I had been pretty excited over the last few days about my upcoming summer assignment. I was allocated a fabulous M&A project in England with the Tata Group and was all set to fly this Saturday to London. I was looking forward to dive into the work quickly with all my visa, tickets, forex, trenchcoats and everything else in place. The excitment of the challenge and force of fresh aspirations had really kept me and everyone around me going over the last few days.
Then all of a sudden things turned around with one phone call last evening saying that some new permit rules have come into effect beginning 1st April 2008 and that the project will not materialise. There was no way to make it work now and I would have to settle for another assignment which didn't sound even half as exciting as this one. To be quite honest, my disappointment is hard to contain now. What seemed like a brilliant opportunity to compensate for some professional disappointments of the past slipped away in a second and I could do nothing about it.
I can't say that this is the first time I've felt this way; about being denied something I worked hard for and really wanted for myself, at the last minute. My professional pursuits more often than not have met with roadblocks like this, most of which I have little control over. But that's a separate story and not of relevance here.
The good thing about such events is that they are usually followed by a period of discussion, despair, anger and disappointment which is when someone comes up to you and shares a thought which tends to stay with you much beyond the disappointment. It could be an anecdote, a poem or anything else, but it usually gets internalised in a way that makes you understand life better and internally become a stronger human being; as someone who is more resilient to the ups and downs that life has to offer; as an individual who is more stable and calm in success and failure alike. It is this that compelled me to write this blog post.
This time it was a sher someone told me this morning, which so beautifully captures the truth about life. It isn't a rhetorical two-liner to cheer oneself up but it very succintly conveys a message that is essentially very deep, an explanation of life as it is, a meaning which even texts like the Bhagvad Gita try to convey. It goes like this -
Bhagti phirti thii duniya jab talab karte the hum
Jab se nafrat ki hai maine bekarar hone ko hai
The world evades you when you chase it, and falls at your feet when you refuse it.
Come back to this couplet when you are in an introspective, philosophical mood and you'd realise how much sense it makes.
Here's wishing everyone - Godspeed.
