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

338 Monday Musings: The Bird and the Good Bye

Monday Musings: The Bird and the Good Bye

The heart broke to a million pieces as it bade the Good Bye.

The little bird sat on the perch of the nest high up on the tree and looked down with trepidation. The abyss down below looked menacing. It was that moment when she had to flap her wings and fly away. Her companions in the nest looked at her in the eyes, partly with pride and partly with longingness as she prepared for her swoop down. This was the point where she would leave the warmth of the nest, what was home all this while. Flying away to a new destination what she was supposed to do; it was the way nature had ordered things to be. It was inevitable. Everyone knew it. They wanted to be happy for her and she in turn wanted to be happy, for this is what she always wanted – to fly.

In that moment however, a million explosions inside her blew in unision. It was not the fear of the skies, it was not the fear of falling, it was not the fear of not being able to flap the wings when it would be needed. It was the fear of leaving. It was not that she had never left a nest before, but this time it was different. She was daunted with a thousand thoughts. Will she be able to build another nest, will she be able to build another flock, will she be able to deal with all this and still be able to flap the wings strongly enough and continue with the business of flying with a heart heavy with the mourning of separation? This business of building a nest and leaving never occurred to her as right even though she knew it was the way things were and things will be. Why should it be like this – she questioned but got no answers. Actually she knew the answer she refused to believe in at that moment – ‘’it is the price of flying, the price of living’’

A part of her cursed herself for forging the warmth that she had created. She wondered if this separation would have been easier if only she would have been alone, aloof and unattached. Damn, I wont do it ever again, she swore to herself – if flying off is how it is supposed to be, let me keep flying and never bother with having a nest of companions ever again. Her mind was playing games with her at her biggest moment. Have I taken the right decision? Could I not have stayed in this nest longer at least if not forever? Could my companions in the nest not have me, and me them a little longer if not forever? What is the point in flying if the flying comes at a cost of flying away?

Looking into the eyes of everyone in the nest at that moment was becoming a torment. They wanted to be happy for her but something in their eyes betrayed the weight they were carrying. She was heavy with the burden of portraying happiness and confidence. She could not betray the wailing of her heart though. It was not expected of her. She knew if she went weak today, many more would hesitate when their time comes. She bore the cross of leading, of having to be an example. She hated it all the more.

As she stood on the perch on the cusp of a new journey she realised that each in the nest had made her life complete in a very different way. Her completeness was a result of all the colours that each one of the companions in the nest had added. She could talk to a few endlessly and mostly without a reason, others she talked with without the need for talking. A few of them were were nourishers and few of them sought nourishment from her and even in that act of receiving, they made HER complete. ‘Will anyone after this ever receive from her the way these received – with all their heart’ – she cried in anguish. A few on the nest were just companions with whom she did things, confident that they were there and if a fig here and a fig there was out of place, they would pitch in. She wondered if she would be this complete ever. She mourned at the thought.

So here she was, with all this rumbling in her heart as she stood on the edge of the nest and fly. Her heart broke to a million pieces as she bade the Good Bye.

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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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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
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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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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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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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Monday Musings 310 - The many hues of Intuition

Monday Musings - The many hues of Intuition
I wish to ask those who can answer this for me- ‘’How do you rate my ability to be intuitive?’’. The answer could either please me or depress me. Actually the question itself is wrong I guess – am I not the best judge of my intuition? May be answering this question is like trying to catch the flutter of the butterfly. May be the butterfly must be allowed to come and rest on the shoulder on its own and not be chased with the pursuit... of catching it (all pursuits are by nature violent). Intuition is allowing that butterfly to land softly on the shoulders.

