Sunday, November 23, 2014

Bhaveen Sheth from a third person’s perspective

Bhaveen Sheth, who is this person???? He has and will always be an enigma to a lot of people. Many know him as a person who has been odd, eccentric living life on his own terms with no care and concern for the society or the people.
I know him, I know him personally having seen his life for the last 15 years, the trials and tribulations that he has faced. I can say I am one of those lucky few to whom he has really opened up and shared his thoughts and feelings.
After 15  years I have chosen to break my silence and have convinced him to post my write-up on his blog known as the diary of the single Indian male.
What Bhaveen is today or what people perceive him today is not the Bhaveen I knew or met 15 years ago. At that time he was the most happiest and cheerful person you would ever meet, full of life, hyper, vivacious. It seemed that all events of his life had been programmed and he was just following a sequence.

But life is no bed of roses. At the age of 19 a terrible tragedy struck him, a tragedy that left him so devastated that it would take years for him to recover. That was a tragedy where he lost both his parents to a terrible car accident.  This was the very tragedy that made him an orphan and he had to fend for himself all by his own.
Not many people actually know about this. He has chosen not tell anyone. Anytime he tells a person about his past, all he gets is a wave of sympathy,  something that he does not like.
After finishing his graduation he went to the city of Mumbai in order to pursue his career. One year after that he got an admission for his masters degree in a prestigious institute where he completed his masters and went ahead to pursue a successful career in healthcare management.
But this write-up is not about his professional accomplishments or growth. This write up is on him as a human being, as a person, as a living being who always wanted to be part of the society however no one considered him as one.
I have seen Bhaveen go through the most difficult and trying times of his life. It is not easy, it is never easy for anyone to lose his parents at a young age and shoulder major responsibilities. It is not easy to live with an extreme form of emotional and physical deprivation, being deprived of love, warmth care, affection and a human touch. Bhaveen has gone through all of the above.
In 2006 I saw some changes within him, this was mostly through conversations that I had with him. He used to tell me that he found a good friend who understood him, cared for him and treated him nicely. After  long someone did care for him and made him feel human. That friend was his senior in the management course that he had taken up. Her name is Miss Charu Sinha. In the last 8 years since 2006 that I have speaking to Bhaveen over phone, I have seen the importance of Ms Charu Sinha grow magnanimously. At first it was just a good friend but later she became his sister and then went on to become his mother. Many people find it strange how can someone of your own age become your mother but the truth is that some relations are like that , they just happen, you cannot use logic behind the same.
With Charu becoming his mother, he has become emotionally strong and there is a renewed sense of enthusiasm that he has towards life. Bhaveen is fanatically devoted to his sister; such is his fanaticism that it transcends all levels of insanity. This kind of extreme devotion is found in limited people. Over the phone many a times he has mentioned how he would love to relocate back to Delhi-NCR region so that he can be close to his sister. He proudly mentions about his sister as she is the only person he has. Charu has given Bhaveen the feeling of not being an orphan, she has made him feel like a human once again and not even god would be able to thank her for what she has done, to turn a broken hearted destitute orphan into a normal human being.
Even though Bhaveen has been lonely for the past 15 years , he has chosen to keep himself occupied. Reading had always been his primary passion; he has immersed himself in books in order to keep his mind occupied. Movies are his second passion; he loves to amass movies in his hard disk so that he can watch during his leisure time. Another interesting fact is that he loves to search for award winning movies and download them. Of lately he has developed interest in gaming and he speaks of buying a good desktop system on which he can play games.
It is really good to see that he can live his life without depending on anyone.
There is no doubt that Bhaveen will rise in his career and go on to a senior position in the corporate world.
Coming to his single status and his bohemian lifestyle, which, of course is a question mark to many.  He is often questioned why he still remains single even in his early 30’s.  He has no definite answer. Bhaveen tries to change the subject by quoting the melancholic verses of Mirza Ghalib and Zauq which focuses on the importance of a courtesan over a wife.
But in reality he is just trying to avoid the subject. In his mid 20’s he too had dreams of getting married, of finding a life partner, of finding a soul mate. He often felt that a good education, decent job , designation, salary would help him in settling down. Little did he realize that in the Indian society it is virtually impossible to get married if you don’t have a family background. He never gave up, he was always be hopeful that on the social media that has been flooded with all kinds of matrimonial websites he would find someone. Unfortunately, he was in for a big disappointment. It never happened suddenly but gradually ,  spanning a period of six years.
No normal or decent girl/family was interested in him. If he did get expressions of interest they were mostly desperate divorcees just looking out to get married or the kind of women whom no one wanted to marry and their parents just wanted to dump them on anyone willing to take them so that they could get rid of their responsibility. Bhaveen used to share instances on how at times meetings with prospective women or their parents would turn into embarrassing and humiliating experiences. One fine day he just got fed up with the whole thing and deleted all his profiles from different matrimonial sites. He gave up on marriage realizing that Indian society had no place for orphans like him.
I did feel sad, sad at the way people treated him for not having parents. Why couldn’t anyone look beyond his family background and assess him as an individual???
He is an individual, an individual who has lived life on his own, a self made man, who has faced difficulties and yet the people of the Indian society find it hard to accept him.
He has resigned himself to a lonely life and has accepted that he may remain a bachelor for his entire life. But I have different thoughts for him. A man of his calibre cannot stay single. I know that there will be a Good Samaritan who will find him and love him for he is. His conversations speak of his intellect and yes intellectual men are attractive. I hope that god is watching over him and I hope that one day all the good things will happen in his life.
Bhaveen Sheth remains a bohemian at heart with an eccentric lifestyle. His love for books and movies, his interest for extreme endurance training, his passion for undertaking continuous professional developmental activities related to his profession, his love for back packing and travelling the length and breadth of this great nation certainly makes him stand out differently in a society like ours which expects men of his age to be happily married and settled with wife and children. And yes there are times when I being his friend envy him, because he is living his life, because he is living the life that men like us can only dream of.
To the Bhaveen Sheth that I have known and will always remember to be my friend, to Bhaveen Sheth who has transformed himself, I would like to thank Ms Charu Sinha for giving him a lot of support during his troubled times and bringing out the best in him.

Bhaveen Sheth , this is for you, be happy, be hopeful and go out there and live your life

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