of Swades got me excited. I needed to see this movie where Shah Rukh Khan played the role of an aerospace engineer at NASA who comes back to India. Something inside told me that this is the movie I should not miss and this is the movie that will change me, forever. 

We managed to find tickets on the first day of release. I had huge expectations and the movie sure as hell did not disappoint. I would recommend this movie to anyone who did not watch and anyone who has more than three hours to spare! Even though I wanted to be a scientist ever since I did not quite understand what it meant, I decided I wanted to be an aerospace engineer after watching the movie. I did not know how, I did not know what I need to do. I just knew I had to be one. However, what I did know was that I need to choose mathematics and physics and leave biology when I take up specialization courses in year 11 and 12.