Sunday, September 02, 2007

July 8 2007

I am waiting in line, to receive my graduation certificate......My thoughts begin to wander......
The last last few months have been hectic. Things and situations have changed, but then they haven'nt.
Life seems to be going on - as normal as ever, as busy as ever. There always seems to be a never-ending flow of things to do. Life seems like a race; a race that one seems to be running in, without really knowing where it leads to. All that one notices is that he is running on a highway with a lot of other people runing in front, behind and alongside. Suddenly there is a realisation that he must stop otherwise life will drift away in known, seemingly safe directions, only to be someday buried in unremembered and worthless destinations. It is at these moments at the cross roads of life there comes along some divine spark that strikes us - and we make that decision, that significant and crucial decision, that will someday shape our destiny.

I realised that the highway run is not what I want, I want to run a race where there is no routine path, where there is no easy decision. A crossroad from which various paths emerge - right, wrong, unknown, strange and uncharted.The first time I felt like this, was over 3 years back. Since then, at every junction of life, I get the feeling that I am taking a crucial decision, one that will forever change my life. Later I realise that things have not really changed all that much or not at all. This makes it all very confusing. What is seemingly most important now, becomes insignificant once a decision is taken and acted upon. So what is important and what is not?

If one cares to pause this rushed life of ours, playback the events in slow motion, we begin to understand; Our thoughts become clear. It becomes clear, how the little things in our life have fallen in place on the jigsaw puzzle. How the bigger pieces on which we spent our energies are really the easier ones to put in place; How the smaller, seemingly trivial pieces are vital, to complete the puzzle and to understand the bigger picture.. At this juncture one might also contemplate on the decisons about how the paths that we took - the supposedly right paths - never lead us anywhere. How we missed the forest for the trees, just because we failed to look deeper, or perhaps because we were not prepared to take the road less travelled.

We then wish that we could go back and take another path. Ofcourse, we cannot. However we can learn to be more careful further on and learn to recognize the key moments in life, learn to spot those subtle clues that life throws us. Ofcourse, that key moment will just pass by like any other, if we are not strong enough to resist the divergent pulls of the oft treaded paths. It needs a strong passion and courage to swim against the tide. The first step to do this lies in being able to realise that we are being carried away by the waves in random directions; to realise that we still have not attained the strength and passion that we can achieve, if only we dig deeper.

I feel that I have not still attained my full strength or found my calling in life. Someday in the future when I am ready for it, I want to be able to realise when I am actually living my key moment- A chance meeting, a big decision, or just a simple little talk, which will turn life upside down and make all the difference- and not have to rewind and play it back in my mind in flashback mode.I have taken many turns on the path that I chose a long time back, I do not know where it will lead me to- only time will tell;
The most recent juction that I crossed in my life was graduation from IIITB, and transiting from a student life to a professional work life. The journey so far has been memorable. Newer experiences and equally interesting times are ahead.