What makes you? Sounds silly? Really? Three questions and many answers. What do I mean ? Oh boy another question, where does it end ? You are right it never does. But one thing is sure it's easy to get lost in the process and give up as well. Why I am in this cranky mood is I have been trying to do a self-analysis of myself and reacting to those who have observed me over the last few months and trying to convince me, that I am a person of very different facets and function at many different levels trying to find an appropriate pattern to suite the occasion is a direct manifestation of my Bi Polar disorder. I deal with different situations differently depending on the circumstances, because that is probably the most comfortable method I know of but unfortunately this also ends up by creating a very confusing picture of my personality no doubt. The most common denominator and assumption is I use my personality exploitatively whereas I think it is a fundamental characteristic of mine to adopt to suite the environment so that I fit in but unfortunately compared to everybody else I end up standing out because of this adaptability.
Very confusing isn't it? Now I have fucking issues with questions! No I am serious I think I am not exploitative but more adaptive to the situation more than your average Joe who is around because I believe in one simple fact of life. All of us are born equal unfortunately circumstances play hell out of that equation and we end up where we are depending on them. Adaptability allows an advantage that very few schools and curricular teaches you in the broad sense of education. We are taught certain fundamentals and follow rigid criteria to evaluate success. The point we have missed is that first of all success in every endeavor while requiring a great deal of effort and hard work also needs a hell of a lot of luck. Being at the right place at the right time comes to mind but more importantly to know what to do at that time is something that all of us do not possess.
This ranting has distracted me from what I was trying to write about lady luck! Lady luck has a funny way of helping those who are willing to nudge her with some innovation and imaginative ploys. I remember a fine yarn that was spun to me as a kid by an elder to impress upon me the virtues of hard work and honesty and loyalty. A young boy was adopted by a wealthy family to serve in their estate. His job was to clean the kitchen after the Master and his entourage finished their dinner and wash up. He was paid in kind and was allowed to take the left overs to his family after finishing his work. The Master felt that a deed such as this would bring him good Karma as the traditional beliefs of that time went. After a few years the kind gentlemen gave the boy a piece of land and he became a farmer who paid his taxes like all peasants to the land owner, the kind gentlemen of course, and supposedly lived happily ever after. When I was an adult I checked on the practice of landowners and I realized that this was baloney. The suicide rate amongst farmers who couldn’t pay their loans and the mess that they got into trying to live of the land horrified me.
Further reading on the subject and a real story reported in my mother’s village goes thus. The arrangement the boy had with the “kind gentlemen” worked fine and dandy till the youngest daughter of the family was sent to school. Now she was sent to the best school in the area but was a dumb clut in every sense of the word. The only good thing that she learned a lot was while playing with the boy was in terms of the simple things the lad was used to such as ensuring that the free food he got was diligently given to his mother every day and he wouldn’t even take a morsel on the way home till it was served to the entire family etc., the values of sharing, kindness to animals, respecting nature, the simple things, that are so rare to find today. She used to show him her school books and the boy was quick to grasp and so started an unusual relationship to say the least. The boy learned fast and started teaching the girl! He was a natural and had the most important attribute in teaching, patience. The girl picked up and the school noticed that she was improving. Now the principal of the school was a smart cookie and he knew that the girl must be having some outside help to show such improvement! He decides to investigate and stumbled upon the fact that the boy was the reason. Now if the principal was decent he would have encouraged this and thought of recruiting the boy as a teacher. No! He told the father instead and the kind gentlemen promptly sacked the boy got the girl married off to some moron for a fat dowry and forgot about good karma!
