The best is yet to come

“The best is yet to come”… I could make no sense of these words when first read them 5 years ago in my college. This is when we were searching for a quotation to be printed on the back side of the T-shirts we were planning to get made for the college dayschis (meaning, day scholars) and I came across this line… I liked the words but couldn’t get to the meaning. But today, having shuffled along on this mortal coil for twenty five years, I am finally able to comprehend the meaning and the essence of these lines.

I turned twenty five, today and realise that even by best averages of WHO more than one-fourth of my allotted time is over. And sometimes I feel now that there is a lot I shall never be able to do again:
- travelling in third class all alone without any reservations and still enjoying it (I have even travelled by local trains with the worst of the ppl who have never been told abt the word called ‘hygiene’ but it was still okay for me and dunno y some ppl create such a fuss about it)
- planning so many things about what u gonna become with equal number of backup options ranging from being in army, police, merchant navy, scientist, shaktiman (I was once obsessed with this super-hero….jo ghoomta hai aur gayab ho jaata hai… to be honest I still do), et al. And, infact, once I planned to become ‘all’ of the above stated in single life!!
- playing videogames samurai/atari for hours at a stretch…my schedule would not allow me now to spend time so lavishly… I particularly miss playing ‘age of empires’ during my CA articleship days in kolkata pwc while we were all connected to LAN and playing against each other even while sitting in different floors and supposedly working for different managers.
- eating oil-rich pudina parantha with all the possible rich gravy vegetables at the restaurants on a daily basis with a quantity that would be sufficient enough to serve the entire family with decent appetite. And after an hour I was ready for another voyage!! Now this furious passion of healthy food and salad days will surely kill my taste buds some day.
- driving at 140 kmph (that’s the highest I reached ever on delhi-chandigarh highway nearing karnal and sahil, my friend whose car I was driving…. he was just about to collapse had I not slowed down coz of the close brush I had with a speeding truck… as even I was zapped then…lol)
- falling in love with three girls at the same time (its easy actually when u had just moved from school to college and ur going to a nearby DDA sports club to play table tennis everyday… three places…three gfs…all disconnected…that’s the trick…. And ya…never involve ur friends when u doing such things… coz dat wld be vulnerable for u!! and one more thing…the term used is always love)

Times are a changing everyday. I no longer believe that I can change the world, but I am convinced that I can make a small part of it a better place before I depart. Career-wise I have realised my potential and if that has fallen short of the promise I made to myself, I have no regrets now. Ambition still remains but it is now a mentor and not a master; a force that motivates, not one that drives. I have that eye to weigh the rights and wrongs and to judge that two wrongs do not make a right. Enough smartness I have gained to save myself from professional politics…obviously haven’t been so old to play around with that.

I better comprehend today what love is, and its many manifestations. I know people leave for that is the law of nature, but i am content in the certainty that when they go something of me will go with them, and a lot more of them will remain behind. Friends have taken up an entirely new significance, and friendship has become a valuable possession that has to be carefully nurtured. In school/ college it was something I took for granted, old things could easily be discarded for the fresh ones. However, now I find it difficult to make new friends and have to make necessary adjustments to create any new friendship. It has more of become a business deal now. I would be nice to you only if I feel you are capable enough to give me back something. Old friendships have become much more precious now which have already adjusted to my idiosyncrasies, a comfort zone which I have created around myself.

There is a renewed hope, confidence and belief that was lacking earlier. Yes indeed, the best is yet to come and I would “grow” along!!