On A Day Like Today

Just trying my hand on something hard. Actually wanted to write this as a book. But finally decided to take small steps at the moment.

It's a Friday evening. When my whole city comes to life, here I am. In front of a belligerent black demon, that breaks my head on a logic that has been eluding me for sometime now. The coffee on my table has become more of a fossil. So am I !! At 23, with loads and loads of dreams to be realized, I am spending my time here hoping that this is just how I can realize them. Well Hope drives everyone, doesn't it ? It has been driving me for the past 12 months. Every night, I have been trying to count the number of stars hoping that one night it'll all be over. Is this what I wanted to do in all my life? I was shaken by these alarming thoughts and decided to call it a day and go back home. I shutdown my PC and took a long look at the rest of my office. I could see my colleagues lost in thoughts with their work. Or at least they seemed like. I looked at the watch and got myself confirmed that I have been burning the oil for longer than I thought I was. I bid adios to my mates just to see their surprised faces. Nisha even asked whether anything is wrong with me. I may sound very strange, but leaving at 9 was never my routine. Returning a content smile to all of them, I set off to my home, as I didn't bother digressing them from their work.

My home is a pretty 7 kms off from the workplace. Usual mode of transport is the bus provided by my management. But today, I decided to talk a long walk back so that I can spend sometime at my ease. More than anything, I was desperate for loneliness, especially today. Lost in a deep retrospect, I hit the streets at the night. I have lost in touch with the comfort of an AC room. But wait a minute, didn't I think the other way around when I was at my office. When I was confined to a room, where I need not bother about heat, dirt or sweat, I was languishing about the mythical freedom on the streets. The other side of the river has always appeared greener than your side. I walk on giving a brief attention to the errands around me. After all, I have decided to spend sometime on myself - for a change.

It is very funny that when we want to look back at our lives, only our failures and sad moments seems to be sparking at every nook and corner of our thoughts. It may be a bad break up, or arrears that stopped from you from higher studies and job, it may be losing a friend, a spat with parents, it may be anything. I am no different either. There were a lot of " If at all I had done /" and "If at all I had not been " moments which were being recollected. I feel it is always good if we manage to dedicate sometime for ourselves. But once we dive into the waves of depression and start repenting for our plight, then we are doing no good to recover from feeling low. But do we have a choice? It's so easy for any Tom, Dick and Harry to say or write about allowing only positive thoughts to get into us and block every drop of negative flood from trickling inside our minds. But it takes a lot of beating and thrashing in life to become immune to negativity. Life will always be a teacher and will keep on teaching us hard lessons irrespective of whether we are willing to learn them or not.

I wanted to find out the reason why I was so unhappy with my life. At that moment, I saw a road-side shop where a kid was standing in front of a hot stove making parathas and shouting from the bottom of his stomach so that he can catch the attention of few passer-bys and get some customers apparently. I really wanted to know what this guy wanted in his life. There's a reason why he had decided to make parathas, burning himself in front of that stove. Didn't he have any ambitions? I approached him with a smile. The boy didn't smile back. Assuming that I was one of his customers, he recited the menu card. I ordered for a plate of hot parathas and sat at a place that is somewhat close to where he was. I broke the ice and asked him how old he was. He was just 12 years old. But he looked much older than that. May be the life has already taught him some lessons. Then I asked him for how long has he been working here. He replied that it was his father's shop and he has been working since he was 5 years old.

Though that guy was not educated, he knew the mindset of his customers. He had the knack of making people like him. I have always felt that it is one among a few qualities that people can't get through education alone. Loving others and making others love you is very tough. It is very hard to please everyone every time and it is even harder to expect people to be there and please you all the time. The only way to find a balance in our relationships is by allowing a lotta personal space to the other person and by reducing our expectations. Otherwise, you'll find yourself at the peak of happiness at a few moments and hit in extreme sorrow and pain because of the same person at the other moments. This becomes very tough, especially for those who are not so good in taking disappointments. Too much of extremes in our lives is always toxic.

