Last night, I was watching the movie “Street Fighter - The Legend of Chun Li”. Though the storyline is about a girl who takes revenge for the abduction and murder of her father, there was subtle but strong message in the movie. Master Gen, who trains Chun Li in Wushu, was actually a former accomplice of the villain. He mends his ways and tries to make good of his former evil actions. At one point in the movie during the training, he drew the “Yin and Yang” with his legs on sand. How meaningful and thoughful.
I slept over with this thought. After reading the rest of this text, I am sure many would say to themselves “Hey, I’ve been through this” or “I have done this” or even “I was this”. Over a period of time we have all seen the good and the bad side of life and people. Our fight has always been more to prove that other people were wrong than to satisfy our measly ego. In simple words, we are fighting for those people who show their summer side after proving them wrong.
Toggling between the mean Booking supervisor in one station and sweetest and caring Booking Supervisor in another station in Railways, between the exploiting Senior booking clerk who forced me to work his shifts and another Senior Clerk who helped me buy the first branded shirt for my first birthday alone and between the supervisor who made me have lunch everyday at 4 and the supervisor who bothered to bring me lunch everytime he returned from his home in Trichy, between the molesting whores and Khalasis when I slept on the platform and seniors who offered to share their homes for me to stay, between the Police Senior Reporter who bailed me out of the greatest personal problem in my life and the chief reporter who purposefully prevented me from attending classes at 7 in business school saying “I wouldn’t allow you to use this office as your launchpad”, between the Inspector who treated me like $hit just because I was 20 and the DSP who treated me like his son bringing me tea on late nights, between the considerate SP who cared to ask why I refused to take a work and a chief reporter who got me transferred to Sivagangai for the same reason, between the girlfriend who ditched me for my own friend and the girl who attempted suicide for me (I am lucky to have married her) … the list goes on an on… and things arent any better today.
Yesterday, I saw an Indian who shivered and offered his seat for a man who carried a “few days old” infant. The man was standing with the kid for at least 10 seconds in the middle of the train and nobody else bothered. Previously, I used to have the general thought that everybody gets when they travel across seas.. “why am I not good looking?” or “why don’t I belong to that race?”. Those thoughts were long gone and yesterday I felt really proud that I am an Indian. If it were India, the same scene would have been funny. The whole train/bus would have stood. Of course, I don’t deny the existence of those “confused Desis”.
The downside of the past and the way “Yin and Yang” is balanced is painful but I have something to carry for the rest of my life. Somebody quoted, “If a book is able to give you one single point to ponder, then it has served its purpose”. Taking the nature of my job into consideration, I am done reading more than half of the book and have a lot of things to think over. A month ago, I was reading the book “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch, a Professor from Carnegie Mellon, diagnosed as having terminal Pancreatic cancer, having three children - two of them infants. He wrote some valuable notes for his children. The read was emotional. The downside is that he was dying and is trying hard to instill memories of him to his children. The upside - he knows when he is going to die.
Tags: personal
