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Friday, September 3, 2010

I Know What I Have Missed

When God created Adam and Eve, he gave them all the things that they wanted and that they would imagine. He gave the whole world to them. But as they say, you have to be inhuman if you are satisfied, they were also not satisfied with what they had and yearned for the apple that Satan gave to them. The rest as we all know is history. There emerged the world somewhat similar to the one after Pandora had opened the box. It was a world full of droughts, of suffering, of problems and of deaths. As I belong to the superior species i.e. human, I was also controlled by the deadly sensation that is desire. But thankfully, my desires were not deadly enough.

During my middle school days, my parents asked me something which would have done me a wealth of good. They asked me to learn classical music and play the violin. My dad wanted me to follow his footsteps. A gifted violin player that he was he wanted me to succeed him. That was when I took my first wrong decision. I ignored his request since learning music would have interfered with my play time. Alas! Here I am mesmerized every time I listen to classical songs, but not able to do it myself. There has not been a single day when I have not yearned to play the violin or any musical instrument or sing well.

Coming to my high school days. It was time to choose my career. I started concentrating on my studies. The board exams were over and I thought I was destined to join some good college. It was time to bid farewell to my friends, my school life and my happy teenage and the golden days of my so far life. Those effervescent memories are still fresh in my mind. I can still recollect how we used to tease the staff as soon as they entered the class, how we used to madly fight for a single piece of masala dosa or poori that one of our guys used to bring. Poor chap he would not get to eat anything. I can still remember those days when we used to have a mini grand prix of sorts and would race around in our cycles going to school and coming back. Man!!! Only god knows how much I miss them now! How much I yearn for those school days to come back again! I really miss them.

Then came the time to decide my career. How much I yearned to join the Air Force. How much I yearned to serve my country. I successfully cleared the UPSC exams against all odds and went as far as the physical tests. But Alas! Fate had other ideas for me. A higher authority in the selection team did not believe a fellow Indian and rejected me just because I had brought my mark sheet as an indication that I have passed in my 10th standard instead of the pass certificate.

Finally the college days, as I said I thought I was destined to join some good college. But destiny had other plans in store for me. I joined a college that was well established, a college that had a very good name for years, a college that was known to have the best infrastructure around, a college that was the most disciplined around. But all good things end there. I ended up in just another college where there was nothing new. There was the same mugging up from the text books and not much work for our brains vis-à-vis knowledge and innovation.

But I have successfully managed four years in this hell-of-a-place and also got a great job (the only good thing I thought that had happened to me in this college). With big dreams and great aspirations I entered a successful multi-national. I hoped this new entry of mine would lead me to developing myself as an individual and also the nation as a whole. I hoped with this my technical and professional knowledge will increase and mettle proved. But Alas!!! I have also ended up being one among the have been’s. I am doing something that least interests me, which doesn’t give me much vistas to grow as an individual and something which is next to null outside.

I am learning to live with this and wait for new vistas that open up. Vistas that help bring out the real me. Vistas that make me realize the finer things in life and those which bring out the creative and innovative best in me.

On a finishing note, as they say, you have to learn to live with what you have and not yearn for something that you don’t have, I have learned to live a life without the yearn to satisfy my desires. I am satisfied with what I have. Taking a page out of the book of those who don’t have anything, those who don’t have proper means and those who are differently abled but yet happy with their life, I am also happy with what I have.