When I was little, probably of age 4-5 years, that was when I joined the school for LKG or may be before that I guess. I had one ambition then. Whenever whoever used to ask me what will you become, when you grow up, I used to say "I will become a PILOT". My ambition or craze for becoming pilot was so strong that I had a huge bunch of toys which were only aeroplanes, helicopters, guns. We used to stay in a small taluka place Yadgir in Gulbarga district. Hardly any plane would fly through that air route, even if it happens to fly, you can hear a mild plane sound and suddenly I used to start searching the whole horizon of the sky. Somewhere if lucky would find an ant sized aeroplane. In every fest I just used to get planes and helicopters. Whenever I had fight or angry with any of my aunts or cousins, my punishment to them was "I won't take you in my plane". At that point of time we had black & white TV. If I remember correctly the brand of TV was Crown TV. It had a wooden shutters too :). So in that area it was like only we had TV. All the people, kids from neighbourhood used to come to our house and watch TV. TV was such a cool thing then, but it was not for me. If everyone used to be inside house I used to be outside with my planes. The only movie at that age I remember seeing was a movie probably called "Vijay" which was about a war and there were lot of planes in that movie.
As we grew we changed places, houses, schools, then in 8th standard I decided to become IAS officer. As we grow, our childhood dreams, imaginations, innocence all fade and we advance towards so called realities of life. Then all the herd mentality will start. Play safe nature is always so much embedded within. Then took science in PUC, then there are only 2 options. Engineer or a Doctor. I don't have any backup or background in Medicine so Engineer is the best choice. Then study cram cram in exams get good CET ranking, get good Engineering college, then cram cram study in engineering, get good company. This thing never ends. It is a rat race and everybody will be just running. If I imagine this I see a huge 6 lane road on which the whole population is running. I am standing on a footpath with a bag(why bag I don't know). I would stop somebody and ask "Hey where are you going", he would say "Don't waste my time, I will be late, I have to go". I didn't get the answer, so again "But where are you going". He would say "I don't know but everybody is running". I get the same answer from couple of other people. Well! This is not the case with everyone. Just my imagination, sometimes I feel even I am also running, but very hard to accept that, probably I won't accept it even today.
Whatever! Though the dream is still there. Just by mere coincidence, or that`s how life takes you or something like that. Even though there are numerous companies in various domains, I landed into Honeywell through campus placement in my college. I remember the first day in Honeywell after the initial orientation of half day we were assigned with the teams and I didn't knew what the hell was my team all about. A senior of mine working in Honeywell had told that Automation and Control Systems has better work than Aerospace. So I went on to the 5th floor of our Uranus building, I was anxiously looking at the books, boards, posters at the cubicle to see what domain did this team belong too. Though ACS was good I wanted to be in Aerospace. Finally I am in the Aerospace domain and it has been such a interesting journey to not just see but work on so many exciting things about aeroplane. I salute to the Wright Brothers who discovered that we can fly like birds a century ago. Even after travelling in planes so many times, whenever a plane flies in the sky, I don't stop staring at it until it fades away. Guess what! A pilot working here in Honeywell Olathe is going to take me on a plane. I will be sitting in the Co-Pilot seat. In air I will definitely take control of the joystick, operating the instruments and I will be flying it. Just waiting for the Tornadoes to settle down to give us a clear sky.
One day I really want to fly my own plane. I will become a pilot...
