Vinod Mehta is one of the Editors whom I find largely unpretentious.
I was reading the second part of his autobiography called Editor Unplugged and came across one chapter titled What I would do Differently. The title
jolted me to sit back and think – yes, given a chance what would I do
differently?
Mehta writes that he finds “people who boast they have no
regrets in life”, people who would do nothing differently given a chance to
live their life all again, rather ‘phoney’ and ‘hypocritical’. I could not agree
less. Life is actually a trial and error experiment – one occasionally makes a
wrong move and ought to learn from the mistakes. And, one should be ready and
candid enough to live life differently, if at all given a chance.
I would turn forty-eight next May, and I think forty-seven
is good enough an age to think and write what would I do differently given a
chance to live life all over again. There are regrets, and realization of
mistakes; there are heartburn and occasional taming of ego. But life, as it is,
been generous in all its ups and downs.
So, what would I do differently given a chance? The first in
my agenda would be not to take life too seriously by not trying to be a
perfectionist. I do not remember who imbibed in me the need to constantly try
to improve until perfection. It must be somebody from my childhood. Whoever it
was, I realize, he or she was wrong. You need to aim at the sun so that your
arrow flies high, but the world it not going to tumble if you do not hit the
sun.
