My secret!

 Are you the type who reads a book you’d liked the second time over again? I am. And it almost always opens a whole new vista for me each time. “How could I have skipped that exquisite piece the last time I read it?” is what I find myself thinking after the 2^nd spin through the same pages.

I just finished reading ‘the Secret’ by Rhonda Byrne. This book has thoughts and ideas that kept me glued to it like no other book ever did. I kept turning page after page and never felt like putting this wonderful book down for a second. Lest I should miss out even a single of those valuable words that all seemed to be weaving a magic carpet for me! That which could take me to all my dreams! Every thread was certainly important.

The ‘secret’ was being revealed. It wrapped me, enveloped me, ensconced me, and absorbed me in its wake, to the core. Bob Proctor had put it out loud and clear, “ If you see it in your mind, you’re going to hold it in your hand.” And Mike Dooley sums it up in just 3 simple words, “Thoughts become Things!” All that I’d read in this book made me extremely conscious of my thoughts and actions, my achievements and losses. I had to set about evaluating my life’s graph and analyzing the causes to all that happened. The why’s and how’s of all that happened; the good and the bad!

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 What I’d just read made me think back and wonder if any episodes in my life were distinctive enough to prove this theory that this book was so profoundly propagating. And Voila!! There indeed was. Not one but a couple of them already. I felt goose bumps rise all over me as I started recollecting. I will relate some remarkable incidents from my past to you here.

 One worth enumerating marks a turning point in my life. My close friend Shwe and I had gone for yet another girly- night-out- dinner somewhere in June 2006. The only thing that was Shwe’s prime concern over the past couple of months, as regards my life was my marriage. It disturbed her to see me single. Since I was motherless, almost 24 years old, with quite a steady career graph, she thought it was her responsibility and really high time that I chose my life mate. As the dinner progressed, we came back to the same old topic and launched on yet another argument on the topic and she was reprimanding me for treating the subject with such callousness.

 This time in a very finalizing motherly tone Shwe declared that she would have me registered with a renowned local matrimonial agency. My protests were given no heed. And we ate the rest of the dinner almost in silence with only an occasional mono-syllabic exchange. Poor soul she really was concerned about my well-being! That’s when I don’t know what got over me?!

As we stepped out of the restaurant we stared up at the starry sky with the romantic moon sailing along and something tugged at my heart! I was taken over by an intense longing to find my very own soul mate. And that’s when, with utmost convention and grit I declared to Shwe, “ Wait until December 2006. By then if I don’t find my guy and get engaged then I’m all yours Shwe. I’m sure I’ll be sharing this good news in December with you!” And we parted with hugs. I’d set out a deadline for my dreams. December 2006! As I walked away, the surety with which I’d just made the declaration landed on me.

And come December 2006, at Christmas I did get engaged to the love of my life! We met on the 17th and got engaged by the 25th, shared the news with Shwe ASAP. Praise be, to God! Wasn’t all that as if someone up there started working along the storyline that I’d vaguely jotted out? Paid heed to a prayer that I’d sent up into the starry night? As if some supernatural power could see what I had started dreaming of.

 My hubby is just the guy I ever wanted, to the ‘T’ and can there be anything more amazing than this real life story that fortifies the belief in the book?

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Yet another thrilling happening is one I will never forget. I had just finished with my graduation in 2004 and was rearing to go out into the world and make a career. My papa thought that my paintings should get evaluated so that I may know where I stand? We decided to take my work to a local gallerist in hope of some guidelines. My Pa is extremely proud of my skills and my friends have fortified his belief in my work by purchasing few of my works way before I even secured my graduate degree. I always got a whole lot of praises for my detailing, confident line drawing and design sense. So making it big as an artist was given, according to Papa. However when we reach this gallery with my work, we come across a haughty, seemingly very busy, know-it-all of a gallerist! And for the first time in my life, I am criticized. Not in an encouraging manner but outright derisively. Fine! My work was not mature enough (as per the gallerist) but it surely wasn’t as bad as he put it too!. He mocked and rebuked me for even thinking I could ever become an artist. A depressed and shaken me was about to walk out when he calls me and makes me an offer to buy off my painting at half the price I’d quoted. My pa and I exchanged glances in sheer dismay. Minutes ago my work was worth cow-dung and now a price tag??? Wonders of wonders!!

We walked out without saying a single word back to him. Standing right outside the gallery I turned to pa, teary eyed, “ I swear to God one day I shall make it real big as an artist and I will successfully run an Art Gallery 3 fold bigger than this one!” My Pa didn’t have a single doubt in my capabilities to make this true! The ‘big artist’ bit and the ‘3 fold bigger gallery’ part haven’t happened yet but 2 years ago, by God's grace, I did launch an Art Gallery of my own and I have sold quite a number of paintings by now. How it all happened was purely through hard work and because my pa, pa-in-law and hubby supported my dreams. But I truly realized that “The secret’ was at work when in August, I got a call from the Cultural Initative Board of the III Common Wealh Youth Games that were to be hosted in Pune. The lady from across was inviting me to a meeting at the ICC Trade Towers because my gallery had been selected for accreditation by the government. I was thrilled to bits! Having inaugurated in June, being selected within a span of 6 months was a truly tremendous achievement for me!

An accreditation would prove highly commendable and most might agree, a close to impossible feat for a budding Art Gallery. Once there I realized that only 4 Art galleries were selected from the numerous galleries all over Pune and the proprietors were to gather in the conference room. At the meeting what do I see?? Sitting right across me at the conference table was the same short, haughty, bloat head of a gallerist, from years ago!! All his spiting words came back to me but I suppressed my abhorrence and tried to ignore this person sitting there. In the corner of my heart I felt this growing feeling of pride and reassurance. Pride that I sat there at the same table as his equal and reassurance that some day my dream of making my gallery’s success 3 fold bigger than his will come true!!