The Magic of the Unknown

The Magic of the Unknown

April 2011

By Suma Varughese

A fortuitous leap in the dark made all the difference, says the life positive editor-in-chief

Fifteen years and some months ago, I took a fl ying leap into uncertainty… and landed safely into the waiting arms of Life Positive.

I was then editor of a mainstream magazine. The tension between the values I was promoting through the magazine and the ones I practised became so acute that I spent a few months in acute nausea.

The time came when I was finally led by my inner voice to quit. What was I to do? Intuition suggested I freelance. Obediently, I put in my papers. As the day wore on, I quaked internally. What was I thinking? I had a mother and cat to support! Just as I was breaking the news to my mother that night – and how she started, poor thing – the phone rang. It was Parveen Chopra, founder-editor of this magazine, telling me that he was looking for a Mumbai correspondent. I had only met Parveen once, four months ago when he was working on a book on New Age in India. I had no idea he was starting a magazine. And here readymade on the very day I had quit, came the only prospect I would have considered taking.

A relationship based on a miracle is bound to felicitous. The last 15 years have been many things – exciting, meaningful, joyous, enriching, infuriating, frustrating, even agonizing at times – but it has never been nauseating.

Yes, there are moments of deep frustration when you work in a magazine with limited resources, but these moments pass. They do not scar the soul.

What stays is the deep satisfaction of earning a livelihood doing something that you believe in and where there is a seamless continuity between the values you propagate and the ones you practice. What is priceless is the opportunity to do work that is benign, that is contributing to the welfare of those around us and that is helping pave the way for a radically new era.

And that is what Life Positive has taught me. I have learnt to trust in the magic of the unknown; to have faith in my intuition for it is far wiser than I; to never settle for what is soul-destroying. It has given me an unshakable faith in the universe. Today I know that as long as I do what is right, I will be taken care of. What else does a wayfarer need?