An XYZ learning ABC!

The best way to balance one’s ego-state is to start to learn ‘something new’

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As luck would have it, I am made to learn a lot about research these days – that too the quantitative approach…and inhabiting a world where humans are reduced to numbers and the wisdom is at mercy of statistical tools is an experience on the other side of the milky-way! And if you factor-in a person who is more right-brained…well! It is a cultural shock!

Beyond the comfort zone of being a so-called virtuoso in your field, when you are thrown as a rookie into a whole world of new jargon, made to learn ABC of a new domain then it can be as much humbling as brutal!

 You feel like a moron who takes time to comprehend, then presumes he has understood, only to be told he has got it all wrong or that all he knows is just the tip of the iceberg whose base is beyond the fathoming of his tiny brain and superficial motives…Huh!

But you know what… I’m lovin it!!

I am loving the whole catharsis of ego-thrashing, the lightness of being a nobody, the nimbleness granted only to beginners, the brazenness allotted to ignorant, the vulnerability reserved only for seekers, and the existential-float that comes from the intellectual nakedness.

Yes! Stripped off all your laurels, you realize that you are not ‘Good’, you are only ‘Good at something’… and ‘Nothing’ in everything else!

And this realization is so…liberating!

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Well! When you learn something new…you actually learn something new about yourself!

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The relative permanence…!

A death in Karachi on 13th August 1947 would have made us sad that someone ours has died…And…a death in Karachi on 16th August 1947 would not have hurt as much!

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It is absurd…A page in the Calendar flips, and our feelings take a U-turn!

We can’t see a single cringe on our beloved’s face and one day when the relationship crumbles, we suddenly become immune to all the pain on that face…We swear by our organization, one day we leave it and suddenly every loss at that place becomes a gossip to us…We care for our vehicle as if it was our part, one day we sell it and suddenly a scratch doesn’t feel the same anymore…

On the sands of time, the footprints of years are washed away by a single tide!  It seems that similarly, ‘what we felt’ gets overwritten overnight as the closeness recedes, bond loosens or ownership gets transferred! But don’t you think that…what was ‘shared’ once, deserves a better treatment from the ones who shared it?          

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Shimla’s Viceregal Lodge would have been an ordinary place had it not been the place where the decision to divide India took place! Interestingly, its meeting room has two doors…because Jinnah and Nehru had gotten so averse to each other that Jinnah insisted that a new door be built overnight for him to use…

My problem is…Why ‘what was built overnight’ has stayed there for 65 years…?

 

PS: Don’t ask “Doesn’t it apply to those sitting at Karachi?”. I’ve already agonized over it!

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Work is work…not worship!

No one has ever said at deathbed…“I wish I had given more time to office”!

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So true…! In our world, we have given an overblown importance to work! Our idea of a normal person is someone who daily spends 2 hours to get ready for work, then works for 10 hours, then brings home an hour’s miscellaneous work, and then sleeps for 6 hours to be fit for next day’s work! To top it all, remaining 5 hours are also consumed in thinking, talking or planning about it…thus relegating ‘living’ to one 7th day!

Well! There is nothing wrong with working a lot (‘yours truly’ is also guilty of it), but problems begin when we attach our (or others’) worth with it. As then, busyness becomes such an obsession that being free starts seeming idleness and any effort to relax only breeds more guilt or anxiety! And this addictive busyness also makes us oblivious to the difference between ‘doing work’ and ‘creating value through our work’ (quality-work).

Then… Getting a job defines your identity, doing a job sustains it and leaving a job endangers it! We cringe at those who choose to raise their family for a life, or stay home longer to enjoy simple pleasures of life, or work part-time to pursue their kaleidoscopic interests… In our minds, any time spent to ‘relate to ourselves or to others’ qualifies as… ‘Doing Nothing’!

Eventually, we get trapped in our concentric notion of ‘Success without any time to relish it or anyone to share it with’! We become…Slaves of our own creation!

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Yes! It’s true…“Jab kaamyaabi ki baarish hona shuru ho, tab tak rishton ki dhoop bhi bachi rehni chaahiye …Tabhi zindagi kaa indradhanush bantaa hai”!

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Sportsman Spirit!

My fascination with Tennis started a long way back…The reasons were: Its knack of always producing legends in duos, and thus treating us with the most famous rivalries of all times…in each era; and its being one of the loneliest sports with a rare combo of elegance and charm…and…  

Steffi Graf!

(No marks to guess the sequence of importance 🙂 !)

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I always relished watching tennis, but never played it. Somehow, right from childhood, it got positioned as a rich man’s prerogative and ordinary man’s aspiration! So, here I was…a skinny kid often found peeping through the wires meant to guard a tennis court adjoining our colony’s end-road!

…admiring a game which (in Agassi’s famous words) mirrors life in many ways! Be it its lingo (Serve, Fault, Advantage, Love etc.) or its structure (points, games, sets and match are almost arranged as days, months, years & life), there is a striking resemblance with the grand twisted design of our architecture!

