"the only positioning which really matters is the courage and determination you put over your fears and doubts"
The year is 1998, there’s an adventure club meet, and the adventurous task is river crossing but with a twist. The twist is this – one end of a long rope has been tied on the 2nd floor of one of our school buildings and the other end is tied to a stationary bus and we have to pretend that the concrete ground below us is a flowing river. Due to my consistent involvement with the adventure club activities I was ranked no.4th in a group of some 40 odd members. Though, I don’t think too much about rankings and at that time actually saw it as a blessing in disguise as whenever we did some “ADVENTUROUS” task, i was given enough time to observe the first three. Anyways, I had been prepping myself for the “A” day by committing into various activities which included mirroring all Bruce lee moves from “ENTER THE DRAGON” to keep myself physically fit, listening to a lot of rock music to motivate myself mentally, taking a nap every now and then to give myself rest, eating a lot of sugar candies to re-energize myself when I shake and bang my head to rock music again (and seldom throw up because of all that sugar and head-banging) and of course occasionally, I would go back to playing on my Nintendo .. for reasons I can’t really remember.
As the day arrived, I was fully prepared mentally and physically and of course I had the advantage of going at the 4th spot. I was sure that after all this practice and my strategy I would do a good job. But, this was not meant to be, the first stone thrown at my glass of victory was this- the first 3 had not arrived at all. 2 of them called in sick and the 3rd boy went missing. (How he was able to arrive the next day for school still remains a mystery to me) So, my name was called first and I was made to go to the 2nd floor get into all the safety gear, oh the safety gear of course, now hold your nose because here goes the cold water, the 2nd stone thrown at the mirror - there were no helmets as the crew which brought all the equipments had forgotten them and had sent someone to bring them but we were asked to start nonetheless as our “honorary” principal Mr. K. Sardana had to go to an important meet after the event, so any delays in the commencement of the adventure were out of the question. And so, I started uncertain, unprepared doubtful, filled of that chilling feeling on my back and as I started roping on that destiny chain like a monkey hanging on a tree upside down, I noticed a lot of things, my teachers faces, my friends faces, a guy bringing in safety helmets, and the concrete ground below but as much as I tried I could not see where the rope ended. But, what I didn’t realize that day were some very simple facts, that this is what my life is going to be like, hanging upside down from a single rope without a safety helmet doing the best I can do under pressure while looking like a monkey to others, and in case I fall off this single support, I’ve only the concrete rock bottom ground of judgment and failure below me. That day was my actual brain strength training for the life of this concrete jungle. Since that day it became clear to me that no matter how much we prepare ourselves or try to work our way around things, it’s seldom we get to have that perfect start or that ideal situation. What we can really do is try our best and not think about the end result or the judgmental eyes.
The other lesson I learned was that no matter where you fall in the line or are positioned, 1, 2, 3 or the last, the competition- the real competition is always with yourself, because once you hang on to that rope, the only positioning which really matters is the courage and determination you put over your fears and doubts and how consistent you can actually be with this as the end of the destiny chain you might never see. After that day I took the honorary first position in the adventure club (and held it too, well, at least for some time) but, now though the school days and the club are long gone, the struggle and the adventure still continues…
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