THE PAPER BOAT

When I was in Kinder garden, my parents made me believe, ‘Success’ means reciting alphabets and numbers, without mistake. When I grew into 5^th grade, getting into ‘Top 5 rank’ meant success to me.  When I grew bigger, standards of success too grew bigger. Success meant getting into prestigious institutes for higher studies. I got into one, and thought it’s all over. But life taught me that I had just begun.

                All through my childhood, I wondered, “When I would grow up”.  And now that am a grown up, I worry, “Why did I grew up”. Life was so simple. ’ Home works’ were the only trouble I faced, ’Good byes’ were valid only till the next day morning, ‘Greatest pain’ I felt was due to the scratch in the knee, when I fell down from cycle. ‘Longest waiting moments’ were the ad intervals between the cartoons. ‘The worst character I ever faced’, was that bully who broke my pencil tip.

  

                Back to reality. I stood bewildered. Success wore a thousand new faces, and so did the people.  Everybody had their own definition of success. Success meant to top the college, to lead a college gang, to have a girl friend, to win competitions, to co-ordinate seminars and conferences, to dance in cultural, to do highly creative projects, to do master degree in USA, to secure highly paid job, to satisfy parents, cousins, friends, girlfriend, next house uncle, a nameless well wisher, and it never ends. Each day, every new face I saw, gave a new definition to success.

                Random thoughts hap hazarding my mind, struggling to coin my own definition of success; I strolled through a rainy road, where I saw a kid struggling to float her ‘Paper boat’. Wishing to help her, I took the paper boat and unfolded it.  I read in it, my definition for success, in a shabby handwriting,

“SUCCESSFUL IS THE PERSON, WHO HAD LAUGHED OFTEN AND LOVED MUCH. WHO HAS GAINED THE RESPECT OF THE CHILDREN. WHO LEAVES THE WORLD BETTER THAN HE FOUND IT, WHO HAS NEVER LACKED APPRECIATION FOR THE EARTH’S BEAUTY. WHO NEVER FAILS TO LOOK FOR THE BEST IN OTHER OR GIVE BEST FOR THEMSELVES”

                I silently thanked the kid for ‘paper boat’. She looked gleefully at me, as the paper boat sailed ceremoniously through the rain water.

                                                     “Have you found your ‘paper boat’?”