What Really Matters!

"Trust me, I would have certainly wanted to join you guys. Meeting all my school friends after a long six years in this city is such an amazing opportunity. But I have this class...", I trailed off.

My best friend from school days on the other side couldn't understand why I would not choose to miss a Sunday morning class to attend a reunion of a lifetime with 50 other classmates at a resort in Bhayender. But then what does he know about the pressures of a Master's in HR curriculum or about our renowned visiting professor who had spent a good ten minutes of first class explaining to us on how attendance in his classes is mandatory or about my innate attitude to confirm to authority? All he understood was that he wanted his friend to be there with all of them to relive the times that were such an innocent and blissful place. 

As I put down the phone at the STD booth in the lush beautiful TISS Chembur campus, I walked back to catch up a dinner at the mess (it's called so for obvious reasons!) with my new acquaintances in the TISS MA batch of 2008. We were just two weeks in the course and prepping ourselves for the drill that were to continue the rest of our lives. But while the rigor of the course was setting in for the sixty five of us, in parallel the group dynamics of this lot was also at play as we were all getting introduced to each other, finding commonalities, celebrating different opinions, sharing aspirations et al. Pragya was a batchmate who I had first noticed way back on our interview day - besides her amazingly strong presence, clarity of thought and conviction in her speech, the fact that she was from Miranda House (and I from LSR), there was no way she was not noticeable. On our second Sunday morning class, she had walked in looking so pretty and decked up for a 9am Sunday class, there wasn't a soul who didn't notice! When someone mentioned that to her on how "ready" she seemed, she immediately quipped, "Well, I needed motivation to be out of bed and in class on a Sunday morning!".

And so it was only befitting for me to have narrated my plight to her on how sad I was on making the choice of not going to my school reunion. What she said next is a litmus test for me at all such crossroads for future. She was like, "Snigdha, I am coming to class on Sunday morning because I have nothing better to do at that same time. You do! So why aren't you making that your choice? Twenty years from now, will you remember this stupid class and your hard earned attendance for it or will you remember this reunion." I was awestruck at this simple narrative. We have all read the forward multiple number of times on who and what will you remember on your death bed etc, but we would all remember how we have put work before personal life on occasions because you are too worried about applying for a leave in middle of a week or the optics of what your boss or team will think or because after Atlas, you are next in line to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders; but once you zoom out and check, none of it matters as much as the moments and folks who actually matter. We work for a living and not live for work; but it's difficult to live that everyday! And for bringing this clarity to me as a lesson as part of my curriculum(!), I will always be indebted to Pragya (well this, and many other lessons, but that's for another time).