353: Seven and sixty three

Monday Musings: 7 and 63

I chanced upon this news item recently and having my attention sufficiently triggered went on to research it a bit more. In the year 1964 ITV a British station commissioned a documentary featuring 14 children all aged 7, picked up from a cross section of backgrounds to represent a slice of British life, directed by one Michael David Apted (who would later go on to direct many TV series and award winning movies including the James Bond movie ‘The world is not enough’).

Michael on his part did not stop at that. Even since 1964 he has gone back to those 14 kids every 7 years, a good 9 times and in some sense tried to capture those lives till their age 63 and how those lives have turned out. I have not seen those documentaries and hence do not have an opinion on how those lives have turned out, but the idea of capturing the flight of time through 14 lives is breathtakingly existential.

Here are some of the thoughts mutating in my mind since then.
What would the various ages mean to those 14 if one were to take stock every 7 years? What would be the narrative they will hold in these pauses. Let me hazard a guess with the caveat that I could be way off the mark.

Seven would have been an age of wanting things, eating favorites, sleeping peacefully and snuggling in the warmth of parents knowing and believing that is the most secure and permanently secure place in the world.

Fourteen would have been the age of wanting to grow up fast and have more freedom, of wanting to be accepted and liked, of looking at adults with envy, for their strength, youth, vigor and being able to take their own decisions.

Twenty-one would have been the age to look good, have even more freedom, particularly more money and the decision where to spend it. It would also be the age of envy and a few heart breaks. Believing in ideals would come naturally to them and there will be a happily thereafter in all things. The idea of everlasting youth, everlasting love and everlasting happiness would drive the idealism of thoughts and actions.

Twenty-eight would be the year of idealism. The body would have bloomed fully, the mind would be ready to take on all challenges and the heart would be ready to let come all that is beautiful. There would be beauty in small things and large and being swept off their feet would not only be possible but also desired. They would be ready to take on the world.

Thirty-five would be when a rhythm would set in or at least it would appear that way. There will be onset of the feeling of growing up too fast. The burden of responsibilities would start to interfere with small joys and large and an early realization would start to set – that one cannot have it all, that one has to make choices. A few scars would have been earned by now.

Forty-two would be when it would first dawn upon them that half of life as we know it is well behind them. Joys will be muted and celebrations would not be as much fun as they used to be. Cynicism would be fully formed. Ageing parents would be difficult to accept. The rose tinted idealism would start to fray either at its margins and worse cases at its core. Being a believer in things, people and relationships would take more and more efforts.

Forty-nine is when it would have hit them hard. The greys in the temple would have emerged, the furrows on the head would have started to show and with that also attempts to conceal them in any which way would increase. Friends would start to appear old and jaded, overweight and balding, silly and repetitive.

Fifty-six would have been when they would have been decisively old, whether they accept or not. Children would defy them and they might not recognize the ways of the world anymore. They might even want the old order back, not because it was better but only because it was familiar. The body would show signs of ageing in many possible formations. Regrets possibly would be more than dreams and mortality would have become amply obvious. The flame would flicker brighter in one last desperate attempt.

Sixty-three would be the age of finally questioning the meaning of it all. It would be when some would take stock and ask if it was a life well lived and worth living. Even though many years would still be left but deep questions would have been asked about faith and forgiveness, principles and lack of them, of too much patience or the lack of it, or too much faith or the lack of it, of too much importance to things that had not mattered and too little to those did
matter. Rearview would become more important than the road ahead.

Having attempted a guess at the minds of those 14, may be its time to look back at my own during these ages. Who knows what might I find tucked under the layers of those years!!!

352: Secure with the wings

Monday Musings: Secure with the Wings.

‘What is it to be secure’, asked the little sparrow to her mother as she clung to her bosom.

They were in a nest, warm with figs and branches. The nest had been made painstakingly over a long stretch of time – one fig and leaf at a time. It was the labour of love for the mother sparrow. The nest was hoisted upon two strong branches of a very large tree. The tree was the biggest in that area and everyone wanted their nest only on that tree for the strength it provided. It was a privilege to have the nest on this tree.

