Of role models

I don't have a role model. There is absolutely no one I can look up to and say, hey that's the kind of life I'd like to live. And every passing day, it becomes all the more evident that I won't have one either. The older you go, the less you wonder and the less you look up to something with a kind of worship, that I think is what a role model about. I don't have a father figure in my life and this isn't cos I was born up in some kind of twisted environment. I had a perfectly normal and happy childhood, a satisfying teenage and young adulthood hasn't been disappointing either. But sometimes, I do yearn to feel that kind of an awe that one feels when one reads or hears about their role models, find their traits so appealing that it makes you blind to other equations.

Yes, at different points in time I have looked up to people and have admired them. In the yore days of cricket, I idolised Sachin for his cricketing abilities and his attitude off the field. And there was Michael Jordan, in the basketball years. Va va voom. I liked Shahrukh for the intensity he carried. That man supposedly stood on the edge of the sea of Mumbai and declared that he would rule this city. And he did. I liked Amitabh for a while for the ease with which he fitted into the role of the messiah of thousands. I liked Robin Williams for his ability to bring about humor in mundane things of life, a glint of sorrow hidden in the twinkle of his eyes. For a while I was besotted with the writing syle of Erich Segal and the characters he created. Some human, some criminal and all of them just 'normal' and 'unique' in their own way. I was fascinated with Ayn Rand and her ideas for a while, till I learnt a few things more. Unfortunately, it was in the middle of Atlas Shrugged and I still haven't finished that goddam book. And there have been musicians who created masterpieces out of everyday sounds. A particular song means so much at those times that you could drown yourself off in ecstasy and reach a different level without having to get doped out. Movie makers of the like of Spielberg who weaved magic with stories wrapped into a miniscule time frame of 2 hours but lasted thoughts of a million volts through every crevice of your brain. Each of these people, from areas that most people I assume have icons of their own, loved each bit of what they did and gave their being in as passionate a way as possible. Living life doing what you love and being good at it plus make tons of money from it to enjoy a few good things in life, was and is appealing. Perhaps too idealistic. Or too crassly commercial. Either way you look at it. Is that all you worry about when thousands die in the crossfire in Mogadishu?

Most people probably look up to their father or mother for an example. I still havent understood either of them and the time and life seems to be slipping away before I can do that. They have been the most awesome parents one can have and even though I can't figure out the dynamics of the relationship that they share, that thing that rankles deep at times, I have still not grown up with hostile feelings towards institutions such as marriage. I was never told 'you cannot', just often, 'you should evaluate before you do'. I have had the travails of a brother sister relationship, beginning from indifference, to rivalry, to affection and to outright honest love. Sis has become of the most trusted friends of recent years and I know she will remain that way, even though we are different like chalk and cheese. Blood runs thicker than water after all. I have the best memories of him, of him waking me up in the most tenderest ways a child can be woken up. I remember snuggling close to her in those energetic early teen years when I couldn't sleep for long hours. Yet I also remember the unease with which they tried to stand close to each other for a photograph in the midst of some tea garden in Kodaikanal, I think it was, at relatives insistence. But I don't look up to them and think, wow, I could live like that. I know I won't. Yes, I have probably learnt a few things about raising kids from them, but that is a thought for later.

There have been other people I have been fascinated with. Some of them ended up being very good friends and we've had some pretty interesting intellectual intercourses. Mutually pleasurable, I'd like to believe. I liked the attitude each of them carried, towards a lot of things that mattered. I love each of them. But that admiration has never exceeded beyond that level, has never reached into an unexplained wonder and turned into an example I could emulate. There have been teachers that I looked up to. Some lived up to that admiration beyond the initial wide eyed amazement, some didn't. One of them gave up everything and left to live in an ashram. In search of God, so it seemed. It could have been very attractive a lifestyle, except that it probably happened at the wrong time in my life. At that very same moment, I was learning varied meanings of love. I was meeting the same God in a different way.

Maybe I am too grown up for it now. Maybe that what you call 'suspension of disbelief' in order to be able to have a kiddish joy at something has ebbed. Maybe I will find someone in the corporate world that I can follow. I have been just a few months into the money earning mode. Sometimes I think I ask too much. Or maybe not.

Or as I have often been told, I think too much. ;-)

And like all times, I think I'm going to regret this post at some point in time. Poof!