This is life

This is life

December 2011

By Megha  Bajaj

I had always believed that life would happen in the future… after I had achieved ‘something’. However, that something could only be found in the now, says Megha Bajaj

When I was in school, I believed life was something that happened in college. Seeing all those cool youngsters ‘hang out’, ‘eat out’ and ‘drive away’, I restlessly put my chin upon my hands, looked out of the window and sighed. I wanted to feel alive. I wanted to grow up. Fast.

College did happen. And yes, it was fun. Yet, my search for life had shifted. Seeing people work – do jobs of their choice, earn money and freedom that comes along with it, thrilled me. I wanted to feel alive. I wanted to work Fast.

Writing and teaching became my profession and passion. I loved what I did. My days were fun, until I suddenly began to observe beautiful couples around me. Shy smiles, missed heart-beats. Looking at, and then looking away. Ah, the joys of being in love. Life brought Arun to me – not a knight in shining armor, but an engineer with sparkling eyes and I happily whispered, “I do.”

Marriage turned out to be all those things that marriage is supposed to be. Togetherness, arguments, wondering, hopes and all the things in between. However, after a while, I began to feel mounting dissatisfaction again. I wanted to make it big – for myself, for others… perhaps that would make me feel alive?

I started a company that seemed like the perfect expression of me. With a lot of hard work and team efforts, it began to take off in a significant way. It was exciting. Sometimes, also nerve-wracking. One of those evenings, after a long, tiring day when there had been one challenge after another, I sat beside my window, my chin upon my hands and in despair asked God: Where is this thing called LIFE? Why do I always seem to miss it? Where is it? Show me! I want to feel alive!

Just then, the sun set. The sky blushed as it bade goodbye to its lover and its cheeks turned various different shades of pink. And there it peeped – the first little star looking curiously down at me. I smiled, despite myself. The moon smiled back – a crescent. There was a whisper within, “This is life, my child, this is life…”

This is life, my child, this is life. Nothing has transformed me more than this single sentence. Somehow I had always believed LIFE is something that would happen in the future… after I had achieved ‘something’. I was searching for something – that couldn’t be found anywhere else but NOW. I realized if I was not happy right now, as I was, as life was, what made me think I would be happy tomorrow? If my family, my friends, my team – right now, did not make me happy – which new relationship was I hoping to add that would shift everything? If Rs 50,000 a month was not making one happy – who is to say that Rs five million would?

These days whether I am faced with challenging situations, or I am in the middle of a celebration, the whisper again makes itself heard: “This is life, my child, this is life.” Sometimes high, sometimes low, sometimes wow, sometimes so-so, and it goes on. All the various phases are interwoven in the tapestry of life and all I can do, really, is just live them. Life won’t ‘happen’, it’s ‘happening’. After all, we don’t want to sit under a crescent moon, frail and aged, and wonder, when life passed by… let’s live it.