Mitwa

मेरे मन यह
बतादे तू
किस और चला हैं तू
क्या पाया नहीं तूने क्या ढून्ढ रहा हैं तू
जो हैं अनकही  जो हैं अनसुनी
वोह बात क्या हैं बता
मितवा , कहे धड़कने तुझसे क्या
मितवा , यह खुद से तो ना  तू छुपा

जीवन डगर में ,प्रेम नगर में
आया नज़र में , जबसे कोई हैं
तू सोचता हैं , तू पूछता हैं
जिसकी कमी थी , क्या यह वोही हैं
हाँ यह वोही हैं , हाँ यह वोही हैं
तू एक पप्यासा  , और यह नदी हैं
काहे  नहीं , इसको तू
खुलके  बताये .....

~~ Javed Akhtar
~  Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna

Not all of us have the courage to risk the security and comfort of our everyday lives to go after what we truly want. Very rarely do we chase our deepest desires. Caught in this swamp of bills, that arrive promptly on your doorstep every month and never cease to do so for the rest for our lives, of expectations, that we need to fulfill, norms of the society, that we need to adhere to, and of promises, we need to keep. We all grow up with the idea of wanting to live a life doing things that make us happy, of course without purposely hurting anyone. We all want to go do a job that makes us want to go to work with a smile on our faces, to be passionate about that deadline that is fast arriving, and not look at it with a sense of fear and apprehension.

I've always wondered what this whole "Work-Life Balance" funda is about. I mean, the fact that you need to separate the two and carve out specific times for each, shows that you're doing something wrong. I mean, if you love your job, why would you not consider it a part of your "life". But we all have our compulsions, the reasons mentioned above keep us from reaching out to our dreams, grasping those silver threads hidden in the corners of our heart and mind, and holding onto them tightly while we run, run for our dreams, or run with our dreams.

Once we get stuck in the rut, life get's too comfortable to leave. We grow up too much to remember what we wanted to do and be when we were children. The dream that we ought to chase and fulfill now looks like a risk that might put everything we've achieved in life, and everything we are, in danger. But what are we without our dreams? What and who have you lived, and who have you been true to? What if someone wants to leave their steady lovely-incomed prestigious job and go do something that they genuinely love, that may not pay them as much, but that makes them feel like they are living life, fully.  A job, where you don't have to wait for the weekend for you to enjoy your "real life". Where you go to sleep everyday with a satisfaction in your heart, and peace in your mind, although not enough money in your pockets?

But you never know. What if you chase your passion, and you're successful & make money & are happy, beyond what you imagined. Now you have everything that you wanted and everything you "ought" to have. It's a risk worth taking, right? Yet so few of us take it. As Indians, we also see being married as the end of being able to do the things we wanted to do. Once you're married, you need to have a steady household income, can not afford to take risks, after all you're no longer alone, there is a plan you need to stick to. You can no longer pack your bags and move around the world. That's a view that scares me. A lot. It's almost like saying, enjoy your life while you are single, after that, you're bound for life. What if I want to leave my job, and go exploring for a year, maybe learn scuba diving and become a diving instructor? Can do only before marriage? Not after? Anyway, that just takes the discussion to a whole new level.

The point of this post is to discover at which point in our life do we stop believing in ourselves and start living a prescribed life. I am at a stage in life, where I am rethinking everything. Where I'm living, what I'm doing, what I want to do, who I want to be, and who I want to be with. When I am old, I don't want to look at the life I've lived with regrets. Of never having the courage or the conviction or the belief in myself to chase my dreams.  Having regrets, at any point in your life, is the worst thing. "What if" kills you slowly, and the poison gets more potent as you age. With time on your side, you can still command & control it (to an extent), re-do things, but as time goes by, it becomes your master and you no longer have the liberty of being what you once wanted to be and doing what you so truly dreamt of doing.

Recently, someone asked me, why I wasn't planning to study further, that so many in my family were so well "educated" and i ought to follow their footsteps. I looked at him, and said "why of course, I want to learn but I don't think an MBA or a Masters in a particular subject is the only way one can learn in life" So he said "yes, true, but for a living, you need to have degrees right? how about you pursue your interest in Economics?" to which I said, "correct, which is why I am planning on enrolling into a  baking course, for a diploma in patisserie" He looked at me as if he felt sorry for me and also for my parents. He kept stressing on how educated my father was and what dreams he might have for me. I just said, "yes true, I am sure my father will be happy if I am happy". Poor thing, in the end he gave up.