So! Hungry for more three-dimensional soaking-up of Tennis, I befriended a guy who was much elder to me but was a member of the Residency-club…and the prince of its court! He was almost a pro…with starched clothes and stony palms (I always preferred a ‘Hi’ than a handshake with him)…    

On weekends, they would play a mini-tournament and he would always end up either winning it or being finalist. On one such evening, after he won…I asked “How does it feel?

He answered… “Good! But you know…actually today I didn’t deserve to win, as I played pretty average Tennis!”

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Huh! How many of us ask ourselves after a win… “Did I deserve it?

 

Note: Well! I don’t know whether that guy stuck to the sport or not, but I am sure he would be doing well in life…he had what it takes – the Sportsman Spirit!

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A letter to Sachin…!

Dear Sachin,

Congrats!!…on getting back ‘your life’!

You were just a kid who just wanted to play cricket…only because he loved it…! You didn’t play it to invite interviewers, attract sponsors, demand photo-shoots or pitch for press-conferences…you never wanted to play it for being a role-model, a mascot or an award-winner! You played it because that was the only thing…you knew!

I can understand how it feels to have so many strangers believing that they know you well and love you beyond a reason…or hate you without one! I can imagine how suffocating it must have felt to have people strip you off your dignity by constantly guessing your intentions, dissecting your efforts and projecting their own complexes on you!  

I can understand that while a whole nation celebrated after a win, all you wanted was a quiet dinner followed by a nice sleep…And while a whole nation cursed a loss, all you wanted was to go back home, be with your loved ones, hold your son tight and kiss your daughter’s forehead! Instead…you had to live up to the hopes of a billion strangers!

Well! Don’t worry about what would happen to them after you leave! You were just a prop they played with! It’s their hobby…they have done it to all the Kapils, Azhars & Gangulis…and would continue to do it with all Dhonis, Yuvis and Kohlis!

You see…they always invent Gods and crucify them to satiate their hunger for inspiration…only to then visit them on Sundays! Well! Go and enjoy yours…as amidst the voices of remembering you and missing you, they have already started forgetting you…

Wish you less Godliness, and more Cricket…!

 

PS: Yes! I know that he is yet to retire from tests…

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What went wrong??

Pre-Script: The subject matter of this long-post is more fit for mature readers! So, please have patience to read it ‘fully & meticulously’; and have maturity to understand the point-of-view that you have all the right to disagree with.

 

One of the epidemics of our times is ‘Sex Crimes’!

As all of us stand outraged for justice, we don’t realize that the root of the problem doesn’t lie in society’s attitude towards ‘Crimes’, it lies in society’s attitude towards… ‘Sex’!

We committed two mistakes on it that are costing us our dignity, our freedom…our life!

Two mistakes…

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1.

First mistake was to attach it with ‘Guilt’

Well! It started way back…! The masterminds of society wanted to bind individuals through submission to a collective identity, and for that they played a masterstroke! They targeted the most private moment that individuals can share, and prescribed it to be shared only with social approval!

So if you shared that moment without a formal public-consent from the social authorities with a partner not designated by them then it was debauchery. And it worked!!… because if you cede your right over your most private moment then you subconsciously get governed by social norms for all other things!

However! If no individual can revoke society’s influence totally, then no society can suppress individuality forever! So suppression of this biological (and fiercely personal) instinct triggered an existential-hypocrisy…As ‘doing it with approval’ became most social thing so automatically ‘doing it without approval’ became most anti-society thing

Those who resented this control but didn’t want to seem anti-social got involved in molestation & other blue-forms, and those who were comfortable (or even proud) in being seen as rebels saw its violation in the form of pre-marital, extra-marital, polygamy, live-ins, promiscuity etc. as a pronouncement of the individual-liberation (thus explaining indulgence of most of the rebels, activists, artists or thinkers).

But there was another (uglier) side of it! While Intellectual/intelligent rebels unleashed their rebellion in some form of creation, the mundane rebels, who did not have a clue of what to do with the miscellaneous rebel-energy, got into more aggressive avenues of unleashing it – like power-politics, violence, vandalism, extortion, exploitation and…rapes!

2.

Second mistake was to attach it with ‘Fun’

Well! When we love someone (be it parents, siblings, friends, cousins etc), we always tend to come physically close to that person – patting, holding hands, hugging etc.! More the love…more the intensity to hold on to that person as close as possible!

And when your instincts identify a long-term companion who is also a prospective biological-mate then you come as close as two persons can get towards becoming One! So actually, it is the highest form of closeness resultant of heightened love!

But because of attaching it to fun, what was supposed to be the most blissful form of closeness between two individuals got reduced to a ‘four-letter word’ that has more vigor in pronunciation and multi-utility in usage! It became the most inexpensive (as you had all the tools), accessible (as you had all the tools) and repeatable (as you had all the tools) means to have fun!

From being a natural instinct, it became an urge…to be satiated! So, whenever you were free, bored, idle, lonely, raged, down…then…Go for It!

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In our mythology, there is a tale of Bhasmasura…

Pleased with his worshipping, Lord Shiva grants him a wish! He asks for a power to burn anything to ashes just by keeping his hand on it! And when Shiva grants him his wish…he runs after Shiva only!

