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Reaching out to the future for answers

Yesterday I came out of a meeting about a new media vehicle which is yet to establish itself in India. 

The possibilities sounded interesting though. The owner of the company told me about the growth of this media in the US. I listened to his reasons for believing that it has potential in India too. The reasoning sounded interesting. 

I thought about our chat after I went home. I was keen to know more about this medium. 

Then I happened to go on Instagram then and suddenly saw a live story from my cousin there. She has just graduating from the NYU in New York. She often puts up examples of her design work on Instagram. That's when I remembered that media studies were part of the seemingly complex course that she had done. By 'complex', I mean a course that seemed more fluid than the Sociology or Literature or Physics or Geology Hons of my time in college in Kolkata.

I suddenly got the the idea to reach out to her to know more about what we had discussed in the meeting that day. I had never asked her for her advise before this. I was not sure of what her area of specialisation was but something told me that she would have some answers for me.

Turned out that I was right.  Her replies were precise and were in line with what was discussed in my meeting earlier. It gave me some direction on what to do next.

For people who know her from today, my observations on my cousin would seem strange. She is a NYU grad. Visibly talented with work exposure at an international level. Expecting her answers to be any less rich would be silly.

Well, here's the thing. This young lady was someone I used to baby-sit twenty odd years back when we were both in Kolkata and she was a toddler. So you can't blame me from babying her even today. To me she is still that little kid. Yet, I reached out to her for career advice and the maturity of her answers made me so proud of her.

The incident re-affirmed what I always believed. Which is, if we want to try out new things and navigate the new world, then reaching out to the new generation is crucial.

The quality of my cousin's inputs bore that out.

Thankfully she took the time out to explain stuff to me when I reached out to her. I must admit that I don't always do that with my mom.

I guess I should.

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