REALISATION

"No appeal can lie against an order of conviction from a plea of guilty..."… those lines were more than enough to make me feel groggy. That line, well imprinted in the code of criminal procedure years ago, was one of those that would impress the examiner about my knowledge and memory skills in that subject and it was just one of those thousand lines that I had been reading since morning. Wasn`t it enough for the day? Was I trying to exceed the limits to which an average human brain could swallow in matter to reiterate the next day, or was it that those grey cells were tired, not of working, but of the mere realization that they had repeatedly been tormented for the past so many years during specific periods, to swallow, digest, but not to excrete what was fed, for excretion would definitely mean a loss to its master, but not make an iota of difference to them. The verbal replacement for excrete would be reiterate.......for reiteration would mean some success. So those poor masses of proteins selfishly opted for the former option... to loose out on the feeding, so that another of those cells would direct my brains to shut that book and not resist the most tempting urge in the world.... SLEEP.

Somewhere deep in my heart I knew that the unfinished portion was known to me, for the very fact that it had been done once before, but the brains up there didn’t allow me to think so, these two organs were in a constant conflict of superiority whereby finally, in my case, the one that beats until death, gained supreme.

As I lay on bed with my eyes wide open, staring at the fan rotating above at full speed, unable to sleep immediately, a thought crossed my mind, which asked;

“Why do you struggle so hard with those books..?."

“Why do you study hard, for whom, for what and for whose sake..?"

For a moment, i felt that it was the strangest question that one could ever imagine asking, especially for it popped out at 4.00 am, just ten hours before I answered my final paper this semester. How on earth could I defy the ritual that I had been following for the past 5 years to study like a madman and answer my exams without a question being posed with regard to the worthiness of what i was doing, or for that matter, with regard to why I worked hard at all ? The question kept pricking my soul for the next five minutes, taking different forms, at one time comparing me, the work hard party lesser character to all those souls i had known who balanced life well , who would have all the fun in the world as yet were successful in their academic endeavors and the next moment, giving me an audio visual of a sort where i could see all my mark sheets being flung out of some interview room and the bosses there demanded for experience and practical involvement.

But why me? I did enjoy my life to the limit I could, I did have the experience that would make up an absolute fresher`s work profile...... then why me?? Then...........why............... mee..ee....ee....e?? This question was overshadowed by those protein creatures up there. It was like a compensatory action they took up for that conflict over the "sleep" or "no sleep " issue with my heart....that interview room which flung my mark sheets out was getting blurred, all those party animals who made me somewhat jealous were rushing towards the dark...... when I woke up from that sound, conflicting, irony-filled sleep, it was 6.00 am.

No doubt, I answered my exams well that day, with a revision of that unfinished portion and a final glance through to all those pages like I was preparing for some grand finale, the whole of our Fifth Year Honors class reveled in the joy of just “getting over with it”, the realization of what we had just achieved yet to sink in. But for me, what came across as a question the night before, was yet to be answered.

The thought that struck yours truly might have been faced or may be faced by you at some point of time, may be each one of us react differently to it. This thought would have been one of the few unanswered questions of my life but for that old woman I met on my journey back home…
She had this typical style of speaking Konkani, more diverted towards the taluka of Bardez, She sat besides me in that crowded bus which would be my mode of transport from Panjim to Vasco-da-gama…. Though she seemed to be one unfriendly, tough cookie who had done work of a hard and mean nature to earn her living, her friendly words quickly changed my opinion about her. She said that she worked in the fields all day to earn her monthly wage.
I asked “aunty, are you not tired of doing the same task over and over again, why don’t u do some other job instead?”
I can`t recall to date the reason why I asked that question to a complete stranger, whether it was the desperation within me to find out something that I didn’t know, or was it a garb over the insecurity contained within?

She looked at me with awe, glanced out at the passing streets and trees, took a deep breath and looked at me again. I realized the phrase I had just spat out was akin to asking a a hungry man why he ate, asking a handicap as to why he needed crutches and asking a cabbie why he drove at all. She replied, to my utter astonishment, with a smile on her wrinkled face, she said she did that task over and over again not because she was incapable of anything else, but because she had mastered the art of doing it with constant practice. She had been doing this for a living, no doubt, but simultaneously was she able to be the best in the field, that the owners trusted her when she did her job, they knew that Shakuna, or Tai Bai as they called her with respect, could be given charge of an entire field, with an assurance that the produce would be returned to them with upright honesty. Her honed skills, complied with her hard work and dedication over those tasks of sowing, transplanting and harvesting over and over again had made her a perfectionist in her field, and that had bought into her life the imperative Trust factor. Her happiness and social status in the village automatically followed.

How do u feel when an acupuncturist pricks a blocked nerve with a sharp needle and leaves it there for hours? It gives u a mixed, inexplicable feeling of pain, of relief and of a sense of fulfillment and well being. That is exactly how I felt at that point of time; I was pained that I questioned an old lady about the threads that kept her life going, yet I was happy that her reply had found me a link to that stupid, yet important question which boggled my mind last night.
But for u Tai Bai, I wouldn’t know the task I have been repeatedly performing, of tormenting my grey cells up there to swallow, digest and reiterate what I read before exams is not limited to my mark sheets. This exercise is setting within me a base to constantly perfect myself, to stretch my inner self to have patience, to perform every task with dedication and honesty, nevertheless the results. Those interview rooms, wouldn’t for now fling my certificates for they would look not just for my marks, but for the capacity within me to approach an alien tasks at hand with the same energy and gusto as I would comply with a known one. What I did not see in my imagination that night was that every time I stretched myself to remember something, I put a foot forward to carve out a niche for myself, not academically, but emotionally ; that it would enhance the trust factor within me and the one who employed me, that I, irrespective of the experience, would say an immediate yes to an alien task, for the very reason that even though the job seems alien to me, the capacity to work hard, in the same manner, on a different job every time, is very much known to my heart and soul..

For once, these two constantly conflicting organs, my dear heart and my devilish brain would definitely concur…..

Keep working hard….. It really pays off some day…