336 Monday Musings: Hunger was their crime!

Monday Musings: Hunger was their crime!

They knew the hungers that afflicted them just too intimately. After all they carried it with them as they walked towards their end.
The hungry of food suffer many times over. The beginning is always that croak in the stomach. One after the other. With time the croak become feeble because now the hunger has reached the mind. The stomach tired and exhausted, knowing fully too well that its plea have not been heeded to, gives up and call...s upon the mind. Hunger rises up in the mind like a snake uncoils itself. The fangs are bared menacingly. All other thoughts recede. All those who claim the power of the mind and sermonise on human capacity to control thoughts must try to be hungry. They will realise the hollowness of those claims. The mind cannot think of anything else but a few morsels. More than the body, the mind needs the comfort of food. Finally and in some sense the worst part of hunger is that it does not even allow you the comfort of sleep. Food becomes the theatre of the nightmares.

He who was hungry of the stomach walked into that hotel to purge himself of that hunger. He was looking for solace.
The second hunger is the hunger of the soul. Wish he could describe what a soul was as he walked up those stairs. He did not knew his soul – neither did he knew anyone else who knew of it. All he knew was that his life, like everyone else around him, was all about making the ends meet -all kind of ends which resolutely refused to meet. He was no longer sure if the ends were ever supposed to meet. Sometimes he thought to himself if things one day becoming better was yet another story that has been invented so that we do not become crazy. It was morphine that they gave to numb the pain. His hunger was that of hope. Walking up the stairs to this place gave him hope – to carry one. It was a morsel for his soul.
He who was hungry of the soul walked into that church to purge himself of that hunger. He was also looking for solace.
The bombs took them both – and their hunger too. I am not sure if they got time to wonder if it was such a crime to be hungry!
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335 Monday Musings: The father’s Son

Monday Musings: The father’s Son

He was glued to the screen as the ECG monitor showed a straight line. It did not pass his attention that this is the irony of life. All our lives we seek the comfort of straight lines – of continuities and predictabilities, without realising that the straight line is actually the end. His father, lying there had lived a full life.
Nothing prepares us for any kind of mortality, particularly of our parents. We don’t want to think about it – a...nd by avoiding thinking about it we delude ourselves into believing that the scare has gone away. It’s the last test of growing up in a sense which none of us want to appear for.

A week in the hospital is a long time. It is a crash course in the lessons of life. Things start to make more sense; the jigsaw falls into its place. Our egos become more visible. Our concerns reveal themselves to be too petty. As he sat there, he realised, perhaps in more ways than ever, what permanent absence means. Separation was not new to him – this however was a permanent separation.
Loss is a strange companion. It gnaws at your soul constantly even when the task of living must go on. He wondered if he could shoulder this burden.
As he sat alone in his grief and dealt with the question of his own capacity to deal with this burden, he remembered the last lines of his father only a week back when they were moving him to the hospital. ‘’In case something happens to me ensure the grandson gets married next month on schedule as if I am there’’. He realised that the father had dealt with his burden of imminent end with fortitude, grace and wisdom. If nothing, he was his father’s son.
It was difficult to smile for him given the situation. He was sure, however, that the father was smiling.
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334 Monday Musings: Faux Pas: The WhatsApp Way

Monday Musings: Faux Pas: The WhatsApp Way

I always knew it would happen one day.
The number of WhatsApp group have bred like wild rabbits on my phone, many overlapping. For instance, there is one which is from school called ‘class of 1991’ till the boys decided that their creativity needed a more liberal environment than the mixed group offered them. They named it ‘badmash class’. If there was any fear that such a name would lend itself to misinterpretation, the administrator did not betray any such fear. Even if the rest of us cry hoarse under oath that we only post motivational messages, the kind that torment most other groups, I suspect our pleas will fall on deaf ears. Never has the general credibility of the content of our discourse been at this ebb.
I always knew it would happen one day.
As if on cue, I open the newspaper and the (arguably) largest national daily in the queen’s language runs a story that families are being torn asunder because of WhatsApp. Apparently, many have either debarred their in-laws or have been chucked off by their in-laws, apart from other family groups because there was difference of opinion on the political affiliations. The sickular-bhakt fissure in families had been exposed and led to the latest partition. I have my suspicion that being thrown away from the WhatsApp group by the in-laws had a celebratory ring to it – although the newspaper article did not mention it. The story would have taken a different turn in that case.
I always knew it would happen one day.
My memory on this subject is a tad hazy but I do try to recollect how were my mornings before WhatsApp entered my life. I wonder whether it was as ‘good’ without the 137 ‘good morning’ messages on an average I receive every morning – of course embellished with sundry images like flowers/bouquets/sunrise/smileys which I am imagining is to make the mornings good. I keep imagining with all the firepower these good mornings how come I still sulk most mornings and my day continues to be plagued with a general desire to break the nearest skull available – and then repeat the process.
I always knew it would happen one day.
My heart swells, my lungs choke and the eyes brim with tears with all the motivation available on WhatsApp forwards. I feel sorry for entire humanity for the terribly unmotivated lives they lived before WhatsApp arrived. I am daily made to realise how much potential I have, how much happiness I am capable of, how greatness is knocking on my door, how much peace my soul is dying to experience, how much goodness in my heart I have been carrying all these years. It is an altogether matter no one else shares that sense of potential – particularly those who matter; I am constantly drinking coffee to calm my nerves, if looks and sarcasm could kill – I would be a mass murderer already – I am sure you get the drift. Where does all the motivation from all those messages go? I think black hole is not in outer space – its right here.
I always knew it would happen one day.
Ah – I realised I have been missing this point. I always knew that a message will wrongly get posted in a group where it has the maximum potential for damage. The perils of chatting in multiple chatgroups can never be overemphasised. So, this tiny little piece of being nasty, that I sometimes(?) indulge in – instead of being posted in the personal group, mistakenly gets posted in a public group. Oops!!
Well – damage done. I could not have deleted it and made the faux pas more obvious. So, the next best thing is to blog about it. Let it at least be fodder to the writer’s craft. To the rest – be warned.
www.gurucharangandhi.com
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333 Monday Musings: Mountains & Mists: The words that matter!

Monday Musings:  Mountains & Mists: The words that matter!