All birds vied, and some fought for a space on the branches of this big tree. It was not uncommon to see even sparrows fighting for a space on this tree – sparrows that were known to be delicate and friendly otherwise. One knows of eagles and vultures fighting, for it is in their nature to fight; however sparrows’ fighting was unusual. Life in a jungle can make for strange sights. The search for security can bring out the worst even in sparrows. The vying for the opportunity to make a nest on this tree had seen some very strange things over the years – sparrows’ fighting was only one of them.

So the mother sparrow was very proud of herself that she had built this nest for her little one and herself on this tree. The memory of how it was built might be hazy but her pride was fresh. Her sense of security was fresh and intact. She flew all around the jungle as the morning broke over the jungle, secure in the comfort that she could return to this warm nest on the strongest tree in the jungle. She flew with confidence, mingled with other sparrows, went about her life with this sense of security. The nest gave her security. The tree gave her security.

The mother sparrow thought about all of this as she pondered over the question of the little sparrow. There was something about the question that she could not shrug off even after she had answered to her little one and went over the answer in her mind over and over again. There was something incomplete about her answer that gnawed in her mind even if she did not know of it. Life in the jungle continued unabated. The mornings and the nights fell just as it was their wont for a million of years. Seasons came and went and even though every day seemed like a new one, she often wondered if they were really new. Sparrows have been doing this for hundreds of years now – the getting up in the morning with the warm morning sun filtering through the leaves, the flying all around searching for worms and seeds and returning back to nests. This sparrow might believe her journey is unique and her journey is unique and her struggle for survival is unique. Uniqueness is such an overrated pursuit – she thought to herself. It is important to have a search for it, for otherwise life in the jungle could become so boring. The idea that all of this has happened a million of times and no one ever got out of it alive can be depressing. So they weave a narrative that the jungle will last forever and the nest will keep them warm and secure forever. The mother sparrow brushed these thoughts aside as she talked to the little one about how secure this nest was on this big strong tree. It was difficult for her to distinguish if she was telling this story to her little one or to herself.

It was almost without warning that the storm came. The winds were ferocious and the rains were lethal and the lightening was fatal. It was the first time the little one was seeing all of this. She clung to the mother even more tightly searching for security. The jungle had seen nature’s fury before also, and so had the mother sparrow but for the little one, it was the first time. The wind was making the strong tree sway perilously. She was surprised and shocked for she always believed the tree to be strong. She could not imagine that even this tree could be made to sway and bring it so close to being uprooted. Her shock was on the border of disillusionment. The warm nest was slowly filling with water and with that the warmth that it always provided went away. There was a real chance that they would drown in the very nest that was home and provided them security all this while. The figs were untangling by the moment and suddenly the nest was no longer warm or secure any longer. It was just a matter of time before they had to take the decision to abandon the nest and the tree. The young sparrow looked into the eyes of the mother sparrow with so many questions, and for the first time she realised that the mother sparrow did not have answers, that she was not sure of what to do.

The moment that was hanging over their head soon arrived. The nest overflowed with water and the tree shook dangerously. The young sparrow and the mother sparrow fluttered their wings and hesitantly flew out of the nest and the branch they had called home for so long. They struggled to keep themselves flying through the storm and flew out to a safe place amidst some rocks nearby.

It was clear to the little one that it was the strength in their wings that gave them security – neither the nest, not the strength and size of the tree.

Guru

351: The rivers

Monday Musings: The Rivers

The river did not know how did it really start. It had an idea about where did it start but was not sure of how exactly did it start. The closest she came to answering that question was that the womb of the glacier had started to melt and she had begun the slow march downwards. Her quest to answer the question of how did she really start came to a frozen halt. Thereafter she also hesitated to ask the question why did she started off. In her mind there was no point asking that question. I guess that is the story of our lives. Since we don’t usually have an answer to these questions, we often stop asking them.