This question on my intuition bears heavy on my heart – the mere question; looks like it’s not a mere question. I am petrified of the answer so I shut off the question itself. A heavy load is lifted – not having to ask such questions can be such a great relief; at least for the time being it all becomes so much more tolerable.
So i find an easier solution. I google ‘’best quotes on intuition’’ – and here are some that catch my fancy. It helps me take my attention off from the question. See if some of them catch your attention too.
1. ‘’Intuition is seeing with the soul’’
2. “When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense.”
3. “Insight is not a lightbulb that goes off inside our heads. It is a flickering candle that can easily be snuffed out.”
4. “What good is intuition if your heart gets in the way of hearing it?”
5. “Intuition is a sense of knowing how to act spontaneously, without needing to know why.”
6. “Intuition means exactly what it sounds like, in-tuition! An inner tutor or teaching and learning mechanism that takes us forward daily
7. “Nothing comes unannounced, but many can miss the announcement. So it's very important to actually listen to your own intuition rather than driving through it.”
8. Intuition is the art of the moment. Intuition is always in the moment, in the here and now. While the intellect always moves like the pendulum of a clock between the memories of the past and the fantasies of the future, intuition is always in the moment, always in the here and now.
9. “It’s as though our bodily sensations have voices if we tune in to what they have to say.”
10. Trust your senses most of the time, your intuition some of the time, and your conclusions never.”
Guru

Monday Musings 309 :The mythologies of individual narratives

Monday Musings:The mythologies of individual narratives
All of us have a mythology about ourselves. Then there is truth – the layers of which I guess no one will ever know, including us.
Our mythology suffers from all the abuses that classical myths suffer from – they are always partial telling of the events (assuming that the events even happened), the details are often a casualty because after a while no one has any interest in corroborating a story with facts, nor are facts available – only the myth survives, and last but certainly the most diabolical – such mythology is always designed to make us look better than we were.
We like to weave a mythology about ourselves based on how things should be and not really how things really are. We amplify our heroics however feeble they might be and we clinically erase the evidence of our frailties. Luckily time is a great plastic surgeon.
The myth building really begins to happen when the same story gets repeated again and again – the cementing is in the constant retelling – like the jaded party/get together jokes that get retold when school /college friends or even ex colleagues tell every time they meet. . You shall notice the classical signs of mythology at work – all evidence of acrimony, deceit, pettiness, and envy and power struggle carefully sanitised – only the myth of laughter, innocence, bonhomie and undying friendships retold.
(Disclosure- I had a class get together yesterday but this paragraph was written 24 hours before that)
Let me illustrate cases of such mythologies we weave about ourselves – only to get an idea about the phenomena; it is impossible to give a comprehensive account of them as there are as many myths that individuals build as many billions of people on earth – may be more.
The myth of uninterrupted and effortless success (even when you have slogged your way through), the myth of a great professional (even when you are keeping the boat afloat somehow through the skin of your teeth), the myth of being a good company (even when you hate every minute of socialising of any kind), the myth of a good friend (no one ever tells you that in his/her mind you have already been murdered because you are an assault to his/her senses), the myth of a great partner (even Gods will let you down eventually if you are together with Him – it is just a matter of time), the myth of a sacrificing and selfless adult who for others have always given up on his/her ambitions/comfort/desires, – and to my mind the most sinister myth of all – the myth of a victim (of how you were not at fault and how unfair it is for you to be the recipient of the all the unfairness in the world) – so on and so forth.
(Disclosure: I suffer from many of the above)
We all are constant creators, propagators and perpetuators of our own mythology. There are only two kinds of people on this - One who do not have finesse in mythology building and are noticed immediately for their uncouth and crude attempts; others who are artists as they do this subtly and sophistication. There is not much of a difference between these two as both are frauds. The difference only is in the quality of the fraud.
I can imagine why we do it. It makes our own mundane
existence and mediocrity so much more tolerable. It helps in drowning that nagging voice inside us which is trying to remind us of how hopelessly frail our egos have been, how unceremonious our successes have been, how meaningless our gloating’s have been and how utterly forgettable our so called victories have been. (If it helps – ‘’at the end of the game, the king and the pawn both go back in the same box’’).
In that rare moment of wakefulness amidst the delirium whenever I become aware of the (fraud) mythologies about myself that I have gloated or perpetuated about myself , I have one of the two emotions – either I feel very petty and small or I feel the resolve to bridge the gap between the fact and the fiction.
Which of the two happens more often? – well in trying to answer that would be the birth of yet another mythology of self.
Guru
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Monday Musings 307- Of Good Days, Bad Days – and Old Monk !