Small hill stations have a unique heartbeat. The reactions to a visit there by a city dweller is equally fascinating in its ache and the momentariness of that ache.
The beginning: The curves and hairpin bends, the sudden drop in temperatures, the chill in the wind augurs the hill station. Habitation recedes, the traffic thins and so does the cacophony. As the vehicle weaves its way up through the cuts in the mountain, it dawns upon the traveller how tough it would have been to tame the impregnable monoliths that have stood their ground for thousands of years. The pace of the vehicle automatically slows down and that is in some ways the first thing that a hill station teaches you – the sheer joy of slowing down.
Road side eateries spring up in crazy bends – ramshackle places that serve the modern and the traditional. Tea/coffee stalls, Maggie stalls, fruit stalls, greasy Indian junk compete for space with the tetra packs and chip packets. There is no competition – there is only utility. Most houses are small, just about managing to perch from any little foothold that concrete could provide them along the slopes of a steep mountain. The sublime is traded for utility – come to think of it, utility is sublime. That is the second lesson most hill stations teach – the sheer power of utility and the futility of opulence.
The people, at least the original inhabitants are usually hard bred. There is always a look on them that speaks of having seen the vagaries of life. A tough terrain, a daily struggle for small things, the preciousness of even small things like water, electricity and accessibility has taught them the virtues of appreciating even small joys. Humility is a natural outcome. They recognise that they are constantly under the mercies of nature and its fury – and that it could be their turn to be at the receiving end of it any day just as it is someone else’s turn today. Hospitality is both a virtue as well as a survival strategy. They count their blessings one day at a time. That is the third lesson that the city dweller is taught – the ability to steal big joys in small things.
The sights are breath-taking. The mountains are egoistical – they care little for your 3 BHK- with a servant room-in an elite tower-in the posh part of the town. You still have come to the mountains. I hear them laughing at us – the naughty avuncular laugh of an old patriarch who has seen it all and understands your misery. A waterfall here or there is full of vigour. It passes you with complete disdain, almost poking fun at your meaningless titles or the mindless pursuit of it. It knows that you are bounded while it has had the freedom to flow for centuries – and long after you are completely smothered by the meaninglessness of your golden chains, it shall continue to flow free. The valleys are laid for hundreds of miles. They have been resting there for millennia and they look well rested. They know the truth about the quality of your sleep, but they are wise and hence keep quiet. The sights teach the fourth lesson – there are sights that give you pleasure is not the same thing as sights that uplift you.
A colleague heaved an extreme romanticised sigh as the sights overwhelmed the soul – “all I want is a book and a cup of coffee; I can live here forever”. I stopped myself from correcting an erring city dweller. “you won’t be able to stay here for more than a few weeks at best – the heavy burden of permanent solitude will kill you. You are too used to the fatuous but perpetual company of boring fellow humans eternally hopeful that it is worthwhile. Your soul has become accustomed to the constant hum of notifications mistaking it for something real. You have an overwhelming and compulsive need to talk to others so that you can avoid talking to yourself”. Obviously, I did not say all of this. The hill station is a place to briefly look at a life that should be – living it in reality is a courageous step not most of us are capable of.
A final word on the early morning mist on the huge lake. Mist was the poetry being sung from the heart of the lake. It arose like words and got lost as it rose up – like all words uttered that get lost eventually. All that was remembered that the lake had spoken and the next morning it shall speak again. The lake did not know or cared if the words mattered to anyone. It just spoke with all its heart. At the end of it all – isn’t that all that matters.!
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332 Monday Musings: Advises that haunt!

Monday Musings: Advises that haunt!

Like sins, even advice returns to haunt.
I met a friend of mine recently after an hiatus that emerges from the being caught into the whirlwind of everyday living despite desires (or claims) to ‘let's catch up’ and we got talking. Such conversations have their own anatomy. It begins with the banal how-are-you, whats-up, whats-new, whats-keeping-you-busy-these-days. These questions are like throwing dozens of darts in the hope that one of them will hit the bulls eye. No one knows for sure where and when exactly a crack in the inanities will let out the thread of a really meaningful conversation. The joy really is in two parts – one is the discovery of an unexpected strand of discussion, a subject that would not even have been on the minds of the either of the two would be discovered; and two is the unhurried pace of the conversation where neither is in a hurry to make a discovery. Serendipity and slow motion conversation has its own joy.
I also discovered that advice returns to haunt sometimes so one must be wary of advising. The friend reminded me of an earlier conversation where I was asked ‘’is it important to be ambitious?’’. I had commented ‘’it is only as important to be ambitious in life as it is important to YOU to be ambitious’’. Frankly I had to struggle to remember having said something like this. It sounded cool and fairly intelligent hence I did not dispute that I would have said something like that. We say many things and if we put ourselves through the burden of remembering all of them then we might end up not saying anything. In any case the trend is the say things, say lot of things, and then have the ability to forget that you said anything. Politics, marriages and workplaces run on this exalted ability! (This is another of those that I will forget that said it!!)
Now I would like to believe that ambition is important for me – may be it has always been. I might fit success retrospectively to the presence of ambition or even worse I might even have the temerity (or shamelessness) to attribute success to the presence of ambition. In reality the success could be accidental, random or even just fluke.The question when asked was however deeper than this. It was meant to ask if one is not fiercely ambitious (become senior-assistant-associate-chief-deputy-vice-president or something as significant like that !) or one does not have reasonable clarity of what one wants to become (to become CEO-in-tech-dealing-in-vigilantism-by-age-40 or something purposive like that) does that make us mutant or retards or misfits in times which celebrates clarity and time bound achievement of career goals?
The question had indeed flummoxed me because I was sure that I did not have great credentials to answer it. It is like asking a railway engine to go on a trek. However I cannot escape the fact that the question was asked and I did answer what I answer – i.e. ’it is only as important to be ambitious in life as it is important to you to be ambitious’’
I had mumbled something as an answer. I had tried to keep it neutral, something that would have kept me away from taking a position on the subject. I had obviously not expected that it would actually solve the friend’s predicament. The friend in question was thankful that this sentence put things in perspective and that it no longer troubles not to have a very clear sense of ambition or goal – that it is only as important as it is important to ‘ME’!
So where is the haunt in this? The haunt is not in the question if having an ambition is important for me; for all evidence suggests it is. The question is if THIS ambition, that is the one that I currently have is REALLY important for me? I end with the haunting question – what will I regret more; the chilling prospect of NOT achieving it or having achieved it to realise the chilling consequences of achieving it?
Guru
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331 Monday Musings: New Years and wavering minds!

Monday Musings: New Years and wavering minds!

