They listen to what their heart say

PUNE, INDIA: Driving over a flyover some months back, Tarun Gulati felt a strange percussion. The young- dynamic head of a high-key consulting business at KPIT Pune was suddenly living an epiphany. He had it in him, since childhood.

Yes, he had the drummer in him all the time, whether he was air driving or dissecting a song in precise rhythms whenever he was listening something. As the radio played on, he pondered the drum beats more deeply.

Rock for him was almost a serendipity. Before he became part of the corporate marathons, he had a music band called Six Elements and while looking for a guitarist for the same found a drum teacher instead and since then there no drumming back!

Not much later, he went to one of his usual International Conference trip to the US and stumbled upon some real good DVDs that awoke the drum perfectionist inside.

Still, it's nice to see a jet-setter successful investment banker in Farhan Akhtar rewind to his passion in life and rediscover the music in the movie 'Rock On'. But it might not be that easy or glamorous a decision to take in real life.

Ask Tarun and he tells you, "It was all provocation from within, the call for following my heart. I am now living life with passion be it my drums or my start-up. But I am extremely glad and confident because twenty years hence I don't want to look back and sigh- Oh god! I just worked and did nothing else in my life!"

And so he quit in September and started practicing seriously.

Today he is living his passion with his band 'Suspended Animation' that is devoted to unadulterated absolute good quality music. He takes occasional lessons in Mumbai from Gino Banks, or shall we say the son of legendary Louis Banks. Apart from that and a new start-up he is working on, he keeps self-training himself on the drums.

His preferred genre is progressive Rock which is basically a rock played in different sets and changing patterns. "It's challenging for a musician because our mind is conditioned for the normal patterns."

Well, for Tarun Gulati breaking the pattern won't be too much of a task after what he has done already.

Not far away, was another bravado named Alok Rai, a brilliant software pro from Pune. This week you will find him visiting the school for blind in Belgaum, India. Unlike most of us, who exist blind to their passions and true joys, Alok chose the path towards the visually impaired, to a greater calling.

He recently gave up a career in software in which he held several key technical and managerial responsibilities and worked with some of the leading global organizations. But why?

"I have always been passionate about technology but I felt that I could do much more for my own personal growth. I decided to pursue what now seems like a lifelong passion - to work with non-profit projects that make quality education accessible to everyone."

Alok's personal belief is that showing someone the path to knowledge is the most valuable gift that you can give them.

He loves teaching and as he shares with content smile most of us go green-eyed, "In doing so I am helping myself immensely. I feel immense satisfaction by making a difference, no matter how small, to their lives. Their brilliant, inquisitive, open minds full of hope and dreams inspire me."

As of now, he has taken the hard but rock-solid decision to go on a work sabbatical. Over the past few months he has been working with the UN Volunteers (UNV) Program, the Ann Foundation (Asia and Africa); Youth Press and Development Organization (Zambia); and is also working on an upcoming UNDP funded Information Communication Technology (ICT) project in Bhutan.

Alok Rai and Tarun Gulati show a different dimension of life and career. Call them swashbucklers, foolhardy or audacious but everything said and done, it takes some real spunk to answer this question:

"Life is calling. Where are you?"

Doesn't it?