The paratha guy started a conversation with me. He told me that when he was 4 years old, he wanted to go to school like every other normal child would do. But his family could not support such a luxury. Since he was the first child in his family, his father started using him as a helper boy in his paratha shop. Initially his duty was to clean the tables. Even though he didn't like what he was doing, he refused to give up. He set a goal for himself. Instead of cleaning tables, he wanted to be a waiter. He slowly got the confidence of his father and finally became a waiter in his hotel, taking orders from the customers.

After some months, he thought it was time to move on. Instead of just taking orders, he wanted to make parathas. But this involves a lotta learning. But the boy was willing to grow and he asked his dad to teach him to make parathas. He was not a gifted kid. His initial days of paratha making were full of mistakes. At times his dad has gone reckless on this kid for wasting the dough. It may be jus a half-kg dough for us, but for that family, it was one meal for a day. The kid once even burnt his hand accidentally. The scars of which are still seen visible.

Finally one day when his dad was very ill to run the shop, our kid stepped forward and said that he'll take care of the shop that day. The dad was very worried, but hesitantly acquiesced to his son's wish. Grabbing this opportunity with both the hands, the kid made some of the best parathas and some of the worst parathas of his life. He did something that his dad had never thought about. He shifted the stove more towards the outer part of the shop and started making parathas. With the help of his friend, he made a billboard saying that hot parathas were available there. Adding on to it, the kid used to shout at the sight of potential customers that hot parathas were sold. After all, this guy has an eye for customers. People started flooding in more than ever. His dad was very happy with the business and decided to play this boy upfront.

We all know that confidence comes with success, but it is also true that you need confidence to succeed. I asked him what he wanted to do further? He said that he has started saving money with the profit he makes. He also said that he was using 1/20th of the dough less than what his dad was using so that he can save one paratha for every 20 he sells. With that money, he was planning to buy more chairs to the shop so that he can accommodate more customers. With more customer comes more profit and with that the boy wanted to buy a bigger place and make his hotel a bigger one.

This guy’s life would have been very normal. But it made a huge impact in me. We have heard about a lotta such people rising from the bottom to the zenith of fame, but meeting one such guy made a lotta difference in my life. I realized that the reason why I was unhappy with my life was because I thought I was not there where I wanted to be. But isn’t that the same with the kid as well. He is definitely not where he wanted to or should have been. But does that stop him from going where he wants to, if not where he wanted to? If this kid were asked the same question before, he would have coveted to become an engineer or a doctor. But knowing that he cannot do it anymore, he has changed his destination. But ultimately he wants to succeed.

This guy taught me that success is not achieving what we want in our lives, but to get up and move ahead when we fail. If we don’t know how to fail, then we wont know how to succeed as well. May be this is not where I wanted to be in my life, but why should it stop me in succeeding in something that I have never thought of? If this kid had lost his heart when he was asked to work as a cleaner in his father’s shop, he would have remained a cleaner all his life. If this kid had given up on making parathas when he burnt his hand or when his father made him starve for two days without food for wasting the dough, this boy would have remained a waiter ever after. And more importantly if this kid had stopped to admire the path he has traveled to become the paratha maker, he won’t be making any more progress.

So is the case for everyone. If we assume our life to be placed between two gates, gate of new beginning and the gate of success, then every one of us will be a mere traveler in that path. The only thing constant about our life is the gate where we begin our journey. The gate of success will always be at some distance from our current position. When I’m an analyst programmer, the gate of success will be a module lead. When I become a module lead, my gate of success will be a project lead. When a project lead, project manager, when a manger, director and so on. We’ll find ourselves at a place where we didn’t want to be in all the time. But we have to realize that our gate of success will be traveling ahead of us.

Many would have said that opportunity knocks at your door only once, but we should also know that we have to knock at the opportunity's door many times. If we miss out on something, we should have the sight to look at something else from there on. If we stop to look back at our path and repent, then we will miss out on looking at the road ahead. Also if we stop with a feel of accomplishment and admire at everything we have been through, we will again miss out to realize that the road is much longer than this and there is more distance to travel.

I got up from my seat and left the paratha shop as a new man. The guy whom I wondered whether he ever had a life, turned out to be flooded with hopes and aspirations. For him, I was important as a customer, but for me, he was much more than that. He made me realize the true essence of life. These realizations don’t happen on auspicious days. The day it happens is auspicious and it will happen On A Day Like Today!!

Cheers,

Prad