I have vacillated quite a bit on the subject of ‘new years’. My views have swung wide and sometimes ironically.
In the early years I would treat new years as time for unadulterated celebration – nothing more and nothing less. Youth needs a reason for revelry and even a flimsy one as a New Year was enough. It had the pretence of the monumental – everyone wanted to believe that something big and something significant has happened or about to happen as the Roman calendar turned another page. No one knew what exactly. It was a mass mobilisation of the absurd that had alcohol as an alibi. I did not complain even once. No one else was complaining either.
As years went by I started to take the New Year’s very seriously. I wrote some extremely self conscious pieces of new years that passionately exhorted the cause of the pause, self reflection and course correction – in that order. A lot of fuss was made of that giant chasm between the end of a time and the beginning of another. I believed stuck between these two was a giant opportunity for renewal and reimagination. I believed in the possibility of that moment. I wrote obituaries of the year gone by and the offered a toast welcoming the new one drunk with optimism.
As I look back on those moments during the new years I am almost embarrassed by my naivety – the embarrassing gullibility of believing that I could change, make new beginnings, close lose ends, wipe memories, erase anguish and pain, build confidence to reimagine myself, forgive and forget – all as easily as the time changed its year on the calendar. The fact remains that I did spend many New Year’s actually believing all of this was possible and particularly so as the New Year dawned.
I am in the third phase now. I am less and less sure of almost everything that I held sacred once. I am not confused – I am just less sure. I am scared of certitudes. More than that I find certitudes spurious and the ones who are absolutely sure as charlatans. Every year exposes me to myself a little bit more. It is almost as if another layer of innocence (best case scenario) or pretence (worst case scenario) has been peeled off.
So what did 2018 made me more and more conscious off? What has another year of living taught me about living? Here are my top 5 of them.
1. Everyone is dealing with their own demons. Everyone is scared and pained – in small measure or large.
2. People crave for empathy & care more than development and progress. (Corporate learning and development folks take note!)
3. It takes just one second, one event, and one thing to change the tide – Don’t take yourself, your fortunes, position and even knowledge/abilities too seriously.
4. It just takes one second to drop dead – so chill and don’t fret. As they say – ‘you are not coming out of this world alive’
5. Not everything happens for a reason – so don’t search for one. However having a theory about why things happened to us comforts us – so do create one.
By the way..wish you all a very happy new year 2019.
What is your top 5?
Guru
www.gurucharangandhi.com || www.mondaymusingsbyguru.blogspot.com

330 Monday Musings: The House of Cards is more than just a house of cards!

Monday Musings: The House of Cards is more than just a house of cards!

I had imagined that I had won the third world war when I managed to quit the television about 5-6 years ago. Outside of stray movies, which I do not consider as TV in the strictest possible meaning of it, I may not have watched more than 10 hours of TV in the last 5-6 years. Needless to say I felt on the top of the world all these years particularly when I see inmates of this prison both at home and at office. I used to relish the joy of seeing them and their plight, sucked into the abyss of what I arrogantly thought was the helpless bondage of addiction. Little did I know one day would chug along Netflix. I think I celebrated my freedom a tad too early.
I shall certainly never forgive the close friend of mine who otherwise I find quite wise and lovable, to have introduce me to the Netflix series – House of Cards (HOC hereafter). Everyone who has seen it will understand my point and those who have not, my advice to you shall be ‘stay away’ – it is more addictive than heroin. I binge watched 70 plus episodes in less than 45 days.
However this is not about my rant about addiction but the joy of HOC. I think I do not regret my inescapable sinking into the dungeons of screen addiction. The depravity of my fall from the high pedestal of freedom was enjoyed every second of it – episode by episode.
HOC had some absolutely amazing quotes which were shocking but accurate description of the fissures of human character. The fact that someone else was saying what we always knew to be possible made consuming it easy. The viewer is actually relieved that he/she is not alone in falling prey to the imperfections of his/her desires, drives and demons. Here are my favourite top 10 (googled). If you see a bit of yourself or people around you in them – do not cringe, sulk or feel disturbed. Just relish your imperfectness in that muggy feeling that you are not alone.
1. ‘’After all we are nothing more or less than what we chose to reveal’’.
2. ‘’Power is a lot like real estate. It’s about location, location, location. The closer you are to the source, the more is the property value.
3. ‘’Proximity to power deludes some into thinking that they wield it.’’
4. ‘’For those of us climbing to the top of the food chain, there can be no mercy. There is only rule – hunt or be hunted’’
5. ‘’If you don’t like how the table is set, turn over the table’’
6. ‘’There are two kinds of pain – the sort of pain that makes to strong or the ones that makes you suffer’’
7. ‘’The road to power is paved with hypocrisy, and casualties.”
8. ‘’Money is the Mc-mansion in Sarasota that starts falling apart after 10 years. Power is the old stone building that stands for centuries. I cannot respect someone who doesn’t see the difference.”
9. If a man is not smart enough to be able to use whatever is in front of him and still make it work...well, then...that’s just a failure of the imagination’’
10. ‘’We both know something the rest of the world refuses to acknowledge. There is no justice, only conquest
Post script – one does not need to accept this as absolute truth. Find your own.
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329 Millennials, Artificial Intelligence, Digitisation and other wolves.

(First published in People Matters, November 2018)

Millennials, Artificial Intelligence, Digitisation and other wolves.

