Moving goalpost

1

Out on the tarmac a plane just landed, I looked at it briefly. It was Circa 1991, my life was in turmoil, self derived turmoil though. I took a major decision of choosing a new tapestry for my incessant zeal of creating new edifice of intelligence and knowledge, an IT university. I was immersed in thoughts of the past successes I had had with some failures as well. Like they say; good comes with the bad. But I had never given up the aspirations for newer goals and race to attain the goals and the goalpost kept moving for newer heights and new achievements, the race was always on for the dark horse. Few months back I started getting the vibes to return to my roots. I knew not the root of this notion, however, the more I tried to run away from the call of my conscience, the stronger the urge became. There was something in me that was prodding me to share some of my highly technical knowledge with my mother country. She had given me a lot and now it was my turn to pay back. I had felt this yearning for quite some time and then it dawned on me I needed to go back where I belonged. For me the choice wasn’t difficult at all. I has seen poverty and lack of the usual conveniences of life from close quarters in my old forgotten home of yesteryears and I couldn’t take it any more. The luxuries I enjoyed in the west were antithesis of my upbringing and the thought that my folks back home could benefit from my contribution was like ‘why I didn’t see it before’. Déjà vu! It gave me the joy of my life. The foundation of a new race was laid!

I felt satisfied with all what went on in my life so far. I had already taken on the next challenge for which the race was on. The beauty of this particular event in my life was that I was not alone in it. I had my family with me on it wholeheartedly. I truly loved my wife and the son who was a tiny tot. He adored me.

And then, after a lot of vacillation and even animated discussions, I wouldn’t call them heated though, with Mark and also with my wife; I made up my mind. Yes! Now I should move back to my country and set up an IT university in Dehradun. This decision made me brisk and lively again. My old demeanor of pleasant disposition returned and I became a likable person again. Armed with this new persona, I tried my charm to persuade Raj Anand, one of my IT friends from San Jose, rather the Silicon Valley, to move back and help me set up this venture. I apprised him of my plan of moving back to Delhi. Although he didn’t agree initially, somehow I convinced him. In spite of the tall order of bidding good-bye to the city where I made my abode for umpteen years and where my wife bore my son, I was leaving it for good. Or wasn’t I? Only time would tell. I made it to the airport with my family and my good friend, Mark, a jolly good fellow, been always a Good Samaritan and helped us in our last moments.

I looked around past the windows at Sacramento airport and saw the planes landing, taxiing and taking off. It was the summer of 1991, the soaring temperature in Sacramento was maddening me. Temperature was unusually high, that too during May! I finished my drink that couldn’t quench my thirst. I looked at Mark nonchalantly and asked, “Do you want another Coke.” I didn’t mind another one. But Mark declined. Then I went up to my wife to enquire of her needs. She was busy with our son, Jay. Finally, I returned with cold drinks and continued with what I was doing before, chatting with mark and waiting for my flight.

There were some anxious moments for me waiting at the Sacramento airport. Waiting always put me a little on the edge. Not that the airport lacked in any of its conveniences or I had some thing against this airport or any thing of that sort. But a wait! It was like killing time for no apparent reason; these waiting hours were a total waste of time in one’s life, in my opinion. If it weren’t for this long international flight to New Delhi, I would have brought some of my files to take care of during this wait. I usually didn’t carry a laptop on long flights since it always created nuisance getting in and out of transit lounges and inordinate delays in security checks with extra weight hanging around my neck, I didn’t like the idea. It also hampered my plans of duty-free shopping since that would cause some more weight. I knew that at the transit lounge my wife would check out and take care of our pet dog we were taking to India with us. Consequently I would have to be with my son for his help and needs. Well, anyway, I kept looking hither and thither while keeping a watchful eye on little Jay. Mark kept on saying or rather mumbling words that I couldn’t even hear or I chose not to pay attention to. I knew what was on his mind to give me advice about. So I looked at the conveniences scattered around the departure lounge of the airport. It had a nice small coffee bar, a drink bar and a snack bar. It even had a small restaurant. It had the boarding gates with sky bridges of flexible and moveable corridors leading up to the entry doors of the planes. No one had to climb up or down a bus or a stair ladder in order to board a plane. One could carry the wheeled carryon without having to undo the wheel gismo. Well, I would say it was nice and small family oriented airport. I kind of liked it, my hometown airport! It wouldn’t be my hometown any more. But, the attachment would remain.

My baggage was already checked in. Only my carry-on pieces were at the chair next to my son. He was playing with his electronic toys and muttering exclamations of attack, run, pow-pow and bang-bang. I was looking at him as myself of yesteryears, yet that was my future – a dark horse indeed – in the race of life or the race of time, whichever way you might look at it. Will he come out ahead in this race, a winner? I had certain confidence in this notion. If I could do it, he could do it too. Life was full of paradoxes and of sublime joys and surprises. When you expected some thing the least it would pop, it came through at the blink of an eye, and it was all there in its full manifestation as a surprise. So I knew against all odds, whatever those odds might be, he would be able to shine in his life, and he would be able to spring that surprise - triumphing the mountain and reaching on top of it - I had hope or at least I desired that way.

