A Tale of a Courageous Creative Crank

A determined young lady is coming back to work half a year after she was told that she had cancer.

The season where a large part of India celebrates the harvesting and kite flying and the burning of old, unused and obsolete things to start life anew, this small-built, tough but cheerful young lady gets back to doing what she was always passionate about. She belongs to a famous martial race of Indians and talks their lingo very well too.

She has fought the dreaded C word and found her way back to the desk where she is going to let her creative mind loose and produce some truly good work. For her C is no longer Cancer. It may be Crazy, it may be Creative, it may be Commitment. But definitely not Cancer.

Would you like to know her story?

This happened quite a few years back. I had got back from delivering one of those "Orientation Lectures" at one of those B-Schools. And as usual I got a few mails. Mails of thanks. Mails saying how the student had felt at the end of the talk, how they would practice what I had preached !

One such letter was from a young lady who wrote saying- " ..this is my first and last mail to you, because I will now write to you only after my two years at the Insti are over. I would like to tell you then how I have become after implementing your suggestions.....".

I could have taken the letter as a show of pomposity and arrogance. I could have dismissed it as just one of those 'euphoric reactions, typical of adrenaline bursts at the end of motivational talks, soon to fizzle out'. I did neither.

I wrote to this young lady saying- "do stay in touch, maybe you could keep me posted about your progress". And then I quite forgot about it. She did stay in touch, now and then, as it always happens with students, whose priorities border on madness laced with laziness.

One day I got a message from her asking if she could meet me and talk to me about a dilemma she was facing, in terms of a choice of careers. I asked her to meet me during the short break in between a Sunday class at a Management Association where I would go teach a motley crowd of people what I like most- Sales. She coaxed me into meeting her after the class, when I would have more time for her.

The discussion was a revelation. Of course it started with talk of her total lack of interest in a career that looked likely to be starting out, with a fairly fat paycheck. She said she was interested in something totally different. It was as different as a student of Finance saying at the fag end of the course that her interest lay in Advertising and Communication !!

Nothing very odd, I thought. Most students take up courses on the advice of elders, seniors, peers and people who don't even matter, at times. Half-way through their semesters they realize the oddities. So i wasn't really paying much attention to what she was saying. The usual story, except that this expression of interest in something else practically at the fag end of a course did amuse me.

Then she pulled out something from a large collection of odds and ends. It was a piece of creative writing. Then another, and then yet another. Visual communication, crisp words, well- written copies. Amusing sketches. Blurbs, ditties, one-liners, what not !!! Then followed a proposed ad for a well-known brand.

I couldn't help saying- "what the hell are you doing with what you are doing?" Her answer was-"...that's precisely what I wanted to know. Where does my interest really lie?"

Her pluck, her determination and her creativity got her into a very well-known ad agency. She started out the way most people do- as an intern. But her work spoke well and she called up some time later to tell me that she was now part of the team there and was quite enjoying what she was doing. Her tone and the cheerfulness clearly indicated that she had found her true calling. She even told me that neither the clock, nor hunger came in the way of her carrying out the work assigned to her, and the work was growing in size.

Only much later did she actually share with me that she had walked out of the course she had opted for when she joined the B-School.

Her enthusiasm to learn, her desire to understand things that hadn't been taught her in those very structured and streamlined programmes that schoools had, made her ask me if she could could and spend some time listening to me as I conducted these classes on Sales at the local Management Association. I let her join the group. She did listen to me. But she spoke too. And tellingly at times, even ripping apart some of the more experienced and trained guys in the class. She would speak her mind, often asking difficult questions - to me and to all those who stood up to present and "mock sell" their own products.

Extremely good at sports, and very keen to part of any activity at college, she broke her foot, but actually walked into one of my Sales sessions with a limp and a big smile hiding the pain.
She attended a book launch with crutches under her arms.

Then one day she called me and spoke to me for a good fifteen minutes. Ten of those fifteen minutes were expressions of gratitude for having taught her a lot of things. I told her that she was sounding like someone delivering a farewell address. Or a vote of thanks after a formal course. She then dropped the bombshell. And said very calmly that she was going to undergo a very complicated surgery some four weeks later. She said she wasn't very sure about the success of the surgery, and that she didn't want to regret later not having spoken to friends. Or that she hadn't thanked them for having been in her life.

The other five minutes were of my stuttered replies, broken sentences, shocked response to what she was saying, with long punctuations of silence.
She told me that she was currently at her home town but was soon going to Mumbai for treatment and the surgery. She asked me the names of some good books. I gave her the names, and even before could tell her why I had recommended those books or what they were about, i heard a faint reply- "...ordered....!!!". Never one to waste any time, i thought.
She then disappeared. No responses to text messages. No response to mails. No posts from her side on her otherwise chirpy and active FB page.
I was scared, even shared this with a few friends who also knew her. There was a long bout of silence.

Then, a few days after Deepawali, Labh Paancham to be precise, just as i was entering my favourite and most revered temple at my place of birth where the family had gone for a short holiday, the phone buzzed. Reverence for temple rules made me tell the caller that I would call back in a few minutes. I went in, and got out as fast as I could. Because the caller was none other than this young lady.
I told my wife and son that there must be something happening, which is why she called.
It took her just three minutes to tell me that the surgery had gone fine. That she was absolutely fine. And also that she was going to come back to work soon as she could, though it would take her some time, given post surgery treatment and recuperation.

I had still not left the temple precincts when she was telling me all.
As usual, i didn't have much to say. And I couldn't either. All i could mumble was- "..rab raakha".

Two days back, I received her message. She is getting back to work. Very soon.

Hats off to you !!! And now go show the world that C stands for Courage, Confidence and Composure. But never Cancer.