Solitude is easy to find in our individualistic and isolated times; the real challenge lies in building a community life. You find admirers and competitors but friends? Nah! The world at the top is lonely for sure.

I turned thirty by the time I reached there.

Amidst the empty tequila glasses rolling on the thickly carpeted floor and the aftermath of the party poppers and the candles I blew away on the cake, thirty odd years of my eventful life unraveled before me. I was tired of being the compulsive hoarder, creating every chance into an opportunity trying to prove myself to the world and my family. I was tired of being an opportunist who simply had to play her cards smartly to climb up the ladder. I longed to be myself – honest, humble and straightforward. Years of self pity and neglect had left me bruised and scarred. How I longed to talk to someone close, candidly.

***

As a baby I always lay curved onto one side. While my parents were initially amused when they tried to change my sleeping sides and how I would twist back into the same curved shape, I grew into a toddler with a difference. I had trouble standing straight and for long hours. Soon I would break out into bronchial bouts. My mother was later devastated when the pediatrician examining me asked for an X-ray taken out. The reports confirmed Neuromuscular Scoliosis and that too of a more serious kind wherein maybe the heart and the lungs too could not function properly later on. That explained my persistent coughing.

‘Scoliosis’ – the medical condition involving the twisting or bending of the spine onto one side, explained the doctors, not much hopeful of a great recovery soon enough. I had a long time ahead before any active surgeries could be performed. As a child life was still quite bearable, but as I grew older differences between other kids and myself became starkly evident. My curved body became a hot topic and I was called a question mark behind my back. I really didn’t know with whom to share what I was going through and when all my friends were praying for great marks at school and special gifts from parents, all I ever wanted was a straight back and the boon to stand upright on my two feet.

 I withdrew slowly in my cocoon and this wilted my mother. It was really painful to look into my mother’s eyes beseeching me to bear it all heroically. I tried but fell prey to self – pity each time. I would look at the young girls running after each other from my window tugging at each other’s pigtails and then at my wheelchair and shut the window off in disgust. The shouts of the neighbourhood boys playing ‘pithoo’ became unbearable when I saw them run after each other and have fun.

The atmosphere at home hung heavy and moroseness clung to it. We ate in silence and barely spoke to each other. I felt my parents blamed me for the misery in their lives, while maybe they blamed themselves for my congenital disorder. Life dragged on until my twelfth birthday. I was to have my first surgery that year.

My father scraped his meagre savings and handed them to the hospital authorities with eager gleaming eyes hoping that the worst was maybe over for me and for all of us. The operation lasted for over eight hours, the longest probably in my parents’ lives. They expected me to come home running after my discharge from the hospital. But I guess it was asking too much from destiny.

I returned from the hospital a different person. While I was recovering after my surgery in the post operative room, I had become the favourite patient of Doctor Manisha Thakur, who was the senior orthopedic surgeon at the hospital. She would drop by and have a chat with me whenever she could. This was indeed the attention that I had always craved for. She exuded positivity and hope while I was totally in despair and a complete dejected soul. She spoke so much of life and what it had to offer. Maybe that was what drew her to me, we were opposite poles and of the little reading that I had had till then, I knew opposite polarities attracted.

“Madhurima, you are so pretty! I have yet to come across anyone with eyes as pretty as yours. They just speak volumes. Only thing bad about them is the sadness they show. Your eyes need a twinkle in them and believe me life is going to change for you. Just put on a smile on your face that goes right up to your eyes and look back into the mirror. You’ll see a bubbly kid, wanting to step into her teens with a lot more energy and spark. See, that teenager wants so much more from life than simply brood over what’s been done.”

Saying this she handed me a book You Can Heal Your Life by Louisa L. Hay. What a wonderful book it was – it saw negative thinking as the root cause of physical disease. It transformed me from a pessimist loner to a cheerful optimist who wanted to finally take charge of her life. Louisa L. Hay, who became my next favourite person after Dr. Manisha, asserted in her book that by loving and forgiving your own self it was possible to cure yourself from everything from a headache to a cancer. She strongly believed that the body and mind were inextricably linked. At the tender age of twelve, from my hospital bed, I read the book twice over with Dr. Manisha’s help. More than the book, the way Dr. Manisha infused the love of life in me was unforgettable. I learnt to laugh when I limped, when I walked with a tilt and when I fell down. This was a major transformation.

My operation had not changed my physical condition much though. I still couldn’t stand straight. I could walk around but like a stunted person. But I had shed my cocoon. The metamorphosis had begun and I was ready to gain new wings. I had to wait for four more years for another operation which would improve things considerably. There was a ray of hope and that was enough.

I had made a few decisions at the hospital. I knew the only way out of this disability was knowledge and I had to become someone big like Dr. Manisha.

I began school again, this time with a fierce determination. I was already much behind my old classmates but seeing my renewed interest in studies, teachers poured help from all quarters. I had soon mastered the basics and soon after the final exam results, I made a special request to my Principal. I wanted to clear two or three classes in a year to make up for the lost time. I knew it was a weird proposition but the Principal, considering my age and my earnestness, allowed me to study at my own pace and appear for exams at my own convenience. Fuelled with the faith shown in my capabilities, I shone even brighter. I cleared four classes in a year and by next year I was at par with my own batch mates. But the hunger in me to outperform my own self had been aroused. I made a special request again, this time to appear for exams for grades higher than mine. Again a lot of decision making ensued and again the Principal decided in my favour considering me to be a prodigy child maybe. By the age of fourteen I had appeared for my secondary exams and had topped my state. I got a scholarship to study further and that’s how I funded my studies.

