Monday, December 18, 2006

I am NOT what I am

"Hey Maathu, What do you want to become after you grow up?" I asked the 3 year old daughter of my cousin who was enjoying singing along with the cartoon character on the TV.
"I wanna become a rock star" she replied. A simple line from that child led me into a serious of question answer sessions with myself. What did I aspire to become and what am I right now?

Believe it or not, at the age of 13 I wanted to become an actor. Yup, you got it right. And that too a HERO (!).Perhaps I wanted to entertain people. I did mimicry in my childhood days which eventually led to an always huge gathering surrounding me in any family function and nothing thrilled me more than the smile on the face of the public. But when you look like a walking and talking version of size of a Godzilla, and are referred by names as "aaloo", "motu" and "haathi" and puberty fast approaching the girls don't even care if you are alive or dead...you have to reconsider your options which I did.

The final nail in the coffin was laid when my class teacher asked me to play the part of Santa Claus in the school christmas skit as she said that I was the chubbiest and sweetest guy in the class. May the Hero rest in peace. You can be happy that I was born in a middle class family and not to a one-ring-in-each-finger wielding Sethji who finances the movies or some B grade sleazy Film director. Who knows, and then I could have become a Hero. Worse enough, unknowingly you could have been my die hard fan who doesn’t miss the first day first show of my movie :-)

At the age of 15 I wanted to become a pilot or a sailor. As Nandoo used to say that in that age every boy wants to become a pilot and every girl a teacher. Thanks to my hereditary, I ended up wearing spectacles which in turn disqualified me from both. So what do I do next? Ask my relatives and cousins. The unanimous verdict is to study engineering and become an s/w engg. What about becoming a cricketer, singer, painter, journalist ect. Nope.Why? Because all my cousins are engineers and have been earning enough money to buy a palatial house, car and settled in abroad as well. So there I am...after 50 odd papers and useless practical exams I was given a BE degree which at times sounds to me as Brain Empty. Contradictorily I got placed in the campus as well.

When my cousin's daughter mailed me asking what she could do next after 12th I was the only one who replied her asking NOT to take engg. This family had supplied enough enggs to the country more than the required quota and had taken enough lives. But I did advise her to do the same by going for Medical. She is doing something less lethal than what I expected by opting to become a Dentist.

Sometimes when I work in my desk I wonder what I am doing here. All right the paycheck is ok, I can buy what I want, I can help other people (which I love doing), I blog which has given me so many friends. But does this work make me happy? I envy someone as Mr Kamalhaasan who enjoys doing his work and also makes a living out of it. How many of us can say that we do that?

Last but not the least, I live in the hope that one day I will be doing what I will enjoy doing the most. I am waiting for the time and opportunity.
"Hum Honge kaamyaab.....ek din...
"Man mein hai vishwaas..pura hai vishwas....Hum honge kaamyaab ek din"

22 comments:

Heidi Kris said...

:-) Deja vu!

When we accomidate the word called "Compromise" in our life, then we should be ready to accept such things and also learn to live with it. Lets see what makes us happy with what we have instead of brooding over what we are not and what we havent achieved.

D LordLabak said...

Telugus and tamils, especially men, have to be engineers I thought.;-)

Krithika said...

Nice thought..nice post

Nithya said...

cool post this one...hmm i actually had a wide range of ambitions,when i was in my 9th and 10th class,everything totally atypical (read 'abnormal' :P) - Archaeologist,Anthropologist,egyptologist et al. After my 12th class, i wanted to enter into the media either as an RJ or as a reporter...Sigh bigtime dreams..Now here I am like the others doing Engg (the only thing i can be happy abt is that I am not doing a s/w or electrical course) . atleast the domain (in engg) that i have chosen is pretty ( a wee wee wee bit) different....Some crap comment that was...neways that was one nice thought :)

Anonymous said...

//I ended up wearing spectacles which in turn disqualified me //
Even I wanted to be a commercial pilot and the same reason disqualified me..
Hope u get to do what u enjoy the most, but it is also good to learn to enjoy what u do :-)

KK said...

Thalaiva.... another thing in common between us... Check one of my old post here.
Well I envy PC Sriram, Rajiv Menon, Santhosh Sivan, Ravi K Chandran. But all these guys had someone in film field already...

