Passion through the ages – Mukul Kumar

Sharing an excerpt of the video of my session in Chandigarh Literature Festival held in November, 2019. The theme of the session was ‘passion’, which commands a very decorated space in my sensibility, holds a special significance in my life; talking about passion is particularly pleasurable for me for as I talk I feel getting buoyed up with a benevolent contentment that is echoed by a generous touch of sense of service. Let me explain how.

Writing takes me to places including colleges and educational institutions, which means interacting with the youth, affording me the opportunity to share the story of how passion has rescued me from the morass of a strange monotony; and here my being a bureaucrat cum author has positioned me so perfectly, allowing me to easily illustrate to the youth how it’s so crucial to keep a bit of one’s ears alert to the throb of passion within even while one is striving hard to pursue one’s ambition,and later on rejoicing its fulfilment, because howsoever glorious is the profession, the craving for self-actualisation is bound to overwhelm one at some point of life when satiation tends to breed boredom.
Lending this foresight to the youth out of my own experience is like ‘Ah ha!’