A Sense of Direction....

“I need help” I said over the phone.

“Oh what happened, tell me”, said my friend, the concern very apparent in his voice.

Encouraged, I replied, “Well, I came to the supermarket Mohideen to buy Sugar, but they only have it in large packs. But it seems it will be available in the other supermarket nearby, Al Madina”

“Hmm, yeah it will be available there”, replied my friend clearly puzzled as to what help I needed.

“Er.. can you  tell me exactly how to go to Al Madina from Mohideen?” I said

I was greeted by a volley of almost indecent laughter!

Well, I couldn’t blame him. Both the places were about 4 mins from my hostel. I knew to go to both places individually, but just couldn’t figure out the way to go from one to the other!

The place is China Cluster, in International City in Dubai. This is where I spent 4.5 months of my GMBA at SP Jain Center of Management. That this incident occurred almost after 3 months into the course didn’t help.

My sense of direction has always been a source of fun for my friends. As my friend puts it, my sense of direction is zilch. Officially, I protest for that line. But, I agree.

 “Well my direction sense is really not that bad, it’s just that International city is so Circular! It’s very confusing. I tend to remember by landmarks you know”

“So? There are land marks here too” said my friend logically.

“Yeah.. but how do I know where the landmarks are?!”

The course then moved to Singapore. Singapore, I felt was a haven for directionally challenged people like me. The clearly marked maps and posts everywhere were amazing. For the first few times, when I went out with friends, I thought to myself, “Even I can go alone here!”

So I did. I went to the MRT, Farrer Park on my own. I wanted to go to Mustafa. I confidently went out the metro and swiped myself out.  I went out from some Exit- and realized it was clearly not the exit I usually took to go to Mustafa. I immediately got lost. To make matters worse, it was pouring very heavily, making the visibility poor.  I went back to the MRT and tried another Exit. No luck. Then another. I would be third time lucky, I told myself. Alas, apparently that happened only in novels and Fairy Tales! I then went to the fourth exit, which happened to be the right one. It took me so much time to find the right exit that even the rain had stopped.

But I was happy! I managed to locate the right exit all by myself!  Yea, it took me half hour for what should have taken just 5 minutes. And yea, I later found that any exit was located at a maximum of 10 mins away from Mustafa. But, I found it! The sense of achievement that I felt was amazingly high.

I couldn’t but help draw an analogy to life at that time. In life too, when we don’t know the direction to take, we keep roaming around aimlessly, or follow the herd. But true happiness and sense of achievement can be felt only when we figure out the direction to take, and then take it.

If only we had the luxury of going back and taking another “exit” in real life!