Saving Private Charu
It was a good day. I was wrapping up things one day before my flight to Delhi. I was brimming with joy for I was to start a new journey at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi. After a good phase of my crazy schedule of assignments, deadlines, non-stop pilgrimage to relatives and 11 times the ‘one last night out with friends ‘, I finally managed to get some peace. But sadly, peace and I have a complicated relationship. My phone buzzed and my future batchmate from IIFT asked me what kind of dress was I getting for the Freshers’ party. And that’s when it hit me. Not only did I forget about the Freshers’ party but also I was short of a full business formal blazer and pant pair. Suddenly the scene of my house shifted from being a Rajshree Productions’ to Speilberg’s Saving Private Ryan. But this time it was titled Saving Private Charu.
It was already 6 O’ clock in the evening and I started panicking as we lived quite in the outskirts and it would take another one and a half hour to reach the main market area. However, luckily for me, for every Private Ryan there is always a Captain Miller. As I was wondering what to do my mother returned home from the More store. And that’s when I found my Captain Miller- Van Heusen. I googled the nearest store timings and sighed with relief knowing that it was open for another two hours. Without wasting a second I jumped into my car with my mother and drove straight to the store. Upon reaching the store I was surprised with its wide collection of formals as well as party wear dress. The blazer, pant and shirts fit me perfectly well and did not need any kind of alteration. I was also delighted to find the perfect dress for my Freshers’ party that went with my comfort yet elegant sense of style. Once again Captain Miller aka Van Heusen saved his Private Ryan.
It was a good day for sure.
And the journey goes on…
Post my graduation I decided not to sit for the placements but start preparing for the mother of all exams- the Indian Civil Services Exam. While my friends were enjoying the time of their lives, partying, meeting new people, visiting new places and making new friends, I was busying myself with the sessions of world history, geography, economics and what not. When people were watching ‘Lakho mein Ek’ on Amazon Prime, life was scripting my own show in reality. For four years I made every sincere effort to clear the exam. I attended classes, took extra tests to evaluate myself, all this while tasting the dusty streets of Jaipur’s Lal Kothi area being that one among the four lakh aspirants thinking I would make it into the 0.002% of conversion rate.
However, things didn’t pan out the way I wanted. After four grueling years of preparation I decided to call it quits. The decision left my family, especially my father, very disappointed. Suddenly from someone with high ambitions in life I became a person with no purpose. I felt an empty void inside of me. I felt no joy in doing anything. Some days I would lay awake all night, on others I would sleep for more than 15 hours. Due to this my work at the office also suffered. I was being absent minded all the time. To make matters worse I even got bitter towards my own best friends who were doing really good in their profession.
Things could have gone even further south had it not been for a simple wisdom I got from a chance encounter. I was taking a few screenwriting workshops. There I was introduced to a concept of Helicopter approach to deal with writer’s block. Whenever a writer would feel stuck at some idea about his protagonist’s journey he would try to see the larger picture and understand whether his idea worked at the larger level. Simply put it asked him to see a bigger picture and understand that the hero’s journey did not need to get stuck at one place. It’s a journey after all. Though it was something I had heard innumerable times before, the moment of realization happened only then. I realized that we all are having our hero’s journey where there will be villains and cheerleaders all the time. We just need to keep working, try out new things in life and enjoy whatever comes along. My failure in one exam did not affect my identity, rather I was glad that I had the opportunity to learn so many things which otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to. On my way back home I was finally ready for a new plot in my hero’s journey.