In a recent conference the hot topic of discussion was what would become of the subject of leadership in the coming age of AI and ubiquitous digitisation. Yet other paces I hear so much about the workplace which begins with the preamble on the millennials. There are a few more that almost every expert worth his or her two bits pays homage to. I am no expert or futurist on most of these subjects and neither would I risk an opinion on this crystal gazing as a prediction – but I do have a word or two to add as a layman - with a sense of humour. You might want to wear that hat while reading this.
Here are top 2 of these refrains in the conferences that I find to be terribly overplayed in their own unique ways.
1. Millennials: Most of these experts would like us to believe that millennials have arrived from Mars and that they have characteristics that aliens have and that understanding them will require extra-sensory perceptions. They would like us to believe that never before a phenomenon like this has ever taken place on mother earth.
I find our opinions about the millennials an exact replica of the opinions that every generation has of the next generation – our grandparents had that of our parents and that our parents had of us – and lo behold, we are having that of the next – except that we are calling them millennials; just because they were lucky to have timed themselves to be on earth around the change of the millennia.
Let’s try to pen down what we say about the millennials generally and all that you have to do is the try and remember the refrain your parents had of you.
a. too distracted to focus on one thing
b. Has no focus on one thing more than a few minutes/hours/days – too fickle
c. Too irresponsible
d. Deteriorating work ethics/no loyalty/no patience/no respect
e. Too self centred/thinks only of oneself/no social qualms
I am sure you get the drift. I think what is happening is that with the solitary exception of hand held devices, there is hardly anything that separates them from the previous generation. Even on that count people said the same things when the youngsters discovered LP records/magnetic tape records/CDs/television. You can repeat my previous 5 points as a description of the youth that grew up in 70s/80s and 90s.
Millennials are just another generation who have newer toys and newer ways of enjoying life – they will come of age just the generations before that came of age after the necessary phases of experimentation, realisation and awakening. They will continue with some and find some new peculiarities.
So the next time you hear someone opine too strongly on millennials and paints a picture of impending doom – don’t bother beyond a certain level. The world has survived the advent of new generations for thousands of years and there is no reason to believe it won’t survive the millennials. In any case they are better than us in many crucial ways – however that is a subject of some other day.
2. Artificial Intelligence and Digitisation: first thing first – I think it’s a case of rebound echoes. Most parrot this phenomenon because everyone else is parroting it. Almost everyone begins his/her speech with the preamble – ‘’in this day and age of artificial intelligence and digitisation....’’ to fill in anything and everything that needs to be filled. A few years ago the same preface was ‘’In this day and age of VUCA...’’. Around two decades ago this was ‘’In this day and age of globalisation and liberalisation...’’.
Every decade has a theme. There are certainly factors which are more dominant, more visible and more frequently at play than others and it is important to take note of them. However to believe that ‘this time it is so different that it will cause the end of the world as we know it’’ it is a classical case of over dramatisation.
There is no doubt that artificial intelligence and digitisation will certainly change many things around us. It will change many processes, make many jobs redundant, change the nature of relationships between man/woman and the machine, make lives simpler and richer in many ways and yet cause disharmony in many ways. TV did that. Computers did that. I think fire did that and so did wheel. Automobiles did that. Every new technology does that. The only thing that is different is the manner in which it impacts and changes things on the ground. Humankind has survived all of them – and I have no reasons to believe that humankind will not survive artificial intelligence and digitisation.
Every time a new technology made human efforts simpler and made some jobs redundant, human enterprise and ingenuity found new channels of expression. They found newer areas to become experts in. They found that they could spend the time so released can be used to solve newer problems – either hitherto unattended or new problems that might have surfaced.
So the next time in a conference some serious looking old bloke tries to scare you of your redundance with the advent of the artificial intelligence and digitisation, you can be sure of one thing – most likely he/she certainly has lost the plot and is shouting for help. There is enough unsolved, unresolved and unattended for the rest of us crying for our attention.
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328 Monday Musings: The Partition Museum

Monday Musings: The Partition Museum

Last year around the same time I had the fortune of visiting the holocaust museum in DC, USA. I was literally blown away by the visit – at multiple levels.
While one knows about the holocaust as an academic event, it overwhelms you to go through its build up and it’s unfolding through grim footages, photographs and stories on display in the various sections of the museum. Anyone who is a student of history will be amazed at the quality of the curation in this museum. A grim reminder right at the gates stares at you, shakes you and leaves you disturbed, reads like this – ‘’The next time you witness hatred, the next time you see injustice, the next time you see genocide, THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU SAW (TODAY)’’. As I came out of the museum, I could not help wonder if we in India would ever be courageous enough to create something like this for our own holocaust – the partition. I was wrong in my lament – because we do have something like this now called the Partition museum in Amritsar, housed in the erstwhile Amritsar town hall, a majestic colonial building made in red brick stone.
The partition of India, at both its borders – the western side and the eastern side, was a complex phenomenon. The views to it today in 2018 clearly are influenced heavily basis who is the narrator. Almost two third of the country who did not suffer from it or even witnessed it have a curiously clinical view to it. They are either indifferent to it because it happened to a very different people hundreds of miles away, even though they might be compassionate about it, they cannot really relate to it. Some may espouse high passions because it suits their political stance but do not have any personal grief from it. Some may identify with the pain as they can generally identify with any pain because they have an evolved sense of empathy. However all pain is different. It hurts differently. Grief is infinitely personal. Partition too many was personal, not a chapter in the history books.
Largely, but not strictly restricted it, People from the north, North West and the east have lived through the partition and its horrors. The upheaval, the distortion, the scars, the anger, the anguish is personal. It is felt through the stories told, the albums revisited, the diaries read and re-read. It is felt through the loss of family fortune – either to be permanently lost or through its redemption thereafter. The generations succeeding them have no choice but to stay invested in these stories. They will never know it how but they will own partition and its echoes in strange ways – as if it is family heirloom, passed from one generation to the next. Pain is a funny inheritance. You cannot wish it away.
Coming back to the partition museum, I must begin by saying that it is an incredible effort. The mere attempt is worthy of accolades. It has many sections to its credit – the build up of the voice for the partition, the mass human migration, the mindless genocide, the cruelty of the redrawing of the maps on paper, and finally the black humour of the division of many things fundamentally indivisible – like artists and art, sportsmen, army officers, museum artefacts et al. It has recordings of survivors, tales of separation, uprooting, alienation and the deeply debilitating impact of violence on the psyche of people who had the fortune of having survived. Some survive to die multiple times thereafter. Some die and are spared the pain.
I wish the museum had done greater justice to the voices from the Bengal side as much as it did for the Punjab side – although it’s quite understandable because the museum is in Amritsar. I also wish they had more stories from across the border from Pakistan – although again, it’s quite understandable because all stories are flawed as it tells only the narrators grief – never his own perpetration. The museum is based on a premise that we were the victims.
I wish that everyone – those who have a personal memory with the horrors of the partition as well as those who do not, visit the partition museum and remember the line that I mentioned is found on the walls of the holocaust museum – “The next time you witness hatred, the next time you see injustice, the next time you see genocide, THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU SAW (TODAY)’’. Just a look around and we know this is a grim and timely reminder.
Postscript - my eleven year old who accompanied me to the museum had a Yorker for me at the end of the trip – exactly the kind that children bamboozle you with. ‘’Dad – what would have happened if your grandpa would have chosen to go to Pakistan instead of staying India?”
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327 Our abilities are grossly overrated !

(first published in People Matters October 2018)

Our abilities are grossly overrated !