Monday Musings:Of Good Days, Bad Days – and Old Monk !
(This is an ode to a 25 year old who recently told me this – ‘’I am troubled by the question if there is God; if there is meaning to everything we do, and where am I headed’’. I was amazed at his ability to ask these questions. At 25 I did not know my elbow from my knees!)
There are days when things make sense. There are days when they do not. There are days when there is absolute clarity on where are we headed and then there are days when there is clutter. There are days when we know precisely why we have a spring in our steps and then there are days when we do not know why the feet are dragging. There are days when we feel good enough to conquer the world and there are days when we feel worthless and not good enough. There are days when we feel we are meant for bigger things in life and then there are days when we are not sure if we are good enough for the things we have. Such are the binaries of human mind!
Earlier I used to believe that these binaries define my days; and that there is a clear demarcation of superiority between them - the former always better and more preferred than the later. I am no longer sure about that superiority. I am veering towards the conclusion that later is equally meaningful and powerful. They are the wombs of possibility.
Days that make sense, have inherently absolute clarity and bring spring to the feet, when I feel good enough, nay great enough are easy to understand. These days are the engines that drive life forward – give it positive momentum. Many if not all draw satisfaction and meaning out of them. Things look worth their while at least for ‘today’.
However it is the other type of days, when things do not make sense, when there is clutter and when the feet drag and when things feel directionless and the self feel worthless that are fascinating, even though excruciating. These are days the pall of gloom is all over, the soul is heavy and there is a general shadow of doubt on everything – on what I have done all these years, on how good I have been, on demons I have refused to acknowledge, on my innate inabilities, on the coarseness that lurks just beneath the sheen. These are days when I QUESTION everything – I am truly but brutally reflective. These are days when I see things as they are – not as I want them to be.
What do I do with these days? I try to do the usual thing to make things better – watch a movie, immerse in the social media, shop may be, have a drink or two with friends – the usual you know! The good news is that those days do not last more than a few minutes or a few hours may be – before we fill the vacuum with more meaningless debris, whose only role is fill the vacuum. It’s like filling a landfill- lot of activity but no real outcome.
However those days leave behind questions which if paid attention to for a sufficiently long period of time can lead to something powerful. Disturbing questions may be the power to reveal beautiful answers. I had heard a concept many years ago that comes to my mind – the concept of ‘Positive Dissatisfaction’ – that all great improvements emerge from this feeling that there is something amiss, that all meaningful build ups in life in general emerge from us being unhappy and dissatisfied with the ways things are. I may not have the clarity of what needs to be done or how things can be better or the wherewithal of making a change – but that must not be the reason for avoiding the potential thrill of positive dissatisfaction. Over time I have built a higher tolerance to these kinds of days.
However this piece is not really about good days and bad days – because this binary, like all binaries is misleading. Greater truth is either between the binaries or beyond it.
I am more worried about days that evoke nothing in me – neither joy nor dullness, neither meaningfulness nor drudgery and so on and so forth. I am scared of the days when I wake up blank – that is something I don’t know how to handle – at least yet!
It is those days that I thank whatsapp, FB and if everything else fails – Old Monk! Small Mercies.
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Monday Musings 304 - Monday Musings - Starry eyed under the starry skies !

