FOR POT'S SAKE...

There was an interview in the newspaper, today, with Amish Tripathi, the author of the sensational Shiva Trilogy. It was the typical last question: “What is your advice to aspiring writers?”

This young author is currently in news. The 5-crore advance deal, even before Amish has decided on the theme… is no small deal. So, the answer he is expected to give assumes importance. The answer is something like this: “When you write, just focus on writing… Literally shut yourself from every other concern or thought… including the selling of your writings, the money and the fame. Write with total devotion… and, once you're done with, try to sell it with equal devotion.”

As I said, Amish’s answer, though not in these words, conveyed the same message: Just write with all your heart… Don’t worry about the money and the fame. It will follow, if you really deserve!

And, this afternoon, I had with me my 19-year-old student Advait. He is very fond of food… very passionate. So, he has joined one of the best Hotel Management institutes in our city. But, like or don’t like, their studies involve a bit of Accountancy, which, in his own words, he ‘hates’! Well, the hatred for the dreaded Accountancy has much come down ever since I have come in.

Today, Advait had brought for me a special dish called 'Mango Bavarios' (a lovely pudding), stunningly decorated with cream. It was his love, his field... and, I could feel it in the way he had prepared that dish… the silent pride and innate confidence.

“I will be pursuing my masters abroad, mostly in Switzerland,” Advait has told me many times, “My dream is to come back to India and start my own chain of hotels.”

Just dreaming? Just kidding?

No, he is not.

Whoever has started his own hotel anywhere in the world, whoever has published his own book anytime, anywhere… for that matter, whoever has realized any dream, anytime and anywhere… has done it only the way my young Advait is now doing: by dreaming!

So, whenever I see stars in a young-man’s eyes, I don’t laugh at him. I smile with joy… Wish him well and tell” “Beta, put all your heart and do the work in hand well… Just don’t worry about the rewards it's going to bring. When you have good work to show, that’s the time to sell it… and, you should do it with all your heart the selling work.”

So, I was hugely impressed by the simple, practical and logical advice Amish Tripathi, the sensational author, had to offer…

Like my Advait, Amish must’ve dreamt of being an author, ‘one day’… This is that day!

I will bring back to your heart one of my childhood stories. Our school teacher had told us this story with the moral: “Your lazy dreams don’t come true… Beware, my boys!”

Once, there lived in a small village a lazy priest. He hated doing any hard work, and, instead,  only kept dreaming about becoming rich one day.

One day, a villager gave this priest a pot of milk. The priest was very happy. That night, he added some curds in the pot of milk, hung it nicely up over his bed, and went off to sleep. Soon, he was dreaming…

This milk will become a pot of fine curds by tomorrow morning…

I will churn the curds nicely and bring delicious butter out of it…

Then, I will warm the butter well and produce good quantity of quality ghee…

I will sell the ghee in the neighborhood, with the money I get, I will bring home a good-fat-hen…

This hen will give me eggs daily… I will sell in the market some of these eggs, and, with some, I will breed more chicks, more hens… produce more eggs… I will run a huge poultry farm, soon…

It will make me rich… famous…

Then, I can ask the richest man in the other village to give his daughter in marriage to me… which, he will, surely…

My beautiful wife will bear a lovely son… his name will be ‘Sweet Pie’…

But, then, Sweet Pie will be very mischievous, too…

One day, he will be annoying me with his mischief… I won’t like it… I will chase him with my stick… give him hard on his head… So hard, that…

That, the lazy priest was woken up by the blow… only to see his broken pot… with milk spilled all over his bed…

The stick, next to his bed, had done it!

Today, like my own school teacher, I tell my every dreaming-student – including Advait – “Beta, not just the lazy dreams, for Pot’s sake!”

GERALD D’CUNHA

Pics.: Abhishek Iyer