Monday Musings 213 – Clean >> Light >> Begin

Monday Musings 213 – Clean >> Light >> Begin

I have come to believe that it is the deep symbolism of festivals that make them special. The rituals in itself may not mean much as much as what we do in its preparation, in the buildup of it, in the way we as individuals and families go about ushering it in that make them special. 

Diwali to me is around three activities and they may mean more than what we take them for - for as I see it, it is these three things and the rich imagery of it that makes the day special, not in a religious sense but in a very broad way. Diwali is about CLEANING first, LIGHTS next and BEGINNING third, and in that order. 

Have you wondered why does the CLEANING begins much before you usher in a NEW BEGINNING!!. Cleaning symbolizes recognizing that living as a pursuit will generate waste, what was useful once may become junk now. The act of cleaning, and in most households diwali cleaning is not an activity that is solely delegated to paid workers or maids the way day to day cleaning is done. Diwali cleaning is deliberate, collective and yet immensely personal. Everyone goes through his or her clutter and decides what must be kept and what must be thrown. The family comes together to decide collectively what must be given away. Unseen corners must be cleaned, old boxes must be cleaned, all that has been stored must be sifted to retain only and only that is relevant, functional or useful.  What is done of the house, must apply to lives as well. Lets CLEAN our lives in ways and manner in which we deem fit - capability, attitude, health, relationships!!

The second act during diwali is the act of LIGHTING. The pursuit of bringing light to dark corners, ignored corners, every room, terrace, balcony, even bathrooms. No space in the house is not worthy of being bathed in lights, uplifting them to equal status for once during the year. Can we light up all parts of our lives and remove the veil of ignorance from them. Can we look squarely into the blinding play of ego, unawareness, denials and our own motives and light them, if not with the esoteric renunciation, at least with the mundane awareness. Let us LIGHT. 

Finally Diwali is about making a NEW BEGINNING. Old books of accounts are closed and new ledgers are formed. Diwali marks the beginning of New Year above all. This may mean many things for us. A new beginning at a behavior offers us an opportunity to make clean what is toxic in us, in what has been a thorn in our relationships, in what is causing dysfunctionality in our interactions and make way for what is functional and positive. A new beginning could mean the whole world of regenerating practices around reading, learning, playing; chasing hobbies so on and so forth. A new beginning could mean reinventing oneself at the jobs we are doing today and what is our aspiration tomorrow. A new beginning is about adding new capability, new knowledge, new skills, new thinking to what we already have. A new beginning is about acknowledging the true nature of the current state and then beginning the exciting journey of making it better. Finally new beginning is about belief, that this day can become a decisive inflection point, that a new beginning can actually be made, that reinvention is actually possible. 

So, Clean, Light and make a new beginning. I am doing the same. 

Guru 

Monday Musing 212 - "In the beginning there was the word..."

Monday Musing 212 - "In the beginning there was the word..."

There is great magic in words. Many of them are not merely words but stories unto themselves. Over a period of time they acquire a life of their own and the average reader is far removed from its origins or initial usage. The science of it is called Etymology.

In the course of enjoying a recent book I happen to learn the origin of the word ‘sincere’. Apparently in the old times while a sculptor would make a bust or an idol, he would apply wax to fill cracks if any and then cover them with the crushed stone powder with which the bust was being made. Obviously those with such wax linings were considered of poorer quality than the ones which did not have any cracks and hence did not need such wax corrections. Hence the one which were pure, were without wax or sin cere as in latin, and voila – sincere!!

I suddenly recollected how a classmate of mine during my business school had educated us, quite dramatically at that, that the act of making decision was essentially a violent act. Apparently it is not such a great idea of be in two minds and vacillate between two positions. To arrive at a decision is to kill the two and arrive at one, i.e. de (two) Cide (kill) and voila again decide!!

Dan Brown in his novel The last word opines that early thinkers and ancient people considered the mind as the most powerful reservoir of wisdom, energy and power. Such an enlightened mind was capable to creating miracles and hence worthy of being worshiped. Hence the word temple to describe the side of the head – the holy place where such a mind rests.

The Italians would keep a ship suspected with contamination or carrier of infections in observation for forty days, (quaranta = forty) and hence anything under observation in a secluded place or position is to be quarantined.