Monday Musings - Starry eyed under the starry skies !
A colleague of mine recommended a night camp that a group of amateur astronomers hold in the outskirts of Mumbai. ‘Khagol Mandal’ as the group is called is a motley collection of astronomy aficionados who have been holding such monthly camps for the benefit of lay people with intent of introducing the mysteries of the skies. It is a non profit group who only drive is to share with others what they find fascinating and inspiring – to gaze into the night sky and be overwhelmed with its enormity. I can never thank my colleague enough.
The evening begins at 7 pm and goes up till 5 in the morning. I came back with the following thoughts.
The USUAL
That it was exposure to a new field of enquiry goes without saying. One got to know about stars, their types, constellations and their peculiar shapes with gaping mouths. One realises that the night sky moves – that the sky till midnight is not the same thereafter, to the naked eye that is.
One came to know that personkind (mankind is passé and sexist you see!) was interested in the mysteries of the skies right from the start – the Greeks, the Arabs and ancient Indians had their own perspective on what they saw up there and how they related it to what was happening to them down here. The results were a full range – from moronic to philosophical and from inanity to the sublime.
Astronomy has a lot to thank to the early Arab world – a large number of stars up there have Arabic names. The current Arab world could do well to remind themselves of their glorious past.
The MAGICAL
Here was a group of 30 years olds giving back to the field of their vocation handsomely. I asked them what got them to astrology (at least one of them was a PHD in astronomy and working with the Bhabha Atomic Centre) – to which they answered that as kids they attended this very program and got hooked forever.
I asked them what makes them do this month after month. They were quite flustered at the stupidity of my question because to them this was quite obvious – that they loved astronomy and they love talking about it even more and that this was their way of sharing with others the joy and the mystique that they experience every time they look up to gaze the night sky.
3o year olds were giving back to their profession! I felt like a petty hoarder. How much more time before I start giving back?
The PHILOSOPHICAL–
It is quite wrong, philosophically speaking, that the centre of the world is the Sun. Actually we are at the centre of our worlds. Our own narrative is often as follows – that everything else exists only in relation to us, that everything and everyone exists to serve us, to make us feel better, loved and validated. Since in most cases the narrative begins from ‘I’ – it also ends with ‘I’. Our sense of importance, worth and therefore esteem is a convoluted manifestation of that ‘One voice inside one man’s/woman’s mind/heart/soul’. Every time there is a deviation from the script – that that ‘I’ is threatened, our world comes collapsing down. That is more or less the story of every human being who is ‘normal’.
Gazing at the night sky and knowing about its enormity is philosophically speaking, a very humbling and liberating experience. We are a speck of dust on the earth, which is speck of dust in our galaxy, which is a speck of dust amongst all other galaxies. We should stop taking ourselves too seriously.
The POST SCRIPT
My big take away was this astronomical trivia. It appears that the universe is expanding, the sun is expanding and just about a billion of years the sun will explode (Supernova), and earth as we know it will be gone.
So here is to all those who are irked by messy traffic, pesky relationships, irritable colleagues, nagging friends, and intolerable bosses; Here is to all that makes you feel so important at times as if you are running the world and all that makes you so miserable about yourself; Here is to all that appears so important to you today without which there appears to be no prospect of happiness and to that which appears the most depressing thing in your life which forms the last frontier between you and your eternal bliss –Remember it will all be gone in a billion years. Don’t fuss over anything too much.
Now Please pour yourself a stiff One !
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Monday Musings 303 - The Land Belongs to the snakes

