Have you ever wondered how much your family, your friends, social settings, school, region in which u grew up and even your country has been responsible for being what u r today.
This thought first crossed my mind when I moved out of my house for the first time for my job. The Initial Training Program was in a city called Trivandrum, which to me till then, only meant a city on the other end of the country. The day I joined was also the joining day for 300 other people (Yeah, we recruit in bulk). Most of these people were from colleges from South India. Until then I had never spent more than a couple of weeks in any other city. Delhi for all practical purposes was my world. We had people from all over the country in each batch. Being around so many people with such a varied background seemed intimidating at first. It was an altogether different world. There were guys walking around in lungis (some too high by ANY standards) and girls with jasmine flowers in their hair.
Being with those people in such settings often made me wonder - what would I be if I was born in a South Indian family. What changes would there be in me. Life for one would be a whole lot different. I have often wondered and slept over it. Sometimes I saw myself as a guy picking coconuts from plantations. As a child I had remarkable tree climbing ability and I am sure someone in my remote village in Tamil Nadu would have noticed that and given me a job. Or as a boatman in the backwaters trying to catch some fish or as a farmer trying to harvest some crop in the fields.
Ever since I have moved out of India I have come across people from different places and interacted with some of them. Sometimes I think what it would be if I was born in Denmark n not India. How would I be living my life then. Would I be working in some farm raising pigs, or on the sea working for Maersk Shipping Corporation. Or what if I was born in Algeria and my parents would have left the country and I would be working as a barber in some foreign land or have a food joint selling pizzas n durums. What if I was a multimillionaire or a Wall Street broker or a sportsman or an artist?
What if the parallel universe actually existed? What would I be doing in that parallel universe? Life, as it turns out, is an outcome of events that occur one after the other. Some fabricated, some not. But each one of those events has a distinct role to play, however minuscule. How life would change if the origin of it was not as it is now. Somehow this thought always crosses my mind when I hear people conversing in Spanish. In the parallel universe I would be a multimillionaire sportsman who has retired early and now lives on his island in Ibiza.
Too many questions, ifs and whats and hows in this post and heres the last one. Would it really be a different life?
9 comments:
GOOOOOOOOOOOLD
Muahhahahaaha.
And loved the last line :)
The answer to this post is probably a cross between The Butterfly Effect (the theory, not the movie) and my post, Ghosts(which is inspired by Robert Pirsig's work).
hmmm hello ji...so first u went to trivandrum( so i shd guess TCS)..n u r delhitie...bravo!! thats cool...n now out of apun ka cntry..
kher peroblem jo apun ke bheje mein aa rela hai ki..
u have got differnt lives..then i guess u might have constructed urself a new you....i guess there is alot of things that adds to life equation...alll the factors like coefficent give weightage to whats it gonna be..
gr8 post...lungi wala thing..its really jaanlewa..ashlilta on height!!
i was just going to say what dreamcatcher said........TCS huh?
my favourite thing in the train used to be to look out of the window and see the varioyus types of houses on the way and imagine what if i had a life like that.....what if i was the one carrying that matka home...what if i stayed in a hut like this....
life would've been very different my friend.....no 2 ways about it!
he he...
this might come as a shock to you, but, not all South Indians end up climbing trees or rowing boats about...
People tell me that their are indeed other career lines here down here... Surprising eh!!!
Signed,
Guy on the first tree right next to your company
well, no point living in could-have-beens darling, so while it's true that wat we are is essentially the conditioning we have received, there's no reason to believe the alternate life wd be any better or worse than this.
Enjoy wat u have, live to the fullest :)
@Sakshi
congrats!!
:)
@arpana
Koi gal nahi.... next time sahi
@Shek
Yeah the butterfly effect may possibly explain why it would happen, but still wouldnt be able to tell what. I plead ignorance in regards to Robert Pirsig's work.
@DreamCatcher
Yeah things have been constantly on a move for the past few years and hence me kept thinking about it.
@Zee
I too imagine that sometimes... and at times as myself being a billionaire... fav passtime of day dreamers
@CoBP
Surely there are plenty of career lines out there... tree climber and fisherman ..those are just what I think for me... I hope u would allow me the liberty.
and while u r on that tree why doncha pass down a fresh nariyal eh? :)
@Phoenix
I am not living in what I couldve been. I am what I am and because of good and not so good decisions along the way. :)
Just a thought which I wanted to share.
hmmm....path anahi..but if im stuck with a brain that(barely) works the way mine does right now..i think i wud b in pretty deep trouble in a different life...
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!
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