Arun Bhattarai:

I have been enthralled by music since my salad days and guitar was that instrument which lifted me from even the gloomiest moments. After my tertiary education, I mulled about a guitar tutorial. Next to my chamber was a student who spent virtually all his hours playing the guitar. Incidentally, he had his own instrument so I gave up the proposition of attending formal guitar classes after soliciting his help. At first, he was astounded. “Arun Dai, it’s almost impossible for you to be trained in these hard-hitting strings,” he suggested showing calluses on his fingers. They were indeed badly damaged. I was a bit perturbed but nevertheless gave a try.

After painstaking attempt for a hundred consecutive days, I could progress for real. Without inhibition, I gradually started playing for gatherings. After all, it did not matter to me if I was fumbling. I kept strumming. I wanted to play the guitar at any cost. Then as though taking a cue from me, my confidante one day enquired how one could put down one’s thoughts in words. He had seen a few of my articles that had gone to print.

I told him to come out with an idea and pen it down, irrespective of the structure and coherence at the outset. One could always rework it thereafter, I suggested. “But be sure there are no hidden formulae that can evolve you into an acclaimed writer overnight,” I said. And soon afterward, he was jotting down his ideas, writing and rewriting before he published four of them in different newspapers.

That reinforced my belief that hard work pays. Neil Armstrong might have barely had in his mind as a kid that he would create a history by being the first man to step on the moon. G B Shah did not envision the Nobel Prize when he first started writing. Or for that matter, Henry Ford’s ‘produce it anyway’ fiat to his engineers to develop the Ford V-8 Motor worked wonders. Behind schedule and worried, the engineers one day, by a stroke of magic, discovered that they had cast an eight-cylinder engine block in one piece.

People go by fleeting thoughts and think that our thoughts are what we are. An intangible impulse of thought can be transmuted into a success through hard work - sheer determination and a pulsating desire to win. And winning is not about defeating others. It is about persuasion, innovation, and beautification. They say it’s not the whole thing but only one thing. As I strum the guitar to my favourite tunes or when my confidante comes out with a by-line, I go back each time to where we begun our journey.