Statement of Purpose

A statement of purpose, is a brief and focused essay about one's career or research goals, and is frequently required for applicants to universities and professional schools. To the naked eye the above words are enough to describe the SOP, but trust me there’s more to what meets the eye. Just like every other desperate media artist in India I decided to go for further education as I wasn’t satisfied with my career statistics. I went to an educational adviser, we short listed Sheridan University. The lady passed me a list of documents I had to arrange, she said with great ease please write a statement of purpose. Its very easy; all you have to do is write why you want to go, what are your goals and maybe something about yourself . I had already started dreaming about assisting Steven Spielberg on his next multi million dollar venture. At home my brother was waiting as he knew about my visit, the knowledge was passed on to him as he sat back and stared at the fan, I am sure he must be imagining himself driving the red Ferrari after I become a successful director, after I assist Steven Spielberg, after I graduate from Sheridan and after I write my SOP. Its in the family we get carried away very easily, we like to call it creativity. Writing the SOP was not tough at all.It got over within half an hour, everything seemed perfect and I was one step closer to Steven. I have already started calling the great Steven Spielberg as Steven as if I am responsible for his status in the industry. It was time to evaluate the SOP. So I mailed it to a friend who was studying somewhere in Europe, his response was quick and short. It said, "Don’t mind me brother but your SOP sucks, it is full of trash and unprofessional language. U better write a new one.I'll give you some tips.Follow them, he said. Disappointed with the mail, I started again and this time followed the tips and wrote a bright and shiny SOP .It was literally shining like a brand new car. Again time had come to evaluate it, this time I chose my parents as they are generally aware of everything. They read the SOP several times and said ,"Don’t mind us but your SOP sucks; it needs a professional touch" and it was the second time I had heard those words in the past five days. I almost believed that sucking comes naturally to me, in the mists of all this drama the dead line for the application was getting close. The news of my not so successful SOP was all over the place.I was the zoo monkey everybody wanted to see and tease. You done with your SOP was the question my cousin Pushkar used to ask me everytime I logged into my mail account, as much as I wanted to say “yes” you peanut butter eating fat man I have done it but I couldn’t because I hadn’t. The career counselor added misery to my already misery driven life by reminding me that another 5 days had passed and the application dates were closing in. Google my tiny brain said to itself, let’s copy a good SOP from the net and get over with it. So I followed the instructions and copied a very intriguing SOP. Just changed the names, places etc “voila!” SOP ready for final inspection, this time I spoke to a lady who writes SOP’s for other people and has great experience in this line. To me creativity is “Creating something out of nothing” and its definition to me keeps changing because it is something that can’t be restricted to just one definition. That was the only line I had written myself in the SOP. The lady read it and got furious as she was on the phone with me while reading it. What is this line? It does not make any sense! Who do u think you are? Creativity is defined. I am creative and I know what creativity is, I write SOP’s every day and this one sucks. U better start all over again. She must be suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder, I thought to myself as she was pounding me on the phone. I could literally feel her slapping me. She was after me as if I had run away with her daughter, got married and had come to her for blessings. I hung up the phone and got back to sulking, I was getting used to this. In fact I had started liking it. You done with your SOP asked pushkar, this time I really wanted to slap him but it was not possible. Something had to be done to control my anger, I went to my orkut account and opened the slapster application and started slaping pushkar's face over and over again till my hands hurt. Time was running out I had lost too much time, now I had to do something constructive .I sat down and started writing the SOP keeping everybody's suggestions in mind. I took a day and it was ready. I was satisfied with it. All I had to do was go to the consultant and pass it on but it was too late. I had lost all intentions of going for further education. It just didn’t feel right. I was not interested at all. I don’t know what happened. Maybe it was the SOP, maybe it was just me. The reason for me to go for further education became the reason for me not to go.

