The silence has been deathly on the blog front for a while now. Not that I’m delusional enough to think that anyone was waiting for my next with BATED breath. (Still, one hopes)
Not that anything even mildly exciting, anything of the least import transpired. Yes, sometimes even I wonder why I blog.
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I started work again about two weeks back. And this after a six month long sabbatical the better part of which was spent inanely chasing a wild goose, an impossible dream. But that’s not the point. (Bygones, to quote Richard Fish) .The highlight (if any) of my re-integration into the working population of our great nation is the changing of tracks- my joining an NGO after purely capitalistic pursuits, after four years of engineering and two years with a software major. (“Lucy, you got some ‘splainin to do”, as Desiree Arnaz would put it).
Thankfully, my parents spared me the whys and the wherefores (well, at least the whys and the wherefores were not gone into ad nauseam) - they were just over the moon because I was making myself useful (according to my dad, wasting youthful energy is criminal- an act warranting Puppy Manohar’s “Linear execution”). But a close relative (whom I generally admire for his wisdom and prudence) lectured that community service is something that retired people pursue in the autumn of their lives, after amassing wealth and wallowing in materialistic pleasures (or is an antidote to “affluenza” induced ennui). Well, I chuckled, finally something that I’m too young to do.
But seriously, it would be spiffy to have a ready reckoner of these rules. Every time someone throws the book at me, I only smile sheepishly and bury my choicest retorts in incoherent mumbling noises. Really, is there a “Big Fat Book of Life’s Rules”? Is that where I would find the rule about age, sex, caste, creed, nationality, race, colour, religion, weight, bank balance and what have you determining and cordoning off your options in life? Or that one about Indian parents hitting the panic button when their daughter reaches a particular age? Or the one which says that you can’t work for an NGO because you are an engineer? Or that one about birth, marriage and death being the only milestones worth attaining in a person’s life?
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Passion and dedication. These have been the motifs of my life for the last two weeks. Well, not my life, per se (drifter that I am), for I’m only an innocent bystander, a mute audience member to the spectacle of the extraordinary work executed by ordinary people- people who dazzle me by the sheer brilliance of their efforts, people who reach sublime heights through their actions, people who embody passion and dedication. And it’s not as if they are social outcasts, or corporate refuse or losers without direction. Some have left cushy jobs for the causes they believe in, some who probably worked very hard to get into Indian “Ivy League” colleges and gave it all up for unenviable jobs and then some who have left their families in lands far away to serve strangers in another country.
There’s Di, Conifer’s and my dream English teacher. Di’s commitment to her work takes my breath away. The rapport she shares with the kids she teaches and their families touches a chord. And she’s young, funny, intelligent and wonderful company. The kids adore her. And I’m a gushy groupie.
There’s Wunderkind, a minor celebrity of sorts. But he’s so unassuming and down to earth that you are instantly comfortable around him. And I’m jealous of his clarity and focus. He’s only a few years older than I, but reaching his level of wisdom is something I can only aspire to. I have the greatest respect for him.
These have been the superstars of the fortnight. And I’m sure there will be more in time.