Monday Musings: The land belongs to the snakes.
Some books become alive to us in unimaginable ways. I have been reading ‘Sapiens’ the fantastic book by Yuval Harari. The book is an amazing story of how we have come about to be what we are – an amazing amalgamation of science and history written almost like a novel. A strong recommendation to the connoisseur of the written word.
The book talks about the transition of Sapiens from hunter gatherers to agriculturists and how that changed so much about us. I cannot go into the details of this for the want of space and expertise but suffice it to say, that is was not only momentous but also fascinating. Our relationship with nature changed forever – from being afraid of it to becoming subjugators. Our relationships with fellow animals also changed from being respectful to being exploiters. This transition to most of us will be an academic point – fascinating at best and boring at worst. Most of us have no memories or experiences of either being hunter gatherers or agriculturists and hence this point serves nothing more than being of academic interest (if at all).
I have been going through the book mostly with a similar frame of reference. I had a surprise waiting for me though.
First a little background. I grew up and continue to have roots in the tribal district of Jharkhand – where in pockets at least the tribal worldview is available for experiences. Incidentally the specific area where I grew up and my parents continue to live has a strong native tribal population who may have modernised themselves in many ways but do retain their native traditions. My family has been living in close proximity to them for three generations and as is the nature of these things, the influences are hard to avoid.
Let me come to the story now. In the small piece of land that my family owns is a colony of snakes for the longest time we know – which is about 50 years if not more. I grew up knowing and seeing this colony less than 30 feet from our rooms within the compound we call our home. The presence of this colony has been a part of us and frankly till now it never occurred to me as unusual. The snakes have changed the location of their colony only twice in my memory but never left the space. Every once in a while a few of them stray into our homes particularly during summers and are ushered out with due respect. Never once was this close proximity considered unnatural, unusual or interfering. The word cohabitation has been in full display. Women in my family dutifully revere them, pray to them once in a year for the last three generations. These days that tradition has been shouldered by my mother as was done by my grand mom before her and my great grand mom before that. The chant of the annual prayer can be roughly translated as – ‘Be with us, bless us, keep coming, keep going but please do not interfere’’. The relationship of mutual respect with nature has been in full display in my backyard and I never took notice of this.
Now to the twist in the tale. A few days back I made the point to my mom that we should get rid of this colony of snakes to make the small piece of land more accessible for growing something. All hell broke loose. I had not anticipated the backlash to what according to her was a preposterous and a sinful idea. The argument against my proposal was not encased in religious terms but in terms of ‘equal rights of animals’ to live on the land that has housed them for half a century. ‘What do they demand of you but the small space?’ – exclaimed she.
Very soon the tone changed from ‘this should not be done’ to ‘over my dead body’ to finally the ultimatum ‘dare not do it even when I am dead’. Now when a mother uses these three tracks, you can imagine how utterly unarguable the debate becomes.
Harari’s narrative of the respect for other forms of life sapiens had during the hunter gatherer times came alive to me. I was taken aback by the strength of the opposition to my idea. I cannot get over the pushback – its tone and strength together. I keep asking myself the following questions. What is my stance on the subject of the right of other species on earth? Does that land only belong only to me or are the snake’s equal owners? When push will come to shove will I respect my mother’s wishes? When push will come to shove will I respect the snakes inheritances and rights?
Right now from the highrise where i live these are academic questions – but for how long!!

Monday Musings 302 - Serendipity

Monday Musings: Serendipity
I experienced the joys of serendipity recently and how !
I experienced that joy In the middle of a noisy bar when someone I knew more than two decades back very briefly and in dramatic circumstances, to say the least, shrieked with joy to exclaim ‘I know you’. I experienced that joy in realisation that after all we are not shreds roaming in space never to meet again – that it is possible for serendipity to make things happen.
...

I think serendipity has greater joys than planning and achieving, in setting goals and reaching there, in wanting to reach somewhere and actually reaching there. I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that sometimes the worst that could happen to us actually getting what we wanted – that there is more joy in becoming what we never had planned, in doing what we never thought we would be doing, in walking on paths that we never thought we would tread.
It is magical to find something we were not even searching for only to realise that it is exactly what we always wanted to find – to realise that in associations and memories, rather than objects and possessions lies true meaning. No wonder some places we roamed, some fruits we plucked and savouries we ate, some streets we frequented and some cities we live in always manage to evoke an ache for no reason at all. It all becomes even more joyous when all of this happens as serendipity.
I have rummaged shelves for a book and found a handwritten note instead. I have searched for a file and found a book with a notation instead. Serendipity comes with many faces – and all its faces are joyous. A very distant past is mostly rosier in hindsight, even when it was not as rosy then. The sepia toned dog eared photograph always manages to bring a smile – through toothy faces, chubby cherubic cheeks, through bushy hairs, through ribboned pleats. What we lost is mostly more precious than what we gained. We lost years – irreparably and irreversibly. What can be more tragic than that!
Serendipity brings it all back. A deluge. Details and events do not matter. Actually the details are inconsequential. The associations are more relevant.
We rewind and in rewinding we relive. It is the only way to make believe that we reversed the forward march of life. The illusion of it is the only solace. The illusion gives fuel to deal with the next moment – a hope that the next moment is not permanently lost and that I shall meet this moment many years later in a noisy bar and hear it say – ‘I know you’.
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Monday Musings 301 - Sab Maaya Hai

