Consider this. You’ve been gifted a new iPad 2 for Christmas last year. Just a couple of months later, Apple comes out with its new iPad model, with a better screen, a better camera and supposedly more oomph under the cover. Feel cheated?
You buy the first edition of a revolutionary car model from your favorite car manufacturer, only to realize in a few months time that the company has recalled all units for a faulty brake pedal wiring. None of the editions of that car model produced after that incident have this fault. What’s more, they even have more goodies packed in with a sleeker design. Feel left out?
That’s the thing with hardware. You buy something and you are stuck with it, for good or for worse. You can’t update hardware, you can just get a new one and forget about the old stuff.
Thankfully, that’s not the stuff with software, or else it would be a real shame if you’d have to throw away a beautifully working solution once there was a new version announced for the machine’s operating system, or the most used app on your Android or iOS phone, your bank’s web application, or your favorite online car racing game. There’s always the specter of compatibility with the existing system though, and its not always smooth sailing on that front.
How does this phenomenon affect us humans personally? It swings both ways, and therein lies the rub.
You break a bone in your hand, or have a heart surgery, and you ideally want the medical update to mend your body in such a way that it feels as if nothing was ever wrong. Just like in the case of hardware, that rarely happens. Scars remain, unless of course you go for some cosmetic surgery. Now consider that you have a splintered relationship with a friend or a family member. Life is strange, and after a few years you bump into this person at a shopping mall or at an airport lounge, get chatting and have a genuine chance to mend ways with him or her. Its up to you whether you want this update to work or not. Compatibility remains an issue, mental scars are tough to wipe off altogether, but you do have a chance to make them less relevant in the new scheme of things.
The best tennis player in the world is somewhere in Somalia, scrounging for food and squandering away his true stamina and talent for want of opportunity. While my country, India, is lamenting about not being able to secure medals in the Olympics, the best archer in the world is living somewhere in its tribal hinterland. These people just haven’t been discovered yet.
The best young talent in the domain of car racing is somewhere in Afghanistan, dodging bombs and the remnants of a bloody civil war, whiling away his childhood playing with toys and excelling in mock car races with his friends.
You are not the best teacher in the world. Your college or your university just hasn’t come across that person yet.
You are not the best software developer or architect in the world. Your boss or your client just hasn’t stumbled upon the best person for your job yet, and the day he will he’ll happily swap you for him.
You’re not even the best spouse for your husband or wife. If he or she had waited longer each one would have found a better, and maybe a more ‘perfect’ partner.
In a world so varied in geography, economy and history, success and fame are a function of ability and being at the right place at the right time. Everything after that is just chance, and how you capitalize on it. This is the best tool I’ve ever encountered to help me keep my feet grounded at all times.
There are a few times in life when you are forced to make a tough choice, either due to self-will or due to the circumstances around you, or both, in some cases. A year ago I took the decision to quit my day job as a full-time software developer in an IT firm and start out as a freelance consultant. This was the time when the IT industry had just broken the ‘recession’ waters and me branching out as an independent then was a bold move even by aggressive standards. So how has the journey been so far? A brief look-back at the sojourn.
Reasons
Its funny, but I still haven’t been able to pin my decision of quitting the full-time guaranteed-salary-plus-perks job on a particular reason. Maybe there were many reasons. I’ll try and be as less controversial, yet honest, as possible. I was sure of one thing – I did not want to live someone else’s life anymore. Plus, if I was good at the job that I was doing and people liked it, why couldn’t I work for myself? That made sense.
I still remember Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech, in which he urged everyone to look into the mirror every morning and to think this over –
“If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?”
And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
I knew the time had come to throw off the bowlines and sail out. There would also be relatively more freedom, I thought, of choosing the work which I wanted to do. I had also started lecturing to college students in a few technical subjects then (something which I loved) and often found it hard to juggle time for both tasks. I have always been a dreamer and there were many other aspects of life to explore, which called for passion and required free time. Being an independent would give me a little bit more time than I had then; or at least that’s what I thought. Did it really happen? Read on.