Fair Education

Dhalsim is throwing his vicious hands at Ryu, constantly pounding him with his elongated hands and the odd left leg to the chin and the right leg to the crotch. The game is one sided Ryu is no match to the deadly fire balls coming out of Dhalsim’s mouth. Eight versus zero is the score on Street fighter score board and believe me guys I am on zero and my friend Faaiz is on eight. From the looks of this you would believe that faaiz is some expert on games and spends hours and hours on his PS3 just so that he can become the ultimate Street fighter champion, well the truth is that this was the first time he was playing Street fighter for that matter this was the first time he ever played on a PS3. The act of taking revenge (harming someone in retaliation for something harmful that they have done) is called vengeance and that was the motivation force for my good friend. The story is getting complicated lets rewind and go back to yesterday considering all the above happened today. Its 6 pm in the evening I get a mail from my aunt stating about a very good Education fair going on at Taj Palace Hotel, without completing the mail I called Faaiz and informed him that tomorrow we are going to this very exclusive Education fair. He tried to convince me that he was busy but it was decided that I am not going there alone so he had not much option left. Now let’s fast forward to today, as decided faaiz came to my house at sharp 11am and as assumed I woke up at 10:45 am giving me just the time to brush and my teeth and loosen some weight. We began our journey with great thoughts discussing life, politics and world peace. The talks were so indulging that we did not realize we had already reached the Taj Palace hotel, the place were our dreams would come true and our lustrous careers would begin. I made the mistake of parking the car out side the Taj as I am not much of 5star guy. Walking a bit did not sound to challenging so we started walking towards the twenty feet tall gate which was guarded by 5 security officials. Faaiz walked up to one of the guards and politely said “Bhiya hume Education fair mai jana hai”, the guard had a grin to his face and said “kaunsa Education fair yaha kuch nai hai yeh hotel hai hotel”. We somehow convinced him to let us enter the hotel, as we walked in we were greeted. To be honest we were stopped by a lady whom we latter explained the purpose of our visit. She smiled and said sir you have made a mistake. The Education Fair is not happening in the Taj Palace hotel, it’s happening in the Taj Manshingh hotel. As much as faaiz wanted to shout at me he controlled himself, our next mission had started and we were off to Taj Manshingh.
The level of conversation had changed and yes we were far away from world peace, politics and life, it was more towards Delhi and how complicated the routes are. The purpose of this conversation was to divert his attention from the disaster that had just occurred. Any how this time I had decided to park the car inside the hotel to avoid any confrontation with security. This time the car stopped right at the main entrance and a guard wearing traditional clothes walked up to me and smiled, he tore a slip and gave me half and kept half. We marched right in and were greeted with great smiles all over. I felt as if nothing in the world could go wrong and my goal was achievable. Curiosity had got to me I stopped at the reception and enquired about the fair. The receptionist looked at me and smiled and trust me I remember this smile, she politely said to me sir that fair got over yesterday. Faaiz looked at me and I am pretty sure this time he did not want to shout at me. He wanted to beat the living crap out of me, but I suddenly jumped into action by making a sad face and said oh it got over I must have got the wrong information.
The Receptionist added fuel to the fire by saying the Education fair was for MBA students, are you guys MBA students? I was two feet and five seconds away from a knock out punch. We looked at each other and without saying anything walked straight out of the gate, the valet was about to start my car in order to park it in the basement. I opened my wallet to tip the valet, the smallest note was fifty and I was in no mood to give the valet a fifty for sitting in my car but I could not gather the courage to ask Faaiz for a tener. With great displeasure to me and a greater pleasure to the valet I ended up giving him a fifty. Now we were heading back to my home for lunch as I had to make up for his valuable time. The conversation in the car was intense this time, it was way beyond world peace; it was cricket. We were discussing how good he was and how bad I was at cricket, one thing an Indian cant accept is that he is bad at cricket after all cricket is not just a sport. At that movement it was easy for me to accept my failure at cricket, don’t mind me for the repetition I was two feet and five seconds away from a knock out punch.
The discussion carried on till we reached home, he still looked pissed of. I had to do something to pacify him and save myself from the knock out punch. PS3 I said to him lets play, he wasn’t so interested but we had to kill time. We started playing the Street fighter, I could see Faaiz visualizing himself as Dhalsim and me as Ryu.
And that my friend is Wisdom for vengeance in plane words Fair Education.

Lunch with a punch

The minute hand had just crossed thirty and the hour hand was lying straight on top of ten, no wonder why I woke up. It was not so melodious sound of the alarm clock that had woken me up. It was a Sunday morning and I was in no mood to wake up but I did not have much option as I had been warned that this day would soon be here. Today is the day we honor my second cousin and his newly wedded wife by gracing them with the delightful and tasty food that our family has to offer. I have limited responsibilities but even they were too much to ask on a Sunday morning; such as cleaning the room, setting the bed, going to the market and buying cola. These were the thoughts going through my mind while I was still struggling to wake up from the bed. My mother had already tried her luck with me several times but the result was not in her favor, the next to come was my father who was capable of waking me up with his strategies as he knew what to say and when to say. I felt as if I am playing a game in my PS3 where I have defeated one dragon and the final dragon is yet to be faced -phew. I decided not play the final dragon, and woke up with a grin on my face which soon got normalized as I realized everyone was busy preparing for the lunch and were least bothered about my morning mood. The tasks were simple; get the room in place, and go to the market and buy cola. I could hear my mother yelling at the cooking help several times as she felt that the spices were not used properly and the lunch was going to be a disaster. I wonder how women can visualize things at such pace. The morning had just begun and she could already visualize that the lunch will be a disaster, master piece. Anyway I had not to bother on other issues as my hands were already full, the task took some time but were some how over. The lunch was ready, table was set every body was dressed up and in the cheer full mood waiting for the guest of honor to come and declare the meet open.

We all decided to sit in the drawing room so that the guest could directly be placed in the seating arrangement; if you believe me even the seats were indirectly marked. The silence of the room was broken by the phone’s ring, though we were expecting the door bell. Anyways my father reached the phone and helloed in a very husky tone then said what, then why, then what again and finally said bye we will manage. The curiosity in the crowd had risen and my father decided to share the news. It was my cousin. His boss had met with an accident so he had to hurry to the hospital and donate blood.

I now felt that my mother had super psychic powers, she had quoted in the morning that the lunch will be a disaster, her reasons were different but who cares. We were on the verge of loosing a great lunch party. As the leader of the family my father stood up and said I will save this party and he did exactly what he promised .He saved the party. Now u want to know how, its very simple we called another distant cousin and told him that we had missed him so much that we organized a lunch in his honor. He fell for it, and came to our house with his wife and kids. He even got us presents.

And that ladies and gentlemen is called a “lunch with a punch”.