Opportunities and the Impact Of Choices – An Anecdote.

“You can only connect the dots backwards,” said Steve Jobs in his famous 2005 Stanford commencement address when talking about life.

Have you ever stopped to think how each of us is here today, right at this spot where we are right now, doing what we are doing in this instant, because of a myriad of things that happened at some point in the past? The environment we grew up in, the struggles we went through, the opportunities that life presented to us, the decisions we made in the face of choices, and, of course, the people who influenced us in life, all played a part.

Almost two decades ago, I was sitting in my room in a dingy lodge in a suburban area of Kochi – my abode for almost six months.

It was no luxury at ₹700 a month. The concrete floor was hard and cold, the noisy ceiling fan was barely running, and the two wooden cots on either side of the room meant I had to share that tiny room, and its attached bath cum toilet (sans any hot water), with a random stranger. It was what I could afford earning ₹3500 a month, taking CCNA classes at a local institute.

Sitting across me was Mohan, my co-occupant and who after a month or so of acquaintanceship, I considered a friend. He was a student studying a certification course at another local institute.

“Don’t do it! Take the offer,” he insisted.

Earlier that week, I had attended a local walk-in recruitment by a Bangalore-based Call Centre and was among one of the four people out of the initial four hundred-plus who walked out with an offer letter for the role of customer support associate in Bangalore.

However, I had graduated with an Engineering degree in Communications and like the rest of my fellow classmates dreamt of a job in one of the numerous mobile companies that had sprung up all over. BPL, Idea, Reliance Mobile (the ADAG group company that went bust), and BSNL, were all hiring engineering graduate trainees and while I was busy at my instructor job, my old classmates were bagging local jobs through walk-ins at every other mobile company. I attended this particular walk-in recruitment drive to gain interview experience, but now had an offer letter in hand.

I had thought over the offer for a day and was about to shred the offer letter into pieces and throw it in the dustbin when Mohan stopped me.

“But I’m sure I’ll probably get an interview call from Reliance soon when they start hiring graduate engineering trainees and if I crack that, then what’s the point of the call centre job?” I protested.

“Because opportunities don’t come every day. Destiny is giving you this choice now it didn’t give hundreds of others. Don’t throw it away” he told me.

I kept listening.

“You may not understand the value of lost opportunities but I do” he continued.

You see Mohan had a story of his too. He had dreams of being a movie star (did I mention he had the looks of one?) and two years earlier, in Chennai, had been picked by talent scouts and had made it to the final round of auditions, while still in his final year of college, for a movie that was looking for fresh faces to launch.

His father protested against taking it any further and asked him to wait a year till his graduation and then try again. He let go of that opportunity, never got a similar chance, and eventually gave up his dreams to pursue some technical certification that would help him find a job to keep afloat.

The pain in his voice, filled with so much regret, silenced me.

I took his advice and decided to take that job in a new city and state. I resigned from my teaching job a few days later, and later bid Mohan farewell, never to see him again.

That one decision changed the trajectory of my life – I moved to Bangalore, worked in that company that hired me for six months and later got a great job offer at a fast-growing software company where I built my career. I travelled to a dozen countries and later studied abroad. The universe it seemed had opened its doors to me, all those years ago, with that choice it offered.

Had it not been for Mohan, I’d probably have found a job in one of the telecom companies in Kochi, stayed in that city all my life, and may have never known what I missed in life.

I stand where I am today because of a choice I made in the face of an opportunity that I almost turned my back on, had it not been for the words of someone I had known only a short while.

If you ever read this one day, thanks a lot, Mohan, I don’t know where you are today and I only hope your life turned out great twenty years on. You taught me something valuable that day that I won’t forget.

***

Oh, and before I conclude this post, perhaps it is worth mentioning why that old friend of mine regretted his decision so much. The audition for which he almost made it was for one of the leads in a Tamil movie that was released in 2003.

The name of the movie was “Boys”.

If that name doesn’t ring a bell, it was the runaway hit of that year which launched the careers of future stars such as Siddharth, Genelia, and Bharat.

Opportunity knocks but once they say.

Cherishing the Life of a Dear Departed..

A week ago, a group of 30 odd trekkers got trapped in a raging inferno that resulted in the death of 14. Among those who lost their lives, was one of the finest friends I made during my Warwick days – Nisha Tamiloli.

