It is not that I have summited Everest, nor have I won the Nobel Prize. Nor, for that matter, have I founded a billion-dollar startup or served in combat on the Pakistan border. I am not a star in cinema, TV, YouTube, or any sport. I am not a political activist—let alone a thought leader, coach, mentor, or early-stage investor on LinkedIn. Not more than a handful of people have read my fiction and non-fiction books—and yet, I share something with a billion-plus fellow citizens of India: pure anonymity.
Had there been no social media, I would have remained a wholly anonymous Indian, known only to my family and colleagues at work. Yet within this dull anonymity, there are events, points in space and time,that shine brightly for a few days, like comets or supernovae lighting up an otherwise dark sky before fading away. Or like Easter lilies that bloom in summer and brighten an otherwise desolate terrace.
Of course, all such events are purely personal. They shine and bloom only for me and me alone. They have little or no significance to others, except that similar flowers may be blooming on their terraces too. For each of us, cocooned in our own anonymity, these events go a long way in lifting us out of the ambient mediocrity and mundaneness that is the leitmotif of daily life.
Each such bloom is something we remember with affection -- an affection rooted in, and lovingly nurtured by, our own love for ourselves. When we gather all these flowers together, they become a fragrant garland, redolent with happy memories, that each of us would like to be draped around our neck as we make the final journey across the Baitarani River.
This, then, is my garland of lilies, woven in the December of my life.
