You are the CHOSEN ONE

About two decades ago, when I was managing projects in IT, I inducted a young boy as a trainee into one of the projects under me. Let us call him Akshay. IT had just started booming in India and it was a common practice to induct such qualified youngsters initially as trainees and then absorb them as employees. Akshay hailed from a very affluent family and came to office by car which in itself was a novelty those days! The project Manager was a tough character and was short tempered besides expecting nothing short of a miracle from his software engineers. After a while it became quite evident that Akshay did not measure up to his expectations, an observation I deduced during my casual conversations with the Project Manager.

As luck would have it, Akshay approached me one day and told me that another IT company was recruiting freshers and that he wanted to appear for the test and interview. I wished him good luck and gave him an experience letter for the 6 months he had worked in a LIVE project under me in a particular technology. Fortunately, he was selected in that company. As was common in those days, it was not against a particular requirement but recruitment in general (like the mass campus recruitment these days!). He was, as is euphemistically called, on the bench. A few months passed and the company then asked him to go to a different location and get trained for a few months in a different technology – completely different from the one in which he worked under me. He agreed and as the training date approached, his wedding was finalised, Akshay being from a community that got their children married very early. Perhaps no questions were asked about his job!

He sought leave of absence for a 2-week period from the training schedule. The company refused and made him go back to the bench again. He got married and was back to the good old bench. Obviously, Akshay was also frustrated with nothing much to do. Then one fine morning the HR asked him if he knew a particular technology – the one in which he was trained in my project. He answered in the affirmative. On being asked how he was proficient in that particular language, he produced my letter! And in the next few weeks, his papers were processed and before he knew what hit him, he was packed to USA! Yes, it sounds crazy now but those were the days!

If you review the entire sequence, can I stake a claim for his success since I had trained him, albeit for a short while and gave him a valuable experience certificate? Certainly not. Many things could have gone awry and the result could have been different. He was destined to go and I was only an instrument in the whole process. This profound truth hit me. I understood the meaning of “Thy WILL be done!”. The Good Lord had chosen me as his instrument to execute his plans – nothing more nothing less. I cannot take an ounce of credit for this act of Grace. This is a fact once you experience it. This is what all the scriptures are talking about! This is nothing but Nishkama Karma – selfless service. This is what the great artist Picasso meant when he said “The meaning of life is to find your gift and the purpose of life is to gift it away!”. Nature or the Good Lord expresses herself through each of us and it is only because of HER grace that we are the CHOSEN ONE to express herself! We need to be grateful instead of arrogating the gift or talent that we possess to our efforts!

In this context I recall the farewell speech of Sachin Tendulkar who put these thoughts eloquently. He said he always felt that while he enjoyed playing cricket, he was the CHOSEN ONE to represent India – to serve India. What a magnificent thought! Since he had this PURPOSE, all the laurels and accolades, he received all through his life sat very lightly on his shoulders! After all, all the glory belongs to the Good Lord. 

Let us all imbibe the true purpose of our existence and be grateful to the Good Lord for whatever he chooses to accomplish through us!