Just threw caution to the wind!

Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

My father was a great man. The odds and circumstances for him were always never in his favour, may it be through his childhood days or during the course of his education or during his working days. Basically nothing was ever certain for him. However, he had always faced his adversities head on and emerged a definite winner, in my eyes at least! The impact on his personality on my mother and my lives was very interesting.

He was very risk averse. His trust in the triumph of effort and spirit over adversity had diminished over time. He always was on the guard; be it from the good things or the bad. This impacted our life in the sense that everything that was happening in our life was always the safest, or rather, the most convenient option available. We always looked out to being "safe and secure."

This attitude of being "safe and secure" manifested in my life in a very peculiar manner. I was sent to  a school that I am sure was way out of the budget of a family with similar financial dispositions. The course that I would be making a choice to be graduating in was very carefully deliberated. The summer workshops I would go to were very well thought out and pre-decided. The sports I was involved in were very strongly advised and advocated for. The people I would hang out with was carefully scrutinised. All the things I would do; basically everything was thought out, weighed out and the "safe and secure" option was chosen. All the above might seem to any person to be manifestation of a very caring and wonderful parent. Yes, you are completely right on that disposition. But, I write to tell you why I want to break away from that school of thought. This is not meant to be a critique of whether what my father chose for me was right or not; nor I am cribbing about how life has turned out to be for me. I just want to explain why I am not him. Why I make the choice to break to away! 

See, when I look back at whatever has happened, his choices I describe above have had their unique impacts. The school was chosen because he wanted me to have a brand value on my profile. The graduation choice of getting into law school was made for two reasons: One, that a job in the suit and tie dungeons[the fabled corporate world] would be of easy access and two, the course of life and the progress would be fairly certain and not riddled with uncertainties. Everything that was chosen was basically to guarantee a very safe future with the least possible number of risks.

Then, came along the year of 2009. An introvert with his father entered the corridors of law school. He was for the first ever time being let to wander away far from the mother ship. He was going to be in a different city altogether, living on his own, fending for himself! I was to say the least, very excited. Not for the fact that I was getting that fabled 'freedom' in my life, but instead I was for the first time being allowed to make my own choices, something that I had not done too often before. 

Law School was a beautiful journey. A life changing one, I must admit.

The first year was spent just taking in the sights of the world. Meeting people. Doing whatever I chose to do. I thoroughly exploited the opportunity. I used to try and please everyone. I used to take any damn activity that pleased. I started drinking then too. I was fascinated at what the world had in store for me. I entrenched myself in the Sports Committee. The people and the activities of that group were just too interesting for me. I started meeting people who were( and still are) some incredible human beings. Some were just super human, almost gods in my eyes. There is a term used to describe such humans in colleges: Studs! At the end of the year I was, more or less,still that same kid who had walked in a year ago; albeit with the awareness of what the world out there had in store. I was dreaming like crazy. I wanted to be a stud. I had decided that it was what I was going to do; BE A STUD!

Second year came along. Yes, I walked in wanting to do whatever it takes to be a stud! Then, a small stumbling block came along. I did not know what being a stud meant. Or even how one went about to be a stud. I was basically confused. I did a lot of stupid things. Rubbed too many people the wrong way. It was then that I for the first time felt a sense of self loathing. The winter break that year was spent regrouping myself. I still wanted to be a stud, no kidding. But, I thought that two activities should take me there. First, was quizzing. My college housed some real legends in the Indian quizzing circuit. I started working hard towards become a good quizzer. I truthfully put in my efforts towards that. Second, was mooting. I started mooting vociferously. It was that activity which certified your legal acumen and your reputation as an alpha in law school. The results of this exercise was interesting, frankly speaking! My quiz team was pretty prominent in college and we were being noticed  in the local circuits slowly, but surely. I did two moots. The first one was a disaster. The second one I won! The takeaway from this year was different than the previous. I realised the value of a personality. I realised that the USP of any individual is his personality. Though not explicitly, I started understanding the value of building on certain personality traits like determination, effort, integrity, etc. I rather believed that mooting and quizzing as the reason to improve my personality. 

During the second year break, I had decided that I am going to just quiz and 'chill' in my third year. I thought I will make do with a few goals, for which I shall go all out to achieve. There were a set of quizzes that I wanted to triumph at. I just set about life. I was doing nothing. Just whiling away time. Taking life by the day. Then, one day, in the corridor of the college, a batchmate of mine who I always felt was different,in the sense that we could never really find a common cause to bond or interact over. We were very different and peculiar personalities. He walked up to me and asked me if I wanted to join him for a parliamentary debate that was happening the following week. I was surprised that the guy actually asked me that. For one I never thought that he would be asking me to team up with him for anything and also that I had never really debated and done any sort of impromptu public speaking before and the one time I did try doing that I had crashed and burned like the LZ29 Hindenberg. That being said, I really had nothing on my plate at that moment, so I thought it would be no harm in going ahead with it. Cut to the debate, I actually had a lot of fun at the debate, just speaking random gibberish and going around doing nothing. It felt very liberating for some reason. To add to the mix, we were among the top 16 teams at the debate and we made some cash as prize money! It was the heady cocktail of the above factors and the general atmosphere of PDs that instantly drew me to them. Thus, began the tryst with PDs in my life.

I wanted to become the best debater that there was. I started doing the ritual. I picked up the philosophy staples. I started reading extensively. I do not mean books here. I just scoured the internet to read anything that was in the news. I was introduced to many outlets of news.I was hooked on to say the least; hooked on to the news aspect of it; amazed by the producers/presenters of this news; fascinated by the news makers themselves. I started grappling with the anthropological aspects of the world and making an effort to align myself with political ideologies and the associated acts. I stumbled on to documentaries and various 'propaganda' materials that were floating around like space debris in the space of the internet. I was awestruck upon seeing the impact the actions of a single man could have on the outcome of the world. I just felt a shiver run through my core every time that I read about something significant. I understood that was what I always wanted to be. I wanted to be the person who changed the world.

Now, this was clear in my mind. I realised what was my ultimate objective, so to say in life was. The next challenge was understanding how I am going to achieve that. I buckled down, started an introspection to find out what my personality is like. I started discovering that I was very good at implementing things. I used to dream and I used to somehow convert it into reality. I was though not very good at handling people. I used to expect them to be on board with my idea of doing something. I always was too passionate about the cause. I used to put a lot of pressure on people. I strongly believed in letting the child learn the skill by throwing him in the deep end of the pool. I used to start hating the person when they did not deliver as expected. This happened everywhere. I had to control this. I started looking at how I should leverage my positives and hedge my negatives. I realised that I was different. If the spectrum of the world was a football team, I realised I was the deep-lying playmaker of the team. If we were all in a band, I would be the bassist. Never at the forefront, never the poster child, but an inextricable spine of the body. 

All this fluff was fine when having a stoned conversation with my best boys, but I had work out how I going to work this into the real world. I was fortunate to have a chance encounter with a retired diplomat, an IFS officer. He was a legend in his circuits, not in the open media though. I spent three days around that man. I was in rapt attention listening and digesting every word the man spoke. I was amazed by him. I realised that I wanted to be him. He and his life had been something that brought that chill in core. I understood this is what I should do. I made the choice. I gave up the comfortable option. I chose to leave the nest, the "safe and secure" nest that my father had so lovingly tried to create. I gallantly stepped into the land of the uncertain. I felt very right while making this choice. I never had a single moment of doubt whether I was doing the right thing. I chose to break away.