Priya said...

Our childhood options are different and when we grow up we are imposed this is what we ahve to do. I am lucky of what I did and am doing now. No one imposed me and I followed what I wanna do.

Gayathri said...

Perfect post! My brother was made into an engineer the same way. I was made into an engineer coz my dad didn't want to differentiate between the two of us!

Now, my cousins are becoming engineers. Supposedly, me and my brother are the role models!!!!!!!

I so wanted to become a lawyer. Or, a journalist. Or, a teacher, as you said. Still do.. :-(

Neha said...

maybe one day we ll break free of these self-imposed restrictions... maybe...

nandoo said...

dei... think again...
you were the "hero" in the movie I shot... eventhough it was for just 20 minutes.. hope we had a kutti satisfaction of u being the hero and me the cameraman & script writer...... :D

machi ... our movie has been telecasted to more than 3000 people.. ok****i ithuku mela unnaku enna venum ????

Vani Viswanathan said...

Ha! Most of us are led into things helplessly.. how many of us would've had the courage to do what we've wanted? Somewhere down the line, parental/peer pressure pulls many of us down.. I thankfully escaped it.. But I find it funny when almost every other engineer I see says 'I wish I'd taken your course.. you hardly have anything to do!'.. now THAT is why most end up being engineers.. as though the other courses can be a cake walk! Anyways, it's never too late to do what you want, don't you agree? :)

Sat said...

aaah!
my darn blogroll didn't show ur blog as updated for a long time, oru doubt-la check panna nejama update panni irukka!
Aiiyo...indha i'd-like-to-be-someday velaye venaam...i still dont know what i want to do...paadhi neram velaya vitutu veetla poi paduthu thoongidalamnu thonuthu....and since childhood my career ambitions ping ponged from one thing to another and at an alarming speed...there were days i so wanted to be a singer...play back illa...indha pei pidicha maari thalaya virichu potutu aaduvaangale ...andha ragam!...and once i thought i'll take up writing...but then i didn't know what to write about! :-|
and in my 10th or something i asked my mother what wud she do if i wanted to be a journalist...before she answered pa told he'll kill me...adhuvum pochu...vera vazhiye illama SE aayiten :D

P.S: i still have a wish in this dept though...there's a stupid though of becoming a critic... ;)

reborn said...

99 % of people feel the same ... Dreaming , aspiring and achieving the same is not possible for everyone ... at the same time , if one is reasonably happy ( I dont know what s the limit for being reasonably happy !! ) and earning enough , it s not bad ....

I want to do something creative ... may be stage .. or even gardeing !!! but i have no time ..and i cant afford to just leave my job and run behind them ...:)

Hell's Angel said...

u have partially unmasked urself??? ;-)

Vidya said...

Welcome to the real world my friend!
:D

Vidya

ambi said...

another good post harish! enjoyed well.

//my class teacher asked me to play the part of Santa Claus in the school christmas skit //
ROTFL :)

Revs said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Revs said...

dude...out there u have just been voicing my thoughts..guess i should return the advice u gave me when i wrote a similar post..life is not so bad after all!!;);)

Harish said...

@Heidi
For more that 3/4 of our life all we do is compromise.

@Deepa
Even I thought the same way yaar :-)

@Krithika
Thanks yaar

@Nithiya
One thing that I learnt was that it is NEVER late to pursue your dreams....I hope to do it one day.

Harish said...

@Ms Congeniality
That is always there...but arent it a joy to do what we love to do :-)

@KK
makka....I gotta meet u buddy

@Priya
Lucky u yaar

@gayathri
We all do..aint it?

Harish said...

@Neha
Long time eh?Thats what teh last line says....

@nandoo
I could never have been more thankful. But it was just one fling...what I want is a chunk of it..

@Vani
That is what I meant by the last line...Hum honge kaamayaab

@Sat
Same pinch yaar....

Harish said...

@reborn
Maybe its never late yaar


@hells Angel
Surprised eh? :-)

@Vidya
U sound like Morpheus :-)

@Ambi
Anna....romba naal kazhichchu meet panrom...eppadi irukeenga

@revathi
advices are easy to give....rather than have :-)