Challenges
‘Money’. But obvious isn’t it! When you are independent, whatever money you earn or loose, both in quantity and value, is directly related to your vision, efforts, will and luck. I knew achieving financial stability would not be an overnight task, but rather a long and steady process, and would depend on the opportunities I get, and more importantly – the ones I ‘convert’. Plus, I always wanted to be a man of quality and value, and that was one of the reasons why I quit my job in the first place because I was tired of mediocrity. So this aspect too had to be balanced with money-inflow.
Support
When you have ever supporting and equally adventurous yet practical parents, support is just round the corner! Some of my closest friends believed in me, and just that belief was probably good enough. It might sound too poetic, but I seriously believe that the good wishes of my family and close friends carried me through the initial phase. Among others, I’ll be forever indebted to Amruta, Bhakti and Dnyanprabha for knowing all and still ‘being there’ for me every single time. In general, this period helped me in separating the true friends (believers) from the superficial ones (non-believers). I drew inspiration from a few friends, like Aditya and Harshad, who have successfully tread on the freelancing path before. The support of Gokhale sir and Rama ma’am, two people I regard as my ‘friends-philosophers-guides’ too must be mentioned. Some incidences and resulting revelations were quite heart-breaking, but they too added to the experience of finding out the real people underneath the masks they wore.
Initial phase
Financially, I started out with some savings from my job days. I had some lecture schedules then at C-DAC’s Sunbeam Institute of Information Technology as well as at the Fergusson College (both institutes here in Pune) to keep me busy. There weren’t any real software developments projects on the anvil, so I decided to make good use of the sabbatical when the lecture schedules ended in November.
From December through March, I voraciously read not just technical books to update my knowledge, but also non-technicals books and novels to help me grow as a complete person. I read the complete Harry Potter books collection from JK Rowling and Dan Brown’s collection of fiction novels (Digital Fortress, Deception Point, Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code, The Lost Symbol) among others. Ayn Rand’s ‘Atlas Shrugged‘ and ‘The Fountainhead‘ provided me much needed answers to the questions I had about friendships, relationships, business and life in general. I read Scott Berkun’s ‘Confessions of a Public Speaker‘ to aid my public interaction as a classroom lecturer, and a few other business-oriented books like Randall Stross’ ‘Planet Google‘ and Phil Baker’s ‘From Concept to Consumer‘. Being a huge history buff, I sharpened my knowledge on ancient Indian, European and American history through articles on the internet, mostly on Wikipedia, and any good books which I could lay my hands on, mostly at the British Library. I could dedicate some time to photography, and also to reading more about aero-modelling and airplanes in general, an old passion of mine. Did all this help? Certainly did. You could easily draw parallels and analogies between the stories in these books and life in general, even the world of software development!
I think that at some point of time everyone needs to look at themselves closely and analyze their ideas, beliefs and actions. This period certainly gave me that reflection-time. It was absolutely priceless!
