Music is one of my passions. I love music—enjoy listening to it, conducting it and shaping it. Sometime back I had the opportunity to take part in a musical production that was scored for full orchestra and choir. At rehearsal, I watched as the violins played, then the violas and the cellos, the double bass and all the stringed instruments. Then the wind instruments came in, the horns, the bassoons, and so on. But right at the back, there were two people; one was playing the tympani and the other had 2 cymbals in his hand. It was interesting to watch them. They were so into the music. In fact, the guy playing the tympani was rocking back and forth on his heels as he didn't have too much to play but had to be in complete sync with the beats and the rhythm of the music, so that when he had to play, he would come in exactly on time. And when he did, there was always a rising crescendo of music. It was all so wonderful. But the other guy with the cymbals had only a few measures to play in that entire movement and he had to wait for those measures and play them exactly on cue and in step with the music. All that preparation for just those few measures, which if he missed, might dilute the music marginally but make his presence on stage quite redundant.
As I reflected on that day and the importance of all those instruments, it made me think that life is sometimes like that. Life offers us opportunities that don't come every day. My mother loved to use this phrase to my brother and me, "Opportunity never knocks twice." When opportunity comes, take it because it doesn't come again. There are always moments in life when we ought to act decisively. And to miss them is to see a dilution of our life and the lessening impact we can have on the unfolding tapestry of the world around us.