At home, things had brightened up. My mom was now worried more about my time to go school, my study hours and whether I ate well. No one had even spoken of the operation that was due next year. But I knew that it was another expense looming large in front of my parents. I wanted to contribute financially to it as well. Being a good student, academics was the only choice available to me. I started coaching kids of my age at discounted prices and soon I was running a full-fledged coaching centre profitably. This helped me a great deal with my own studies as well and taught me the nuance of entrepreneurship too.

I invested the money I got from my coaching centre in the first four months in a startup company.

Within seven months the money got doubled and thus began my interest in portfolio management and banking services. I set my eyes on a career that would help me rake in the money. I could smell the moolah but first I needed to be on my feet. This time I knew the operation would succeed and I was sure with my positivity I could beat the Scoliosis and this time forever. It was time to visit Dr. Manisha my mentor and I was actually proud to be in front of her.

The expression on her face was priceless. Whenever I close my eyes even now, fifteen years later, I can see her beaming with joy, tears in her eyes. All through my stay at the hospital I found her in awe of me and that pleased me immensely. I was so happy to have earned her awe and was even more determined to continue to amaze her. Just before the operation I whispered to her with a twinkle in my eyes, “This time you better make me walk straight, I have to run in the marathon next month.”

“I know you will this time! Even God cannot stop you!” she smiled back.

This time God didn’t hold me back. He in fact made me actually run in the marathon. It’s a different story I came last, but I did run. That was all that mattered to me back then.

With scoliosis right behind me and dreams ahead, I raced past at an amazing speed. I armed myself with the best degrees in the country –Cost and Work Accountancy (ICWAI) and MBA from FMS Delhi with a gold medal for excellence in management studies and in Cost Accountancy, I was all set to enter the retail banking sector. After a year as a management trainee at ICICI, I quit to start my own online share trading platform which was a phenomenal success. My business acumen helped investors earn huge profits and soon I was in India’s most successful entrepreneur’s list. I was in the newspapers, TV news channels and business shows – I was suddenly famous. Money, position, and power – I had it all and most of all I could stand tall against it all and enjoy it. No mention of my past at all, I too had forgotten it, it seemed.

***

The party was over. And it ended like always leaving me bruised and hurt, my wounds fresh and open and me high on my loneliness. The race with life had me struggle throughout. In the race against time, I had left time far behind. I was far more established than people of my age. Most were still studying and a few were struggling with their newly found jobs. I know I had missed the sunrises and the sunsets and the rainbows and the autumn breeze. I had also missed the carefree chatter of young girls giggling over the remarks passed by fellow schoolboys. I know I missed the celebration of the joys of being alive, of being in a community and of being loved. I know I was lonely.

It now seemed a heavy price to pay for success. I was all by myself. I had distanced myself from my parents long back and when I did meet them now, we had nothing to share. All acquaintances now were reduced to formalities. I felt I was incapable of loving anyone. The woman in me had been robbed of all emotions. The monotonous routines of the share market rendered all feelings to mere clicks of buttons. The fortunes of many swayed up and down each day but my life stayed put.

Until I decided to meet the only friend I had – my doctor, Dr. Manisha. I took the next flight to her hometown Ajmer where she lived post retirement. I was expecting a lavish bungalow to greet me as Dr. Manisha was one of Delhi’s leading orthopedic surgeons. But I stopped in front of a simple two room house in the vicinity of an NGO. The lawn in front of the house was abuzz with laughter of young girls and boys who were differently abled.  Dr. Manisha herself was blindfolded and was playing the denner to the kids who teased her by tugging at her dupatta or clapping right behind her. I stood watching for a long time. When finally, she looked around to see me, she let out a loud scream and hugged me tightly. She then introduced me to the kids, one of whom recognized me from the stories she kept telling them. “Isn’t she the one you keep talking about, the great businesswoman?” asked one of the little boys

 “Yes she is, but for me she is still a little girl like you all!”

Soon we settled down to talk alone and I gathered that Dr. Manisha had never married and lived for the NGO she ran for the spastics. After her retirement she had started the NGO where these differently abled kids were taught to live differently. One thing that surprised me the most was that all the kids were cheerful and not even one felt any self pity for their condition. The kids were all like first amongst equals. It was easy to comprehend these kids were her life now and she truly loved being with them all.

I felt terrible. I was looking for happiness within which I couldn’t find, I was searching for love but I didn’t know where to look at. They were always there with me, within me but I couldn’t see them. Being a differently abled child myself, how could I forget the pangs of those who still suffered from disabilities?  Who could be more sensitive to their issues but me who spent my entire childhood suffering from them?

I felt ashamed.

Loneliness is in the mind and who could fathom it better than me? I only had to reach out to these thousands who needed me more than anybody else. More than the money I could invest in their betterment, they needed my time and my encouragement and my live example to achieve success in whatever they set their eyes on. I was now ready for all of it.

No more lonely at the top, rather together at the top.