Nisha was a hale and hearty girl who lived life to the fullest. ­

She was an immensely likeable person who radiated positivity and attracted friends like a human magnet. A perpetual smile adorned on her lips, and despite having strong opinions, she held malice towards none. She was an epitome of the strong, independent modern Indian woman – the kind of woman, other women always looked up to.

Nisha was also among the most supportive friends I ever had– she was among the first to congratulate me when I ventured into writing and among the first to buy my debut book. She was the one who gave me the confidence to go solo on stage when I first did a solo guitar and harmonica gig at an English pub during our university days, and her friendship was among the very few meaningful ones that I made during my university days that stood the test of time.

Nisha’s violent and sudden death (a result of the 100% burns she sustained while still trying to save others trapped in the fire) was a shock that I’m slowing coming to terms with, and I can only imagine the amount of torment her parents, her lone sister and her other near and dear ones would’ve gone through.

Think of somebody close to you – somebody who is vibrant, universally loved, and in the pink of health, dying an agonizing death, without any warning. Undoubtedly, that is the kind of passing away that leaves people far more devastated than any natural death.

A memorial service was held for Nisha, last Saturday evening, in Chennai, which I too chanced to attend.

The gathering, held on the terrace of my late friend’s home in Chennai, was attended by about 100 people – close family, friends and neighbours – including many who were from out-of-station.

While I had attended memorial services in the past (though, coming from a Christian family, these were mostly Christian services), most of the times, these are somber affairs in which a priest (or some respected elder) comes and presides over a prayer meeting in which people sit together, sing a few hymns, read scriptures, say a few prayers, followed by a speech- usually about how everybody is meant to pass away someday and how that departed soul would be in heaven. Being the grave event that such events are, there is hardly a smile, or a happy moment shared at that time.

But this time it was different.

One of the things that made Nisha’s memorial service stand out was that its simplicity – the event was devoid of any overt religious symbolism, ritualistic prayers or overbearing preachers.

There was a tiny pavilion assembled on the terrace under which a projector was set up to show images of various little prized moments of Nisha’s life –  pictures from various treks, pictures from her tours around the world, her graduation day, and her marathon runs among others.

A local 3-member band, apparently Nisha’s favouite, fronted by violinist Karthick Iyer (ostensibly of friend of hers too) also dropped by to play a 20-minute long instrumental tribute – some soulful, beautiful music.

Once the band had left, everyone huddled together and decided to share their personal stories and anecdotes from Nisha’s life.

In the hour and half or so that followed, people talked about their favourite personal anecdotes which Nisha was a part of – it was evident that she had left a lasting impression on many lives.

Each of the testimonies were spontaneous, genuine and heartfelt – it wasn’t a prepared show put on for namesake.

Along with the others, I shared my own stories of her –  about how we met first and how I failed to recognize her in a rather awkward but funny moment during our first day on campus, and how during a lonely Christmas eve in the UK, she took the effort of arranging a memorable Christmas evening for a few of us.

Everybody’s stories evoked smiles and occasionally laughter – even in that sad atmosphere.

Each testimony shed a small light on Nisha’s vibrant personality. In fact, I learnt a handful of things about her that I had not known in our seven years of friendship.

Towards the end, a 10-minute video (mixed with a music track she loved) that showcased more stills from her life and the video testimonials of a few friends who couldn’t make it for the event were shown and everybody stood up for a few minutes of silence in her memory before finally parting ways.

Nisha had made a difference to the lives of many, and that’s what eventually mattered. While her physical presence may no longer be felt in this world, her memories would live on in countless lives she touched in small ways.

So why was I compelled to write this post about something very personal to me, you might ask.

If it’s not evident still, here is why:

When a someone passes away, it is true that it brings inconsolable grief and sorrow to that person’s loved ones. But trapped in that circle of grief and gloom, there’s one thing that we often forget – to celebrate that person’s life and to cherish his/her memories.

We get caught in a cycle of ritualistic mourning ceremonies – carried out as a social or religious norm more than anything else – devoid of any real purpose. In many of our communities, eulogies (if you can call them that) are cliched impersonal lines mumbled by some elder or person of authority, who barely had any personal connection with that person who passed away.

This was the first time that I witnessed a meaningful memorial gathering. People who gathered and spoke were the ones who were touched by my late friend in some way or the other and there were dozens of them.

