Wrong Questions?

In life, most of us do not realize that we are solving the wrong questions… As a result, even the right answers hardly make a difference!

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My most difficult moments are when people forget that I am a trainer and start seeing me as a mentor…! I am neither an infallible role-model nor equipped or wise enough to offer best solutions. But I guess they share their life, believing … ‘I would understand’!

…and I do try my best to…

In sessions, I found her painfully shy, and oversensitive! …and that day I came to know why; when – accompanied by her mother – she peeled herself off layer by layer…

In the end, she said “How could he do it; he didn’t even think of me?”

I said “The question is wrong, because he has already done it!”

She said “But why?”

I said “Look! It was a choice he made, and it had nothing to do with you.”  

She said “But I want to know the answers!”

I said “you will never get the answers! All you would get is opinions on what happened.”

And then almost conclusively, I said “You are solving the wrong questions…right question is ‘Now, how do I deal with it?’

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Well! When she met me last, she was confused…but not angry!

At least now…she is solving the right question!

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All Men are not from Mars…!

In a session, while discussing a concept, context of recent news came up…and I quoted that the protagonist had said that a girl took advantage of him for months…

To my utter shock…I realized that the girls were giggling…!

Well…If the victim would have been the girl, and boys in the class would have giggled…then it would have been called… cruelly insensitive!

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Strange is the notion of equality…

If a girl refuses to marry the guy she was dating then it is called ‘constraints’ and if the boy does it then it is called ‘exploitation’; and why is it so that in such news, while girl’s name is changed for maintaining her modesty, the boy’s real name is published along with his father’s name? Why, when a relationship ends then the girl walks away with sympathy and the boy is left with disdain…!

Well! It’s high-time the society should stop taking men’s sensitivity for granted…? They are equally human, and deserve the same respect for their sanctity! They aren’t just some ‘desperates’, throwing around themselves between the sheets on any invitation…They also value their bodies and their sharing of intimacy can also be born out of vulnerability and trust in the person they love

Well…they might not tell you but they also feel a connection way beyond physicality…!

They also go through the pangs of insecurity & guilt and feel the need for reassurance! They also find it difficult to overcome heartbreaks and forget those moments…They aren’t just the carefree, revengeful or visibly-hopeless lovers movies have presented them as; they also walk away let-down, grieve subtly and lose their confidence and innocence!

Just because they don’t wear their hearts on their sleeves…You can’t assume they don’t have one!

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Well! When a heart breaks, you may choose to ignore…

but then…it surely doesn’t deserve a giggle either!

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Celebrating Ordinariness…!

Some people are just… Born-Ordinary!

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In school… their parents never expected them to top the class…they never had any pressure to win medals in competitions… they never sat at the front bench… they never aspired to anchor the annual function… they never asked questions to impress others…and…the thought of making into an ivy-league college did not even cross their minds…

In college… …they seldom worried about which dress to wear… they never cared how they looked while dancing…they never disliked anybody…they comfortably declared the best-looking face ‘simply out-of-reach’… and …they never had a so-called dream-career…

Then… they joined the company they got…they never aspired for the corner-office… they started loving the person they married…they did not name their kids before they were born… they attended all invitations without evaluating… and…they always worshipped without intellectualizing

Beyond the man-made peaks, they chose the existential poise…They did not philosophize life, they truly…lived it!

They Celebrated…Ordinariness!

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Well! Rest of us should remember that…while striving for extraordinary, one is always at risk of becoming abnormal…

Beware!

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Hence proved?

They were separated and she was living with their son…

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She said “I would never let my son come under shadow of a bad man like him”!

I said “You have all the right to say that he is a bad husband…but please don’t declare that he is a bad man!”

She gave me one of those cynical smiles and said “All you men are same”!

My reaction was “Great! First you generalized his being a bad husband to his being a bad man, and now you have further generalized it to all men being bad!”

She said “But why shouldn’t I say that?”

I said “Because you and I can’t even imagine how it would be for a boy to grow up hating his father!”

She said “But that man deserves it”!

I said “But this boy doesn’t!”

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Years after…when I met them recently, the boy (who has been closing in on his clichéd mission IIT) said to me…

“I have to be successful for my mother; and I also want to prove it to him…”

Alas! …

She has won the battle and…lost the war!

