She looked beautiful! Nothing showed her age. I was in awe of 'P' when she spoke passionately about saving bonded labourers from slavery.
I had just lost my mother. Failed to get into the civil service exams. The new government had taken over and I had lost interest in doing anything worthwhile with my life for the country. I have messed it all up, thought I. The new job made sense, but I was not the same passionate individual I used to be in my early twenties. Perhaps age does that to you, I told myself. Then, as someone in the late 20s, who had lost the will to do anything of any use looked at my friends in the corporate. They were earning ten times what I earned and could have earned had I not taken that stupid decision to jump the corporate ship and enter the development sector. I decided to do an MBA and re-enter the corporate bandwagon when Providence led me to this youtube video where 'P' spoke.
She was thin and petite. Her voice shivered and hardly came through. "I lost my voice to a brain stroke when I was 23" said she; I woke up and sat straight. She continued! She told stories after stories of the lives she rescued from slavery, bonded labourers from their bondage, women from sex slavery etc.
I was this confused young boy then! I had a lot of unanswered questions. I closed down that video with unanswered questions. But an image stuck in my head that day and has often propped up in my mind every time I quit. An image of a frail 'P', boldly standing up for the cause she believed in. Her face had that word 'Passion' written all over it. I clearly remember asking myself this question that day. "Where does she get such passion at her age? at mine, I don't have anything left."
Today, after a long telephonic conversation with her, I became nostalgic and went back to her videos. That same frail voice. That same petite beauty. The image that had stuck then still popped out. The image of 'P', weak as she is, with that face glowing with passion.
What makes people so passionate about issues that they go back to the same world of rough and toil every day? Why did she not lose her love for saving labourers after the many years of blood and hard work? When did failure stop to master the idealistic dreams of the biggest achievers? How does she wake up with the verve and energy, to fight the system one more day, to bring forth justice for the truth again and again and again?
As 'P' closed her video that feeble voice broke. I could sense a tear coming out. And today when I heard her voice on my telephone again, it smelt passion. The same passion which had brought tears to those eyes many years ago.
If only I could manage the idealism of my youth!