In April I received an unexpected call from the Fergusson College’s Computer Science department to conduct a few lectures on Software Design Patterns. Frankly, I had never thought of studying this topic in detail, and now to teach it to students meant a big challenge. But when you are swimming in the water already, you don’t fear getting more wet, do you? I took up the challenge. Preparing for the lectures gave me an opportunity to delve into the topic, and I must say it was really enjoyable. Incidentally, I could use the some of analogies learnt from the fictional novels that I had read, in the lecture sessions while explaining some technical concepts. I can safely say now that the students ‘liked’ them if not ‘loved’ them 🙂
Return to software development
Around late-April I got a call from an old client of dad’s to come and visit him for some software development work he had in mind. I had a positive meeting with him and after a few presentations and discussions with the company’s ‘think-tank’, bagged my first real big software development project contract. The presentations themselves were something, because it was the first time that I was dealing with people almost twice my age, having tons and tons of experience! I had worked on cost estimation for a software project during my job days, but this was a totally different kettle of fish, and there were some really hilarious episodes there when I had to quote and re-quote! As I found out a few weeks later, this was just the beginning of the learning process 🙂
I was tasked with developing a software solution for designing and estimating the true cost of Cranes, a commonly used machine in material-handling systems. It was engineering college days all over again for me, as I had to re-learn concepts from basic physics and the laws and fundamentals of mechanics. Then I had to translate that knowledge into software code, and create a lightweight, relatively easy-to-use, yet fool-proof software with lots of permutations and combinations possible in the input parameters. The entire experience spread over almost four months, was priceless. On the last day of development, the highly meticulous tech advisor whom I worked with, took me and a friend of mine for dinner and said that he was very happy with my work. Well, you can now add the ‘memorable’ tag too to the experience 🙂
I was a consultant in the organization, which meant that apart from me and a couple of IT guys who looked after the computer systems and networking in that place, everybody else was from a non-computer background. Over the course of the development I had at least 25 different people walking up to me and enquiring what “exactly” I was doing there 🙂 It was fun answering the queries in as simple (non-geeky) a way as possible!
One thing I’ve always done since childhood is to keep my eyes and ears open for any kind of knowledge or information that comes my way. Sitting there and coding and listening to the stuff going on around me, I subconsciously picked up so many things about the working of the departments in the organization, for example, Human Resource Development, Accounts, Order Processing, Mechanical Design, Electrical Design, Purchase, Sales, Marketing. For me, this was worth its weight in gold, because in this roller-coaster ride called ‘life’ you never know when you’ll require a particular piece of information!
I was lucky enough to make some wonderful friends during these four months; friends whom I can relate with, which is so rare. I can just hope that these friendships strengthen over time 🙂
So, how did I fare?
When I started out as an independent a year ago, I had promised myself that I’ll evaluate my position every six months, both professionally and financially. This means that I’ve been through a couple of such self-evaluations. I’ll tell you what I concluded after these evaluations. I realized that success is much more than just 2 + 2 = 4. Professionally, it was great that I got a chance to work upon a different kind of assignment. It gave me a lot of satisfaction. Financially, I hadn’t expected to get a break this big in my first year as an independent consultant. So money-wise, that was sort of a relief. Obviously there is always room for improvement, and one could argue that I could have earned more if I had actively sought projects, but again as I said, the sabbatical at the start of the year was a blessing in disguise. Experience-wise, I feel I’ve grown by three years in just this one year! I put in my best efforts and I’m quite happy with the results. At the end of the day, that’s what counts the most.
The college lectures have continued to give me as much satisfaction as the software development work. I hope I can dedicate good amounts of time to both areas in the future too. In general, this year has provided me with far more free, yet valuable time than before. Its enabled me not just to recharge my mind, but also to pursue other hobbies and broaden perspectives.
The future
I realize that this is just the start. There’s a long journey ahead and you never know what life might throw at you. They say that personal and professional lives should be kept separate. I don’t believe that. I feel that each one aids the other, and likewise each one affects the other. You’ve got to be alert. You have to be audacious enough to plan, and adaptable enough to change those plans to suit the situations.
I will end this post with one of my favorite songs. Its from the 1997 Disney animation movie ‘Hercules‘, and it gives a near perfect picture of my thoughts at this moment 🙂
“I have often dreamed
Of a far off place
Where a hero’s welcome
Would be waiting for me,
Where the crowds will cheer
When they see my face,
And a voice keeps saying
This is where I’m meant to be..
I’ll be there someday
I can go the distance,
I will find my way
If I can be strong,
I know every mile
Will be worth my while,
When I go the distance
I’ll be right where I belong..
Down an unknown road
To embrace my fate,
Though the road may wander
It will lead me to you,
And a thousand years
Would be worth the wait,
It may take a lifetime
But somehow I’ll see it through..
And I won’t look back
I can go the distance,
And I’ll stay on track
No I won’t accept defeat,
It’s an uphill slope
But I won’t loose hope
Till I go the distance
And my journey is complete..
