Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Just-Like-That

Life is about challenges, we all know. Life is also about  choices. In most of the cases its often seen that whatever challenges we meet in our lives are dependent on the type of choices we make. Yesterday(6/3/13) was an 'unusually' ordinary day. Ordinary in the sense, there was no extra ordinariness in it viz. following the daily schedule of running around, attending classes and searching for materials for my seminar paper from here and there. But two incidents made it unusual. The first one was about a choice. A choice that was long impending. A' choice' (read 'decision') of ending a relation that was only causing 'hurt'-aches for quite a long time. Probably, I could have prevented that. Probably I could have argued, could have pleaded, could have talked more, could have waited for some more time,(just like I have did time and again). But I didn't. I made a choice of accepting the verdict. Because somewhere down the line I was relieved. I was relieved of the tension I was subjected to for days I have lost count of. At the same time I know from my heart that this feeling of numbing pain for losing someone who was so close to you is temporary. In the long run, it would save both of us from the guilt of hurting each other and ruining the friendship we both held dear. Its better to move away when it was getting dirtier each passing day. I was prepared to face the challenge then :)

The second incident that made my day quite 'unusual' was not related to any choice and challenge.
Its about a discovery. In my quest of searching primary materials for one of my seminar papers I landed in the central secretariat library at New Delhi. Suddenly, while going through my much-sought Commission Report of 1990, I looked up at the racks that were surrounding me. I could see numerous files and reports of different years, some on urbanization, some on slum clearance, some on rehabilitation and housing programs from 1950s onwards etc. I know it sounds very boring! But what seemed remarkable to me is that interestingly, I had heard of these reports and the debates on them from newspapers and footnotes of history textbooks. But for the first time I was using these  documents on my own! The red binding, the yellowish pages and the typed minutes of the Commission Reports gave me a different feeling , which was completely alien to me. No doubt  I was exhilarated.
Hoping for a productive day with this Bob Dylan song