A younger me, say about 2-3 years back, would have felt really bad at myself after that conversation. But today, I feel bad for the other person. I feel bad for his boxed view of life and how he equates learning with obtaining "degrees" and what your resume says and how the fact that I am happy with what I have and where I am, seemed to shock him. For according to him, I should be "fulfilling my potential and my family's expectations". I was smiling throughout that conversation and for a long time after it.

They say, if you follow your heart, and be true to yourself, happiness and success will eventually be yours. With that belief in mind, I might take the plunge. There are various moments of unimaginable fear, but I am 25, if I don't do it now, I might never get another chance. Opportunities knock on your door once, twice and then they never come back. If you want something, you need to go out there and grab it and make it happen.  I can do a masters in economics, and I know that at some point in life, I will go do it as well. Not because I want a job in the Economic Times or the Financial Times, but just because studying that subject makes me happy. I've never wanted a career in economics, even when I  was studying it in college I just had a lot of fun studying it. I never picked the sub-subject that I didnt like (Regression), even though without it, an application to a masters in any Indian university would be rejected. But if I didn't enjoy it, I didn't want to do it. Period. It was easy to make decisions like those then, when you are still living with your parents and didn't have a rent or electricity bill to pay every month :) It's a little tougher today. But it's not impossible.

The book that I am reading currently, is a collection of letters from prominent Indian parents to their daughters. Letters of advise, letters that talk about going for your dreams, following your heart, about working hard, really hard, and of watching with pride as what you created with your hard work becomes successful. And how money does not define success. It might be an aspect of it, but how not all rich people are successful. But unfortunately, everything we do today or don't do has an underlying financial reason attached to it. It's so easy to slip from reality to idealism, and equally easy to snap back from idealism to reality :)

The other part of following your dreams, is in love. In both these scenarios, of the heart and the mind, there is a gut feeling about something or someone. A gut feeling that tells you, no this is not going to work. Or maybe something that tells you, yes, this is what I've been looking for. In love, as in your career and what you do for a living, there are loads of trial and errors, before you finally convince yourself to go for what you truly want. Someone recently told me, when I was frustrated because I wasn't finding pair of jeans, that fit me snugly, "One day you will find your dream pair" Love is like that. You could have met many loves in your life or maybe you were lucky enough to find the one in the first go!  When you know he/she is the one, then you just know. Every single breath in your body knows, the feeling makes you want to dance like no one is watching, makes you want to sing till your voice is hoarse, makes you want to smile, always, all the time. Someone else I was talking to, a friend who finally found the one she loved and was going against all odds (read : family) to make it work with him, told me that sometimes, when you meet that one person, you know, you just know. I am glad she is working to make it happen. Imagine, if you gave up on that? Imagine, if you decided that it was too big a risk to take. And you go the rest of your life thinking "what if". What if, this person was the one for you. What if life gave you a chance, what if it was almost like God telling you "ja jee le apni zindagi" and you wanted to run and grab it, but you stood rooted, too scared to take the risk that would make you happy?

Very few blessed ones have that courage, really. I don't know if I have it. But I want to have the belief that when life presents me with the opportunity, or opens a door for me, I will have what it takes to go for it. In love, in life.

There will come in a point in life: "Where you can't go forward, and you can't go backward, and you can't stay where you are without killing off something deep and vital in yourself, you are on the edge of creation." - Sue Monk Kid :  I want to be able to then create.

Paulo Cohelo once said or wrote, I don't remember which,  what we seek is seeking us. When it does find me and I find it, I hope I can forget everything and go live my passion.

In school, I was given this Richard Bach book : Jonathan Livingston Seagull : Oh what a book, I should read it again sometime. But what I really want to read is this other book of his, Illusions : The Adventures of a reluctant messiah, Good Reads shared a quote with me the other day from that book : You are never given a dream without also being given the power to make it happen.

So Dear God, when I realize one day what my passion is, may I have the courage to exercise the power to make it happen. May I not just exist, but truly live.

तेरी निगाहें, पा गयी राहें
पर तू यह सोचे, जाऊं ना जाऊं
यह ज़िन्दगी जो, हैं नाचती तो
क्यूँ बेड़ियों में हैं तेरे पाऊँ
प्रीत कि धुन पर, नाच ले पागल
उड़ता अगर हैं, उड़ने दे आँचल
काहे कोई अपने को ऐसे तरसाये .....