Kashish Mittal’s quiet U-turn from power to passion challenges our definitions of success and offers a lesson in listening to the ‘hunger of the soul’ in a noisy, metrics-driven world
Faizaan Bashir
What do you call it when someone forgets his hard-earned accomplishments and takes a U-turn into an entirely different arena – one characterised by stuff that feeds the soul? Does interest have precedence over power and status? Is the hunger of the soul more irresistible than merely shooting off statements to gauge attention and respect? And is life worth pondering at all, given the ever-increasing appetite for sensory pleasures and material pursuits?
His name is Kashish Mittal; born in Ludhiana, he is an IITian and a former member of the Indian Administrative Services. Still young and energetic, he left behind all that he achieved in his life. A life people break their spine for, doing everything possible to get through. He simply walked away. His hunger lay elsewhere. Where souls meet, psyche harmonises, love disseminates, and hatred dissolves.
Music. Yes, the sacredness of it touched his inner self. It questioned everything that currently defines the constituent elements of success. It seems as though a lone musical warrior won over its ephemeral contestants: status and rank. This is what love, specifically speaking, does to human beings.
I have personally listened to a few of his renditions of different songs, ranging from classical Indian music to Nusrat Sa’ab’s Ghazals. The range with which he sings leaves one amazed, with perfect harmony between high-pitched and low-pitched notes. The manner of controlling the continuous rush of voice is exquisite. The sweetness that emanates as he sings feels like honey dripping from an elevation, making an unbroken string of impeccability.
Music is not the only forte that currently defines him. He’s a living example of humility and simplicity. His calmness and responsive attitude are rare among higher mortals. He remains active on social media, sharing short musical videos there and responding to both the wheat and the chaff alike. A human being quietly resisting the current discourse of sidelining whatever doesn’t align with taste and trend.
His personality and career trajectory bring to mind the Dostoevskian brilliance. Dostoevsky, ever a critic of utopian perfection, dedicated his life to discerning the human psyche, focusing on unpredictable human behaviour. Yet much of current discourse revolves around objective metrics, with little regard for subjectivity. Human emotion doesn’t work in the world of corporate affairs or governmental structures. Express it, and you risk being labelled as weak or resistant to the so-called evolution of perfection.
‘Give a man a mountain of wealth so that he has nothing to do but procreate; even then, he would do something behaviorally not expected.’ This truth strikes at the heart of the current stone-written principles we so dearly cherish nowadays: that facts and facts alone matter.
A human is a complex machine, and whoever tries to confine it to rigid constructs, rationality, for instance, invites havoc: mistimed anger, deteriorating relationships, depression, and quiet despair.
Viewing it through this lens, Kashish appears as a rare gem, someone listening to his inner being while discarding the noise. By living in harmony with his “other self,” he offers a quiet lesson: it’s OK (even necessary) to conduct a personal audit, to zoom in on the buried aspects of the self, breathe life into them, and emerge as whole, organic human beings.
Love for oneself can do wonders, just as his passion for singing, carried by humility, has done.
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