What’s “In syllabus” & What’s out?

Life is never out of the syllabus.

We all have heard this when we navigated our education system. For every examination, what is “in the syllabus” & what is “out of the syllabus” was the most critical issue for us. I vividly recall the overwhelming relief when I hadn’t studied a chapter, only for a friend to reassure me it was out of the syllabus. At that moment, a wave of lightness swept over me as if a heavy burden had been lifted. The feeling was so intense that it is still etched in my memory as if it happened just yesterday—a rush of unexpected freedom that lingers.

So, what’s out of the syllabus for you right now? What are the things you instinctively set aside, thinking they don’t belong?

For me, it’s often the more creative pursuits—painting, singing, dancing—that allow your spirit to soar. They feel unfamiliar, even intimidating, but I’ve realized how freeing it is to embrace them and let yourself explore without boundaries. Even writing belonged there till many years ago when my business partner delegated the task of writing a company blog to me & I took it on without too much enthusiasm at first. Dancing has been out of the syllabus since my teenage years. I still blame my sisters for it. We would have parties in our neighborhood club & having two pretty sisters meant I was always the less popular one, or so I thought then. I can still picture that lazy weekend afternoon in our South Delhi home in the 1980s when luxury was a distant concept for our middle-class family. The warm air carried a quiet stillness as we admired our newest addition—a music system with those giant, mammoth speakers. It wasn’t anything fancy by today’s standards, but it felt like a big deal back then. The speakers dominated the living room, magnifying our modest home's excitement. As the crisp sound filled the air for the first time, it transformed an ordinary day into something unforgettable, a moment of simple joy that seemed larger than life. A party came up that Sunday & both the girls were practicing their moves. I still remember the utter scorn with which they consigned my dancing to the proverbial bin. And ever since, I have never attempted to dance. I am sure there is more to this; I am unfairly loading the entire blame on my sisters. But what the hell, that’s what siblings do!

As life moved forward, we entered those intense years when every middle-class Indian kid was burning the midnight oil, trying to secure a future. It was a whirlwind of exams, entrance tests, and endless pressure, the kind of time that leaves little room for anything else. Unfortunately for me, during those 3 to 4 years, girls went entirely out of my syllabus.

Most of my friends, however, were navigating a different reality. For them, girls had become the only item on the syllabus, their conversations dominated by crushes and teenage love stories. I couldn’t help but feel out of step, quietly disconnected from everyone else's rhythm. While they explored their budding fascinations, I was tangled up in formulas and textbooks, awkwardly sidelining that part of life. There were a few girls at engineering college and a few more at other colleges where I had friends, but even then, my interactions felt tentative—like I was always a bit out of sync with where everyone else was.

Instead, I developed an immense love for nature and the outdoors, a passion that has stayed with me to this day. That awkwardness hovered in the background, but I found solace in the open air, trekking and exploring the natural world—a world far more straightforward and grounding than the complexities of navigating social dynamics at the time. Also, I wouldn’t say I liked the syllabus in engineering college anyway. I never wanted to be an engineer, hated chemistry & I was doing chemical engineering. This led to some curious “out of syllabus” encounters, where I stumbled into new experiences with girls and uncovered sides of myself I hadn’t known existed. It was like walking into uncharted territory—fascinating but also bewildering. At this stage, expressing my emotions, especially for girls, was like trying to read a book written in a language I hadn’t yet learned.

Intimacy was an odd paradox. Part of me longed for it to become “part of my syllabus,” to integrate it into my life, but at the same time, it felt distant and completely foreign—firmly “out of syllabus.” There was a push-and-pull between what I wanted to feel and what I knew how to express. It was as if I stood at the edge of a vast ocean, longing to dive in but uncertain of how to swim, with each encounter leaving me both excited and hesitant, like an explorer unsure of what might lie beyond the horizon.

Here is a story from one such incident

Right place, right girl, wrong time, wrong move

Maybe I missed the signal that she wanted to kiss me. It was dark; I couldn’t see her face clearly, and I guess I was also confused. We were on a trek somewhere in the Nilgiris. The smell of mountains was crisp, and a smoky haze surrounded us. We were sitting and chatting behind the dinner tent. Every trek has this large tent that serves as the meal hub. That is where we would all get together every evening; the embers of the evening bonfire hadn’t settled yet. Most group members had started moving towards their three-man tents, and only a few of us were left around the dinner tent. The sun had set, and darkness had set in pretty quickly. It had been a long walk, and most people were tired and waiting to sleep. That’s when Preeti held my hand, and we walked behind the tent, looking at the fantastic rolling hills of the Nilgiris range in the distance. Treks are not the right place for Intimacy.

