There was once a juggler. He was known across the land for his skills. He could juggle practically any number of things for as long as he wanted. It was said that he had never made a mistake and was, in fact, incapable of making one.

His fame grew as he travelled far and wide and performed in palaces, royal courts, and town halls. Because he made juggling look like the easiest thing to do, many tried their hand at the craft. They gave up when they were bored or became too acutely aware of their limitations. Funnily enough, no one had ever asked the juggler to teach them.

There is this thing we all know. It might just be the only thing we are all certain about. We think, we hope and we plan to the best of our capacity. And yet, nearly all of it is rooted in chance. The only thing that will happen for sure is that we will all die.

Is that why we don’t talk about it? Because we are sure it will come? The way I see it, it appears more a case of denial. We refuse to talk about it, we fear signs of ageing, we even presume we are safe and secure in our environments! We refuse to consider the possibility that we might just drop off the edge of a cliff one day — tomorrow maybe — and never return.

I tortured myself with the Govinda-Salman starrer Partner this Saturday. Govinda is wasted and Salman can’t act even if someone held a gun to his head. Feeling violated, I walked weakly out of the theatre in Andheri. The one who took us there denied it was his idea.

I considered settling down at a coffee shop or something with my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows but my phone rings and my evening plans are set. I took my leave from one disillusioned group of friends to join another, somewhere in Bandra.

If I had to count the number of times I have succeeded in my life, I would… well… fail. It continues to happen, several times a day, all week, all year. Nobody hears of these successes because conventional wisdom has a limited understanding of what success really is.

Commercialised and glitz-driven as our world is, it does not overrate success. Instead, it seriously underrates it. The thousand little smiles you earn by doing something you love or by making a tiny little difference in a friend’s or stranger’s life don’t count as successes, but a paycheck does.

Try this. Pick up a copy of Po Bronson’s ‘What should I do with my life?‘ and go sit somewhere you can’t go unnoticed. Pretend to be extremely interested in the book. Actually, after a few minutes, you wouldn’t really be pretending, but that is beside the point.

You will soon find that passers-by can’t help trying to spy the name of the book. Make it easy for them. Hold the book out a little, making the cover more accessible to prying eyes. But don’t be too obvious about it.

Carpentry, by the looks of it, is in my blood. My father, and my grandfather before him, all devoted chunks of spare time to wood. I remember chisels and hammers lying around the house from as far as I can remember. And let’s not forget all the sawdust. For someone with my respiratory system (smoke and dust are kryptonite to me), that’s not the easiest thing to forget.