Anyways, once she slowly started to escape out of the frozen confines, she started to make her way down. She was tentative and unsure. She would test every rock, every gradient, every nook and every gap. She would begin by giving all a friendly nudge and if they would not listen sometimes a violent push too. Some would not relent because they would too big and obstinate. She was the newbie and those rocks had been around for a while. So she would circle her way around those who obstructed her flow. She was young and she had no time for debates. She would just circle around and move on, leaving the big rock exasperated and grumpy – who perhaps was looking for a tougher and a longer fight.

She would discover soon that those who do not have the freedom to move, or have a deep seated fear of moving on, or are just unable to move, or perhaps lack the imagination to move, prefer longer fights, even with smaller foes – for that is the only excitement in their lives. These small skirmishes are what brings them some semblance of joy in their otherwise stale lives. Those who can flow and move on, must be quick to identify this and just maneuver and move on. The young river was a smart cookie and that is exactly what she would do – avoid and move on. Her moving on was more important to her than staying back to win the fight.

The river had no idea of the terrain or the flow in her initial days. All she was content was flowing down. She was not encumbered by the righteousness of a path – or ‘the’ path. There was nothing in her mind called ‘the’ path; all she was concerned was ‘a’ path. Anything that allowed her to move was good enough. In any case the terrain she was flowing down from did not allow her the luxury of dealing with questions of righteousness. There was no time for it. Survival was more important for her. She was too engrossed with the idea of flowing. She was sure that she was right. She would deal with this question with a little less cockiness and less sure footedness later in her course. For now, being sure was more important.
She had gathered a great deal of speed and in places, ferocity while she negotiated the turns and slopes of the mountains she had passed through. While she credited herself with her speed but she also knew in her heart that sometimes our speed is also courtesy the terrains we run through. Not everything is our credit. She would be humbled very soon when she would hit the plains. In a lot of ways, she was not controlling her flow – the terrain was. She was just arrogant enough to take the credit.

The change of flow of rivers do not announce themselves. All of a sudden the terrain changed and she was in the plains. Everything became excruciatingly slow. The sharp turns gave ways to boring straight march ahead. Meandering became lazy at best. Gone were the turbulent flow, the impatient jumps and the effervescent march ahead. If she was to continue to march ahead, she needed poise, composure and patience. The terrain would not be of too much help. Her own resolve, despite the languid pace and rather inadequate joys of milestones, was the fuel of her journey. She was on her own now. Many rivers give up at this stage. They are not able to deal with the rhythms of slowness. Slow has its own beauty. It has its own cadence. Slow gives you time – time you can use to either ask fresh questions or take a hard look at your old answers. Slow allows pauses. A pause is often underrated. We must celebrate pauses more often.

The river which finally reaches the sea is the one which has survived the monotony of the plains. In many ways it is the one which above everything else – above talent, capability and origins, had that one thing that brought it this long – Resilience. Staying put to the task of flowing is the only thing that matters.
Rivers need to have many facets and they must be good at all those facets if they want to have a rewarding run – in the hills powered by brute energy and in the plains blessed with a matured doggedness and finally at the mouth of the sea an almost spiritual maturity on her good fortune.

It could have been very different. It can still be very different.

350: The diwali Musings

The Diwali Musings

One Tune, Many musics!

I wonder about many things all the time. There were moments when I used to relish questions. Later I would have my vanity massaged by answering them. These days my favorite mode is to wonder. Age does it I guess! Not question, not answer, but just wonder. Almost aloud. It is fun. Questions are a burden. Answers are a pressure. Wondering is liberating.

This Diwali, I wonder if two people listen to the same music, do they really listen to the same music; Or do they listen to something beyond that music – something that the individual creates along with the music while she listens to it, something only she could create, something that music could create only with her. This musing is that wonder.

# 1. The guitarist on the streets was playing a beautiful tune. It was something that even the Gods would have liked. It was something that made the ones passing by get hooked by helplessly. She was one of them. She was transfixed. Like most, she was not a virtuoso in any kind in music, nor was she an expert, or even an amateur even. She just felt a good music when she heard it. She felt it then. She stopped.
She looked around and saw there were many who were standing there – at different states of captivity. The sight of others stuck to their places lost in the music broke her own delirium. She wondered what so many people, different people found in the same music captivating. Was it the same thing or were there different things? Were others feeling what she was feeling, even when she was still figuring out what she was feeling.
Listening to a stranger in a strange country playing a strange tune and seeing so many strangers all hooked together with the same music made her wonder.

