No such thing as ….. “Just a regular guy” is my latest article at fuchha, please do rate it there , and any constructive feedback is most welcome. ENJOY!!!
Arrey!!! You got new neighbours. Met them yet? What are they like?” “Amm…., they are okay, you know, just a bunch of regular people”. Sounds familiar. Probably so familiar, that people don’t even notice that it’s probably the most superficial, judgmental and quite possibly inaccurate statement. A statement that goes around so easily and that it stays unnoticed behind its subject. But I don’t blame anyone for that, as we live in a society with growing intolerance for anything that does not conform with set generic opinions, most of which date back generations. In fact being termed regular, or common, is probably the highest social acceptance reward that one could hope to achieve.
Tell me this – how can someone be ‘just regular’ when every step of the system, that we survive in, is defined by setting oneself apart from the herd. Take any domain or stage of life. Let’s start from the very beginning; admission to schools – government has been trying hard to interfere for some time now but the schools, at least the one’s which the parents really want to send their kids to, check thoroughly of applicant’s pedigree to judge how good a student the child may become (I mean come on!!!). Next step, college, if you don’t set yourself apart you’ll be lost in the crowd and nobody is going to give a damn, and let’s conclude with the jobs – most common interview question, “What is your USP?”, and each one of us prepares for that, so labelling any of these young boys and girls as ‘just regular’ people would be inaccurate to say the least.
Ever heard of the phone book reporter? Haven’t. Please allow me to introduce him. This person is a reporter in Lewiston Tribune who has been printing a front page column for more than a decade and a half. His subjects – random people chosen from a phone book. And he has been successfully telling their story all this time, you know why – because Mr. David Johnson believes (also the title of his column) that, when given the proper attention, “Everyone Has a Story”. And in a country like ours, with rich heritage and history it is as much if not more true as probably anywhere else in the world.
When one tries to follow Mr. Johnson’s footsteps one couldn't but agree with him. Families which had to move across International borders due to partition, people leaving their comfort zone to make a mark in this world, kids with fantastic dreams in their eyes, teenagers moving across the country for higher education each and every one of them, and others alike, is a remarkable person hidden behind the veil of being regular.
Finally, after going through all this, if someone still manages to find a person who could only be termed as regular, wouldn't that – in a way make him, or her, or even them, ‘special’?
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