Monday Musings: Sab Maaya Hai !!
It is the New Year time and we must pay homage to this artificial construct of time. There is nothing whatsoever that will change as the digital clock will show zero zero today midnight. The sun will go about its job tomorrow morning just as diligently as it has been doing for the last few million of years and the winds will blow without a care for the revelry in most parts of the earth. Our lungs and heart will go on about their tasks as well - just the way they were doing for so many years; although I must add the liver, kidney and bladder might have to do some extra work for those who might have a few drinks extra. The point is everything shall be as usual. The Homo sapiens needed a justification for celebration and he got one with the change in Gregorian calendar.
I dug out all my New Year writings for the last 7-8 years that I have been writing and I must add I was a tad disappointed to read them. They all read alike – as if I had nothing new to write about most of the time. Mostly the New Year pieces were those of stock taking, of pause and reflection, of closures and beginnings, of resolutions and regrets. Mostly they were pieces of advice and lament, of pontificating and ennui. There were more statements of intent than action and more questions than answers. I did not find much evidence of what had I decoded in the last year when I wrote them. Let me change it then today.
I have figured that things are never as good or as bad as they appear. I continue to be taken by surprise. I realise people are good and bad inexplicably and our attempts to theorise about their goodness and vile is futile. I realise that I have moments of spirited goodness and helpless meanness for no rhyme or reason.
I realise we look great or stupid alternatively although some have some great runs for a longer period of time and others have the misfortune of a prolonged rough patch. This has got nothing to do with their talent, intent, hard work or any other factor that is within reasonable control. For no reason there are clouds and then suddenly for no reason there is sunshine.
There is more randomness than destiny in the world and we should stop looking for cause and effect all the time.
Good happens to the wicked and ‘Sh@t’ happens to the good. In any case who is good and who is wicked keeps changing places just as what is good and what is sh#t also keeps changing shape with amoebic efficiency. I realise there is more drama than sense around. I see the drama even as I write this – a drama that is both meaningful and inconsequential at the same time (or lease has the potential to be both).
I realise we are passengers in every conceivable ways – on the earth, in the country, in the families and in the jobs. I also realise we don’t like being mere passengers. We want our journey to mean something. The more we realise that there is no meaning in it all, the more desperate is our need to anchor a meaning from every association, from every action, and from every event. I realise it is a wild goose chase. I realise that it is as bad not to have a purpose and perhaps it is much worse to be obsessively wedded to a purpose. A few years ago I used to think the other way round.
So much is happening outside the window of the bus in which we are travelling. I realise that both have issues – not having a bus to call our own as well as belonging only to one bus. I realise travelling and staying still have their own issues.
I realise strange is not strange anymore – that strange is the new normal and that my own threshold for strangeness must improve significantly if I have to retain sanity and a sense of normalcy. Predictability is a myth – a mirage, a construct we have created because we don’t know what we would do otherwise. It is better to chase an illusion that we can understand than live with reality that we cannot fathom. Reality never owed us anything and the illusion never had real teeth. We are doomed both ways.
I realise that there is too much talk and too little action. I also realise that sometimes quick action is a substitute for deep thinking – it’s a deflection from people knowing that they cannot really think. Words are prison but so is action. Both can give us a false sense of accomplishment.
I realise that the really all pervasive and all too powerful human instinct is the instinct to survive. Self preservation is not only an art but it has a utility of a Swiss knife in the wild. So when I see a blatant show of self promotion or chicanery, of pettiness or vileness – I see a desperate attempt to survive. I do not get disturbed now when I see this. Something in me understands and allows it to be.
When I see the echo of happy wishes on the new year of 2018 I realise that it has the potential to be happy and sad at the same time; that it has the potential of being a brand new year or just a continuation of the same old days; that the deluge of bland off-the-shelf whatsapp wishes broadcasted as a ‘to do’ would in a way reflect all that is so good and so bad in things around us. I realise it is still ok.
The good old lament ‘Sab Maaya hai’ has acquired a brand new nuance. Happy New Year 2018.
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Monday Musings 300 Teachers, Predictions and Sundry Lessons

