Don’t judge a book by its cover

This post is about one of my friends who chose the path less travelled because she was passionate about it. I came across a post on one of the social media channels that was shared by the one of the toppers of our MBA batch which goes like this:

” The heartthrob of the school, is a man grim and sombre,
That lanky little girl, is now a weight lifter.
The topper of the class, is happy homemaker,
Backbencher of the lot, is a serial entrepreneur.
The flamboyant fashionista, became a dreaded lawyer.
Oft ignored average Joe, turned a well known writer.
The one who failed math paper, is a fashion designer.
And the one who often got suspension, is a respected army officer.
The reunions taught me how, people come with many layers,
And tell me why should we never, judge a book by its cover!”

I saw this post being shared on many other channels as well. Somewhere I felt it resonates with the feelings of many a people out there. And I genuinely loved the “under 100-word”poetry. It wrapped the essence of talent versus opportunities and passion versus societal expectations.

This story dates back to those days when we were naive creatures learning the basics of all subjects. A very frequent question would be asked during those days: What would you like to become when you grow up? Most answers would revolve around “doctor”, “engineer” , “pilot” , “scientist” etc. As the kids grew and started understanding the life around, they gradually developed an inclination towards a particular arena. For some, numbers and everything associated with it was like a treasure hunt. They would solve one question by using multiple methods and try to decipher the logic behind it. For some, the experiments in the lab opened up more questions and they became seekers of phenomenons. For some, the words gave wings to imagination and they enthusiastically entered another world through it.

Here was a girl who could sketch a human form with a lovely costume in seconds. The focus was not the human form but the costumes. Using the red and blue ballpoint pens, beautiful attires would drape the human forms. She had very beautiful handwriting as well. She was smart and had a very charming persona. And I admired her clarity regarding her passion at a very early stage. She had always dreamt of becoming a fashion designer. But she was not much interested in numbers . Her creative world of design was a strong competitor to the magical sphere of mathematics. I always wondered how can someone with an artistic streak of a mind was not so keen to explore these quantifying figures .Likewise , I would always struggle to draw the diagrams in biology,which was an almost effortless task for her. In fact, she would swiftly create a flawless, proportionate sketch with the pencil strokes. I guess her strength was the visual interpretation of numbers which was evident from the scale and the proportions of her sketches. One fine day when I was in std.9th, one of the teachers asked everyone to tell what they would like to be known as in the future. The answers varied from a doctor, engineer, scientist, professor etc. This girl said “doctor”. I was awestruck. I asked her why did she say that. She said maybe not everyone is on the same page and I might become a laughing stock on saying “Fashion Designer”. Days passed and I moved to another school. And then the time came soon when we had to choose the career path. The race for reaching the top of the graph had begun.

Considering the normal course of action I appeared for Engineering Entrance Exams. There was one exception though. I appeared for NIFT Exams as well. Well, NIFT has a curriculum on Bachelor of Fashion Technology and Apparel Design which has some kind of similarity with Textile Engineering. Thus I travelled to Ranchi as it was the only centre for the exams in Jharkhand. I was waiting outside the exam centre when I saw the classmate of mine who would sketch the beautiful costumes on the last pages of every notebook. It was an extremely wonderful revelation to me that she had taken the first step to pursue her dreams and not follow the mass. We chatted for a while and then went to our respective exam rooms. Here comes the catch. In order to be eligible to appear for B.FTech, it is necessary to have enrolled in the Science Stream. For the other course i.e Bachelor of Design, it wasn’t mandatory. And the Maths of B.FTech consisted of questions from std. 11th and 12th syllabus i.e integration, differentiation, probability, permutation and combinations. I got to know that she had been pursuing Science with Maths as a subject and I marvelled at her approach. In contrast to it, I completely sidelined the option of Biology in std. 12th because of my struggle with diagrams.

Exam got over and I had forgotten about it as I was more concerned about the engineering entrance exams. NIFT exams happen before the board exams. So their results are the first ones to be declared. I was casually checking the results and my rank was good enough to get admission to NIFT, Delhi. Times passed. I got admission to an Engineering School. Those days there was “Orkut”; the most preferred social media channel. I did create an account but hardly was active on it. Then came Facebook and it blew out Orkut. Facebook reconnected me with my classmates and I landed up connecting with this friend of mine. Through chatting, I got to know she had been to Naples, Italy as part of an exchange programme and she had got admission to one of the NIFTs.Her family had been a supporting pillar in this decision of hers. I told my mother about it and she became very happy. Even till this date, my mother quotes her example to her students in the class on how one has to concentrate on the field of one’s choice to carve out the destiny. Similar is the story of another batchmate of mine who was a creative genius. Her dream to pursue design as a career was not approved by her parents. So she had to become an engineer but after that, she burnt the midnight oil to pursue Masters in her chosen field in one of the best institutes of India. Another friend of mine who was really good in academics but interested in design had to defy her parents to pursue graduation in one of the NIFTs.

Three different people with one area of interest charted out their life’s journey. Everyone had to struggle with something or the other to achieve what they dreamt of. Someone had to enthusiastically approach a “not-so-favourite” subject, someone had to overcome the fear of a stable job and someone had to face the “so-called” societal prejudices. I would conclude with “Where there is a will, there is a way”.