Someone asked me about experience. Wanted to try out something but the typical judgemental Indian nature wanted to pass the decision on my fate without even letting me have a go at it...
So what experience did I have??
Actually nothing .... Nothing that I'd ever experienced would be of use to me in whatever I wanted to try.
I couldn't justify that pulling dead bodies would prepare me better for pulling sacks of potatoes or food.
Digging trenches could never be of any use unless I was planning to make a living out of shoveling snow off the sidewalk.
Firing a gun would never be of any use because I couldn't hold one without firing it & the CIA wasn't too warm to recruiting me.
I really don't know if setting uniforms immaculately or spit shining shoes would be a job option at all.
I was useless - no useable experience at all. Written off for life!!!
But there was one thing I had - lessons from life ....
When I first killed someone - I learnt nothing was permanent in life. Your best plans could be laid waste by the movement of one finger.
When I ran through a hail of bullets & survived to brag about it but saw a fellow soldier die from a road accident in my arms, I learnt that you couldn't fight fate.
When I jumped without knowing what lay beneath, I learnt that if you don't jump you'll never know how easy it was.
Life taught me a new lesson at every step... Whether it was the resilience of my body, mind or spirit. It pitted me in all kinds of places from Siachen - the highest battlefield in the world to the dunes of the Thar desert. It made me serve under the widest spectrum of bosses each with a spectacular set of idiosyncrasies - very different from the others. It taught me to write articles, reports & assess as well as run behind terrorists & kill, if necessary.
.
.
And here was this guy, who himself never had the guts to take the plunge himself & advertised the ribbed & dotted condom line of "Play Safe"... , passing judgements on what I had not even tried so far ....
Let me try atleast?? Give me a chance - one go at it?
Fate has kept the chance at bay once again .... I presume, for my good! But give up - I will not! I may be down but I'm not out... For the one thing that stuck on from years in olive was the fight in me. I may have lost this battle but the war is yet to be won & win I will !!!!
