The journey from 'boy' to 'man'... 1

'How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a man' sang Bob Dylan when he was 22. I'm 20 now and I often ask myself - can anyone ever become a man? What is the perfect definition of being a man? When this question popped into my head, I looked back, as is my habit, into previous examples and literature - especially into myths and epics, which had so many definitions of manliness and macho-ism... though they made exciting stories, i couldn't relate to any of the 'manly' characters... I didn't want to become Hercules, a guy who kills his daughter as a sacrifice to Zeus, nor do I want to become the man that Achilles, the Man-Slayer, was. I don't understand Krishna, who is everywhere and does everything, nor do I understand Yudhishtira who is the honourable king but loses his wife and country in gambling. I couldn't possibly become any of these people even if I tried, it's just not in me. So am I conventionally not a man??(!!!!) Well, this post is about what I consider the term 'man' to be and my journey of becoming one.

In my quest to manhood, I heard of an express train called 'boy to man' express for all those who waned to become men. The starting stop was from a station named 'boy' and the destination was to a place called 'man'. People said that many who boarded the train never came back and the few who came back said they didn't get to see the 'man' station. But to find out for myself, I went to the 'boy' station to board the train and it took me twenty years to make a reservation.

Anyway, I boarded the 'boy to man' express about four months ago. The thing with 'boy to man' express is that, once you get down at a stop, the train waits there till you come back to board it. And if you learn the things that were meant to be learnt, it moves on to the next station or else the doors of the train remain shut for you and you are left at whatever station you happen to be in. The first stop of the express was in a station called 'making choices'. When i got down at 'making choices' stop, ready to learn everything and move onto the next station quickly, I saw a lot of shops selling one poster. It read

'we make choices every second of our lives and thus sow the seeds of our future.
We may either sow the heart of a lion,
or the fang of a serpent;
the harvest likewise may resound like a roar,
or be bitter as poison'.

I spent a month at this station and learnt a lot of things, but the struggle always was not the learning but to make the choice of learning. There was a great temptation to skip this station and go back to 'boy', where everything was simple and easy but then I'd have an honest talk with the Shyam inside me and he always gave me the strength to take the hard way. After a month of struggle, I felt I had realised the meaning of the poster and went back to catch the train. And gladly, the train opened its doors for me and began to move forward....

The journey to the next station was arduous and slow, what with the train having to go through narrow tunnels made by drilling the belly of rocky hills. By this time I had acquired two companions - 'Sat' and 'Maj' in the train and we discussed about the tasks of the earlier station and the tests that might await us in the next one. But all the time, we were glad in each other's company and sometimes longed to be in 'boy', playing without a care in the world. Nevertheless, the train made steady progress and we reached the next station named 'the beauty of hard work'(bhw) in about a fortnight.

So we packed our rucksacks and got down at bhw and found that there was a speech being played in all the television sets in the station. In the TV, a battle scarred mongol veteran from medieval times was speaking something about serving under Genghis khan. He finished with this story - 'When I was a boy', said the mongol, 'I was taken to the border of our plains, to a mountain. We climbed to the top of the mountain and from there, after praying to the Mongol sky lord Tengri, my father rolled down a huge boulder. The boulder moved slowly at first, sometimes almost seemed to stop, but after only a short distance, it gathered great momentum and was unstoppable. Your mission in this station is to find the meaning of the story'. Saying thus, he finished and the TVs went blank. Me, Maj and Sat were left staring at each other.

End of episode 1... to be continued...