The guitar bellows out one tune. Two pair of ears hear it. Is it really one tune?

# 2. The Mumbai locals is a world in itself. There are those who have heard of it but never travelled in it – they don’t know what the fuss is about it. There are those who have travelled in it once or a few times – usually they are the ones who are intimidated by it. Then there are those for whom these locals have become lifelines. The experience, like most other things about Mumbai grows on you – almost like love. Like love, Mumbai locals is painful, irritating, often crowded, sometimes claustrophobic, and mostly overrated – but you are still better with it, than without it.

Like many couples in the city, both had big jobs, small houses and long commute. Time was always short and time together precious. Existence often is a full time job. Everyone is being driven crazy in unique ways but is searching solace through common methods; shopping, eating and holidays. Everyone has lost something. Everyone is losing something every day, inch by inch and moment by moment. There is an attempt somehow to compensate the loss of moments by acquiring something or the other. Square feet’s and reward points are usual methods. They rarely help. The loss of moments can only be compensated by salvaging moments, stealing them. We must be accomplished in such theft to be happy.

They had learnt to be thieves of small moments over time. So when they would travel to work together on the Mumbai locals, while others jostle for space, they create their own. They took the seat side by side, put one ear plug each in one ear and listen to some music. Those songs would be their moments together, souls welded together by the wires of the headphone. She would often wonder.

The phone bellows out one song. Two pair of ears hear it. Is it really one song?

This Diwali, it is a good thing to wonder and wish for all. May we all hear the same music and may it touch us in many similar ways. Should it happen, the light all around will be a tad brighter and who knows, each one us may also shine a wee bit more. Is it not what we all want eventually?

Happy Diwali

349: Roti, Kapda Aur NEtwork

Roti, Kapda aur Network

Poverty is such a funny word – particularly when it is not tragic. 

Lack of food is hideous manifestation of poverty – then of course there are cases when the doctor advises restraint in what you eat. I know of not eating as a conscious choice to rid of all the stores of adipose painstakingly hoarded over years. The burgers and the samosas are very loyal – they remain lodged resolutely long after they are gone. This kind of adopted and admonished poverty is then a style statement to be brought out for display and bragging – on how little you eat these days. I know of my younger days when an uncle would announce that he could have a 100 golgappas/rosgullas in a go and we would hear the story in awe, as if he had just announced winning Shaurya Chakra. Now he lives life on boiled grams and sugarfree. 

Poverty of clothes is a tricky one. It is difficult to ascertain the difference between lack of means and as a means of style. Torn is the new stitched!! 

I remember many years ago on a trip to the famed lucknow chicken clothes market (why are they called chicken for god’s sake) the shop owner explained an intimate embroidery as ‘turpai’ to me, a craft that once belonged to the gods and emperors, but which can be accessed by the proletariat now, of course at an extravagant and a salary sapping price. The forward march of sartorial progress has taken us from the intricate ‘turpai’ to the elegant ‘torn’. I am told that the next big thing on such matters is the transmutation of the ‘torn’ into ‘tatters’. Watch out and give the devil his due when its time comes, because I shall be most eager to remind you all, ‘I said it first and here’!

On a very different line I wonder if inveterate vegetarians have any issues wearing chicken embroidery. Would then there be some potential of a startup called gobi Manchurian embroidery, if not through the year, at least during Navratras!

Then there is poverty of not so serious kinds. The poverty of thought, of intellect, of being the prisoner of either too much logic or too little of it, of not being able to see the hues of nuances together and only see things in violent binaries, of not being able to sift facts from fiction, of not being blinded by either too much facts or moved by too much fiction. Such poverty seems to be quite forgivable these days.

How can i forget the poverty of not having a sense for the softer things in life, like the written word, the soft tune, of admiring the rising sun, of awe in watching the flowing river, of the full moon, of the crushing waves, of being incapable of being moved to tears just watching the sun set and stars twinkle, and the sheer incapability to be overwhelmed by your own smallness on a dark night watching the starry skies. Such poverty is quite understandable – may be it is not poverty, its just a minor handicap.