But to look beyond the glory is the hardest part,
For a hero’s strength is measured by his heart..
Like a shooting star
I will go the distance,
I will search the world
I will face its harms,
I don’t care how far
I can go the distance,
Till I find my hero’s welcome
Waiting in your arms..
I will search the world,
I will face its harms,
Till I find my hero’s welcome
Waiting in your arms..”
A few months ago a friend shared this Kris Allen song with me, and it quickly became one my all time favorites. Its rare when a song has such meaningful lyrics combined with some great music, especially the Guitar notes, and even rarer when you can connect with it instantly because it endorses your life’s philosophy and just sounds sweeter the longer you listen to it.
More about the song and the artist (an ex-American Idol), here.
“Sometimes we fall down and can’t get back up, We’re hiding behind skin that’s too tough, How come we dont say “I love you” enough, Till its to late, its not too late.
Our hearts are hungry for a food that won’t come, And we could make a feast from these crumbs, And we’re all staring down the barrel of a gun, So if your life flashed before you, What would you wish you would’ve done?
Yeah we gotta start..
Lookin’ at the hands of the time we’ve been given here, This is all we got and we gotta start pickin’ it, Every second counts on a clock that’s tickin’, Gotta live like we’re dying.
We only got 86,400 seconds in a day to Turn it all around or to throw it all away, We gotta tell ’em that we love ’em While we got the chance to say, Gotta live like we’re dying.
If your plane fell out of the skies, Who would you call with your last goodbyes? Should be so careful who we left out of our lives, When we long for absolution There’ll be no one on the line.
Yeah we gotta start..
Lookin’ at the hands of the time we’ve been given here, This is all we got and we gotta start pickin’ it, Every second counts on a clock thats tickin’, Gotta live like we’re dying.
We only got 86,400 seconds in a day to Turn it all around or to throw it all away, We gotta tell ’em that we love ’em While we got the chance to say, Gotta live like we’re dying.
Like were dying.. oh.. like were dying..
We only got 86,400 seconds in a day to Turn it all around or to throw it all away, We gotta tell ’em that we love ’em While we got the chance to say, Gotta live like we’re dying.
You never know a good thing till its gone, You never see a crash till its head on, Why we think we’re right when we’re dead wrong, You never know a good thing till its gone.
Yeah we gotta start..
Lookin’ at the hands of the time we’ve been given here, This is all we got and we gotta start pickin’ it, Every second counts on a clock thats tickin’ Gotta live like we’re dying.
We only got 86,400 seconds in a day to Turn it all around or to throw it all away, We gotta tell ’em that we love ’em, While we got the chance to say, Gotta live like we’re dying.
Like were dying.. oh.. like were dying..
We only got 86,400 seconds in a day to Turn it all around or to throw it all away, We gotta tell ’em that we love ’em While we got the chance to say,
These are two songs I absolutely love. Music-wise and lyrics-wise they are gems in their own right. I must have seen and listened to them many times over the years, on TV, on the computer, or on the iPod, but as I listened to them yesterday I couldn’t help but sense a connection between the feelings and emotions in both of them…. calling out to the ‘one’.
Both these songs are generations apart, and have been used to portray relatively different scenarios in the respective films, the 1969 classic ‘Khamoshi‘ (IMDb link) and the 1998 movie ‘Dil Se..‘ (IMDb link), one of my favorites.
Why I felt the connection only yesterday, or has anyone else felt it up till now, I do not know. I have always believed that as you go about in life having different experiences, from different people, and at different places, you tend to find new meanings to the world and the media around you and sort of re-evaluate your feelings about the articles you’ve read before, the songs you’ve listened to earlier, the movies you’ve seen in the years gone by, or the words of advise given by a friend or a family-member. Perhaps due to certain happenings in my life in the past few months, I could sense that connection yesterday.
