“When I discover who I am, I'll be free.” -Ralph Ellison
Tears started to roll down my cheeks. I summoned up the introspective train of thoughts from the depths of my subconscious mind. It steadily left a beguiling effect on me and simultaneously, humbled me. Just for the information, I am currently residing around the vicinity of the ‘The All England Lawn Tennis Club (Championships) Limited’ located at Church Road. To cite more uncomplicated cue, I am staying around about the same region which was unanimously conquered and ruled by Swiss Tennis ace Roger Federer for five years in succession, only to lose his reign to a determined and vigorous Spaniard Rafael Nadal who astoundingly dethroned him. Then followed a juggle of supremacy for the next few years, until a Serbian, Novak Djokovic, with his unassailable backhand and service returns, took over the ‘grass court kingdom’ in July 2011. Got that? OK, let me put in a blunt manner – I am staying in Wimbledon in London!
As cliched as it may sound, but never had I imagined that I would get to breathe in the same place, that I, more than once, used to watch about sitting intrigued before a television, 4500+ miles away! If that wasn’t enough, every day as I board one of the Southwest Trains to London Waterloo station, I come across Vauxhall station wherein you can get the resonance of the famous Oval cricket ground that is just half a mile away! Indeed, having come so far, I bear an earnest desire to watch the Wimbledon’s final at the center court in July 2012 and a cricket match at the Oval.
My gaze caught a couple passionately embracing and kissing in the bustling evening time at Baker Street. They were unmindful of the public around and unequivocally, the public was reciprocating in an equally unmindful manner! Without any efforts, the sarcastic words, that I encountered long ago, popped in my head – “Here kissing in public is allowed, but pissing is not; In India, pissing in public is allowed, but kissing is not.” If I have to scout for a commonality between the two, people in India are undeniably unmindful of the public pissing as much as the people here are explicitly unmindful of the public kissing!
Many people have come in my life. Some have stayed. Some left hastily. And those who’d stayed left rather abruptly! There was a period when I’d wasted my precious time, precariously touching the threshold of worrying and trying to find out the reason behind. But then once, fatefully as I crossed the threshold, did I realize that divine awakening was waiting to dawn on me on the other side of the fence! I realized that things happen for a greater purposes and reasons beyond the timid and diminutive nature of human grasp. It will always be the case – many will come into your life; many will go away from your life after some time; then next set of people enter your life and stay, till the time comes for them to depart. And amidst these musical chairs, some will understand many; many will mistake some! There will always exist, the quagmire of right and wrong, providentially dispelled by the judicious and eternal time as per one’s augmenting learning and fate.
The purpose behind such a heavy discourse is to highlight the distinctive fact of the conglomerate structure of the cohort in the course I am pursuing. It is truly diverse in the sense one could imagine. Students represent varied nations across the globe – Germany, Russia, Albania, Croatia, Philippines, Ukraine, Madagascar, US, UK, Pakistan and its politically friendly neighbor (pun intended) – India! There was quite a dispute, when I was in India, on whether to pursue a course abroad or not, but as further understood here and stated in my earlier blog, the very experience of interacting with all of them and learning, discovering and rediscovering yourself thereby, is simply irrefutable. There are at times difficulties in communications, predictably, due to the extreme variety of culture people have inhabited in and have come from and respective diverse experiences they’ve accrued in their past. But nevertheless, communications do occur successfully, by one’s unrelenting efforts or indomitable will to break the self-made glass shell of ego and ignorance. And it is in this process, rediscovery of oneself occurs!
As per the words of Ralph Ellison, it is in that eternal discovery pursuit to attain endless freedom, I must unwaveringly toil – “If not me, then who; if not now, then when.”