The Bible says “In the beginning there was the word…” It’s not surprising that most religions have written words that are considered holy and pious. All religions have some book or the other for its followers to abide by, take inspiration from, resort to in times of ambivalence, ambiguity and crisis. These written words have stories to tell, advise to give, directions to provide, comfort to offer and at the end of it all, happiness to promise. It is through the words, its meaning and imagery that they have managed to survive, thrive and spread over hundreds of years. Then it suddenly dawns upon me that in my own religion Sikhism the hymns sung in mellifluous raags, which should have been called as songs are not called songs but are actually called Shabads, which means  ‘word’.

Let’s know the world of words better. 

Monday Musings 211 – Ehtraam Naseer

Monday Musings 211 – Ehtraam Naseer

I recently read an interview of the legendary Naseeruddin Shah as his autobiography hits the market, where he outlines his definition of destiny/luck. What he broadly says is that while he was still studying acting, he realized that he was not really cut out for the mainstream cinema, however he sensed that occasionally there were some movies being made, which indicated that soon a time will come where such cinema will definitely be made aplenty – and when that day would come, he better be ready. So Naseer, the perfectionist that he is, prepared himself all those years, doing odd roles, however relentlessly working, preparing, and chiseling himself for that day when movies of the kind that he wanted would be made. And when that day did arrive, Naseer dazzled on the celluloid, literally dominating the world of parallel cinema. He prepared himself for his destiny.

I find this tale quite inspiring. I find the idea of ‘preparing for ones destiny’ quite powerful and liberating.

Destiny in common parlance is associated either luck – which is happenstance, the grand arch of time which makes you be at the right place at the right time with the right people. The invisible hand of chance is too strong in this postulation and hence quite limiting to my taste. Playing poker has better chances.

The other definition of luck is a preordained path or destination that has already been drafted by someone else and by implication it means we are only playing the role that has already been scripted for us. We will reach where we ought to, the subtext being, irrespective of what I do or don’t. When one throws in the role played by, for the want of a better word, God, then things become murkier. This model takes all power of self selection, self direction and self formation away from the protagonist and binds his movements and his script in the hands of some puppeteer. That puppeteer despite his alleged divinity is not acceptable to my sensibilities, even though I might acknowledge some undefined power that exists.

Naseer Saabs model is beautiful in its simplicity and by giving the power of decision in the hands of the hero; it also is uplifting and energizing. I also draw lessons in the corporate world from Naseer Saabs theory. Do I know what kind of professional, manager or leader will be required in my chosen field a decade from now? Am I at least studying the winds of change if not decisively understanding them, to know where that future might lie? Am I preparing hard enough, long enough, patiently enough in the wait of that day? If destiny is about being prepared, then the whole idea of success and how it is achieved undergoes a change. It moves from the unknown to the known and from the uncontrollable to controllable. What is the proportion of time spent in the pursuit of that preparation versus the time spent in agonizing in the wait of that glory?

The best are those for whom the future does not matter, for they enjoy the present – the second best are those who prepare for the future for they craft it – the worst obviously are the ones who wait for it.

Ehtaraam Naseer Saab!

Monday Musings 210 – The wheel of fortune

Monday Musings 210 – The wheel of fortune

Indian world view is essentially cyclical – whether it is notion of time or life.  Time has four yugs – Satyug, Dwapar, Treta and Kalyug, which is inconsequential in itself – of greater significance is the fact at the end of each cycle spanning all four, time is expected to begin again. Life too is cyclical, swinging between life and death only to reappear as life again. Compare this to the western worldview of linearity where time moves in only one direction and so does life. Time and life once gone never comes back.

This Indian worldview of cyclicality shapes our reaction to things generally. I have been at cross roads to my own reaction to this subject. The western notion of rationality which has been accumulated through years of education and reading,  fights for space with the essentially Indian ethos which has been a part of growing up years, upbringing and social values.

I see the swinging wheel of fortune around and I notice its patterns. May be I am noticing it more now with my heightened consciousness about it. I see individual fortunes swinging from one extreme to another, sometime waxing and waning owing to omissions and commissions of individual brilliance or stupidity and sometimes for no reason at all, euphemistically called as destiny. Sometimes I see abject poverty and failure accompanied with proverbially silver linings and sometimes fortunes hide much grief, unhappiness and poor health. Small towners are more philosophical about it and I get this strange feeling that they are also better at dealing with it. My bias also is that the corporate-wallahs take their fortunes more for granted and with a misplaced sense of permanence, for reasons only known to them.

