Jo hota acche ke liye hota

I woke up this morning, one day before my birthday, lying in bed thinking about how life has transformed in the past one year. The first thought that came to my mind was my family’s favourite line – Jo hota acche ke liye hota, a very Hyderabadi version of everything that happens (to you), happens for (your) greater good. I detested it when I was young, got used to it as I grew up, but only this morning did I understand the full might of that simplistic philosophy everyone around me seems to live by. I looked back again to the last one year – clearly the most difficult year that went, clearly the best year for me yet. Best not because of its results – if a third person were to look at it, they’d think it was the the worst. Best because of where it is taking me and what it made of me.

Looking back, it started with me going to the psychologist, humiliated at work and home, almost lost the job I dreamt of when I came to Australia, a few visits to the police station and court. What good can come out of it I kept thinking when my family kept repeating relentlessly – Jo hota acche ke liye hota. Before I knew it I started finding the buried hatred for that non-sense of a hope. But like the clichéd saying goes – the night is darkest before the dawn – I was soon to find the love and meaning of what it meant.

Amidst all the tumult, two good things happened to me during the year out of sheer luck. One was joining acting lessons – I had no idea what to expect from it. One of my best friends had suggested a few years ago that I should join theatre/acting as they believed it will bring the best out of me. During the following weeks my teacher, Peter Sardi, repeatedly said – you become a better actor when you become a better person; you become a better person when you become aware of yourself. As I sat in court in front of a magistrate a couple of months later, I became aware of my thumping heart – I asked it to calm down and it did – and at that moment I knew I had become a better person. Henceforth, I searched for what I felt every time I was in a dilemma, and every time I found that deep down I had nothing untoward towards anything or anyone - and that gives me peace.

The second sheer luck is meeting someone. During one of the conversations, a self-aware me said to her – I am not much of a thinking person, you know; I do first, think later (as if to do justice to that line, I didn’t think before saying it out, it just came). Her response – and that is what I love the most about you – was one of the best finds of the year (and life) for me. The ever-troubled, living-in-the-past, beat-yourself-up-for-everything me immediately went to someone who hated me for acting before thinking; while the new self-aware, loving-life, coming-of-age me realised how different people can be and how difficult things can get if you don’t understand and accept that simple fact of diversity. In that split second I grew up, for all these years I have just been growing old.

As I lay in bed this morning, excited for the first time in years about my birthday, trying to stitch together the recent happenings, I realised I am the best version of me yet which wouldn’t be possible without the difficulties (read: lessons of life) of the year gone by. I now understand my family’s never-give-up attitude in trying to impart me, their most troubled member, with the wisdom – Jo hota acche ke liye hota.