My request Shiva…“This is not time to open your angry third-eye on Bhasmasura…it is time to close eyes, introspect and solve this problem by getting to its…root”!

The fact is – You created Bhasmasura!

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But why don’t you understand?

‘Expecting someone to understand your feelings’ is the surest way to suffer…

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How we feel is a function of three variables – the situation we are in, the way we perceive it and our sensitivity-level! At best someone can understand the first, but rest two are uniquely-personal to us. No amount of empathy or listening can bridge this gap completely…

In our desperate attempts to make someone understand and our frustration on its futility…we forget the fact that…‘We all live together, but in different worlds’! The worlds designed in a customized manner ‘by and for’ each one of us. This difference is a reality that we try to ignore, as it will introduce us to a scary realization…of our loneliness!   

We created social groupings at all levels – families, friends, clans, localities, communities, castes, religions, nations, continents – but we cannot deny this truth that eventually we are seven-billion lonely people…

Well! Though the denial is by and large successful, but every now and then the realization keeps coming back to us…

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And that’s where lies…the seed of human-suffering!

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Silence Please…

Words are overrated!

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“From where do you attain the weight of your words?” asked someone at a seminar… “From my moments of silence” was my answer!

Though an uncharacteristic (and modest 🙂 ?) thought from someone who lives around them, I feel in life, we are too wordy to be at-peace…talking a tad too much, keen on filling every pause with any sound and trying to express everything & impress everyone!

Silence is beautiful! Look around…Most of the beautiful things around us are silent! The meditative Buddha, dancing trees, starry sky, serene lake, fragrant flowers or a sleeping baby! All melting effortlessly into their background…all so complete in themselves – Arrived! Pure existence…No strings attached.

Silence is enriching! Relationships gain their depth during the moments of shared silences! When you are neither dependent on each other nor independent of each other…but simply coexisting! No motive to persuade, no agenda to dominate, no desperation to dodge voids and no aspiration to create joy… Just being there…

Silence is revitalizing! When we speak, we move outward…and when we are silent, we turn inward… discovering the treasure within – the scope of observation, the seed of realization, the source of creativity and the origin of happiness!

Well! One evolution happened when man invented language! Another is due when…he will reinvent silence!

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Silence please!

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Two is company…three is a crowd!

“If they care so much for each other then why did they get separated; and if they couldn’t stand each other then why did they fall in love in the first place! What a drama? How stupid?”  …said the RJ about a couple in some reality-show!

…and then eased into playing a song with an audible smirk!

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Well! The roads to-n-fro hearts don’t follow straight-lanes of deductive reasoning & inductive logic; they are full of tortuous hairpin-bends and blind-turns…! That’s why what happens between two persons can never be understood by any third person.

No amount of science can figure out why two persons come together and why they part ways…how that symphony arises and why that warmth withers away! Seems there is a secret recipe to this magical potion, and is exclusively ‘made to order’ for each! Hence it is heights of sadistic pleasure when we start passing judgments and quoting prescriptions on a feeling so uniquely-personal to someone!

Well! Let’s not molest a private emotion like love by dragging it into public domain, and let’s not outrage its modesty by commenting frivolously on the matters of heart!

Let’s leave all ‘two persons’ alone, on their own…to decipher the mysteries of heart; and also allow them the liberty to go through tumultuous journey of emotions that, with all its ‘highs & lows’, is worth an experience!

This journey will help them explore the extent to which they can bear their pains and…chase their joys!

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Let’s stop ghost-writing people’s autobiographies…!

…for sounding funnier RJs!

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To hell with heaven…!

When I dance… angels up there come out of their adobe, fairies glimpse through the window of clouds, pious souls disown the bliss of heavens and they all kneel down and join various Gods & Goddesses to scream only one word…

STOP!!!!

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I am so apologetic of being flat-footed that any insistence by movers-n-shakers to join them makes me defensive enough to seem offending! Well! This trait got resurfaced when we (I and my best buddy) went to a marriage in another best buddy’s family!

But then the procession began and something happened…the ambiance took over, there was a sudden upsurge of energy inside, the drums got tuned to heartbeats and before I knew I had let my guard down and was swirling into movements which bear some remote resemblance to…dance!

It was then that I got this enlightening realization.  

Well! Every Indian is born with a latent talent called ‘Baraat Dance’! This art defies all laws of gravity, all concepts of synchronization and all rules of rhythm and beats! And surprisingly, beyond all clauses of classicalness, it works – invariably always!

It works because…it is much beyond a dance! It is an experience of unleashing oneself, getting liberated from all the blockages of suaveness & sophistication, being free from the clutches of hitch and discovering one’s uninhibited self laying beneath all the perceptions of self & others! It is an expression of freedom… declaration of sovereignty!

And suddenly it dawns upon you that “To dance, you don’t require two trained feet…you only need one deprogrammed heart!”

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Whenever you get a chance to unleash yourself, dance your heart out…To hell with what heaven thinks…!

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