Ok, so how do you brand a day as ‘strangely fulfilling’? Well, here’s my take on it. You go into a day feeling a little down on your health. Also, you aren’t exactly in a great frame of mind since the past few weeks so you don’t expect anything miraculous to happen that day either, plus you know you have a long week ahead full of work and the little health problem I mentioned earlier might unnecessarily impede your best efforts. You seek some random inspiration, maybe from the people and happenings around you, but aren’t quite sure where to find it from.
This Monday (well, it had to be a Monday, right 😉 ), I started my day exactly like that. I had been ‘under the weather’ for the whole of last week; got rain-wet once to often and paid the price by having a sore throat and a slight fever over the weekend. The project I’m working on for a client is in its final stages so I couldn’t really stay at home. I almost dragged myself to the workplace, unshaven and all, and settled down in the day’s planned tasks. About half-an-hour after lunch-time I got a call from the technical advisor (the person whom I work with in the company) saying that he wanted to test my software program for some live calculations. Well, this program I’m developing is an optimized, automated substitute for an extremely lengthy and tedious manual calculation process for Crane design. We started running some tests on it, and after a few tweaks to the output we got the required results in absolutely no time. He was satisfied. I too was satisfied.
Gantry Crane (Image courtesy: Emech.in)
The number of calculations I’ve had to code in to this software program easily outnumber the sum total of the Math problems I solved as homework during all my schooling years put together! So you can see I was on tenterhooks while we were running the tests, hoping for them to succeed. I realized later that these tests made it possible for the sales team to answer the queries of a particular client and give him a quote by the end of the day – a task which seemed difficult that morning. It was sort of fruition for my efforts during the last 3 months.
Along the way I also interacted with a few people from the sales team and got to know them better. Being a person who loves to interact and make friends with like-minded people, I relished this opportunity. In a high-pressure job environment driven by a world of cut-throat competition, I guess it means a lot to these guys if something helps in quickening their response to their respective clients.
For some time, I almost forgot about my sore throat. Ironically it didn’t forget me 😦 , and by the end of the day it caught up with my growing enthusiasm. I drove back home, carrying a slight temperature. I really needed something different to divert my attention away from body-ache, paining-throat and medicines. “A good, light, comedy movie would be great”, I thought. I picked up the TV remote and flicked to the movie channels section, and there it was! They were playing a 1980’s classic, the tremendously hilarious Airplane!. Full of sarcastic humor, it reminded me of another of my favorite movies belonging to the same genre – Hot Shots!. Really, I couldn’t have asked for a better remedy that evening!
It was almost time for dinner when I finished watching the movie, but due to the nauseating feeling I didn’t really feel like having normal food. “Something different?”, I though to myself and peeped into the kitchen. I realized that we had Foccacia bread in there. Mom and me then embellished it with some Tomatoes, Onion and Chillies, put it in the microwave oven and after a few minutes I had an absolutely wonderful dinner ready for me!
Focaccia bread with toppings of Tomatoes, Onions and Chillies
Believe me, it tasted GOOD! The tummy was full by now, but the exertion had taken its toll on my physical-condition, which was quite bad to begin with. As I headed toward the warmth of my bed, though, I began thinking about the day. It had started out as any other day, and could have ended just the same without any special mentions anywhere, but it didn’t. It wasn’t as if I had discovered a new chemical element or had achieved something just as ground-breaking, but 3 very different things had made the day ‘fulfilling’ in their own strange way! 🙂
I was reminded of a quote from the movie Peaceful Warrior (2006) –
“There are no ordinary moments.”
Well, I think there are no ordinary days either! In the end, everything boils down to your perspective.
I’ve been living through sort of a ‘contemplation phase’ in the last few weeks, and was trying to evaluate some seemingly basic notions about life in general. The idea of understanding a person / thing, valuing its existence and appreciating it in an honest fashion was one of them. Incidentally, I was also reading Ayn Rand‘s epic novel ‘Atlas Shrugged‘ in that period and came across the following passage, and it seemed to throw the answer at me.
