The Gutter Of Talent

I recently chanced upon a very strange spot in the city. It’s quite funny how you might live in a city all your life but never manage to see a particular spot. You might hear about the place and may even have a vague idea of it’s location but you never get round to visiting it even though it is so close to home. The place however, in my reference exists in every city of the world. It has an omnipresent character. It is as pervasive as pollution yet hidden away from sight as sewage lines. The place is the gutter of talent.

The gutter of talent is the place where all the talents of the city which have not been utilized are eventually flushed into. You remember your friend with the breakthrough business plan? Or the cousin who was so good at acting, singing etc? Or your only graduate uncle who gave up that IIT seat to take over the family Kirana store? Well they all now stop by here on their way back from their underachieved lives. Although symbolically insignificant, the stench of rotting talent is the worst of it’s kind. The funny thing about smell is, now this is a universal principle that the person emanating the scent, rarely seems to notice it but a the third person has to put his reserve to the test, by suppressing his urge to cover his nose and retch.

Oh what a sight it is to stop by this canal of filth! It is a perfect place for many a caution stories. The once successful, beautiful, intelligent, artistic, creative the list goes on.. are now reduced to the decadent, suppressed, lifeless, depressed, unhappy…this list too goes on. Many of them confide in me from time to time telling me about their good old days. It’s the past that’s promising for most of them and the future looks bleak. Ask them how they ended up here and you get all sorts of answers on how the world’s wronged them, some begrudge the society, Some parents, some siblings, some friends, some enemies rarely do I hear self-blame. But I hear there’s another gutter for that somewhere in this city.

It’s not that their unhappy. No. They are very happy. Pretty much like Sureshbhai. Sureshbhai uses this atrocious smelling perfume and has been using it for years. I hear people have told him of it’s wretched smell to which he responds “I can’t smell it.” . What is excruciating about these people is that like Sureshbhai, they never seem to notice what they are giving out. It is the people who surround them have to bear the brunt. Each one residing in that gutter is an utterly gifted person. I have met many of the best orators, writers, singers, artists, fathers, daughters, sons and mothers on my frequent excursions there. Ironically, each one knows how good they are and can be but whether they lack in initiative or action is beyond me. For now I am content with my visits there and don’t ever want to go back. If you’re interested, you’re welcome to try. All it takes is for you to find out what you love to do and just stop doing it.