Every time I see great fortunes, havens of prosperity and abundance being marooned into deprivation, I wonder about the fickleness of it – and I also ask how much is my Indian-ness responsible to my reaction to it. Rationality would have demanded that I analyze reasons thereof so that I find a source of the decay, while the notions of cycles make me conclude that this is the essential nature of things – what shined, will corrode. It begs, nay demand that I treat my own fortunes and good times with humility and with heightened sense of impermanence. Success must rest lightly on the shoulders for it is like a butterfly.

I also see green shoots emerging in families which have spent decades in deprivation and darkness. Rationality would have demanded that I analyze reasons thereof and that I find a source of that resurrection, while the notion of cycles make me conclude that this is the essential nature of things – what has been corroded will reclaim it shine. It begs, nay demand that I treat my own struggles with hopefulness and with a heightened sense of impermanence. The journey must rest lightly on the shoulders for it too is like a butterfly.

I see the above two lines cross in many ways. Sometimes I see success hiding so much and of failures revealing much more. Amongst friends, families and colleagues, I see the beginning of the end of good times crossing concurrently over the beginning of the end of bad times – and the recognition of the cycle makes me deeply thoughtful.

I guess this is a sign of getting old – very old.

Guru

Monday Musing 209 - The Tea

Monday Musing 209 - The Tea

The road journey is often considered a poorer cousin to the more glamorized air and somewhere in between rail journey. The roads are usually left for the poor or the nerdy.

Of the many joys of the road, the one that I especially became aware of this time was the ubiquitous tea stall. The diversity of this brew is as breath taking as the locales itself and each as distinct from each other as the weather, language, dialect, sartorial sense, and the nature of the pot holes.

While travelling from Rajkot to the Gir National park and thereafter travelling in and around it, we stopped for our usual cuppa many a times. I can, with reasonable confidence certify, for whatever that certification is worth, that the best road side tea is brewed in this part of the country. The sample size of around 10 and without any instruction whatsoever to make it 'special', what got dished out was a treat to the senses. It was perfect in its thickness for the taste, perfect in strength to give relief to the jaded body and spirit, perfect in aroma to uplift the mood in total. When I asked the locals the reason for this perfect blend he credited the quality of milk in that area, which kind of assured me because I was suspecting that Narendra modi might take this credit too going by the track record of usurping credit for everything that is good in Gujarat. 

This experience got me thinking about the nature of tea that gets dished out in various parts of the country, particularly on its highways, away from the cities. Here is my collection of the places and regions that I have had the fortune of visiting. 

The north Indian roads prefer it milky and strong. Adding water to it is considered a sign of short circuiting the grandeur of tea making. Personally I think the north, on an average, cannot tell their tea from their milk, precisely because of their preoccupation with the quantity of milk they use. Their tea is actually flavored milk. 

Bengal roads and to a great extent even Orissa offers sugar syrup in the garb of tea. It is thin, slightly strong and bitter because the same tea powder is boiled more than one time. 

TN and Kerala serve decoction and process wise perhaps the most scientific way of making tea because they create the tea separate and mix is with milk outside the container in which it is boiled - at the point of serving which is the glass. This process is followed nowhere else. In all parts of the country everything boils together. Actually these places have copied the coffee making process and adapted to make tea. The great Indian innovation, you see!!

Hinterland UP and Bihar, and not surprisingly so, will check with you whether you want the 'special' in which case it will be more milk and cardamom or ginger thrown in, or else you have to manage with the ones for the hoi polloi, which will be watery and without flavor. 

I am sure there are more archetypes to the humble road side tea than above. I am keen to taste North east and Kashmir to know what they have to offer. Till then, Gujarat rules - with or without the intervention of Mr. Modi. 

