If you are still alive means you will survive to tell the
tale.
Many times in a Lifetime, you encounter
situations when you say you cannot go on. That you would much rather die than
undergo this ordeal called Life. That you want to give up. When every door
seems shut on you, when darkness engulfs you, when you see no way out and you
are in the throes of despair and fear, check your pulse. Listen to your heart
beat. Hear yourself breathing. If you are alive, it means it is not over yet.
Stop looking for external signals for hope and revival. Look within. You will
find the light of your soul as blinding in its radiance as it is comforting. "That
which does not kill us makes us stronger," said Friedrich Nietzsche, the
19th Century German philosopher and poet. Know that this is true. This is what
Life is all about.
 |
| Marco on the left, in white, and Tash at the extreme right Picture Courtesy: MasterChef Australia Season 6 website |
I am not a serious MasterChef Australia watcher
on TV. But I am glad I watched a recent episode of Season 6 of the show.
Celebrity British chef, Marco Pierre White, 52, was the guest judge that week. The Guardian has called Marco kitchen’s enfant terrible and one part Hannibal
Lecter (a fictional character who is a brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic
serial killer in a series of suspense novels by Thomas Harris) and one part
Yoda (a fictional character, a powerful Jedi Master, in George Lucas’ Star Wars
universe). Marco has been dubbed the godfather of modern cooking, having been
the youngest chef to have ever been awarded three Michelin stars. With Marco
prowling around the MasterChef kitchen the three contestants that evening were
obviously nervous beyond description. One of them, who did not make the grade,
would be eliminated from the contest that night! They were to make one of Marco’s
own signature dishes, a roast pigeon ravioli, based on his own recipe and serve
it back him and the other three judges! They had to do this in an incredible 60
minutes. As the 60 minutes ticked away, Tash Shan, 27, a social media manager
from the Australian Capital Territory that includes Canberra, was aghast that
she had not finished the dish per Marco’s recipe. So, there she was, at 60
minutes, with a dish which, in her opinion, was “incomplete”.
When she presented her “incomplete” dish to the
judges, Marco asked her how she was feeling. “I feel I have lost this contest
and that I will be sent home,” replied Tash.
Marco asked, his eyes piercing Tash like a
dagger: “Do you really want to go home or do you want to stay in the contest?”
Tash replied: “I want to stay in the contest so
badly. There’s so much to learn. I can’t afford to go away now.”
Marco, with a shake of his head, said (what I
recall to be this): “Whenever you reach a dead-end in Life, when you think you
can go no more, you must not give up. You must never call it quits. You must
get up, dust yourself and move one. This is as true about cooking as it is
about Life. Every experience teaches you something. Focus on the experience,
focus on the learning from it, and don’t really bother too much about the
result!”
Tash survived that episode. But more
importantly she learnt a big, big Life lesson from a Master. Marco’s message is
applicable to all of us too. This Life isn’t about winning or losing. It isn’t
about acquiring and owning, gaining and securing, material assets. If at the
end of the day, you have had a million experiences in a lifetime and have learnt
from each of them, you are the biggest millionaire around! It is through the
experiences that we are put through that Life will mold us and make us into a
flawless piece of work to fulfill a larger cosmic design, a Masterplan. And remember, Life's
Masterplan for each of us has NO FLAWS!
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