Teachers, Predictions and Sundry Lessons


I have always wondered how teachers remember all their students. I wonder if they are able to predict well enough how will the lives of the brats that they teach turn out to be. I have always wondered if they have been proved wrong – either when their favourites do not end the way they had imagined or when the ones they had no hopes for surprise them for the good. I also wonder what do they go through when they life takes them by surprise in such cases.
I must make a declaration about what has triggered the above. Two incidents happened too close to each other to be ignored as isolated events. About two months ago I came in contact with someone (lets call him J) who happened to study in the same college as I studied in but at a space of about a decade. We had absolute no common connections whatsoever and our meeting now was complete happenstance. Once our acquaintance was made he mentioned that a certain professor would often make a mention of me (rather kindly) and in the same breath along with the mention he would also make a certain prophecy about me. As J recounts this I am touched and surprised by the fact that my teacher remembered me even after decade of me leaving college - even though we were never in touch after I passed out of the institution. The nature of the prophecy is not material to the point – what is material is that a certain prophecy was made, in absentia and from memory.
Cut to a few days back I came across a professor from another institution that I subsequently went to – a place known for its liberal political views (in contrast to the times we have come to inhabit), liberal business views and overall promotion of inclusive, mutli dimensional and multi disciplinary view to education. The head of the institution there lived, breathed and through staunch practice, promoted and protected those liberal tendencies (never in words – always in actions) in a world around him which was quite the contrary. He is retired now – Let’s call him X. So this professor of mine, whom I met a few days ago, upon knowing my work on and with Kabeer and upon listening to my political beliefs and general stance of things, commented ‘X would be proud of you’. Again a kind opinion – but as I said that the nature of opinion is not material – what is material is how often do teachers turn out to be correct or wrong on such predictions and how do they feel about being correct or wrong – finally what can we in the corporate world learn from it.
I would like to believe teachers - at least most of them, and even when we do not quite like them while we are under their tutelage – are optimistic about their wards. They believe most of us will turn out to be good. I also believe over time they also acquire this wisdom that academic brilliance, a general disposition towards discipline and obedience is not a very great marker of future success. I think they get it even when they do not quite express it. I think most of them develop a sixth sense about these things after a while.
What I am not sure about is the following – what happens when they are proved wrong? Do they regret having predicted to too early the powers of meandering destiny that each kid brings along? Do they rubbish it as exception to the rule or they go back and stop making those prophecies in the rare cases they end up being wrong?
Those of us who are in the professions of leading people – how accurate have we been in predicting the overall success and longevity of the people who come to be associated with us. How accurate have been our predictions – how many times have we been proved wrong. How many times those who we had written off , in another space, place, profession have turned out to be rockstars. What lessons have we learnt from these experiences? As a lot - do we give up on people too soon?
The two teachers remind me yet again – not to give up on people too soon. They might make us proud eventually.
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299 Monday Musings :Smart Coasters and the Prayer policemen!

Monday Musings :Smart Coasters and the Prayer policemen!
Quite recently a close friend of mine shared with me the latest ‘smart product’ – a tea coaster which keeps a track of how much tea have you consumed and perhaps all resultant indicators like calories et al. I had heard of the smart ablution pot (shit pot sounds so gross) – which reads all the vital readings of a urine test and other such stuff thus obviating the need of scoop and ferry. The mayhem started with the mak...ing of the smart phones and after that there is no looking back – from smart watches, to smart glasses, to smart cars to smart cities and smart robots. With the minor but perhaps crucial exception of making a smart human being, I guess we have begun the process of smartening just about everything, if not actually achieved it.

