Don’t think of an elephant. Now an elephant is what you are thinking of! (Except for few, who might be thinking of the movie.) A similar inception of thoughts took place when my sometimes vile* flat-mate planted the idea of ‘why am I studying?’ by uttering immeasurably the exact opposite of it. He might have engaged himself back again to his books but the butterfly effect of his pee-wee comment click-opened the wiki page of my life which accommodates a cyclone of unexplored sub-links.
Tangling down deeper in nested sub-links, where most of them are impertinent to give an account of, it was the thought of core-competency where I took a halt. Now core-competency is something which you cannot improvise in your extemporaneous interview. Improvise? Yes! When it comes to interview, improvise is a word, you deliberately relate to. Anyways, well acquainted with the third round of my belling-the-cat game, I found it worth spending time on, despite of my few earlier futile attempts. It was all part of the game, after all.
They were those people who take pride in juxtaposing and pinning down the similarities of a child with that to of his parents disregarding all of his/her authenticity, who taught me the use of control + c, way before I was aware of it. If one needs appreciation, he needs attention at the fore. He accrues attention by doing what he is expected to do. And all he is expected to do is to reflect the traits of his parents, preferably father. Father, probably because he is relatively successful. What else a child need but attention and appreciation? Henceforth, the control + c, begins.
I, being a younger son, on the other hand, had a bit freedom of choice to copy. The extra option which my brother failed to enjoy was he himself. But when your brother is so able-bodied, alive and kicking, you need to put extra efforts and give extra time for copying. I did so. I put extra efforts in putting extra efforts in copying. I was a full-time employee at the copying business. I got so busy with copying that I forgot to think that I can think on my own as well. For the matter of fact, this article is more or less marks an impression (a better term for copy) of him. If it weren’t him, I probably would have been writing a love-letter, or a saga of a shattered heart in lieu of structuring the introspection. In fact, all what good I am is attributed only to that copying business and all what bad I am is attributed to the failures in it. But apart from copying make things a piece of cake, it also draws curtains on one’s views and visions, conjointly. For instance, Dhruv was my brother’s favorite for lots of unconventional reasons and Dhruv was my favorite for one and only one reason. Yes! Of course! He was my brother’s favorite. He aspired for engineering for he was excellent with Physics. And I aspired for engineering for I was excellent at copying business!
So, that was the first, the control + c, phase of my life.
The second phase started when my brother moved to a better city in order to meet his visionary aspiration and I was left with no him to copy. But till then, I had moved so forward with copying, that going back and start all over again seemed herculean and counterproductive too. So what all I did in the second phase of my life was editing. Yes! Over the time I acquired such an excellence in blue-penciling that copying and editing became my core-competency. I could read a novel and edit the author’s style to invent a new presentable turn of phrase. I could pick up raag darbaari and improvise it with pleasant variations. I could see a sketch and animate it with precise shades. I put all my creativity in editing a created stuff. It wasn’t supposed to mention but I signed my graduation’s practical files, all by myself. It was then when I realized that I can copy signatures in three trials. And it was then when I realized that my core-competency is not worthless, for there were students who were ready to pay a treat for signing their files as well.
So, that was the second, the blue-penciling, phase of my life.
With an autonomous smile, probably the accolade of actualization, I front towards my same pleasant flat-mate only to discover that he was busy with his own core-competency. If slumber could be a business, I bet he would be the richest Indian if not more!
*Everybody is unpleasant at times.
P.S: The inference of my core-competency from the two phases of my life, I suppose, itself has marked the inception of the third phase.