To begin with, the last bath happened 4 days ago, and I am sure I smelled like my hostel room after a game of football and a water cut! And not having brushed for the last two days wouldn’t help. Yet love is blind, and age and hormones had lit a bonfire, and the embers were still far away. Preeti tugged at my hand and pulled me down to sit on a large rock facing the valley. We weren’t dating and had just met on the trek five days ago. But we hit it off with discussions around Jiddu Krishnamurti and rock music. Strong opposing opinions attracted us and put more fat in our developing bonfire.

Preeti snuggled up next to me; the cold was just another excuse for us. She was comfortable; I wasn’t. It wasn’t like such situations developed often for me, but this was wonderful, and I had no clue what to do. Preeti was comfortable and getting even more so as she snuggled in. It was dark by now, and suddenly, Preeti cried, “Did you see the shooting star?”. With all the chaos this Intimacy was causing me, the last thing on my mind was a shooting star. I mumbled something in reply, trying to sound cool. That’s when I felt her lips on my neck. I wasn’t sure, and a part of me was saying, “Man, you have made it.” And just then, instead of letting the beauty of the moment emerge, my discomfort with the physical Intimacy caused me to exclaim my fascination with the shooting star in abrupt, halting sentences. And so the moment moved on; the kiss was not to be. It was getting cold, and we were both uncomfortable. We moved into our tents; the 7th day came soon, and the trek ended. I never met Preeti again, but I learned my lesson and didn’t miss future signals in the same amateurish fashion.

Soon, the ambition lens got me into an MBA, and more stuff started going “out of syllabus.” Intimacy & emotions still stayed “out of syllabus.” My love for literature and poetry was “out of syllabus.” Life began to be driven by that all-consuming desire to grow on the corporate ladder, a drive that started consuming me. People more intelligent than me had already figured out how vital emotions were for personal growth in the corporate world. Still, at this stage, “emotions” were “out of syllabus” for me.

As life progressed and work started, some non-corporate friendships left the syllabus. Friends I had made who were filmmakers or Theatre wallahs were not met so often; instead, my gang became a corporate gang of friends who worked in companies and were building careers.

A lot of things remained in the syllabus; alcohol was always there. Cigarettes never excited me & even in college; in my hostel room, I had a poster that said, “Kiss a nonsmoker & feel the Difference.” Girls were at the fringes; the desire was high, and opportunity was less; they kept coming in & out of the syllabus. Being ambitious was always in the syllabus & at that stage, it meant moving from one attractive brand name job to another. But ambition was ring-fenced into a narrow corporate path; a writer friend who did nothing all day was ultimately “out of syllabus.” And so the friend circle began to build up, pretty much people like me with a corporate career. The ambition was spelled out in long conversations over beer or Old Monk (Gin wasn’t a thing then, but whiskey was, though it never attracted me). Some images of corporate success began to form; it was mainly about designations, money earned & large brand companies as employers. Somewhere along the way, the missteps with women translated to more maturity till, finally, marriage happened. And suddenly, many single people in my life started “going out of syllabus.” Soon enough, it was kids & schools at one side & managing corporate politics at another.

Somewhere along the way, networks became a core part of my syllabus, though they only seemed to spell business in those early years. The connections I built felt more like stepping stones to opportunities, a means to further my professional growth. It took me years to realize that networks could be so much more—rich tapestries that could color life itself, not just advance a career.

Back then, I chased relationships that I thought would bring success, unaware that the actual value of a network lay in its ability to bring depth, perspective, and shared experience. There’s a sense of missed opportunity when I think about how many meaningful interactions I overlooked because I was so focused on what they could do for my business. It wasn’t until much later that I learned how connections could nurture personal growth, open new windows of understanding, and fill in the spaces that I didn’t even know were empty.

It wasn’t just about handshakes and deals; it was about real conversations, shared laughter, and the moments in between that can breathe life into a career and, more importantly, into the heart.

For a long time, ending up being ordinary was just not acceptable. It was entirely out of the syllabus. I did not even allow such a question to enter my mind for the longest time. Who were you & what was your standing if you didn’t aspire to be the best the world wanted? Not what you could be, but rather what the world wanted & celebrated. Everything I did was about this journey to be the best at whatever I did. It made me razor-focused; there was a view that the world carried about what was the ‘best’ & I would strive to be that. This is essentially how life was till I turned 43 & became an entrepreneur. Then the syllabus started to change dramatically & I changed slowly to meet that rumbling hurricane, realizing that “Life is never out of syllabus”(to be continued).

I wrote the story in this post as a part of the wonderful writing workshop run by Natasha Badhwar & Raju Tai.

https://substack.com/@natashabadhwar  and Raju Tai.