The most exciting journey possible for mankind
Everyone initiates this journey , but only few completes it, why??
By seeing the title don't misunderstand that i have archived something extra ordinary in life, i am a normal person and "yes" the title states "success". everybody have different meaning for success, in this context my meaning was to win a competition held at my college, where we need to develop windows 8 apps, that too siting one whole day and night, the event was called "yappon", and my team was very excited about it.
Like every start up, our problem was an idea, as i told you my passion for programming made me to think huge apps like paint,or chat related apps, but because we didnt have a complete exposure on the language on which we have to build the apps, we had to cut down our challenges to small, so here i start the story
Two days before the event, I was at my besttie "Karthik's place" along with my #chellemma(sis), and other gang thinking hard for an idea to strike, i had few of them like and EMI Calculator, a coin tosser etc, but i need a game to develop, which is challenging to code, with tricky logic, i tried to make a paint app, since i have already made it in java, i could figure out the logic, but c# classes were't that familiar to me.We sat till 3:00 am thinking for a good idea to strike our brains, nothing magical happened, even next day morning to afternoon was also the same, in situations like these each second wasted will raise the pressure exponentially with time, i just could't take anymore pressure of making a app that others would like to use, i left the room where i was surrounded with 3 laptops, one internet wire, a lots of junk food to eat. :P. to another room where i was just lying on my bed, chellemma came to me, and asked "take rest annaya(bro)" your tired, i could't sleep untill i could figure out something.
You call it magical moment or god's grace, i just turned on the laptop of karthik, and was just exploring each drive in it, suddenly i found a folder named "Study materials", i was surprised to see, because karthik never stores any study material on lappy like that, i just dig into it, and i was right, it was his elder sister's folder.i also found a sub folder named puzzles, i needed to fresh my mind so i started playing a game in it, i tried and tried but failed in solving one puzzle, i was struck with it.
It was a 5X5 grey square boxes game where on clicking on one box, the box itself and adjacent squares too turns yellow if clicked again or its adjacent, they turned off, well sorry for the boring explanation, on the whole the game was tricky.
Its trick fascinated me, and i started to figure out the logic how the game is made, and unknowingly i sat on the laptop and started building it, this time i was't making it to show in the event, i was taking it as challenge for my coding skill, and in an hour or so, i finished the rough working game!!!! but even till then we didnt finalize it as app that should be made in the evnet. it was just done for fun, i clearly remember, it was 10 in the night, and i had to leave to my place that night, and chellemma was trying to solve the puzzle vigorously, we decided to finalize the app and we waved bye to each other , and i was on my way back to home, but one thing was still bothering me, we dont have the optimum solution to the game yet, we cannot publish it like that.
That night i could'nt sleep at all, i was excited and tensed equally, next day when the event started, i proposed this idea to the one of the event organizer and asked him for his feedback, he said it was too tricky, dont waste your time in making it, if it could't be done you will not be left with sufficient time to build another one, he was right but still i didnt want to leave it, my intuition was pulling me towards doing it, finally with the help of the biggest team (7 members) in the event we thought to finish around 5 apps till the end, by the evening i completed that game and showed to our co-ordinator sai sir, his compliment was the best one received by me till then, he told "you reached my expectations, its awesome and whole night with struggles, laughs and tries we finished all the 5 apps (EMI Calculator, doctor finder,jackpot game, my puzzle, coin tosser) where in other teams are still struck with a single app only, everything was going fine, but i was not calm in mind, a feel of guilt was pinching my heart that the solution is 't ready yet, and even one of team mate reported me that i was "Fooling" everyone by giving them a puzzle which doesnt have solution itself, i was irritated, i just went to delete the complete game, even before submitting it, karthik stopped me from doing so.
3:00 AM in the morning the event was done, and a validator came to check the resulting apps, and after seeing ours, his reaction did't seemed to be pleasing, i lost the hope, results were about to be announced in the seminar hall, i told i didnt wanted to attend because i din't wanted to see my team as runner up after working so hard, karthik and chellema dragged me to the hall, they were confidant enough that we will atleast bag the last prize, but i was't ready for that, the results were being announced, the top 7 teams out of around 35 were being read out from 7-to-1 one after the other by "sai sir himself", till 2nd best team, we were't there , i was completely down, and was about to leave the hall, and when sir asked, "any guesses for the first team?? i heard people shouting my name, and next moment "sir shouted, your right its "saibaba's team".
That's it, i could't hear anything else, i was shocked, surprised, no other words to express, i was literally shouting , stood up and hugged "karthik" , and went to the stage to speak, i literally could't believe what was happening was spoke all rubish, came back to our seats, everyone were clapping for me, congratulating us, that puzzle app was specially mentioned, chellemma was sitting beside me, i asked her, am i dreaming?? :P she pinched me on my hand told no annayaa..:) we took our prizes,posed for cameras and came out of the auditorium, i rang up to karthik's sister at 6 in the morning to thank her for placing that game there, she was confused and half asleep.. :P, everything was so great, but still there was a feeling that we dont have the optimum solution, that feeling made me feel that iam unsuitable to hold the first prize, i dont know how she understood me again, chellemma was standing beside me, placed her head over my shoulder, and said, you are worth for it annayaa..:)
That moment i realized that it was a happy moment, and if i was not capable to bag the prize, then god would't have showed me a that puzzle and i would't have made it, idea is just a strike, i struck me in the form of a game the best part of our team was we could understand the importance of the game and tried hard to build it, the recognition was not to the idea, it was to the hard work that we made.i was convinced
We went back to our home, but the best part of the day was yet to come, when in the evening, when karthik called me, and chellema was in conference, "she was shouting out of happiness that she solved the puzzle in the best time possible", inspite of not sleeping the last night, she kept on trying with puzzle just to remove that feel of guilt from my mind, and make me believe that i was worth to bag the prize.
I was speachless, she gave me the best gift i could have ever wished for, she solved it , because of the love towards our team and its work,and she did it.
The next day was followed by celebrations anyhow, but it was my first public victory, and i just wanted to share it with you guys, and to all who feel like me that "you just received the victory by luck or you were't worth for it", i just like to say one last thing, winning may be initialized by luck, like how i found the concept of the game, but it will be surely incomplete without your hard work and commitment towards it. so if you bagged something, then surely there is something in you which made you worth that success
Here i had the best supporting team with me, and the best buddies around me who kept me motivated all the time Thank you guys for staying with me all the time,specially karthik and chellemma, they people stopped me from deleting the game and leaving the hall without knowing the result, and also holded me from going down in mood. and to all my readers, if you are at initial stage of success, just believe yourself and your team , work on it with love towards it and surely you will also have such a day in your life soon.Thanks for bearing this long story, i could't precise because its full of feel rather than words, hope you'll understand.
Dedicated to all my team mates at yappon, you guys are the best team.. love you all..
