Hello Dear Blog and hello Dear Reader,
My apologies for the long silence. I
have been away living my dream and dealing with life… But I am back, and I hope
to be able to share some really fun food experiences from now on. Be warned,
this is a long post, its also rather personal and not very food oriented but I hope
it leaves you upliftedand positive...
“Life begins where your comfort zone
ends”. I saw this somewhere
today and its been on my mind ever since.
We all have dreams. I did
too. But I was happy just dreaming mine because doing more would require guts I
did not have.
Nanushka AKA Nan
Whitcomb, my favourite poet once wrote “you cannot make waves if you do not
leave the shore” I loved the line, but I was too scared to really live it. Then
one fine day, Shekhar, my husband, handed me the life jacket of his support and
pushed me off the shore. Together we began to convert what had become our dream
to reality. The gap between having a dream and translating it into reality
stretches over a chasm that requires hard work and boundless energy. We crossed
our Chasm and launched APB Cook Studio, on the 8th of August this
year. But the work was in no way done because waiting at the other end of the
Chasm was an uphill climb to make your venture successful.
It has taken me a really
long time to share this here on the blog, in fact it wasn’t until today, that I
really felt like I was ready to write about APB Cook Studio on this blog. This
blog has pretty much mapped my life since I started it, because every life
event ends up affecting what I put here. And of late that’s been Zip. But its
also been honest and I did want to put up a glossy shiny picture of happy-happy
joy-joy where there wasn’t one yet.
Also Murphy, who wasn’t
invited to the party, got upset and kicked in at this point, ensuring
everything that could possibly go wrong, did. My smooth running home front went
for a toss first with my support system falling apart. The husband had to
undergo surgery, setbacks came in all shapes and sizes. In fact August 2012 was
possibly the hardest month I have lived in my life. In fact I think I reached
my lowest point ever, then. I remember the day. I twas raining like mad and
late in the evening. I stood outside a store in Powai, holding bags full of
ingredients, completely drenched. I was stressed out and tired and also reeling
from hurt because I had just received some bad news. I had to get home, the
replacement maid would leave soon and no rikshaw would go where I needed to. I have
never felt as alone, helpless and at a loss as I did at that moment. I questioned
myself and whether I had taken the right decision with embarking on this path… I
wanted a shelter from the storm, someone to take away the hurt, wrap me in a cocoon
and make it all better. But there was no one there.
At that point I
realised that you are always alone in pain. People who love you will try to
support you but you have to deal with it. Solutions and easy answers do not exist. You
breathe deep and wait for it to ease a little and fight through, because you
can't outrun it and life usually has more to send your way. When you are all alone and
feeling cornered the only voice that can make a difference is yours, the only
person you have to turn to, is you. We think that life altering moments happen
slowly, over time. But they don’t. They happen in an instant, that’s why they are
moments. Becoming an adult, a spouse, parent... One moment you are you, the
next you have changed. And whatever that moment is, you never, ever forget it.
For me it was that moment,
I decided that things had to change. I managed to cajole the next rikshaw that
stopped for another lady headed further into dropping me off en route. It
worked. It was a small battle but I won it. All the way home I kept
congratulating myself. And promising myself that this was it, there was no
turning back. There would be no more regrets or self questioning!
And in the last month or
so, I have pretty much stuck by that. I have beaten down many fears I have had
for a lifetime, I have crossed milestones, overcome obstacles both good and bad
and learned a lot; about business, about relationships, who my friends are and but
mostly about myself. Today is I had another moment of self realisation…
I tested a very promising
new instructor and as I watched and listened to him, I was thinking of the
potential, how I would package up his class, showcase his skills and immense
knowledge and mentally listing the people that had already been to the studio
that would love to learn from him. And I realised, that THIS is what I have
signed up for, what I wanted; a beautiful inspiring space for passionate cooks
of every stripe to realise their food fantasies.... a place where people could
come to teach and learn.
Yes things
are not easy, the investment is huge, a family’s worth
of people who have invested their belief in me, and everything we have has gone
into this dream. But you have to be willing to gamble. To recognise you
might lose but take the chance, in the knowledge that if you invest wisely, the
payoff just might surprise you. After all the bigger an investment the better its
return.
The phones have
begun to ring, classes have been filling up. We are far away from scaling the
peak but success will come, eventually if its meant to. But life is not about
scaling the peak, its about the journey to it. I am enjoying climbing that
mountain, there are days of foul weather and days of sunshine. But there is much
joy to be had in the little things. Small victories, the struggle and standing in
the face of storms. Every happy cook that leaves smiling, inspired, raring to cook, that in itself is enough to celebrate.
So dear
Reader of this Blog, I would like to officially invite you to APB CookStudio, my living dream, where cooking is FUN! Come say hello, sometime.
And I will
leave you with this, do not let fear hold you back on
taking that decision… yes you might be wrong, or make mistakes you can’t undo.
You might fail, or be rejected but you have to try
for yourself, to make your mistakes and learn your lessons. Because I can tell
you this, from where I am at ---- knowing is far better than wondering. And the
worst outcome, the biggest failure, beats the hell out of not having tried!
Because life begins where your comfort
zone ends….
Rushina
