I believe it was the movie 3 Idiots that sparked the national creativity in imagination for the first time. The first time people/kids on the brink of choosing their career paths started debating for the first time if they wanted to fall into the cosy moulds set by their parents or take the plunge into fields of their dreams – fields they genuinely loved and wanted to make a name in. Unfortunately for me, when I was old enough to say T.V. my father decided to turn it 180 degrees – yeah, literally! The cable connection had been cut and the television showed whatever pixels it had to the wall that it faced now – strange house, i know right?! And my father considered going to the theatres a sin anyway, so that’s that, the three idiots revolution reached our hallowed family quite late – so late that I had been brainwashed and well stuck in the sinkhole to be a doctor.
I don’t regret it – trust me, I don’t. There is no other place I feel I could fit in than a hospital is what I feel on most days, but then, there are days when I realise as the great Ranchhoddas Shyamaldas Chanchad of fabled 3 Idiots and so many stalwarts following in his footsteps have said – when you do something you love, even your job wouldn’t feel like a job – that is when I ponder. . because honestly, this doesn’t come to me effortlessly. The motivation to study is something that is effortless because I love reading books, but medical books? that requires effort. The motivation to go to hospital and be there 24×7 working in the wards in effortless, but immersing myself in petty hospital politics? that requires effort. Who said that just because you love something it won’t require effort? Trust me since I was a baby I have always known I will be a doctor someday, but now when I am a doctor, continuing in this path is requiring a hell lot of effort.
People love to see prefixes. People are always people – they will appreciate you for your honey-combed words and everything that you put on as a sweet, sweet garb – but the day you decide to show them the real you? You become too much for them.
I have made my peace though – I have realised that I will have my days – my days of confusion, my days of wanting to take the easy way out of everything, my days of sheer frustration of being a part of the system that is so, so, so bloody mind-numbing, my days of knowing that I have to again face an entrance exam that will decide my future in a day, an exam for which I am having to lock down my skills in a box and hone the rat race creature within me. . . but somehow I feel, you can either try to change it or be a part of it.
I kept my head down and accepted everything for 20 years. I kept my head high and resisted everything and everyone for 5 years. Now that I am 25, I have made my peace. I have learnt to flow with time, space and circumstances. I have learnt a lot – from my mistakes in people and pride – at believing that good things happen to good people. Yes it might be, but not until good people make good efforts for these good things. I have always excelled professionally, whereas I have been a failure in personal. Somehow my grandiose thoughts of how interpersonal relationships should be have marred whatever I have attempted to create or people that had made efforts to be with me. I believed that if it’s meant to be, it will be – WRONG! How can something be without conscious effort on your part? I have been the worst judge of humans, the flawed judgement skills that has been passed down to me accompanied by my rebelliousness created a heady cocktail that downed my early twenties – which I am, to be honest, in retrospective, quite grateful for. For how do you explain becoming something – unless you have been through everything that happened to you? I do feel broken on the inside, but I would not change a bit of it – because somehow my flight for air has rewarded me with pleasure and pain that I had never known in my sheltered life before. Yes, I have cried a lot – but then why shouldn’t I? Like the great Dr. Jehangir in Dear Zindagi said – “Agar aap khul ke ro nahi sakte, toh aap khul ke has bhi nahi paogey” (or something close. Forgive me, I am all filmy but I don’t remember dialogues perfectly)
I have rambled for a quite a long time now. I can’t remember why I started writing this post – but I won’t edit or try to make it look crisp and well-written, because that is what I aspire to be from now on – unedited. Raw, real and rough on the edges. I could live my life trying to fit into social dictum, banging my head on the wall questioning why the world works the way it does – why is life so harsh, people so mean, why do people love certain people, why do I always land into scrapes but nahhh. . . what’s the fun in that? I have learnt to breathe and take life in as it comes. To accept whatever comes my way, learn from it only if it is necessary, experience if it wants to be experienced and let go before it steals a part of me like everyone before. I might sound selfish, but now at quarter life crisis I heck as well deserve the liberty to care about myself. I can’t stumble around wondering why I am too much or too less for people anymore. What is, is and what has to happen, well, will work it out – might as well enjoy the ride.
Adios.
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