Ah, the reason why suddenly the word poverty has stuck to me really is my epiphany about a very vital resource of our times – much critical nourisher than food and much more vital as the protector of vanities than clothes.

Those with it are true kings and those without are true paupers, for they look at those with it with a envy only a truly hungry knows. Even a second without it looks like eternity and it drills a hole in the soul so big that not all the worlds food and all the worlds clothes and jewellery can fill it. Only that which is the source of the misery shall alleviate it. Its presence is riches of the world and its absence is the life of a pauper; there is no point of owning all the worlds’ fortunes, if you do not possess this. Those who have it feel like they control the universe, they know the reasons why the earth moves and the night falls, of why trains run and the aircrafts fly, of how and when movies play and the eateries cook, of why the traffic moves and stops. This resource puts the world on your tips and makes you feel like someone who knows his/her destiny and how to propel it forward and only those who do not possess it, even for a brief moment know this feeling, when I say that the whirling motion of the earth, and along with it the whirling motion of our own lives seems to come to a halt without it. It’s called Network. The one on the mobile, preferably 4G.

Roti, Kapda aur Network!!

348: Of shifting Role models and Dry Days

Of Shifting Role Models and Dry Days !

I wonder if amoebas ask each other this question ‘who is your role model’? I guess not. It is a unique human affliction and I would suspect a little resistant to cure.
The idea of a role model is an enticing one. A template simplifies the task. It is arduous to live a life worthy enough to become a role model for others; it is easier to follow a trail already made. 

There are clear categories of role models one would encounter if one would do a pop quiz. Close relatives are common – parents, grandparents et al. If you are the corporate types then famous personalities from the corporate are the usual suspects viz Steve Jobs and his ilk is common find today just as Jack Welsh was common a decade back. Those who have a sense of history are a bit more eclectic in their choices – Gandhi, Martin Luther King and their tribe are usual suspects. I have not encountered too many scientists in this list so far, despite their huge and real contributions in the march of human progress, which is a telling commentary on how much is this game filled with hollow semantics and how useless it eventually is. How many time have you heard people say Newton is my role model or Darwin, or Heisenberg for that matter! (Let me google who is Heisenberg!)

There are many things wrong with the idea of role model. Let me begin with the term itself. The person is a worthy enough model for a ‘role’, which makes it by definition restrictive. The person is worthy of being emulated only in a given role – may be disastrous in many other roles that he or she plays. The trouble begins when we make the whole package worth adopting as a role model instead of only the one that is worthy of being so. The trouble assumes menacing proportions when this is done with poor awareness and limited application of thought. There is no nuance in the idea of a role model. 

One has role models usually during youth. After a certain age and experience, we have seen too much life to fall for the notion of role models and if we still do, then we have an altogether different problem to solve. 

Role models are also created as fables. Storytelling and continuous retelling creates a myth around personalities. It might be believed by millions but it is still a myth. At least the impeccability around it, the invincibility surrounding it and the permanence inherently propagated through it, is certainly a myth. 

Role models fray with time and circumstances. Two examples come to my mind. Today is 2nd October and my FB wall is good place to witness the not so subtle process of delegitimizing the one role model we have believed in for decades. Suddenly Mahatma Gandhi is portrayed as persona non grata by many if not all, something that was almost unthinkable even a decade back. The process is fascinating because more than the person in question, it betrays the fragility of the concept of role models. Sometimes shifts of power will ensure that, and sometimes the shift of fortunes will force us to reduce the stature of the erstwhile role models. I wonder if anyone will be calling Jack Welsh his role model if we survey today given the sorry state GE is in. 

These are the glamorous examples. Our own lives are filled with the remains of fallen heroes. Scan the timelines of your memories and there will be examples galore – a parent who eventually turned out to be a normal human being, an elder sibling who as susceptible to human frailties as you, a boss who beneath the veneer of sagacity and capability was as prone to insecurities as anyone else, so on and so forth. They are fallen not because what made them role models in the first place was an error. This grand notion of role model, the all-encompassing, perfection seeking template of slotting them as creatures of perfection in all that they say and all that they do, was unfair to them and foolish on our part. We the believers of the role models are doomed twice over – first when we hoisted them to the pedestal and second when they fell from grace. They remained where they were all along but moved up and down only in our own eyes. The crime, just as beauty, was in the eyes of the beholder. 

