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10:20 PM
Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
August 22, 2014
You ever woken up one morning and wanted to be someone. Sort of shout at the world that you are up to here with being one of the masses, grey and unnoticed, what they refer to in the papers as the common man. Alight, listen up, you don’t want to be unsung anymore.
And you want to say, I am not the public, I am not just a wife or husband or son or daughter, I am me, a person, a very special person and when I holler about it I expect to be noticed.
And no one cares, no one responds, the earth does not move.
They tell you in all those clever mind books that are currently the rage about how important you are and self esteem is what it is all about and the authors make a lot of money and you want to ask, so if I am that important how come no one ever says so, how come no one ever acts so, how come no one ever comes up to me and says, top of the class or whattaguy or without you we would never have made it. Instead, you are at the receiving end of all that self defeating drivel: were you really absent for a week, never noticed it.
They only say, you there, what’s his name? The fella in the blue shirt.
I don’t want to be the guy in the blue shirt. I want to be someone.
It wasn’t always like this. There was a time when you were sure of more than the allotted 15 minutes of fame per person per life or so the theory goes. You were going to put the world on its ear and it was going to have to listen because you were one of a kind. Remember, change the world, move the goalposts, make a mark, Kilroy was here, one giant step for me, see that imprint, it’s forever.
Then, it all went away, when you weren’t looking, elusive and mercurial, the daily drudgery of routine and obligations drilling holes in the hope, all of it turning to Swiss cheese, the compromises, the foot dragging, the uh oh, maybe not today, ducking opportunity, pretending this is not the right time, right job, right break, right salary, maintaining the present position because the gravel in the gut has turned to porridge and you haven’t got what it takes anymore.
And you watch that little dot disappearing in the distance and you know it’s the bus and it has gone and there won’t be another one, that’s it, Clyde, the party is over.
And then you begin to dredge for virtue in the status quo, seeing it as great strategy on your part, seeking comfort in the failures of others, see, I was right hanging in there and not taking risks, look what happens to the am-bi-ti-ous types.
Except that a little bit of you knows that you are kidding only yourself and it doesn’t matter if you are 20 or 50 this is as good as it gets, the tiger in your tank has turned into a purring little tame pussycat and you will be just one of the masses, man, just one of the masses.
And then, every now and again you get up in the morning and there is this voice that says, hey, I want to be someone, I want to stand out, stand apart, stand up and be counted and for one brief exciting moment the juices flow again and hope zings through that maybe there is a chance, a slim sliver of a chance that you can up the pace but then, you have your coffee and life falls into the groove and the voice fades away into the wilderness and the little dot that is the bus gets even smaller and another day begins.
(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)
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