...time passes as quickly as a white colt glimpsed through a crack in the wall.

- Nichiren Daishonin (1222-1282)

- "What do I write this week?," I asked a friend.

- "Why, don't you have any work?," she asked.

- "Well, told you. Am in transition."

- "Then write about transition," she said.

The question I put to one of my good friends has plagued me ever since I started writing. I always knew that whatever I did later in life would have something to do with words. But what would it be about? Would it be newspaper articles, stories or novels? Or would it be everything?

I really didn't know the answer at that time.

When very young I used to write a short story a year for a popular children's monthly. Needless to say none ever got published.

The first time I knew I could write was when one of my teachers in junior school, Ms. Lovleen told the class that my essays were the best. Till date she remains among my favourites. Like all good-looking Sikh women she was tall, lean and fair complexioned. Every morning the guttural sound the Lambretta that she drove to work signalled her arrival. She was very gentle with all of us children and we really adored her.

A few years later after achieving the rare distinction of achieving a zero in Russian and having to reappear for two of my final term papers, I finally decided I wanted to be a journalist. I had arrived at this decision after having deliberated over becoming a locomotive driver, smuggler, airline pilot, archaeologist, astronaut or a comic book illustrator.

The fact that my father was himself a journalist was definitely a motivating factor. But what really confirmed my belief was Eddy Shah. In the 1980s Shah launched Britain's first all-colour newspaper Today despite stiff opposition from printers' unions. We had recently moved into our own home and I was waiting to move into a new school.

I got my hands on copies of Time and Newsweek during a Sunday lunch at my youngest uncle's place. After reading the articles about Shah something clicked. Though Shah later sold off the paper but he proved anything was possible if one set one's mind to it.

Another reason was that it was the only subject that didn't require me to study mathematics. Through my school years I despised the subject from my heart and wanted to get rid of it at the first opportunity. It was to take plenty of prodding and encouragement from my high school maths teacher Mrs. Deshmukh to rid me of my fear. In the process she taught me another important lesson for life - the best way to exorcise one's demons was to confront them head on.

I would like to add here that in one respect I have been really fortunate. Whether at school, later University or now at work, I always found gurus who were not only highly skilled but good human beings too. They have reposed more confidence in my ability before I learnt to do it myself.

Bad teachers or bad seniors not only cause damage to one's self-esteem but being control freaks they also kill initiative, causing incalculable harm to the institution.

Believe me as this comes from someone who has also had the experience of having empty plastic bottles, newspapers and abuses hurled at him at workplace. This senior that I met in one of my jobs tried really hard to undermine me by detaining my copies for days together. It was nothing personal. He would do it to anyone he deemed capable of challenging his competence. For him the desire to control was all about self-preservation.

It got so bad that one-day I collapsed outside my apartment block.

I guess this is a contradiction inherent in a traditional society that has just woken up to the dawn of the new economy. So even while aspiring to become a leading global player we continue to tolerate such characters who espouse the conventional master-servant relationship.

Every moment of life, however short or long it might be, is like a lesson before moving on to the next chapter.

Another interesting personage that I met very early on in life was one of my school principals. This was at a time when Delhi air was still clean and Marxism and Mandela were the order of the day.

So every year my school commemorated Africa Day, Mandela's Birthday and the Russia's Great Socialist October Revolution. At each function the lady would deliver long-drawn out speeches. If it were too sunny a few children would faint while she was still at it. Afterwards, tears and kisses together with words of solidarity with the cause were exchanged with delegates from the embassies. All the time, vultures from the neighbourhood graveyard as well as adults and children from the surrounding Muslim ghetto watched the spectacle open-mouthed perched atop terraces.

The causes changed with each function.

This principal was in her own way was quite a dynamic lady. She had set up and grown the school almost single-handedly. Therefore, she had no qualms about profiting from expensive school trips to the capitalist West, especially the US. These were euphemistically referred to as student exchange programmes. Merit of a student was decided on the basis of favours or donations received from his parents. When the American kids visited us as part of the exchange programme US national anthem would be followed by speeches celebrating Washington and Lincoln's contribution.

Most of the students who attended the school were derived from the nearby resettlement colonies for refugees from the pre-partition Punjab. Towards the late 1970s their families had just started coming on their own. Parents of children from such families aspired the best for their wards and were quite generous when it came to loosening purse strings.

But the school also had one of the finest libraries in the city. Not to mention the Book Week that was celebrated annually. It was here that I was introduced to a variety of reading, from literary classics to magazines like the National Geographic and Life.

I would like to close with something on one more formative influence on my life.

Among the few belongings that my father shifted with to Delhi were two wooden chests. Both were filled to the brim with books. It was in one of them that I found a yellowed notebook containing short stories translated by my father when he was young. The stories were unlike that I had read till then. I later discovered that they were translations of Russian writer Leo Tolstoy's short stories, done in the Indian context for the benefit of readers.

It was towards the end of end of my school years that I finally started reading Tolstoy seriously. The inheritor of a vast estate, the size of which today would be the equivalent of any tiny nation, he had no business to be what he chose to become. He could have led a highly comfortable life playing a prince. Yet, he became an anarchist of the spirit. Despite attaining fame in his lifetime Tolstoy led a turbulent life. It was in his writings that he attempted fathoming answers to his struggles. One of his widely read works Anna Karenina opens: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

A few days back my nephew and I went on a walk to Bandra Fort. One of those monsoon afternoons in Bombay when neither the Sun nor humidity shows any mercy to late walkers. Despite a sunny sky, it started raining by the time we reached the fort. From the promontory we marvelled at the upcoming Bandra-Worli Sea Link.

Over two years back when I had recently shifted to this city, support pillars were still coming up for the bridge. The rumble of the overzealous machines competed with an angry sea to drown the sounds of couples in heat, excited tourists and egret calls.

A great deal of work has been completed on the much-delayed bridge since then. In the near future it will serve to significantly reduce travel time between the suburbs and the island city. Perhaps, also, serving to facilitate communication in these lonesome isles of the fish eyed queen.

Wet in the rain our clothes clung to skins. I have always loved rains. But ever since I started wearing glasses I have never relished getting wet.

- "Look there," cried my nephew.

There was a rainbow. It arched from the horizon down to the bridge.

Could I interpret it as a good omen? It certainly gave you hope in the present.

If there is a purpose to this life there will be obstacles. Unpleasant situations not only provide an opportunity to better understand one's limitations but to get bigger then them. Serving in the process to stoke one's determination. You must have it in you that is why the challenge.

We owe our achievements, however miniscule, as not only to those who patronise us but to also those who seemingly torment. Had I never been to my school or senior I would perhaps not had the good fortune of writing here.

Like the kingdom of heaven the kingdom of happiness also exists within each individual. So if it brings all its attendant sufferings, life also offers the opportunity to turn adversity into opportunity.

Thank you, a priceless gift.

- Finis -