Guru

Monday Musings 208 - Matters of guilt

Monday Musings 208 - Matters of guilt

I don’t remember feeling guilty much of my life. This does not obviously mean that I have nothing that in normal circumstances for normal people would evoke guilt. There have been many such instances which do qualify as definitive cases for making a man feel guilty. However guilt, like many other things as beauty, love, revenge and spite, lies in the bosom of the beholder - and so when it came to the choice of feeling guilty for a misdemeanor, I have usually chosen the easier and better path of brushing it aside as an essential part of coming of age ritual, very conveniently overlooking that 35 plus is not really an age when one is still growing up. If it was to happen, it should have happened long back. Hope however remains the culprit. The last time I felt guilty was back in the third grade when buoyed by the spirit of friendship I had considered a friends eraser as mine, claimed it so with nonchalance and was dumb enough to get caught. 

So this time, when after ages when the damn thing called guilt did raise its serpentine head, I was surprised that its vestiges were still alive. So here is my discovery about guilt. To begin with it is clear that it is a very very bad thing. 

Amongst the many human emotion which are of same family as guilt, such as possessiveness, grief, jealousy, and anger, I would rate guilt as the deadliest. It is like diabetes mellitus - not really a disease, but a disorder that kills you slowly but definitively. It is almost as if it is enjoying the process of killing you, like you relish a dish in solitude. It only becomes worse with time. Like diabetes it does not kill in itself, but actually creates a shutdown in all other organs, particularly the heart. Having a heart in itself may be bad but a guilt ridden heart is much worse.  

Guilt normally begins like a small cut and then it feeds on itself and it grows and grows. Soon you are engulfed into its octopus like grip, questioning your own sanity, worth and goodness. When one starts questioning his own goodness and realizes that his self score is a pathetic F, it is much worse that others giving it an F. It is precisely because of its degenerative effects that man created the science of justification and rationalization. It is just so much better to blame it on Rio, or Robert or Rahul. Why begin something that you know has only one end. 

Guilt causes strange chain reactions. The prospect of loss of face robs you of sleep. Your ability to concentrate plunges faster than a stock index, resulting in complete inability to focus and stay calm. The foodies are hit even more as it results in loss of appetite. 

There are only two potential lessons I learnt from this episode - don't do anything that might cause guilt or learn to justify it better.  I know my lesson - what is yours?

Guru

Monday Musings 207 - Scrutiny

Monday Musings 206 - Scrutiny

Scrutiny as a tool for progress

It’s not even a month that the new dispensation at New Delhi has come under scrutiny. Its decision on rail fare hike and ensuing rollback and then the annual budget itself came under fire. It announced the death of their honeymoon. Alas the doomsday that was predicted by the absolute majority in the parliament leading to a decisive shift towards the right did not arrive. So who checked its arrival?

I guess scrutiny did that. There is intense scrutiny of everything that the government does by the opposition, or whatever is left of it at least, the judiciary, the executive, the free press and an ever buzzing hyperactive social media. Everyone knows that whatever they say or they don’t, will be deciphered, analyzed, decoded and split wide open – and that keeps them cautious, on their toes and vigilant.

Scrutiny is such a good thing; Organizations create their own structures of scrutiny. They create review mechanisms, dashboards, reports, MIS and the ever ubiquitous meetings to keep each other in check. There are some lower order objectives of doing all of the above – like bringing everyone on the same page, sharing information, giving updates on progress so on and so forth. However the larger order purpose of these meetings is keep everyone in check by putting each other under perpetual scrutiny. Actions get dissected, results get analyzed, decisions get scrutinized – so that the wayward are brought to their senses, the vagabonds are tied to sanity and the ship stays on its course.

Social structures have scrutiny in built into them. Families and cultures have scrutiny in built into them, again with the unstated purpose of regulating behavior. The wayward are not appreciated, excommunicated and in some extreme cases hunted down.  Organized religion thrives on scrutiny through the notion of sin and the right and wrong. One man’s God becomes another man’s Satan, and instead heavens opening up, it is hell that is let lose.

Even games have scrutiny for smooth play and sports have to be scrutinized by organized sporting bodies. Companies are scrutinized. Sectors are put under regulatory scrutiny. Professions are scrutinized through their associations.

The all pervasiveness of scrutiny might lead us to believe that left to himself, man, his vocations and his interests will only cause mayhem and chaos. Whatever comes out of the fruits of a man’s toil must be kept in the leash of some scrutiny or the other. So we have a whole bunch of scrutinizers as a separate profession in itself whose job is brings sanity in every scheme of things.

I keep thinking, however, who will scrutinize the scrutinizers – because scrutiny is such a good thing.

Guru