The word “Passion” is known to us. We know its literal meaning which is the same for all. But where we all differ from one another is the actual realisation of the word. It’s different for different people. Passion means intense like for something. What is your passion may be so simple a matter for another that it’s not even worth mentioning. A person spending sleepless nights to complete a part of his incomplete story may mean sheer wastage of time and energy to another person. So passion is different for different people. This is the fourth time I am in Bhilai with family to take up a new job. Wherever we go, making new relationships is our first task and coincidentally each time all new acquaintances at one point get old and become permanent in our lives . So we have a sizable circle of connections to be proud of and this has kept us alive at the fag end of our lives. This time also, there’s no exception. On the last Deepawali we were having a party with three such new families in our apartment. There I experienced someone’s passion in an unimaginable form. That’s what I am going to share with you here.

The young man is in his early thirties. He came to spend two days with his parents after a few years taking leave from his employment. He is Lieutenant Colonel in the Indian Army after qualifying in the admission test and strenuous training conducted by the National Defence Academy, Pune. There is nothing surprising upto this if he wanted to join the Army. There are thousands of such boys preferring Army career. But the fact that surfaced subsequently was something unheard. He also qualified in the Joint Entrance Test for IIT and was finally selected for Mechanical Engineering in IIT, Kanpur. But he opted for Army. For a seat in IIT, crores of candidates are prepared to put their lives on bet when this boy prefers Army to IIT knowing well about the hardest and riskiest life there with a quantum of earning that is nowhere near the chances that an IIT brand can fetch him. But still he happily joins the Army. Out of curiosity I asked him if he ever repented of his decision to stay away from IIT. Reply came instantly, “Never, not even for a moment. Uncle, to see me in that uniform was my dream since childhood. When I am in the uniform, I really feel altogether different which has no match with any other materialistic things. I have no word to express that feelings.” This is Passion.

It’s only this passion which drives Kami Rita, a citizen of Nepal to climb Mt. Everest supposed to be the highest peak of the world for twenty eight times in between 1994 and 2023 putting life into the deadliest risk. It’s this passion which lured Mother Teresa to come all the way from Albania to India to serve the people here in distress. It’s only our very dear passion which compels persons to sacrifice their comfort of settled professional life to try their luck in the most uncertain world of music or acting. Friends, this passion is truly your life. At every stage, you have to explore your passion. It’s already there lying suppressed in you. You have to arise it. Remember, this is your driving force now for the remaining part of life. Sooner you invent it, the better. Caring for your passion is listening to your soul.