For the uninitiated, here some background behind the scene in question and the characters involved in it. This conversation takes place between Richard Halley, a renowned music composer, and Dagny Taggart, a railroad industry heiress and the main protagonist who listens only to Halley’s creations and loves them because she can connect with them instantly.
“Miss Taggart, how many people are there to whom my work means as much as it does to you?”
“Not many,” she answered simply, neither as boast nor flattery, but as an impersonal tribute to the exacting values involved.
“That is the payment I demand. Not many can afford it. I don’t mean your enjoyment, I don’t mean your emotion. Emotions be damned! I mean your understanding and the fact that your enjoyment was of the same nature as mine, that it came from the same source: from your intelligence, from the conscious judgment of a mind able to judge my work by the standard of the same values that went to write it. I mean, not the fact that you felt, but that you felt what I wished you to feel, not the fact that you admire my work, but that you admire it for the things I wished to be admired.” He chuckled.
“There’s only one passion in most artists more violent than their desire for admiration: their fear of identifying the nature of such admiration as they do receive. But it’s a fear I’ve never shared. I do not fool myself about my work or the response I seek—I value both too highly.
I do not care to be admired causelessly, emotionally, intuitively, instinctively, or blindly. I do not care for blindness in any form, I have too much to show, or for deafness, I have too much to say. I do not care to be admired by anyone’s heart, only by someone’s head. And when I find a customer with that invaluable capacity, then my performance is a mutual trade to mutual profit. An artist is a trader, Miss Taggart, the hardest and most exacting of all traders. Now do you understand me?”
The author couldn’t have put it more emphatically. Its the sort of understanding and acceptance of one’s values in the way they are intended to be accepted that’s so rare in this world. We jump on to the ‘judgment bandwagon’ at the drop of a hat without fully understanding the true feelings behind someone’s actions, or knowing the real effort that went into creating something. At times, we do not even attempt to find out the right parameters or rise to the required level before voicing our opinions on someone or something. We then say that we ‘value’ that person or thing. Do we really mean it?
Its a notion which can be observed in almost every ‘mutual’ relationship – between two good friends, between a husband and his wife, between parents and their children, between a hardworking professional and the seniors at his workplace, between a sports player and his coach, between the students and their teacher – and yet it is one of the most underrated and misunderstood of all human values. We tend to take things for granted when it comes to valuing someone, and succeed in nothing but harming the relationship. We surrender our ‘thinking-cap’ too soon, give in to prejudices and blind faiths, and fail to understand the importance of people, events and special creations. We let our heart rule our brain in what we say or do or like, but miss the truly important things which are hidden in plain view!
You can clearly see this phenomenon in practice while observing an audience appreciating an artist after a good performance. Many people go up to congratulate him, but only a very few say something which brings an honest smile to his face. He knows then that only these few persons have grasped the true spirit of his performance, and this gives him more satisfaction than any amount of money that he would receive for his efforts. Similarly, when a young child gives an honest performance, it is only when you realize and understand his / her maturity level that a true valuation comes forth.
This passage has definitely uncomplicated and strengthened my convictions and beliefs towards the values of understanding, appreciation, valuation and acceptance of an idea or an individual.
I joined Twitter on 14th September 2008. I didn’t really think much of it. I randomly saw these messages from people. I stayed away. ‘Razzdino is now following you on twitter’ Suddenly, amongst those unknown people I was following, there was a face I knew. I started having twitter conversations and sort of started liking the platform. Soon enough, I found a few interesting people to follow. I took my time to get to know the platform, which is how … Read More
Sometimes it is good policy to use lyrical songs rather than mere words to present a situation or project a state-of-mind; and when the song is as good as the one mentioned, it is bound to paint a perfect picture.
This song is from the critically acclaimed 1991 movie Lamhe (IMDb link) directed by the highly successful Yash Chopra. The music has been composed by legendary Santoor maestro Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma and Flute genius Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia (known together as Shiv-Hari), so undoubtedly, it has got to be melodious. Combine that with lyrics from Anand Bakshi, and you have one of the best songs ever recorded in the history of the Hindi film industry.