Workplaces can be funny places. If one has a sharp sense of it, then humour will keep calling. Many professions have a heightened sense of self view which after a while becomes amusing. Look at for example the profession of politicians. The sense of self worth that they move about can easily mislead one that perhaps the earth will stop moving around the sun if they would not do what they do. The observers of this profession however have a wide range of opinions about them – from disdain to disbelief, from irritation to repulsion, and finally from laughter to sarcasm. However the politician is so engrossed in his sense of self worth and so convinced about his role in moving the earth that the reaction depicted above does not even touch him. He is oblivious to his insignificance even when he is screaming to claim his significance. This soap opera as I said above is either tragic or comic depending upon the mood and day of the observer. Work places are also susceptible to this – particularly if we do not guard ourselves.
I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that at workplace and particularly in people who profess to be proficient in them, the claims on following abilities are grossly overrated. (The pronoun He is used for because constant use of ‘he/she’ was becoming cumbersome. The thoughts apply across genders)
1. Self awareness: ‘I know what I am doing’: In their own eyes, everyone knows what he is doing and more importantly why is he doing it. He knows his motives very well, his reasons are clear and he is in full control of his actions and behaviour. We are confident that there is nothing about us that we do not know, that all that is worth knowing about us already is known to us and that all areas that others do not like about us or we constantly receive feedback about, is because ‘we chose to be so’. Our anger, irritation, decisions, choices, patterns, preferences are all deliberate, towards a purpose and that we are in absolute awareness and hence absolute control of it. I think this heightened sense of self awareness is Grossly overrated!!
2. Feedback: ‘Active seeking and Active working on feedback’. In their own eyes, most believe that they are so interested in self improvement that they know all ways of bringing about that improvement. What is still not captured through their sharp self awareness (as mentioned above) they seek out as feedback. Such is our obsession towards self improvement that we leave no stone unturned to collect feedback widely and deeply. They are diligent enough to seek feedback from seniors, humble enough to seek feedback from team members and large hearted enough to actively seek feedback from peers. They are also secular in the way they act on feedback. In the eyes of most beholders we do not distinguish who has given the feedback before deciding whether to take it seriously and act on it or not - isn’t it? They also believe that they work religiously and diligently on all feedback till the time those blemishes and creases are cleaned and ironed out. We leave no stone unturned to work on themselves. I think this heightened view about our ability to take feedback is Grossly overrated!!
4. Objective: ‘Free from biases. In their own eyes most believe that they are objective. They are convinced that their opinions and decisions are based on hard facts and facts only; that the way they reach their conclusions is tested on the touchstone of factual veracity, free from the interferences of preconceived notions, unfettered by the debilitating influences of personal biases of all kinds. They are resolute in their confidence about their decisions and more importantly the process with which those decisions have been arrived at. They are absolutely convinced that their own motives or preferences or influences of any other kind – obvious or subtle, have not coloured their opinions. I think this grandiose claim of being objective is Grossly overrated!!
5. Listen: ‘Understand completely’. In their own eyes, everyone is a great listener. He gives enough time to hear other people out, figure out what are others really saying, go deep below the words, between the lines, and make complete sense from the conversation. Most believe that they are unencumbered from interferences of any kind, that their own noises do not impact their ability to understand what really the point being made is, that their minds do not wander and that they do not judge. Most also believe they can sift through a person’s minds within a few minutes and within a few lines. Most believe that they can simultaneously be thinking of other things, be doing other things and yet be able to do justice to what is being said to them. Inattentiveness, lack of focus, inability to understand the real meaning etc are issues that others face – not them. I think these heroic listening skill claims are Grossly Overrated!
6. Change: ‘Change easily and at will’. In their own eyes, most believe that they are flexible and change without much fuss. This is my personal favourite in this list. Most that I meet, including myself, believe that we change our stance, opinions, habits, preferences, thinking, and methods – as and when it is required. Most believe that inflexibility is a scourge that afflicts others and that they have been particularly blessed with suppleness of thought. This one is an epidemic these days particularly because the subject of change itself gets discussed like never before, almost ad nausea. No one wants to be an atheist in the temple town. Hence everyone wears his ability to change on his sleeve. Most around us are supremely confident that as the context, environment, strategy, business model et al change, and as the demand from individual also changes as a result, they are amongst the first to change as a suitable and appropriate response to those changes. Everyone else takes time. In case one is charged otherwise, the intellectual defence comes camouflaged as decisiveness and firmness of decision making. There is no other way to say it but this - Our ability to change is grossly overrated!!
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326 Monday Musings: Handwriting et al.

Monday Musings: Handwriting et al.

Apparently a medical college in Indore is planning to run ‘handwriting’ classes for the doctors!!
Tragedy is never high brow – the ones I like it more the ordinary; which evokes pain and smile in equal measure. Two score years ago I failed to crack the exam called ‘Medical Entrance’ – and for a few years at least lived under the ignominy of having failed myself from serving humanity; realising only later that failing the exam was actually the greatest service I rendered to humanity.
As I read the story of doctors being sent for handwriting classes, something my 11 and 6 year olds are sent to, I experienced a joy I never knew existed. I can only imagine the conversation in those classes. The teacher reprimanding something like this ‘’Mind your paracetamol – it looks like parasitamol’’; or in yet another heart wrenching case that ‘’your losartan is loosartan’’ (only the medically inclined be able to understand the double pun in it).
I did some google research on some hilarious medical report errors attributed to handwriting or spelling errors or poor language. Here are my top 10 – the ones that made me ROFL!!
1. The lab test indicated abnormal lover function
2. Examination reveals a well-developed male lying in bed with his family in no distress
3. On the second day the knee was better and on the third day it had completely disappeared
4. Patient was released to outpatient department without dressing
5. The patient has no past history of suicides.
6. The patient expired on the floor uneventfully.
7. By the time he was admitted, his rapid heart had stopped, and he was feeling much better.
8. The patient is s a 79-year-old widow who no longer lives with her husband.
9. The patient refused an autopsy.
10. While in ER, she was examined, X-rated and sent home.
I am yet to ascertain why it is called ‘handwriting’ – the hand in the writing is quite superfluous and useless. Is there any other kind of writing we are aware of! I mean a liverwriting or nosewriting is a promising idea but a hideous one. I would much rather have my liver engaged in digesting my whiskey rather than wasting time in dealing with the inanity of the written word. The nose on the other had must continue its idyllic charm of poking itself into other people’s business, and quite needlessly at that. The ‘hand’ in the ‘handwriting’ is what Advani is to the BJP – useful once upon a time, largely defunct now, but if tickled enough to cause a rupture can still cause excruciating pain.
Coming back to the doctors who shall be given a course on improving their handwriting, I begin to wonder which are the other professions who can be sent backing to do some basic work. Lawyers can be sent to listening skills – come to think of it, many in the corporate world are also in dire need of this. I am told that the Vipaassna meditation courses where one is to be absolutely quiet without talking for say a week is rather unpopular with the lawyers and managers
Politicians? What special classes must they be sent to? I think they need many classes but the one I would like to send them is preparatory quarantines – where they have to live away from all human contact for a week. There should also be no mirrors so that they cannot indulge in the vanity of self viewing, which comes with narcissism, an affliction so common in them.
Celebrities from cinema and media must be sent to classes which will help them express themselves authentically – not some programmed expressions with programmed clichés. Very difficult indeed.
I am still wondering though what classes should husbands attend? If the range of feedbacks that are rumoured to come an average husbands way is anything to go by, I think he does not need corrective classes – he needs reincarnation. I wonder even that will help. 😀
Guru
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325 Monday Musings: Laziness, Genetics and Us.