I wonder if amoebas ask each other ‘so who is your role model’. Thank God amoebas do not have names and characters and so at best they would answer – ‘..no one in particular, just another amoeba’. 

To whomever it may concern: If we change the imagery of 2nd October from Gandhi Jayanti to Lal Bahadur Shastri Jayanti, will it also mean it will no longer be a dry day??

Guru

347 Monday Musings: The Earthworm and the Gazelle

347 Monday Musings: The Earthworm and the Gazelle

‘Can you hurry please’ asked the gazelle to the earthworm. The young earthworm could only smile. The earthworm did not know then that even if he was fast in the earthworm sense, he would always be slow in comparison to the grasshopper, who in turn would not know what was being fast like the gazelle. Being fast or slow was such a strange thing. When an earthworm and a gazelle talk about being slow or fast, one would forgive both for not knowing and not understanding each other. The earthworm would have to be a gazelle and the gazelle would have to be an earthworm for that to happen, and since that is unlikely to happen in a hurry, they would have to reconcile to not knowing what is slow and fast to each other. They could be talking at each other even when they were talking to each other.

‘Why can’t you slow down please’ asked the earthworm to the gazelle, this time with a smile. The gazelle also smiled back. She knew that no gazelle has ever known slowing down. Gazelles are known to run, hop and scamper all the time, sometimes in joy and other times to preserve. ‘I will be hunted down if I slow down’ said the gazelle. One could not have argued with her fear. It is a fear that has been passed down through hundreds of years and its now the very nature of the gazelle – to be constantly on the watch out for the predator lurking around the bushes, behind the rocks and along the stream. Being afraid is the best gift the ancestors could bequeath to the gazelle – it shall keep her alive. However, being fast owing to these fears would also make her friendship with the earthworm difficult. The pace would differ forever because the fears would differ forever. The lament of the innate incompatibility between the earthworm and the gazelle is futile. The anguish of lost possibilities does not keep too many awake, particularly when the realization of those possibilities requires the status quo to be challenged.

‘I am beautiful’ said the gazelle to the earthworm. It was obvious that the reactions both evoked in others were quite different – and to make matters worse, both knew that. The earthworm knew it was creepy, slimy and almost disgusting to look at. It skin was wrinkled, its colors were unappealing and its movements were awkward. The gazelle knew it was delicate, stylish and beautiful. She evoked poems and sonnets as she strutted. Beauty and constant adulation can cause vanity and it did. It can make you lose touch with things around you. The beautiful and the capable know it and assume it to be their birthright, for there is no better intoxication than knowing you are better and more beautiful than others. The more the gazelle spent time with the earthworm, the better she felt, for the contrast only accentuated her sense of superiority.

‘Can you be selfless, like I am’ asked the earthworm to the gazelle. The gazelle did not quite understand. The earthworm knew all its life the drudgery of eating away and excreting the soil only made the soil richer. Life grows better where earthworms are aplenty. Even when they are not good to look at, they are useful. In that sense the earthworms are selfless – or at least infinitely more useful to others. Their life meant something to others, even when others were blissfully unaware of the contributions made by the earthworms. It takes a large heart to be disliked, abhorred almost, treated with distaste and continue to do something that will make a difference to others lives. It takes a large heart and the earthworm don’t have one – perhaps that is why they are able to do it. Gazelle is busy in her vanity, consumed by the cause of her own beauty and survival. She did not understand the question the earthworm had posed. She was not supposed to.

‘what should we do together’ finally asked the earthworm. The gazelle replied – ‘Continue being who we are. I will keep strutting, and you keep crawling. I will keep being the beautiful one, you keep being the useful one. We both have a role today and rather important ones. You will be crushed one day and I will be hunted one day. The difference will hardly matter.’

Guru