When I met him almost twenty five years ago, Prashant was a
young man [he continues to be so at heart now], full of vivacity and action.
Fortunately these two remain hallmarks of his personality even today. His zest
for life, an indomitable will [if you are in HR they call it ‘passion’] to
pursue dreams relentlessly differentiates Prashant from others. These are rare
qualities indeed.
But what makes him different from others is that he is not
chained and shackled by the desire to reach perfection. Please do not take this
as a back handed compliment; it is not meant to be so. Many persons, [needless
to say me in particular] often do not move and take steps because we feel we
have not yet perfected our action. We actually sacrifice ‘good’ waiting for
perfection; the perfect being the enemy of the good, and wait endlessly to make
the first move. Prashant has never been restrained by such thoughts. He
understood early in life, or perhaps it comes to him naturally, that perfection
is attained by practice and moved on when he felt confident. This is another
point why I envy him. The need to attain perfection has been so drilled deep in
my mind by parents, teachers et al. that I have always found it difficult to
take first step. I have [and I may say many others too] find it difficult to
accept praise for the same reason.
There are several occasions when we have discussed subjects
for writing articles; sometimes he went ahead and wrote in a flourish. There is
a ‘flow’ that one often notices in his writing, lucidity and simplicity mark
his style. He actually writes as he speaks. And on a rare occasion he comes out
with some hard hitting stances – in one of his articles he directed his ire
against an indecisive manager calling him as slippery as a tomato seed! But
those are rare instances.
His appreciative mind takes over quickly and he sees a lot
to aspire for and admire. Music comes to him naturally, I believe he is not
trained in classical music, but he understands enough to appreciate it. [He
does not think it necessary to learn classical music in order to enjoy it, and
yet again, I agree]. Essentially his is a mind that wants to enjoy life to the fullest;
he is a man who appreciates that his glass is half full and would also like to
work on the half empty part to his advantage.
His latest book covers the life stories of beautiful
actresses of Bollywood. He has written about vicissitudes of their life. I have
had a chance to discuss with him some of his write ups. It was my pleasure to
discuss how events in one’s life shape a person’s future, how luck plays a role
and how destiny intervenes at the crucial junctures in life to give it twists
and turns. Biographies bring this out so well. May be someday we will read
Prashant’s autobiography! After all, an autobiography is the story of how a man
thinks he lived.
On this occasion of publication of his first book I can only
say: Kudos to Prashant. Kudos to your spirit of adventure. Kudos to your zeal for
life. And as I always said to him ‘I am proud of you!’
Vivek