From being a student to a professional

Life was so tension free a couple of months ago. The transition from the life of a carefree student to the hectic life of a professional has been mentally demanding. Last year in college was especially peaceful because the course load was light. There was no fixed schedule, mornings used to start at 1 in the afternoon and the day used to end as late as 3 AM. It was the lack of money which restricted me to do lot of things. I had all the time in the world to blog or do whatever I wanted to do.

It all started with intense traveling across the breadth of this country and then finally landing in the beautiful city of Chandigarh. I don’t even feel like writing about the interesting incidents that take place while I interact with government officials. Ok let me narrate a few-

A survey form had space for filing up the floor area of an office. Some great soul filled the column as ‘carpet’

Another option in the same form was for number of computers in the office. Another great soul mentioned that as ‘0′, made a special column for workstations and filled that up with a number.

Basically its a challenge to interact with government employees, for a 10 minutes talk you have to wait for weeks!

I must admit that it has been a difficult transition. There were so many things which thrown at me which I was totally unaware of. I was stuck in Delhi without a mobile because I had no local address proof. I needed a bank account statement or mobile to apply for  PAN card. I needed that PAN card to apply for a credit card and I needed this credit card to book tickets and pay online for the PAN card, interesting isn’t it? India is a land of documents and I never really cared to get one. I just have a passport with a Chennai address, totally useless if you not going abroad. This system of documents has to ease out. Hopefully by 2009 you will really see the huge amount of work government is putting in to digitize data and reduce the dependence on papers. But then I can’t wait for 2009 to apply for these things.

My sincere advise to all is that at least get a ration card on your name.

The picture above is of youngest PAN card holder in India. I hope I would have been picked by one of these johnson & johnsons or some diaper company to advertise when I was a baby, at least I would have had a PAN card!