Monday, April 8, 2013

Mentor


Mentor

How nice and refreshing it is to have a mentor in an otherwise lonely and desultory life! She sort of becomes a champion of your long-stifled quirkiness, an agent to find those connections that you have been terribly missing, a tad different from the usual set you have been interacting with. She could definitely be a friend and yet much more than that- a mother, a sister, a teacher and in fact all of that combined together in a fabulous package. 

I have had several mentors at different stages of my life- back in junior school, high-school and then at a more mature stage of life. And in fact all of them have brought in a lot of joy into my life, embraced my odd sides, avoided their close and intimate people to hang out with me and brought in pleasant surprises. They have also been terribly kind; showered me with love and affection and expected nothing in return. They have been interesting people- with clever, shrewd, unusual minds- I could see things freshly with them and everything was not deadness and repetition. What I could connect with them was the most human core of their beings. At a time when time seemed to blur into a black, empty zone, they always stood by me and gave me the necessary moral strength. They would point out the multiple people in me and help me get down to my real self. Such relationships ride along its own wild course.

My mentors have all come and gone from my life. And I started looking at each of them as an agent of some sort of change, a messenger with a deliberate attempt to change the old order of things and usher in new possibilities. Each meeting gave way to a larger journey. I was prepared to meet and let go, welcome a temporary imagined future and greet a new identity each time. And in that transition, in between two mentors, I learnt to get liberated from the uncomfortable truth that the time would soon come to end the trip.

Meghna Maiti

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