…and with those stimulating words etched in my mind with no dispute, my train of thoughts reached the platform of sublime peace and tranquility. I finished cutting the onions and moved on to cut the tomatoes; and hence, inadvertently, tears stopped to roll down my cheeks…
Tears started to roll down my cheeks. I summoned up the introspective train of thoughts from the depths of my subconscious mind. It steadily left a beguiling effect on me and simultaneously, humbled me. Just for the information, I am currently residing around the vicinity of the ‘The All England Lawn Tennis Club (Championships) Limited’ located at Church Road. To cite more uncomplicated cue, I am staying around about the same region which was unanimously conquered and ruled by Swiss Tennis ace Roger Federer for five years in succession, only to lose his reign to a determined and vigorous Spaniard Rafael Nadal who astoundingly dethroned him. Then followed a juggle of supremacy for the next few years, until a Serbian, Novak Djokovic, with his unassailable backhand and service returns, took over the ‘grass court kingdom’ in July 2011. Got that? OK, let me put in a blunt manner – I am staying in Wimbledon in London!
As cliched as it may sound, but never had I imagined that I would get to breathe in the same place, that I, more than once, used to watch about sitting intrigued before a television, 4500+ miles away! If that wasn’t enough, every day as I board one of the Southwest Trains to London Waterloo station, I come across Vauxhall station wherein you can get the resonance of the famous Oval cricket ground that is just half a mile away! Indeed, having come so far, I bear an earnest desire to watch the Wimbledon’s final at the center court in July 2012 and a cricket match at the Oval.
My gaze caught a couple passionately embracing and kissing in the bustling evening time at Baker Street. They were unmindful of the public around and unequivocally, the public was reciprocating in an equally unmindful manner! Without any efforts, the sarcastic words, that I encountered long ago, popped in my head – “Here kissing in public is allowed, but pissing is not; In India, pissing in public is allowed, but kissing is not.” If I have to scout for a commonality between the two, people in India are undeniably unmindful of the public pissing as much as the people here are explicitly unmindful of the public kissing!
Many people have come in my life. Some have stayed. Some left hastily. And those who’d stayed left rather abruptly! There was a period when I’d wasted my precious time, precariously touching the threshold of worrying and trying to find out the reason behind. But then once, fatefully as I crossed the threshold, did I realize that divine awakening was waiting to dawn on me on the other side of the fence! I realized that things happen for a greater purposes and reasons beyond the timid and diminutive nature of human grasp. It will always be the case – many will come into your life; many will go away from your life after some time; then next set of people enter your life and stay, till the time comes for them to depart. And amidst these musical chairs, some will understand many; many will mistake some! There will always exist, the quagmire of right and wrong, providentially dispelled by the judicious and eternal time as per one’s augmenting learning and fate.
The purpose behind such a heavy discourse is to highlight the distinctive fact of the conglomerate structure of the cohort in the course I am pursuing. It is truly diverse in the sense one could imagine. Students represent varied nations across the globe – Germany, Russia, Albania, Croatia, Philippines, Ukraine, Madagascar, US, UK, Pakistan and its politically friendly neighbor (pun intended) – India! There was quite a dispute, when I was in India, on whether to pursue a course abroad or not, but as further understood here and stated in my earlier blog, the very experience of interacting with all of them and learning, discovering and rediscovering yourself thereby, is simply irrefutable. There are at times difficulties in communications, predictably, due to the extreme variety of culture people have inhabited in and have come from and respective diverse experiences they’ve accrued in their past. But nevertheless, communications do occur successfully, by one’s unrelenting efforts or indomitable will to break the self-made glass shell of ego and ignorance. And it is in this process, rediscovery of oneself occurs!
As per the words of Ralph Ellison, it is in that eternal discovery pursuit to attain endless freedom, I must unwaveringly toil – “If not me, then who; if not now, then when.”
…and with those stimulating words etched in my mind with no dispute, my train of thoughts reached the platform of sublime peace and tranquility. I finished cutting the onions and moved on to cut the tomatoes; and hence, inadvertently, tears stopped to roll down my cheeks…
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