The world's best story-teller

At 15, there were many distractions no doubt: Boys, (supervised) birthday and new year parties in a friend's flat (in the same building where I resided), pop music, stories about the Woodstock experience, school gossip, comics, at times bad grades, visitors (poets, photographers, writers, actors and movie makers, all friends of my parents), theatre, acting, school elocution and writing contests, fashionable clothes, and of course, story books.

One thing was certain to me by the time I was 15. I had to escape the boring world of family from time to time, just to regain my vitality, via books and music. It also became crystal clear: I had to become the world's best story-teller.

My mum had an interesting perspective about how I knew my calling from the day I could speak, and not at 15. According to her, my nanny was at her wits' end, because I never did anything she asked me to, unless she told me a story. This continuous diet of stories along with nanny's care lasted from the age of two until the age of seven.

After that, all I wanted to do was read and then write stories about places I made up, people I hated and loved, all my failed dreams, my best friends and our girly fights, one-sided romances with the building boys; anything that didn't make me feel bogged down by the weight of being an only child. I was an introvert to the core, but always pretended to be an extrovert, because I wanted to make new friends. It was hard to be an introvert and an overly thinking person during the teenage ages, and harder to have a great love for the written word, which wasn't seen as anything extraordinary by anyone.

The more I read books, the bigger my dream of becoming a writer got. It was a foregone conclusion that my best test scores would always veer towards History, Geography, Hindi and English languages.

I chose to graduate in English Literature, because it was predetermined in my case, an only thing that I would anyway want to do in my life. My parents feared I would run away from home if I was forced to study Science or slog after an Engineering degree.

Looking back, I think at 15, I had more clarity than I would have going forward, in the later years, or during college, or when I was looking for a job. Once I entered the work force, I became a slave to companies, doing what was needed to be done on the job. Was I happy? Strangely, the only thing that has ever made me happy was work. I was happy!

My friends would say, "Do you even like your job?" when I would complain about a bad boss, or a lousy culture at work, or a poor raise. That would throw me off. "Why wouldn't I like my job?" I would ask in return.

Those of you who don't know, "Ikigai is a Japanese word whose meaning translates roughly to a reason for being, encompassing joy, a sense of purpose and meaning and a feeling of well-being. The word derives from iki, meaning life and kai, meaning the realisation of hopes and expectations."

I've been enormously fortunate to be one of those people who, according to my friend, have found my Ikigai. He believes that I have reached the best place in my life as far as my work is concerned, because it truly tests and celebrates all my writing skills and creative talents; my work also overlaps all those areas from which I derive a sense of joy and well being, like photography, films, art, digital channels and music. I'm able to fulfil my dreams and hopes and expectations from my work!

How did that happen?

In practice, I continued to be what I wanted to be at 15: A writer.

In all my jobs to date, I have never stopped writing or telling stories for work, entertainment, or self.

Many years ago, when I worked as a consultant for a very short period in a reputation management (PR) firm floated by two entrepreneurs, I didn't care much for the job, because it required me to 'sweeten up' the journalists for lack of compelling story ideas for them. That was not my natural state of being. I decided to turn that job into something else by offering to conduct employee engagement programs on the office floors of the client in question (Polaris) whom I was managing, instead of doing PR. I had paved the way for writing!

It helped me stay utterly joyful during that entire sub-optimal work experience there.

Whenever I have been at an ebb, my story-telling and writing abilities have helped me create something wonderful on paper that have made other people get involved.

I remember, the first short story which I wrote at the age of eight, was about two lovers being torn apart by a wave on a seashore, and a friend who stands by and doesn't rescue either one of them. That story sent shock waves through my family. They hummed and hawed, and remained stunned for weeks. Now that made me feel like a star!

I had discovered the very reason of being and thus, since, it has been very clear to me that I was born to write; write I would, even when I was sick in bed with malaria or I was banned from going to a sleepover. I was okay with any amount of restriction or discipline, as long as I could write something that would make an impact on others.

I was never far away from a pen or a notebook, and now mostly, from my Macbook. I have always derived a deep sense of complete fulfilment from writing, whether it is a blog post, greeting card, to-do-list, short story, stage play, film script, or a business article for the company website.

Throughout my career, and my personal life, I have never fussed over what I had to write. Business or for self, writing has been a fabulous way to gain clarity, refine the muddled brain, and most of all, have a sense of purpose. Experimenting with different forms of creative writing opened up a whole new world to me, and I learned how important the aspects of discipline and openness were for a writer.

Stories that never got fulfilled in my real life, always found a resolution or manifestation on paper. "If we want to be who we are, then we will become who we are."

That is something my grandfather used to say. He saw me painting a landscape when I was about 9. I had little patience and the paper soaked through with the excess water I had mixed in the water colours. "That is not your thing," he said. I was so relieved to hear that. My grandfather had also noticed how I poured myself over a notebook for hours, writing like a clerk as he would say, without even moving an inch. That day I struck off painting pictures as my life's calling. Paintings were silent conversations, while I wanted people to hear me speak through my stories.

Am I the best story-teller in the world? You tell me.

#WhenIWas15 #HappyBirthdayLinkedIn