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Expecting Changes & Changing Expectations!

Relationships are like Cars…Initially, you value them for ‘your love for them’…and then for ‘their utility for you’…

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The only other thing as common as people falling-in-love is…people falling-outofit! What goes wrong? Where does the warmth wither away? Well! Reason is…we expect people to always remain same!

People are not events, they are processes! So the person you are with isn’t the same person you met first or knew last. So, be it personal, familial or professional space, allowing someone to change is the most important prerequisite of a good relationship.

We are in relationship with living beings so when we expect people to remain the way they were when we started out…then indirectly we want them to die exactly at the moment when the relationship was born! Well! Only a psychopath would want to make zombie out of a human he claims to love…

And when people change, so do their expectations! Thus the only way to keep relationships alive (and lively) is to continuously track each other’s evolution and consistently map each other’s expectations. In other words, Keep-Exploring!

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Well! People who can’t bear even an unintentional scratch on their cars’ bumpers…stay comfortably negligent to the deliberate scars on their own people’s hearts! It seems…it is easier to love things, as your expectations from them don’t change…and…they don’t have any expectations from you!

But no matter how much they advertise…a car cannot love you back!

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The sweet-tooth behind barfi…

“Kites is as much my movie as Barfi is…”

was Anurag Basu’s answer to a tweet that said “Barfi proves Anurag did not direct Kites!”

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They say, ‘If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans’…

Anurag was 29, Murder had just become a hit, he married his girl-friend, they were expecting a baby… and like a filmy anticlimax…he was diagnosed with Cancer! Doctors finally gave him only 2-weeks. Then he heard about Dr. Banawali at Tata Memorial…but…there was no bed left!

Sunil Dutt intervened and got him a bed; but not without great difficulty…He was straight away put on a ventilator and stayed unconscious in ICU for 15 days! When he returned…he was bald, frail, masked and ‘out of all the movies he had signed’…

But he lived on…to see the face of his daughter, and posters of his many brainchildren…!

Well! Only someone who has returned from the verge of the tunnel knows that beyond success and failure… there is a joy of ‘doing things’! The joy of dreaming big, making schedules, committing resources, meeting deadlines, celebrating milestones and…living with an illusion of infiniteness!

That silly joy…which helps us wake-up every morning with a sense of Hope!

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Someone asked Anurag Basu “Were you depressed after Kites flopped?”

… Anurag Basu laughed for next two minutes!

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Character Assassination!

“She doesn’t have a good character!” said boy and girl…about one of their colleagues!

Astonished…I asked them how they can say this about someone! They just said “Well! What should we say….!” and shared one of those secretive look-smiles with each other!

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Agreed! ‘Tendency to get tempted’ or ‘indiscretion in relationships’ isn’t a thing to be proud of, but can it be called ‘lack-of-character’? It’s justified to be against mindless sensual-indulgence but we can’t narrow down the definition of character only around someone’s interaction with the other gender! Character is much beyond that

There are many people who fulfill the social-criterion of personal chastity and still are lesser mortals – mean, mundane or manipulative; And then there are people who would hardly pass the Seeta-test and still are good human beings – genuine, kind and contributive! Would you simply ignore the latter…??

Actually…the fault is ours! By talking too much about angels…we have already made devils look interesting! Over-moralizing has only brought undue attention to what it is disallowing; thus cajoling people to explore, experience and experiment. Alas! What was meant to be a natural stage to grow into…has become a rebel’s delight!

Maturity is the ability to critically examine our own beliefs and evaluate the opposites beyond prejudices”!So, it’s fine if you fit in the conventional definition of character but when it comes to those who do not fit into it, you have to show maturity…

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Let me put it simply…In the Khan-trio, one is ideal family-man…another the most eligible bachelor and…yet another has had two wives and three kids mothered by three women! But, as a person, who do most people look up to??? Surprised by your own answer…??

Well! Character isn’t just about what you do…it is also about who you are!     

 

PS: Cynics may ask if I will sound so progressive even if a person related to me will cross Laxman-rekha?  Well! By asking this, you may successfully question my eligibility to discuss this concept…but still you can’t question this concept’s eligibility to be discussed..

