Breathed the fresh sweet fragrance of falling in love 31 years ago...had I fallen in love with this earth? In a busy town called Bombay..regained senses and winked at the baby girl on the next bed..she smiled but..both of us were infants.
Grew up in a conservative family...studied in a school named St Xavier's...but did not allow my instincts rust away...had a nice circle of friends.....and that was the time I realized God sent me down to the earth to feel both the exuberance and impatience of boyhood..so many things we boys love to do but are not constrained by the feeling that a few things are meant for big boys!! so full of fun, joy and excitement...however was still a lamb like scared, quiet, shy, and reclusive … can you believe it ...so scared to mingle with people…doing shopping alone was a challenge….so naïve that I thought boyhood is all what I was!!!
Then came the refreshingly heady taste of the college and hostel life...a new way of living..the insecurities, the desperate efforts to impress seniors. I met the unseen n unfelt man in me..never seen before..he emerged in the IIT campus, blowing In The Wind.. the most phenomenal phase of my life, when I met him, a total stranger with so much gumption, who led me to varied firsts of my life...he watched me choking unrewardingly over a hazy fog of cigarette smoke floating through the pub's dim-lit atmosphere….terrible, he said to me when I bite my lips as I got humiliated by my seniors in a group situation….. and laughed over that first incredible conversation of mine with a woman, after so much fumbling with shyness and strangeness..that him was the other side of me! Can you guess what I asked her?..boy changed a bit more
And after the first head-spinning 3 months, one fine day, in the mirror, I watched the - BOY - having been transformed into a MAN ..a transformed personality. The true Sagittarian traits ..an extreme extrovert...a flamboyant personality..a never die attitude..a "everything and anything is possible for me" attitude..a man with a strong "tribal instinct" and the lavishness of my first love in the grooves of IIT campus ..all these prepared me for the real dirty world..out there behind the iron gates. There was nothing shameful, my cheeks burned for adventures..the stubble grating against my tender fingertips craved more challenges.
A comfortable beginning in the real world through my existence with MNC left me gleaming about the edginess of success that kept leaving traces over my personality. My immaculately formal manners and expression successfully hid the Casanova.
Then began..ecstatic sleepless nights in B School when the brainpower was expected to be at its resilient best, when the intelligence units in my body were put into different kinds of tests every day but there was fun too on those sprawling lawns, the late night movies , the little escapades in a constrained environment ala 'The Graduate'.
An extended stay overseas gave me a sharper perspective of my life....the long drawn autumn's changing leaves and winter's white snow lands never deterred the sunshine smile upon my lips..but I shed the typical Indian mentality...remain unshackled, playing live is not the only on my - the Popper's list of favorite things , various kinds
of displaying success, ever exciting escapades from the rigors of corporate life.
So, I was one of the few out there who made it to adulthood without knowing who I truly was.. or was I wrong? It was until that hot evening dune bashing in Dubai where I met her, later to realize that she was to be my Aisha Qandisha... reincrnated me to PAN as her spanish poison ivy took me through the meandering mountains of Malaga. I crowned myself the king before my life when she was in full leaf, never hesitated to indulge self, tried to extract Jeeves from Bertie Wooster, but ended up having a female version.
The true Sagittarian, me took a risky winding 180 degree turn while overseas and here was me..a quest, I embarked upon...which am savoring every tiny a moment..I pause, this is my life, never ceasing to surprise and amaze me. A simple, jovial, sophisticated, fun-loving and friendly man packed in a 5ft 10 format..hush, my dear friends, don't
you ever swoon over the poster..but sway like a fragile vine, lean on me...a friend..for sharing the joys and sorrows...a shoulder to cry upon; a shoulder to get cozy, if need be..
Life is queer, with its twists and turns, as every one of us sometimes learn. It was my turn to dream bigger, and let my passion shine. I decided to do what I love and love what I do .. thats what management terms as 'entrepreneurship'. I rose to the challenge and said ‘screw it, just do it .!!
While lost in the hectic workload, entangled in the meeting requests and the cigar smoke filled boardrrom meetings - those indecent, yes mutually pleasure satisfying encounters – the mantra spilled from my glossy tongue cleft while speaking calming words yearning for the intimacy that had been withheld. Inspiring ideas more indecent than interesting, rolling hips and cheeky winks made the boy in me hide my masculinity. The endorphin levels began to soar and emerged the poet in me.
The fire and desire to be adventurous .. to be bold .. to be what she desired mutated the DNA of entrepreneurship in the PAN. Ahem ... work and desires continue to co-exist playfully
jayeshg2016 at gmail