Full lyrics:
“ये लम्हें, ये पल हम बरसों याद करेंगे,
ये मौसम चले गए तो हम फ़र्याद करेंगे.. (1)
इन सपनो की तस्वीरों से,
इन यादों की जंजीरों से,
अपने दिल को कैसे हम आज़ाद करेंगे,
ये मौसम चले गए तो हम फ़र्याद करेंगे,
ये लम्हें, ये पल हम बरसों याद करेंगे.. (2)
ये लम्हें तो है बहुत हसीं,
इन लम्हों पर कुछ लिखा नहीं,
ये आबाद करेंगे या बर्बाद करेंगे,
ये मौसम चले गए तो हम फ़र्याद करेंगे,
ये लम्हें, ये पल हम बरसों याद करेंगे.. (3)
ये लम्हें, ये पल हम बरसों याद करेंगे,
ये मौसम चले गए तो हम फ़र्याद करेंगे.. (4)”
Some moments are so beautiful and unique that we cherish them for a lifetime. Memories of trips and vacations, a sweet little prank during school, an hour of solitude with a loved one, a few conversations which lifted your spirits.. are just a few examples I can think of at this instant. Generally, attempts to free ourselves from these moments always come to a naught; obviously we’ve got to be honest enough to realize that.
Sometimes the people involved in these memories have long drifted away from our lives, but that doesn’t dilute their sweetness. There is neither an upper limit to how many of these experiences we can have during our lifetime; experiences which are automatically crystalized into ‘indelible impressions’. Whether they actually help us grow or drag us down by their sheer weight, is a matter of personality; but as they say, “when you can’t loose them, use them”, and that is where perhaps lies their real beauty combined with practicality.
A few lines from another one of my favorite songs.. ‘Beetein lamhe..’
“आज भी जब वह पल मुझको याद आते है,
दिल से सारे गमों को भुला जातें है..
आज भी जब वह मंज़र नज़र आते है,
दिल की वीरानीयों को मिटा जातें है..
दर्द में भी यह लब मुस्कुरा जातें है,
बीते लम्हे हमे जब भी याद आते है..”
I always pray and hope that such lovely moments are somehow rekindled one day!
Dilemmas are part and parcel of life. They generally vary in their importance and eventual impact. We are faced with hundreds of them everyday, some so trivial that we don’t even realize them and some quite serious where we have to stop and consider them.
Here I’ve listed three instances which I have either experienced myself in my life so far or have been a close spectator to in other’s lives. At the end of each I would like you, as a reader, to put yourself in the situation, decide and make the all important ‘choice’.
1. A matter of religious beliefs
You love trekking and are on one of your excursions. You are walking along a narrow mountainous jungle path with a high cliff on one side and a deep valley on the other. You’ve travelled about 3 kilometers on it. So far so good. Just as you are cutting across a bend, you find a religious symbol on the path in front of you which is not supposed to be crossed because it is sort of a taboo (many Hindus believe it is a bad omen to step over / cross a symbol made of Lemon and Green Chillies, readers from other religions too might have similar taboos).
You have two options –
a) Step over and cross the symbol and carry on along the same path, or
b) Turn back, travel the 3 Kms and search for a new path circumventing the ‘controversial’ place, which will waste time as well as energy which is always at a premium during treks.
You are neither much of a god-fearing person nor an atheist (non-believer), but you have had a few experiences amongst your close relatives who had (accidentally or intentionally) stepped over a similar forbidden religious symbol and had quite soon experienced extreme bad luck in their business and personal lives – and there didn’t seem to be any other reason for the unfortunate events to happen. You yourself have a relatively long journey ahead of you on the current tour and you need every bit of luck on your side to tide over unknown adversities which you might come across.
You’re in a dilemma. Would you step over / cross the forbidden symbol on the path in front of you to continue on your journey, or you would not?
2. A matter of ideals
This might seem straight out of an old Bollywood Hindi movie script, but believe me these events can really occur.
