On the beaten track.

Today was yet another day when I'd offered my shoulder for comfort and the receipient was none other than my friend Chaitanya. He was really sad that he'd missed his promotion to the next rank and in my assessment, he was a deserving candidate as he has all the requisites of a senior officer and to top it all, he's a nice human being. (Chaitanya, Thampi and yours truly were the threesome that Amba's wardroom of 1981 looked upto, for the style statement in whatever we did! Frankly, to my mind we just went about doing the things that gave us satisfaction and we'd an excellent rapport).

I've been through similar situations before too. From Jayaraman(intelligent and efficient with a nose for understanding the most complex issues in a jiffy and in my appraisal, the most deserving candidate for promotion) to Sukhjinder Singh(a legal wizard) to Swapan Kumar Gupta(a slogger of an engineer) to Mohinder Paul(a meticulous techie), Randeep Singh(the go getter)and now to Chaitanya, I'd been given the rare privilege by each one of them - though miles senior to me - to get a peek into their aspirations, innermost thoughts and the despair that they went through. I could only provide my silent company during their trying times - whether it made any dent on their personal agony would be best answered by them but I'd like to believe that I was of some help.

They are all fine gentlemen and I've had the privilege of learning quite a lot of things about life thanks to my personal interactions with them and shall remain eternally thankful to each one of them for the tremendous education imparted to me! One common doubt expressed everytime during my conversations with them was the dilemma of getting one's personal life harmoniously intertwined with the professional life and to my mind, sacrifices were a must.

It's my fond hope that Chatanya, too, would get over the pain within a short span of time and realise that successes and failures are transient and they've a time tag, beyond which they have no relevance!! Kya dialogue maara, eh?