Monday Musings: Laziness, Genetics and Us.

Newspapers can come up with some really funny stories. A recent ones says something to the effect that human kind has a genetic predisposition to sit, which is an euphemism to say, that all of us are genetically programmed to be lazy. This is a tale that hangs to that thread – for its dear life.
Scientists who are researching this line of thought deserve the highest praise in their efforts towards making this world a happier place.
Let’s look at the reasons for my commendation. If this study does indeed prove, beyond reasonable degree of doubt, that we are designed and destined to sit – and hence by Newtonian extension, continue to remain in the position of sitting, then we now have a philosophical argument in favour of laziness. This study shall provide the lazy their moment of glory, a sadistic pleasure of saying ‘’I told you so’’. It shall provide fat men and not-so-thin women (the different in the choice of adjectives are purely for reasons of political correctness) a principled argument to retain their fascination and continuance with matters of girth.
If humans by genetic disposition are inclined to sit, then why in the devils name should we move!! Why waste a movement when non movement can achieve the same?
I like this genetic theory of everything. Studies have earlier shown that some of us genetically predisposed towards a wide array of things – in our love for the drink, the desire for the smoke, extreme attraction for the sugars and so on and so forth. Nothing is more satisfying than blaming our ancestors for our choice of habits. If I see the rasmali and my heart goes through a roller coaster and I can blame that surge of desire to my great grandfather or may be his. I think the whole act of gobbling six rasmalai’s now acquires a very different meaning – may be a modern equivalent of shraadh ! To the world I might be submitting to the seduction of the sweet tooth; to me, I am just paying obeisance to my ancestors – who before they parted to the next world passed on this gene to me.
Let’s continue. I enjoy lazing on the bed well past my time. Genes. The snooze on the mobile was designed as a feature to pay respects to exactly those ancestors. So never feel bad when you press snooze for the sixth time in the morning – it’s your way of respecting those ancestors.
The TV and the mobile were all designed to propagate and strengthen the instinct to sit (ok ok – semi incline is just a variant of sitting!!), thereby carry forward the instincts embedded in our genes. I am beginning to see through the vile propaganda against the television/mobile for what it is – a smear campaign to make us disrespect our past heritage. Let me find an appropriate organisation who is in this business of preservation of anything that has linkages to our glorious past - who shall then counter this diabolic conspiracy to belittle and undermine our culture and the memory of our ancestors. These ancestors and their legacy must be protected from these neo liberals who plant such vicious ideas as health, movement, exercise and fitness in our impressionable minds. I am puffing already with excitement as I type this – which is against the instinct of sitting; so I stop here.
If only I knew it was the genes who were behind my instinct to sit – when mom asked me to bring vegetables or dad wanted me to study or the spouse wanted me to do whatever I did not want to do !!!. I wasted more than two score years feeling guilty about something that I should have actually been proud of.
Post script: Modern offices are places where people sit and work. I think that is an oxymoron – ‘sit and work’. Nothing is more aligned to our genetic impulses than our work seating.
Post The Post Script – ‘’I wonder, we lazy people go to heaven – or do they send some to pick us up’’😀
Guru
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324 Monday Musings: The sundry matter of our end.

Monday Musings: The sundry matter of our end.

The matter of our end and the manner in which it shall come is the realm of philosophising at best and religiosity at worst. These days it is a matter unattended by both – because philosophising is a lost art and religion is about staying alive; God is just a means for such an extension of life.
The WHEN
I have always wondered at what precise point each one of us will recognise our essential mortality – that we are meant to wither away, as bodies and as memories. I have always wondered at what precise point each one of us will come face to face with the prospect of our end - dying at worst and atrophying at best.
Each one us will have his/her own story, with its own trigger. I wonder about the stories of great men and women who have walked on the face of this earth, the thinkers and the doers, who have arguably and beyond doubt made a ‘dent in the universe’ – and I wonder about them; and I wonder as to when was it that they came face to face with the question of their end. Did they achieve greatness before or after this thought occurred to them that their time is limited here? Did they go about nourishing their greatness oblivious to the thought of being dead or did they increase their efforts and passion towards making this world a better place before their time was up. I wonder.
The HOW
I wonder what would have made us come face to face to this question. Will it be witnessing death, injury and sickness. Some would see personal tragedies up close and personal and some would hear about it. Some would see their own sugar levels soaring, lipid levels going berserk and blood pressure becoming uncivilised.
I wonder if all of us see that mortality is as ubiquitous as air – unseen yet there. It around every corner we turn, its at the end of every breath we take. I wonder if the act of living is a delusion, a mass delusion at that, a myth humanity has built, cascaded and reinforced because it keeps the pretence of living easy. It keeps the engines purring as they say!
I wonder how others deal with the essential contradiction between the delusion of life and the certainty of its end. May be it is easier for the saints, the philosophers and the wise. I wonder how it is for those who have EMIs, jobs, reviews, stakeholders, appraisals and the notion of pay checks. I wonder about those who realise the essential ephemerality and those who don’t.
The THEREAFTER.
I wonder about what people do when they recognise the fickleness of it all – the fickleness of the strength of the bones and muscles, the fickleness of their ability to walk, breathe, and eat; the fickleness of speech, hearing and thinking – the essential release that words give to the burden of emotions as they get spoken about.
I wonder if we have even the slightest clue about the unimaginable burden of a heart which cannot speak what its heart swells with and the unimaginable grief of the limbs which cannot carry the burden of your everyday actions as the mind wishes. I wonder about what people do when they do come face to face to all of this.
I wonder about those who struggle to come to terms with it and I wonder about those who carry on with grace and courage. I wonder about the grammar of courage itself in the face of decay and death and what makes some courageous enough to look squarely in the eyes of the impending end without even an hint of remorse or regret – and I wonder if there is a soul at all who can do it.
I know everyone shall eventually come face to face with this question. That day there won’t be ready answers, academic answers, or answers that have been bequeathed to us – that day, perhaps the only day when we shall have ‘our individual answer’. Education, erudition and sophistication will matter little on that day. I wonder what is mine.
The burden of life’s end shall be borne lightly only by those who have taken the privilege of living itself lightly. For the rest of us – I guess it’s a tough transition.
Guru
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323 Monday Musings: How do you fight really?

