By Nishtha Nayar:
Being a young university student is hard. Life can seem like a maze which doesn’t have an exit route. All kinds of confusion play a game with your brain. You have various questions in your mind. Am I doing the right thing? Is this what I want to do for the rest of my life? What next?
To hopefully clear some of your doubts, TEDxShivNadarUniversity will host 15 speakers who will be sharing their ideas, experiences and stories on November 13.
Amrita, an alumnus of the prestigious Stanford University is an aerospace engineer who has worked in the world of consumer technology with multi-national firms like Google and BCG. She will be a speaker at the event. She did what people want to, but are hardly ever able to – quit their jobs and follow their passion! She quit her reputable job to fulfil her dream of becoming a writer. The fact that someone can take such an important decision relatively late in life is quite inspiring. She has been working on her first novel for the past one year and says that earlier she used to suffer from ‘chronic dissatisfaction’ which led her into changing her career path. But it wasn’t an easy journey. She says in her own words, “It’s hard to believe, but following your passion is actually much harder than leaving it unfulfilled. Who would have thought that, right? Without a doubt, trying to write this first novel has been the hardest thing I have done. And let me remind you again, I studied rocket science.” It took Amrita two years of incubation before she started writing the first chapter of her novel! Can you believe that? But according to her, if you stick to it, it gets easier to bounce back to productivity. Amrita says, “Following your heart will require suffering but if you are willing to suffer, it can be a very rewarding journey. Believe me, I would happily do it all over again”. On November 13, Amrita will be talking more about her journey and how she made this transition from a scientist to an expressive author.
Amrita isn’t the only one. We’ll also be having a travel photographer and filmmaker Vaibhav Mehta. He travels and explores the world. He is an intrepid explorer, a fervid dreamer and an evangelist of the free spirit! Photography and filmmaking have been his professional excuses to travel for over a decade now. He has frequently worked with The National Geographic and Lonely Planet. His travels have resulted in various coffee table books and photo exhibitions. Vaibhav also creates short format content films besides working on travel documentaries. He will be talking about a topic which is very apt for today’s world: How media is affecting our perception of this world. He has had a lot of amusing experiences and has seen a lot of things! He was present in the sensitive areas of Banaras when the High Court Judgement regarding the Babri Masjid case was announced. He describes, “There was not a single non-political incident of unrest between Muslims and Hindus that live close by in those slim streets.” Isn’t this the exact opposite of how the media portrayed it? His talk is surely going to challenge what we think we know about this world and the media. According to Vaibhav, travelling unravels your perception one by one – like peeling an onion, and leaves you ‘open’. He is going to share various stories from nurses in an emergency in Seychelles to wandering in the Kumbh Mela and how all these adventures have changed him. Every travel and life enthusiast must attend his talk.
[envoke_twitter_link]TEDx talks are an opportunity to listen to people from very diverse fields. [/envoke_twitter_link]It’s a platform where creative ideas and thoughts matter, where the knowledge isn’t all bookish and where we can get together and hope for a positive change in the world.
The event is going to be a full day event from 10 am to 5 pm and this is an event you would not want to miss! Make sure you’re there! So hold your breath and get ready for this thrilling event. Be prepared to be astonished and inspired.
_
Image provided by author.
This post has been done in collaboration with TEDxShivNadarUniversity.