Pattern and Anti-pattern: ways of life

Life follows a pattern, a pattern from the set of a few trialed and tested patterns. We go to school, then to the college, get a degree , grab a job , get married , have kids and.... This was the pattern that I could see around in the lives of my parents, uncles and my cousins growing up with me. Following a pattern makes life simpler and easier whereas anti- patterns are interesting but challenging and sometimes painful.

My first introduction to anti-pattern was in the 2nd standard when fascinated by the pattern of the stories from my colorful storybook I started my first essay on “The Cow” as “ Once upon a time there was a cow...”. The big red cross decorated with a large potato on the first page of my essay note book made me realize one very important thing in life - Everything should not start with once upon a time ....

“The people who exercise derivatives of anti patterns are interesting”. This was the next impression that I had when I had grown up to around twelve-the guys who occupied the last bench were interesting, guys with scars on their faces out of fights were more interesting and the guy who was called to the teachers' common room for punishment for sending love letter to the daughter of the class teacher was even more interesting. They were popular and had more admirers than the toppers of the class. They had more stories to tell about their heroics, their anti-pattern behavior.

Fascination for anti- pattern became more dominant and drawing a boundary of pattern I started the out of pattern experiments. Upbeat and RSJ s replaced the IIT-JEE guides, cricket matches replaced boring chemistry classes and mom’s evening horlicks were replaced by Wills Navy cut. Life became more interesting and the scorecards less impressive. Still there was a line of pattern drawn outside all these activities and I somehow managed to get into an engineering college. I was more than happy to get a laboratory for my experiments: The hostel. It started showing results and I started to struggle like a new Indian opening batsman in Australian pitches in the question papers where muggers were happily scoring 80% by just galloping the class notes from one end to the other. Finally got the ultimatum-father threatened to withdraw his unconditional support from the government that I had been running for the last about half a decade.
Back to the pattern: replaced the Neruda’s and the Mayakovosky’s with the big volumes of Control System and Power System books, supplanted Che Guevara’s wall poster by power electronics circuit diagrams and preparation for the viva and presentation superseded the discussion on the latest theatres. I became active in a pattern in no time…patterns are so easy to adapt.

Anti–pattern activities start to the take back seat with growing age making life simpler and less interesting . Lately I have observed that my life is leading towards a similar structure with a fear to play with the anti-patterns....may be due to the concern of losing the gained or for increasing responsibilities for the loved ones. I need to strike a balance somewhere...trying to discover a strategy to embed the lost charms of life....somehow need to get the tasty sandwich of life back -with anti -patterns inside patterns.