Monday Musings: How do you fight really?

The anatomy of a fight is a curious beast. There are always many types of it. Fight in this context means a situation where the narrative is of disagreement or conflict – not of the type that is a subject of physical safety, but of the type where two people are coming to terms with a difference of opinion or nuance of argument.
Such conversations can be roughly classified into 3 grades – like how they teach in the med school about the grades of fever. As is my usual recommendation, a bit of humour always helps to enjoy such observations.
Grade 1: The Brush: this is about whose point of view is more valid or better. For example: Is BJP manna from heaven or is congress any more relevant or is eating a certain kind of food a threat to our culture or is it important to pass the test of patriotism before you qualify for anything whatsoever. It could also be about Messi vs Ronaldo, Sachin vs the rest of the universe, Delhi vs Mumbai, Hindi vs. English and so on and so forth. Grade 1 fights have no final answers – there are only personal answers, usually depending upon who you are, what have been your experiences, what is your range of intellect or how far your memory goes.
Grade 2: The Hit . This is about slightly serious stuff. There is some material consequence to it or the other. For example – Is your quality of work good enough to match the expectations laid down (or may be even those not laid down), are you pulling up your socks fast enough (why is it always about the socks; what if I don’t wear socks!!) finally could this work be done in any better way that the level at which it has been done. Grade 2 conflicts are about who is the boss. Period. Rest all is futile.
Grade 3. The Collision : This is about the real life threatening ones. As they say on the back of the lorries – ‘’Nazar hathi, durgathna ghati’’. An error of judgement, one word here or there – and you are doomed. For example – who was supposed to switch off the lights before leaving home, when push comes to shove whose mother shall prevail, how much notice for a task will be considered as valid and admissible in the courts as reasonable, at the end of fight who will finally apologise and admit guilt (this is rhetorical – we all know the answer!) so on and so forth. Grade 3 fights can be life threatening and must be dealt with appropriate caution and mindfulness of the consequences. One wrong step, one inappropriate word and it might sow the hideous seeds of yet another fight, which might bear no relation to the previous ones. The anatomy of this kind fight is like an amoeba – it changes shape constantly. The last word on Grade 3 fights is this – the verdict is predecided. You may still follow the pretence of the fight for there is great value in such pretences too, but it shall no bearing on the outcome whatsoever.
I shall also ruminate on the various ways in which the three grades of conflicts could be possibly dealt with. There is great variety and genius in that too. So here are the three grades of fight responses.
Grade 1: Avoidance: Some fights have no ends, no resolution no conclusion. They are done because there is no better way to spend time that also gives you the illusion of being educated, well read and overall intelligence. Since you cannot solve the mundane hence the best way to deal with that inferiority complex is the pretend solving the sublime. Perfecto!!
Grade 2: Admission: Some fights are best dealt with by admitting guilt – real, assumed or charged. In some equations winning an argument is more detrimental to the future than losing it. You are safe with the armour of an apology rather than exposed with the strength of your argument. You might ask about that thing called ‘truth’. Well as someone said – there is your truth, my truth and then there is reality; and some truths are truer than the rest. Don’t waste time. Just admit.
Grade 3: Submission. This is evolution at its best. It is one grade superior to admission. It’s pure submission – like you prostrate before God and leave everything to His mercies. It’s beyond seeking forgiveness – it’s seeking redemption. It must be done with panache, the right amount of earnestness, with a look that is soaked in absolute guilt and eyes that are struggling to even look up under the burden of the crime/sin and finally with words that must struggle to come out. If this combination is not cooked right then it can be construed as a mere admission (the previous category). Long and happy lives are made only after one has perfected this category. This is sheer artistry.
I work in the corporate and so love the 2 by 2 and 3 by 3 models. The discerning reader will by now realise that the above analysis can be beautifully captured in a 9 boxer (I am a genius).
Baaki aap samjhdaar hain !!
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322 Monday Musings: The subjects they must really teach in school and college!

Monday Musings: The subjects they must really teach in school and college!

I wistfully remember my days at school and college and helplessly smile at the sheer futility of most of the subjects taught. I am sure some very wise people decide that list and they have all the reasons to believe that young people must definitely study them but I guess they are grossly out of touch.
I have often wondered why was it important for me to study the structure of a flower - petals, sepals and the pollen grains or for that matter why was it so critical for me to understand the horrors of calculus in maths; both have never been used ever since. I have wondered why was it important to know the periodic table in chemistry – or know which gases were inert and which were not (the only gas I have had any use for since then is the LPG – which is not found I guess in the that periodic table) or for that matter it has always confounded me why was it important to know to solve quadratic equations. I would be keen to know if anyone has ever used any of the above in any meaningful way ever after studying them
I have a very long list of utterly useless things they forced upon me in those innocent days which have never been used or have proved even obliquely useful ever since – I wonder if such a torment and sacrifice will ever be redeemed through at least one act of usefulness. However this lament is about something else – I was only setting the stage you see!
In my fairly advanced age now and having grappled with my inadequacies and incompetence in many areas with a price paid I dare not mention here, I wish someone had educated me in these areas. There are many subjects that I wish they taught us really – for I experience the lack of knowledge and ability and its disastrous consequences even to this day. I have paid through my skin for this lack of expertise and if the alcohol induced loquaciousness of friends is anything to go by, I am convinced I am not the only one who feels this way.
Here is an indicative list of some subjects I wish they included in school and colleges as ‘the authorities deem fit’. A diagnostic check for an evolved sense of humour will help before going through the list!
1. On partner/girlfriend/boyfriend/spouse:
a. How to understand expectations that are not even said
b. How to understand what is said between the lines
c. How to understand the ‘exact opposite’ of what is being said
d. How to find a new way of expressing devotion every day
2. On managing domestic chores
a. How to be a plumber/electrician/housekeeping staff together (change the bulb, repair the table lamp, fix the latch, change the fuse, etc)
b. How to buy food – for example which brinjal/guard/tomato is of the right freshness, how to ascertain a fresh chicken , how many different types of rice is there (we should ban growing so many types – it’s impossible to distinguish them in any case), how many types of Daal/lentils are there and how to distinguish between them (there are only two types according to me – one is yellow and one is black; rest all exist only to confuse me) and my all time favourite – how does one really find out if the bloody watermelon will indeed turn out red and sweet – and in case it does not how am I accountable for it !!
c. How to be a trapeze artist – do a time motion study of all expectations that have been dumped on you - it will require 5 times the current salary and 20 times the number of hours in a day.
d. How to organise stuff in a manner that it is retrievable on short notice (rather than going mad over trying to remember where had u safely kept it)
3. On Parenting
a. How to keep patience with kids when they mimic the worst in you ( Me and my daughter both keep wet towels on the bed – I don’t have the heart to correct her)
b. How to deal with complaints that you receive from school which are exact replica of the complaints that you earned (I had an issue with homework; now she has an issue with homework!)
c. How to How to deal with over expressive children in front of your friends ( ‘you know grandpa says dad is lazy’)
Who was that bloke who said – ‘’we don’t need no education’’. I think he saw it coming. Let me modify – ‘’we need relevant education’’.
Smile Please. All is not lost. I still have hope. So do you.

