One of those moments - the guy who leaps

Sometimes, I wonder how our memory works. However, pursuing such curiosities would just take away the charm of it. It amazes me how we tend to forget the most important of things that we ought to remember, and on the other side, the most random and simple memories from years ago suddenly pop up at the most unexpected time and place!

Roald Dahl once said-

“A life is made up of a great number of small incidents and a small number of great ones.”

This collection of stories is made up of such “one of those moments” that lie dormant in my mind and my heart but pay me a visit when I’m least expecting them. Maybe they are trying to tell me something and maybe they are not. Maybe the philosophers know, I do not.

The guy who leaps

In school life, there are some days you look forward to, and then there are the ones you absolutely dread. The school annual day was something all students would unanimously put in the former bucket. It was an evening filled with festivities such as dance, music, and drama.

I believe it was the annual day of 2009. The evening was proceeding as usual and then a dance performance started on a song called “Yeh Honsla” which was a song about not giving up hope. There was this part in the song about how sometimes life knocks you down but you keep getting up. It was accompanied by steps where all dancers were to drop on the floor and get back up.

The reason I remember this moment even after all these years is that although all the dancers did it gracefully, they carefully landed on their knees first and then lied on the ground except for the guy in the center who literally leaped through the air and landed flat on the ground as if going on knees first would be disrespectful to the spirit of the song. I recognized him right away as a student from a neighboring class. Someone I saw from time to time but never interacted with.

Till that point in life, I always thought that there were just 2 ways to do something — either you do it right or you don’t. It was this moment that made me realize that even the right thing could be done in two ways — just doing the bare minimum to get it done versus doing it filled with passion and giving it your all!

That realization has always stuck with me ever since as something to aspire towards. Whenever doing something in life that we care about, go all-out on it and be willing to leap through for it and never settle with “good enough”. It has done wonders for me and I wish the same for everyone.

P.S. I did not know at that time that the guy in the center would become my best friend a few years down the line and to date, he has never missed an opportunity to leap through! But then, it is not really so surprising, is it?