Her parents and family members probably wouldn’t have known so many things about her had it not been for that little gathering.

While the voices that spoke probably would not have lessened the grief of the mourning family, it would have given them consolation, and maybe even a tinge of pride in the fact that the one they lost was loved and had made a difference to so many lives and that echoes of their own loss were also felt genuinely among others.

Life isn’t fair and often the best of the ones we love leave far before their time.

But even in the face of such tragic events there is something we shouldn’t forget – that despite our grief and mourning, we shouldn’t refrain from reflecting and celebrating a dear departed’s life and the difference it made to our own.

 

RIP Nisha, you will be missed…

 

.. If I had only tried.

 

Though I exercised a good amount of artistic license when I published my first book, Kaleidoscopic Lives, almost three years ago, the fact of the matter is that most of the stories were inspired from real life, including the one about a German housemate I once lived with.

Axel, at that time was 53 years old and had just finished the 1st year of his undergraduate degree in mathematics – sitting with students one third his age. He was slightly eccentric but nevertheless serious about wanting to graduate and used to study diligently.

While he never revealed too much about his youth, one of the few things he told me was how he could never attend college when he wanted to and he had literally spent more than 20 years of his life just fixing and supervising the installation of window panes (some way to spend the best years of your life, huh?). However, at some point Axel decided he was going to take action.

He quit everything and went back to college.

I’m sure he was faced with enough ridicule, scepticism and whatnot. And yet he just did what he wanted to in the end. And he didn’t make excuses – he didn’t say he was too old to learn (think of somebody who never went to college going to study mathematics at 53), he didn’t say he didn’t fit in with the crowd (he sat among giggling 18 year olds who looked at him like a grandpa), he didn’t let his physical limitations come in the way (he was a chronic asthmatic, and had frequent rheumatic pains) and lastly, he didn’t say he didn’t have money either. He bought clothes from Primark at discounts, cooked every meal himself after buying his meat and groceries from the most economic stores, and lived in an rented room for 70 pounds a week – all in order to ensure he lived as frugally as possible to fulfil that little dream of a college degree.

Once I asked him, what he planned to accomplish after getting his degree. He had his plans for that too..

“I will one day open a school for pure sciences… no sociology and all that bullshit, just pure science”.

I’ll never meet Axel again, I’m quite certain. He seldom used emails apart from his college one, had no social media presence and the number he used would’ve been discarded as soon as he left town.

So why am I posting this today? A colleague of mine who quit work after 14 years reminded me of him.

We often get drowned in the noise of our surroundings, living from day to day, doing what we often don’t enjoy because we need that paycheck at the end of the month. We are often afraid to stop because there are a million reasons not to – EMIs, rent, school fees for kids and a million other expenses.

And we continue on as our days turn into weeks, weeks into months and months into years.

We move from our twenties to our thirties, and then to our forties, and afterwards to our fifties, and before you know it, the best years of our life are over.

Of course, we may have grown up kids by now and we can always say that we ‘sacrificed’ our life for theirs. But then that’s what every generation says to the next, isn’t it?

Dont’ be surprised if our children live our lives all over again and say that to their children too.

What we really do is that we effectively shift our lives in our mid-twenties to autopilot and then let the years drift by. We never break out of our comfort zones, or take risks when we could and we camouflage our inaction as family responsibility or something else.

Of course, the fact that we started a family knowing all underlying responsibilities involved, doesn’t matter. And we stay oblivious to the fact that there are people who successfully manage a family life and still do everything they want to (no wonder all the top 3 billionnaires in the world are family men).

Not all of will become a Bill Gates or a Warren Buffet or Jeff Bezos, but then again, we’d never know if we didn’t even try.

So what are you doing as you read this? Would you be happy doing the same thing or something similar 10 years from now? If not, did you plan out when you are going to stop?

Coming back to my old pal Axel. I have no clue how he will spend the rest of his days. He might succeed and start that school, or he might fail miserably. But there’s one thing I’m sure of – the time he’s on his deathbed, he’ll atleast have that comforting thought – that he tried.

Life may not have worked out the way we expected it to, it almost never does. But don’t let that stop you from trying. Don’t let your fears and insecurities stop you from trying.

After all, when your time is up, the last thought on your mind shouldn’t be, “… I wonder how things would have turned out… if I had only tried”.