321 Monday Musings:The maddening hurry to understand others

Monday Musings:The maddening hurry to understand others

 (first Published in People Matters - August 2018)
I come across quite frequently many who claim to understand others. An equal others if not more are those want to learn to understand others. In the human resources and its cousin professions particularly a window into the dungeons of the human mind and human behaviour is considered the holy grail and many fall for the charms of mastering it – at least the notion of it. There in hangs this tale.
The idea that we understand others, their behaviour, and their motives is so intoxicating that before we know it we fall for it. The mere idea that it is possible to do so is enough to suck us into believing that we can actually do it. One of the reasons why we fall for it is because it gives us a sense of power. What can be more gratifying than the idea that we can understand others and their actions – and in that knowledge lies the mistaken belief that we can play with it, influence it and control it. Some elemental study around mental models, pop psychology and juvenile theories and oops – ladies and gentleman we have got a psychologist in the house!
The idea that we can even begin to unravel the recesses of a human mind and then tie it up with its manifestation is overconfidence, unless one has devoted an entire life to study it. For everyone else I guess the whole thing is tantamount to armchair hunting. It gives a nice feeling and a high, but at the end of it all it, it’s notional and really unreliable. However many fall for it. I wonder why?
This whole thing becomes ironic because while being interested and even passionate about pursuing the study of another mind keeps so many of us busy; the dungeons of our own mind remain unexplored. The physician remains ailing!! I also reckon that the lack of understanding of self remains an ignored pursuit not as much because of ignorance or inability but more because of arrogance – which one knows enough about himself/herself
.
As Kabeer says,
Padhi guni Pathak bhaye, samjhaya sansaar
Aapan ko samjhe nahi, britha gaya avatar
(Study and teaching the world is of no avail, // Unexplored and un-understood self - such a wasted life!)
So the question to muse over is not the sermon of needing to spend more time and effort to understanding ourselves rather than wasting time on trying to understanding others, but the question what makes the latter so charming and the former so repulsive? I use the strong adjective repulsive rather than my first choice, ‘unattractive’ because I reckon such large scale denial definitely must have its roots in something fundamentally disturbing. Perhaps we are too afraid to study self for the fear of what we may find – perhaps we already know in some strange way what we will find.
I must also hasten to distinguish between ‘talking about study of self’ and all its attendant models versus the actual understanding of the self. My pop hypothesis is as follows – The actual self awareness of a person is inversely proportional to the amount he/she has speaks on the subject of self awareness. So the next time someone speaks very eloquently about the subject of awareness and ego, you must run for your life.
I think it was Carl Jung the famous psychologist who had said – ‘’Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding about ourselves’’. A twist of that could easily be, the more we are interested in know about the minds of others indicates that we running away from understanding ourselves. !!

320 Monday Musings:Come and hear my heart beat – you will go deaf.

320 Monday Musings:Come and hear my heart beat – you will go deaf.

There are these moments when the heart beats to its own beat. It does not listen to you. It thumps against the rib cage and gives you the impression that it will just pop out. You can hear the thuds in your won ears. Those are crazy moments, beautiful moments, scary moments – moments far and in between, but moments that remain with you long after they are gone. You almost want to say to the person next to you, come and hear my heart beat – you will go deaf.
3 Shorties! ( never attempted this format – indulge and be kind as a reader)
1. I was just about twenty – in the mind of my parents i was to live life the way some watched movies -‘under adult supervision & guidance only ’. In my own mind I was already a person. I had discovered freedom – freedom to wear what I like, which they thought were outlandish, freedom to listen to new sounds in music which they frowned upon as cacophony, freedom to visit places at odd hours which they thought that good girls should never be spotted in – and above all the freedom to think on my own and firm up my own views. They and I both, were living two lives – one in the world of expectations and one in reality. I had also discovered Old monk, a quarter always in my book rack as my ‘stock’. One day dad was searching something and rummaged through my book shelf and discovered the Old Monk. I am still not sure what shocked him more – the bottle or the brand; and all I wanted to do was not to let him hear my heart beats – he would have gone deaf.
2. A river separates my side of the village from my school. As one crossed the river, but before the school perimeter began was a large Tamarind tree. It stood like a huge guard with spread out arms and an erect back. As winds blew it would sway like a village drunkard on cheap homemade liquor. As evening descended in an otherwise dark village, its silhouette would become sinister. From a distance one could only imagine a monster swaying and making spooky sounds. It was difficult to cross it without feeling someone was ready to pounce you. The village had stories about the ghosts who lived on the tree particularly after dark, and more so on Saturdays, the days of Shani. Today I know they were stories to get us back home before sundown, but in those days I would never imagine crossing the tree in dark. I knew I would die before dying. I stayed back on that side of the town one evening, having played longer that the quota that daylight accorded. I was to return home just under the tamarind tree, after dark on that Saturday. It must have been only a minute for the stretch – but the run, the chill on the spine, the mortal fear that only an 11 year old can feel – and yes of course that pounding in the chamber of my heart. You would have gone deaf.
3. ‘’Love is a fiction’’ – He loved saying after his drinks. We knew where it was coming from. The whole hostel knew. Heart break at 20 can appear cataclysmic. It appears to be end of everything. We knew that the least we could do was to be empathetic to his woes – particularly because he was funding the drinks. A hostelite can do much more for free booze. We also knew that something in him had snapped and in those days we were quite sure that he would never be the same – we not seen enough life to know that we can never be so sure of anything. He had become grown up too soon. He was this serious chap who went about his life like a very responsible adult, a grim look on his face – the look of a person who had seen the other side of love. We wanted to help him but did not know how. I met him two decades later and saw a different him. He was smiling helplessly, an ear to ear grin that was forever pasted on his face. It’s that look when you have experienced divine fragrance, breathtaking taste; when your senses are bowled by the prospect of what bliss awaits you. He whispered in my ears – ‘’I am so happy; if you were to hear my heart – you will go deaf’’.
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