For as long as I can remember, it has been an urge for every single child, including myself, I have ever observed to “grow up”. The feeling of independence, security, your loved ones depending on you is one that has been exhilarating to every single child in the world. The number of children on earth is the same as the number of metrics that have been employed by children globally to measure if they have matured.
Me, being no exception, had my own metric to figure this truth out. The metric for me, owning a mobile phone. I know, it is very derivative, looking at your father talking shop at home, businessmen on the television and lovers on the street, it was kind of a weird concept, but yeah, I figured, I will consider myself to be a grown up when I had my own cell phone.
I lived through school looking at brats, feeling envious, thinking to myself that they had somehow grown up faster than I did, despite of the missing testosterone hints that I was lucky to have at an age earlier than said brats. After I passed school, came time for joining a graduation course. “Engineering is a great field, with prospects open across the world for an engineer” was the general consensus. Hence, engineering it was.
The college being far from home, called for a little idea in my head; “Is this the right time for me to demand the thing that I’ve been yearning for? After all, amidst all the clothes and shoes, it would get camouflaged”. I mustered up the courage, and went up to my father and said with all the fake confidence in the world, “Dad, I should have a phone too. The college is pretty far, we don’t know when I would need it”.
My father smirked at me, almost in contempt, yet with sheer love said “Let’s go get you a phone”. I was excited beyond comprehension. We went to the store, looked at the possible options and picked up a handset most suited to my needs, it had a camera and the ability to connect to the internet. It is almost funny that I never considered the answer to the question the shopkeeper asked me next, “Which network connection do you want?”. I was dumbfounded. With no idea of what the best would be, I stood there like a mannequin.
My father, yet again came to my rescue. “An Idea connection, I’ve heard that it’s working phenomenally these days”. Both the adults agreed to the notion, and the first ever mature moment I had in life was when I owned a cell phone, with an Idea connection in it. Now that I’ve actually matured, I understood, the notion of owning the cell phone was only a proxy to what my actual metric of being a “grown-up” was, the ability to make my own decisions. And boy, did I make that one!
Now that I had the phone, in order to make my grown-up self’s ego satisfied, all I had to do was talk on the phone. There was one problem with that, I had very less friends, and the ones I had, were more interested in playing basketball as compared to talking on the phone. Lucky for me, I was one of those people who loved basketball too. As college life progressed, the intersection of the Venn diagram of people who played and were my friends became larger, but the region of those who called me was still pretty small.
However, a moment I will never forget was the phone call I got from a college senior. “Vibhu? Yes, sir? You’ve been called for trials tomorrow at 2 PM”. As ecstatic as I was, this was no time for jitters, I had been part of trials before, being a national level player, I was used to it. However, earlier in 2013, I partially tore the ACL, MCL and medial meniscus in my right knee, and yes, the injury is just as grave as it sounds.
This type of injuries has quite an adverse effect on athletes, rendering careers ended abruptly or limiting their ability while performing. However, the call for the trial made me forget all about this occurrence. I had been working hard, playing 3 hours a day, working out for a position on the team, and sure enough, it all paid off, with a cherry on top. Post the first tournament, owing to the exceptional performance of our team, the coach decided to name a new captain for the team, a freshman, named Vibhu Vyas.
This was most certainly an ideal (pun intended) outcome for all my effort, and this is something I intend to translate throughout my life!