My friend Mark couldn’t stay behind at home in spite of some pressing errands. He made it a point to come to the airport to bid us farewell. Friendship meant a lot to him as it did to me. He was sad. I could see his eyes were wet. The picture of his wet eyes expressed to me a thousand words in one go. He didn’t want me to leave the US and go. But I was as stubborn as a mule. Once I made up my mind no one could detract me from my decision, it could be either good or bad. I always stood by my words and did what I felt that I had to do. There had been times that I even got burnt as a result. But I faced the consequences too with brave resolve. I had grit and perseverance. I did not ignore Mark at all. He was a nice person. I could never offend someone just for my own wants. I would talk to him once he stopped mumbling and console him with something or the other. I wasn’t bored with his constant prodding. I tried my level best to give him convincing answers. I was very sad in my heart too since I was going to miss him a lot. We had shared things of mutual interest and were very close and used to visit each other more often than not. It was hard to get a good friend and now I would be gone and separated from him for I didn’t know how long.

I looked out of the huge glass window at the side of the concourse and saw the planes intently; if that was the word I was looking for. It brought back the memories of bygone years of my life, way back when I, the dark horse, had won the race beyond all expectations and flown off to Tehran on my maiden voyage from my native hometown of New Delhi. I was younger and full of zeal, vigor and enthusiasm. The memories were vivid, they flashed before my eyes panoramically as if they happened just yesterday and their charm was still lingering.

xxxx

‘Hey! OJ! You got to be fast and going. You might miss the train,’ Lewis yelled warning me. I had to go to Chandigarh for an interview for a job in Tehran. It was the October of 1974. Things weren’t so swell in India. The gas prices had gone through the roof. India’s economy was in the doldrums. I had no job in spite of being a product of IIT, a top-notch engineering school. My Chandigarh trip was an absolute make or break issue, I was confident I could land this job. But I got to be there for the interview to begin with. So I hurried with my briefcase.

xxxx

In front of the office in Chandigarh there was a huge crowd, as if there was going to be a riot or something. There were almost thousand people, young expectants, clamoring for the only single job offer.

My interview went mighty fine. My confidence exuded during my interview. I was right on top of the world. ‘Oh Wow!’ I exclaimed grinning from ear to ear as I was on the short list of finalists. I hugged Lewis and gave him the news with great gusto. He was happy for me so much so that he took me to a sumptuous Chinese dinner at Hong Kong Restaurant in GK.

Few weeks passed and I almost forgot about the short list and job interview and ‘Lo and behold’ I got an appointment letter from the Tehran Company. And rest as they say was history.

xxxx

As I looked back on my life, I felt satisfied it had come to such magnanimous fruition. Certainly I had made some tough decisions to achieve successes in spite of adversity, but I felt really elated as a result of all the achievements I made. And my single purpose focused dedication to my work had been necessary and at the end of it all, it proved wise and perfect. Let other men grow over their pitiful ‘destiny’, but really they didn’t want to make hard efforts and tough it out in the wild world. With the effortless mediocre mindset they were left behind in the race, and the dark horse moved ahead with meticulous approach and perseverance to win the race.

xxx

I couldn’t yet think of whether my next move was to be delightfully pleasant nor would it have the murkiness of my native ethos as usual. My little son had no inkling of what was in store for him, my friend was opposed to my leaving the US and running off to India and my wife, well that was another wild tale. These were the moments of great reflections that probably I couldn’t delve into at this point of time. I had discussed the pros and cons of moving at length with my friend Mark, and my wife, my confidante, too and pondered over this issue incessantly and I still couldn’t think of any difficulties ensuing with the major decision I had taken. There were no holes in my proposition as far as I was concerned.

So, anyway, I was still reflecting and was lost in my thoughts of the bygone days. I didn’t try to figure out the past –as said by the famous Jay Livingston and Ray Evans songwriting team in 1956 in their song- ‘que sera sera, whatever will be, will be, the future’s not ours to see, que sera, sera..’ At one point of time we were all unknown entities, in a way being dark horses, ignorant whether we would win the race, but we always sought out tough targets to aim for; some thing swayed us to set out and take part in the race. And some of us leapt forward and made it, life was so wonderful and we knew ‘perseverance pays’. My young son wasn’t up to it yet; he was too young and innocent to know what this race I was talking about all the time. But I was confident he too would learn. I had hope. The thoughts and imaginations were going on at a fast pace. And then the sound of the airport communication person crackled though the speakers and broke my thought process; there was an announcement on the public address system that our flight was ready for boarding now.