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The Happy-ness!

Your happiness is your own responsibility…!

I still wore half-pants when I accompanied my uncle to a relative’s demise…! There, some of his close ones cried so uncontrollably that in my innocence I got convinced that they would not survive…

Well! …all of them lived on, recovered, became normal and…forgot him almost completely.  

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When I shared this with one of my wiser cousins, she simply said “That’s Life”! That was my first tryst with this beautiful truth that…‘No one is indispensable”!

Now, there is a choice – we can either get disillusioned & cynical about this or can be appreciative of God’s aesthetic sense for creating life with such an elegant flow! Latter is better because although it deprives us of our imagined-importance to everyone around us, it also relieves us of the pressure born out of such importance!

So…we conclude that we are not indispensable in anyone’s life! Isn’t it? …………Wrong!

We might be replaceable in everyone’s life but once-gone we cannot come back in our own life. Yes! We have come in our life just for once…the first and last time! So, it’s important (& preferable) to be self-centric (not self-centered) in life and derive a lot of happiness from within!

But then what about relationships? Well! Relationships are about shared happiness…about interdependence. And only an independent person can be interdependent. So, you can’t depend on others to build an ecosystem for you to be happy! You got to be a source of happiness for being a resource for happiness!

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So next time when people sing Happy-Birthday to you…Promise on the day that you’ll actually make this birth Happy for you!

After all…You aren’t replaceable in your own life.

 

PS: At times life comes too harsh on us to sound wise! Except that, what’s above…prevails!

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That ‘extra’ in…extraordinary!

Some days can suddenly make you look so………Ordinary!

You wake up with a heavy head… Your toothbrush heads straight to gum… Soap keeps slipping away… Towel isn’t its usual dry… Comb gives up on your hair… Keys are misplaced… Beverage is too hot for the time available for it… You see a spot on shirt after you’ve worn the shoes…and… Your tongue is obsessed chasing the elusive remnant!  

At work, you are at best ‘mundane’… Your usual tact with people is missing… Your words aren’t falling in place… You are bumping into people on blind-corners… An unanswered greeting is bothering you inside… Your schedule goes topsy-turvy…and… A phoneline is dead & a deadline is phoned!

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Wow! I love such days…

because they help you realize that in making you look good, there are more factors at work than… You!

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Well! It is so liberating when life reminds us that in infatuation with the Verb, we shouldn’t forget that we are not Subject of the sentence…we are the Object!

And equally fascinating is the insight that…In life, when you Do-away with the notion of being the Doer…You can get so much more Done!

 

PS: …actually someone had asked me in a session, “what is nishkaam-karma in Geeta?” 🙂

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A myth called maps!

Stop collecting maps…and Start walking your paths!

…was my advice to MBA students at a college; as final-day speaker in invocation-week!

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Second-hand solutions cannot solve first-foot problems…In the name of education, we are making people judgmental; passing on to them a narrow sense of right and wrong! In a controlled & structured environment, we pump idealism in them! But when they step out, there is a chaos out there……Queues are broken, rules are tossed, relations are far from perfect, truth doesn’t always prevail and nice-guys may indeed finish last!

As a result, they start believing that world is wrong and they are right! They become critical or disillusioned. They waste a lot of energy, getting consumed in that state of denial; with utopian notions of justice & fairness, that are far removed from reality-bites!

But Facts are stubborn…they exist irrespective of your like or dislike for them! You may choose to ignore them, but that doesn’t shoo them away!

So, let’s allow people to create their own philosophies…not theoretical, but the empirical ones! But for that, first it is important to avoid talking about idealistic-views in a tone that makes them sound like laws! Rather they should be proposed as hypotheses to be verified, and people should be encouraged to stay skeptic until faith emerges inside them!

After all, a believer’s faith is fragile because it is untested…bestowed upon him! A non-believer’s faith is the real-thing…because it makes its way through the corridors of doubt, earning strength incrementally; on its own merit!

Education should Empower…foster individuality! It should create individuals…the life-ready people!

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Well…the only way to test a map is to travel! However, when you travel, you realize that the only authentic map is ‘your map’…which cannot be made unless you venture out on your own!

…In life, no two journeys are same…So how can two maps be??

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