I am not against smartness per se. It is a good thing to achieve. In fact give where we are it is a lofty ideal certainly worthy of pursuing. The point is that is if the pursuit of making the inanimate ‘smart’ as powerful as the pursuit of making the living smart? Another way of saying it is I wish there was an equal obsession about making the tea smart as much as the coaster. What is the point of having dumb tea and smart coasters?
As I punch these lines I feel like a sermon giver – there are a dime a dozen like that; all equally ineffective overall. I feel like moving away from this track – and then another event comes to my mind. Recently I had gone to a place of worship, a prayer hall and was having a chat with my maker, eyes closed – when I feel a pair of hands on my shoulder. A middle aged gentleman most likely with some formal role in running that institution asked me to go and sit along the wall because apparently my jeans had skid a wee bit lower than where it should have been ideally, creating an exposure which in his mind was inappropriate. I wanted to ask him if my being pensive and meditative was not good enough or why was he policing me or why was he not busy in his own prayers – so on and so forth. I remembered the coasters again – smart coasters, horrible tea.
The example is just an illustration. I find the coasters all around me. Surely I see them in others more ubiquitously than i am able to recognise them in myself – but I know a few of my own coasters. I am also sure I do not know many more.
The trap of being obsessed with form over substance is increasingly likely when everything must be ‘smart’. It will not be a bad idea to be mindful.
Guru
www.gurucharangandhi.com || www.mondaymusingsbyguru.blogspot.com || @musingsbyguru

Monday Musings 298 - What bothers you?

Monday Musings: What bothers you?
I have been bothered about this question for a while now. This is surely not the question uppermost in my mind when I go about my activity obsessed life in any case. The dominant question is never what bothers me – because all the FB/whatsapp early morning motivators hammer me into believing that ‘positive thoughts are a road to blissful life’. The pressure to be positive, eternally optimistic, and perpetually inspired has hit a stratosphere, from where it has actually started to depress me. I feel so puny in my own cocoon of chaos, where things don’t make sense, the road ahead looks hazy and I am engulfed in the delhisque smog of existential questions. As if feeling puny was not enough, I also start to feel inadequate as this barrage of digital inspiration that screams at me 24 by 7. Like all things fake on the digital world – even motivation is. People leading the least inspirational/motivated lives send the maximum inspirational/motivational messages.
I am digressing. So what bothers you the most? Social conversation is mostly about what gives us joy, happiness, contentment and satisfaction. If drones were to capture all the social conversation around us, it will be overwhelmed with the dominance of what people plan to do to increase the joy in their lives. In fact the overwhelm will soon be replaced by perplexity when the drones will realise that for all the talk on joy one would find so little of it. I am not sure all the artificial intelligence that the drones will be packed with will be enough to deal with that amazingly human affliction – confusion. By design tech replicas of human beings cannot handle confusion. They need absolute clarity hard coded in them to function – but we go about living even when we are confused. We thrive, perform, love and hate even when we are confused – or least we are expected to.
I am digressing again. Sometimes I think we should start devoting a little more time on the subject what bothers me more rather than what gives me joy. The debate on this is surely going to be fierce as to which is better line to take – but that is not the point really. The point is do we even know what really bothers us so deeply that we might be egged on to do something about it – if not now then soon. What issues are we passionate enough about that sooner than later we will step out and do something about it?
We are surely passionate about our hobbies at best, the source of our satisfaction or even progress may be – but what problems besiege us, keep us awake at night even if intermittently, or we sometimes worry ‘gosh-is this what my children will grow up to face more of’. It is absolutely ok even if we have done nothing whatsoever so far about it – for we all have issues of survival, accumulation and future to deal with. The big question is – do we know what bothers us enough that at some stage, time permitting, resource permitting – we will actually wake up one day, take the shovel out – and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Do we know THAT list?
These issues may or may not be glamorous – like world peace, global warming, terrorism, banning Padmavati, or even the qualifying criteria of a patriot et al. I am sure these are big problems and someone must solve them – it’s just that,that someone is surely not going to be me. The problems that bother me could be more humdrum, more local, more proximate – whatever it might be like Afroz who was bothered about the mountain of debris on the beach outside his home and one day decided to clean it in Juhu. Stuff like that. I feel very petty when I read stories like these for it exposes the self centred preoccupation of my universe. It is in the nadir or those moments that I particularly ask – what bothers me? What bothers me enough that one day I will do something about it?
What bothers you?
Guru
www.gurucharangandhi.com || www.mondaymusingsbyguru.blogpsot.com ||
@musingsbyguru