Journey of Duty: A Poem of Rights and Fruits

Atrey Dev R Pandey

"What is your best quality, Dev?", my teacher asked me on a casual Wednesday afternoon. Without blinking an eye, I responded to her— "Adaptability. Plain and simple." The reason for this is quite apparent to me, but maybe not to everyone else. Let me tell you why: My childhood has barely been stable. Over the years, my father has moved us around the country a lot due to his job, and therefore I have become accustomed to dropping my routine, my friends and my morning bus route to school as soon as I've gotten acclimatised to it. While this would cause some resentment in me the first 3 times it happened, by the fourth time, I was a professional. I knew how to make friends more easily and assimilate to my new surroundings, despite constantly being labelled as the outsider. To add to this, I have always been 2 years younger for my class. Given that I got a head start in preschool, every year in middle school and above proved to be daunting. I was not only physically smaller than everyone else in the same grade, but also took a little more time to grasp the academic concepts that would come more easily to my peers. Again, while this was initially a struggle, I learnt to cope, and now it is my second nature. I have circumvented any physical shortcomings I've had by trying extra hard at sports, and undertook every academic challenge with a sense of vigour to not give up. I truly gained my social capital when when I was 15, when I became the captain of the school Kabaddi team. Given the weight of the responsibility, I was both happy and worried. I wanted to do my best for myself and lead my team to victory, but was concerned about how I could do this to the best of my abilities! In order to develop my team, I made sure that the team training was both on and off the field. I wanted us to work together as a unit, and so organised various communication and trust based activities as well, in addition to the technical aspects of the sport that everyone prioritizes. In the first tournament we attempted after I was appointed captain, we made it through the first round, but failed to win the second, which was a frustrating result despite our efforts. To find the cause of this, I videotaped our regular practices, analyzed them after practice, and had one one one sessions with each of the members. As a result, I discovered that injuries occurred at certain times every year, which affected the team's losing rate. To solve this problem, I decided that we needed to improve the quality of our diet, so I negotiated with the coach of the Kabaddi team and succeeded in getting a dedicated nutritionist for the team. As a result, I succeeded in reducing the team's overall injury rate by 30% from the previous year. In my last tournament of high school, we made it past the second round for the first time in the history of my high school team. While we didn't come out on top, I still remember the excitement we felt. Throughout high school, my sense of adaptability has bode me well. Drop me in any situation, and I will swim — without a float. I can befriend someone in a completely different age group, pick up an unheard of hobby and undertake a project with minimal supervision. My adaptability is my strength, and I have learnt to accept and further enjoy each challenge that life presents so that I can utilise this skill of mine to the fullest. more…

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