When I joined College I knew what I
had to do to succeed .I knew what topics to study and what were the
marking schemes in each subject .So all
I had to do was to get down into the
“formula “ of cracking the exam .And in my second year ,I even managed to “top”
my college !! But I soon realized that life is not a formula
.The unfortunate thing and in the very essence of it ,is like a Agatha Christie
movie .!! You don’t know till the end who the murderer is inspite of having
clues that point overwhelmingly in a particular direction !! In life there is
no core curriculum .The entire curriculum is elective.
The paths are infinite and the results
uncertain.This uncertainity is the cause of great anxiety ,because we have
always been taught in school and college about formulas which guarantee
achievement and results .But remember
that College ,School,University is something you complete and achieve in
tangible terms –marks sheets and those horrible looking Degrees which I think
is the most democratic idea of the world (apart from death ),-the idea that all
men and women are equal .Its like a fool telling another person “ See both of
us have got degrees and hence both of us are equal !! We are on the same page !!
But life
is not a college degree which you achieve and complete .Life is something you
experience .You learn from experience to
live with a amputated leg or a tumor inside your stomach ,brain or lungs .You
learn from experience how to live after a tempestuous one night stand with
someone else –only to realize that you
have not let down your partner –but yourself because he/she thinks you are
loyal to him /her.You learn to live with the fact that your colleague who sprinkles sugar and honey on you in private ,goes and deviously tattles to dumb bosses who think that “psychophacy” is
art and one should have it .And then think you are inferior !!You learn to live
with lots of money and then reflect that there is something called wastage and that something is horribly wrong somewhere
that makes you “diet”, when millions are dying of hunger .
You also
learn to live with failures .You realize that you failed in the IAS exams
because you were never good at taking those kind of exams –but took them because others expected
you to take them .You realized that you failed because as a fish your strength
was swimming –but you were trying to climb a tree !! You realize that failure
was a friend because it kept telling you “don’t go there –you wont like it ,go
there –the other way”!!
More
importantly life teaches you what the great Roman philosopher said
“As is a tale, so is life:
not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.”
Kulbhushan Kain
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