You are married and have a son who is about 20 years old. You are a honorable person and have lived a respectable life so far. People look up to you as a man of high ideals. You hate high-handedness and detest corruption and pangs of bureaucracy. Along with other like-minded people you have successfully conducted drives against black-marketing of food, drugs and other essential items and have even forced a few corrupt storekeepers to shut shop.
Unfortunately your son meets with an accident one day on the road, and is severely injured. Luckily help is at hand and he is taken to the hospital where they administer first aid, but sadly that is not enough. He needs to undergo a complicated surgery if his life is to be saved. The trouble is that few of the drugs required for the successful surgery are on short supply. The hospital stocks have already been stretched to the limit. Problems, as we all know, never come alone. There is a transport union strike due to which the supply of even essential items to the city is severely hampered. The hospital authorities contact you and brief you about the situation. Shaking off the panic, you try your luck at a few chemists and druggists you know but they too are out of stock for the particular drugs.
They guide you to a shady storekeeper on the other side of the city who may have the drug you are looking for. You contact him in the earnest. He turns out to be one of the persons whom you had forced to shut shop earlier. He has the drugs, but sadly, does not conform to your ideas about a respectable life. He asks exorbitant amounts of cash for the drugs, something akin to black-marketing which you just yesterday had fought so vehemently against.
You have two options –
a) Buy the drugs from him, indulge in corruption yourself, save the life of your son but loose your self-esteem in the process, both in your eyes and the eyes of the others who look up to you, or
b) Don’t buy the drug, stick to your ideals and risk the life of your own son in the process.
You’re in a dilemma. Would you buy the drugs and kill your self-esteem, or you would not?
You are a paleontologist. You are passionate about your work and always put in your best efforts towards research. You have also worked on a few findings and discoveries of your own, but haven’t yet got a platform to share them. After years of working in the Geology department of a local university, you get the big break to appear on TV in an interview on the National Geographic Channel which will almost certainly give you a chance to meet with the who’s who of the circuit, and will probably open up bigger and better job opportunities.
You’ve held back this big news from your close friends because you want to give them a surprise when the show is aired. The day the interview is to be recorded you drop by one of your closest friends’ place on the way to the studio. There you learn that she has had a freak accident in the house and has broken a rib which is making even the slightest of movements extremely painful. Unfortunately there’s nobody else around to help her that evening. She’s feeling cold and asks you if you could make her a cup of coffee.
You’re getting late for the interview, but can’t turn down the request from your closest friend. You make her the coffee. You can see that she’s really feeling down due to the injury, and lonely too. She asks if you could spend some time with her that evening so that she feels better. You know that the TV interview is a once in a lifetime opportunity and that your entire professional future depends on it. One part of you tries to be practical and cries out that you have to turn down her request this time. But one part of of can’t. You want to be there for her when she requires you the most. Isn’t that what friendship’s all about!
You have two options –
a) You firmly say ‘no’, dent your friendship, but cash in on a chance to take your career to the next level, or
b) You say ‘yes’, sacrifice the once in a lifetime opportunity in your career for the sake of your friendship.
You’re in a dilemma. Would you prefer breaking her heart and fuel your career, or you would not?
What would I have done in these circumstances?
Now, I’m not a movie scriptwriter, so please excuse me if you spot any gaping loop holes in the stories. Here are my choices for the answers –
1)(a) – I would step over the forbidden religious symbol and carry on along the same path. I would take my chances with the ‘bad luck’ (if any) rather than backtrack.
2)(a) – Boy, that’s a tough one! I would buy those drugs from the person, don’t know if that would be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. I won’t say that I would regret the decision in later life but I will surely loose my self-esteem and will never be able to look straight into other people’s eyes after that.
3)(b) – I would sacrifice the TV opportunity for being with my friend, at a time when she needs me the most. For me, relationships are paramount. Professional opportunities come and go.
If you have faced / come across any other dilemma situations, please feel free to write about them.
Credo in between the lines 