There are a lucky few in this world who, from a very early age onwards, seem to know exactly what they want to do in life - the moves to make, the courses to take, the companies to work for and the career path to pursue. If you are one of those, good for you!
For rest of us, things don't seem to be as well planned out. Recently, I met an old man and he was reminiscing about his life and career as an epigraphist. He spoke to me at length, with child-like enthusiasm about devanagari and brahmi scripts, the digs he had been to, ancient writings he had painstakingly deciphered and the books he had published. All the while I was thinking, "Wow. One of the lucky few!". "How does one even become an epigraphist", I wondered? I must have voiced my thoughts because he chuckled and explained how he ended up doing what he did. Apparently he was sent to his father's friend's office to help in some filing work. A few weeks later, as he was hanging around wondering what to do, the man asked him to help carry some books to a nearby archeological find. Another day, he was asked to copy some script from a stone tablet that had been found, on to paper. "I stuck around because I did not have anything else to do and before I knew it I had become an epigraphist. In retrospect, it was exactly what I would have chosen to do if I had had a choice and the necessary foresight", he said.
He is what I call one of the lucky majority - one of a large group of people who end up finding their true calling, not by design but serendipitously. So if you are just about to embark on your career (or a ways into one) and have yet to decide what you would like to do in life, don't fret too much - your calling will find you!
