AVIS Viswanathan's Blog, page 12

Don’t shoot the messenger – heed the message!

The easiest thing to do is to react to people and what they have to say. If we heed the message, than focus on the messenger, we will surely benefit more.
The forum where Aamir spoke on intolerance in India
Picture Courtesy: InternetI listened to what actor Aamir Khan had to say about the much debated issue of rising intolerance in India. And I do believe he has spoken as a citizen who is genuinely concerned – much like any of us is. I don’t think anyone must evaluate what Aamir and Kiran are feeling, and what Aamir has shared, as what an Indian Muslim has to say.
What is being said, the message, is clearly more important than who is saying it. This is not about the intolerance debate that rages on in India alone. This is about anything, in any context – the message is always more important than the messenger!
Yet, ever so often “How dare you?” assumes more significance in your head over someone telling you something that you don’t want to hear, than what is being told to you. This “How dare you?” drowns reason and leads to inaction. Simply because your mind – the human mind thinks 60000 thoughts daily – is filled with negativity over who delivered the message to you. When your mind is agitated, obviously, clarity takes a backseat.
To be sure, even Vaani and I have often, in recent times, thought about relocating from India at some time in the future. Of course, we have our bankruptcy to deal with and all our creditors to repay first before we even think of and for ourselves. The reason why we may even consider moving out of India, if at all we do in the future, is pretty much similar to what Kiran and Aamir may have shared among themselves. This beautiful country of ours is becoming more and more intolerant to not just religion but even to individual opinion. The way Aamir and Kiran are being trolled is evidence of this disturbing trend growing. People disagreeing with Aamir is fine - but so much hate, so much anger, this is totally unnecessary and avoidable. The truth is social media has given anyone who has an opinion (all of us have opinions, don’t we?) a pedestal – not just platform – to flaunt it. So people don’t really bother about what they have to say. They just want to be seen saying it – something, anything! This cacophony is harmless if it stayed purely at a noise level. The tragedy is that our government, our politicians and those who peddle religion, seize the opportunity and unfairly play up our diversity, pitting gullible masses against one another. If this trend continues and grows, as it threatens to, it will make India a sad, a very sad, place. But let me clarify that this change in perception and preference in Vaani and me is more recent. Over 20 years ago, I had turned down a job offer from a large American MNC. Simply because the offer involved migrating to the US. Vaani and I then wanted to stay back in India, we wanted to do something for our country, living and working from here.
I am amazed that in two decades we have changed our view. And therein lies the crux of the issue – we are dealing with growing intolerance for individual opinion and sentiment in India. Period. Our constitutional right of freedom of expression stands challenged – and, sadly, in some cases, is stifled or even denied. Unless we recognize and internalize this message – instead of shooting the messenger(s) – we can’t bring about lasting, social change.

Today is Guru Nanak’s (1469 ~ 1539) birthday. If he gave the world one unputdownable message, this is it: “I belong to no caste”. I hope a few of us, who, to begin with, share Nanak’s philosophy and outlook to Life, work to spread the message of harmony and co-existence. Even if we don’t agree with what someone has to say, let us stop reacting and, important, let is stop shooting the messenger(s)!

No matter what, it is still a very kind and compassionate world!

Every once in a while, people will remind you that they care. And that compassion still thrives in this cold, seemingly hostile, inhuman world.
Last evening, Chennai had a non-stop torrential downpour for six hours. This was already a city that was struggling to return to normalcy after last week’s floods – caused by an aggressive North-East monsoon. What’s worse, two things that Chennai and Chennaites don’t know how handle are rain and traffic. So, the whole city choked and crawled taking, on an average, 4 hours to move less than 1 km. This, even as it mercilessly pelted from the skies!
Photo Courtesy: Times Of India/InternetWe had miraculously found ourselves a cab. And had decided to brave – our decision was made much ahead of the rain intensifying – it to attend a bhajan at a friend’s place to celebrate Swami Sathya Sai Baba’s 90thbirthday. This is an annual affair and is a spiritual fellowship that Vaani and I rarely miss. Understandably, we were also stuck in the traffic and rain. As our cab moved a millimeter at a time, we noticed hapless people returning from work, drenched, waiting at bus-stops for buses that probably would never have come last evening. Several people decided to walk, wading through knee-deep, and rising, water. The traffic cops were resilient and were trying to be helpful, despite being soaked under their rain gear, in a literally helpless situation. Everyone was patient though. Not too many people honked with frustration – something that strangely is a practice that we Indians revel in, when we are stuck in traffic snarls.
Between looking out the window, chatting occasionally with Vaani and listening to some great Bollywood numbers on Fever 91.9 FM, that the cabbie was kind enough to play, I was checking Facebook – often aimlessly.
That’s when this status from a young friend Joe popped up. “Right now on the road, I've taken two people into my car. In case any of you have an SUV or any other car capable of wading through knee-deep water in Chennai at this point, now is the time. Go help. ‪#‎helpchennai” I thought this was an awesome and inspiring gesture! It touched me.
It took us over 2 hours to cross a 700m distance to reach our destination. Our friend Kumar, and his father Ram, had made elaborate arrangements for the post-bhajan prasad (actually a full dinner spread including steaming idlis, hot sambar, bissibelebath and curd rice) to be served. Several people who were expected at the bhajan that evening could not make it. But several people, passing by, hearing of hot food being served, trooped in. They were welcomed with opens arm and fed personally by Kumar, Ram and their family. I just marveled at the spirit of service that thrived in the moment.
A lady who had also made it to the bhajanvenue in an Ola, could not find one to get back home. We discovered she lived in our neighborhood. We offered to drop her back home. It was actually not a drive on the way back; our cab seemed more like a motorized boat and the roads looked like over-flowing canals. We got back home close to midnight and as we went to bed, Vaani and I were both content that, in our own small way, we had been useful.
As I scroll through my Facebook Page and catch up on FM and newspaper updates, I just see how many, many people have come together, stepping out of their comfort zones, to help those who need some warmth, some care and love. All this leaves me feeling human, feeling good.
This is no appeal. I don’t wish to preach. I just make an observation. No matter what we see on TV or read in the papers (#Paris, #Mali, #intolerance, #Beef, #Muzaffarpur, #awardwapsi and such), it is still a very kind, compassionate world out there. The truth is we too can see its magic and beauty – if only we pause to look up from all our ‘busy-ness’! This observation, I believe, is the best way to amplify Swami’s Life’s message: “Love All, Serve All!”

Go with the flow of Life – resisting it is pointless!

The most evident truth about Life is that it simply goes on! And you and I are like the ‘musafir’ (voyager) in the opening song of Parichay (1972, Gulzar)…we have to just keep walking…‘bas chalte jaana’…!
This is the big message I picked up watching Masaan(2015, Neeraj Ghaywan) the other day. It is the most thought-provoking, poignant film I have seen in a long, long time. It deals with a young lady coming to terms with the death of her boyfriend when the police raids their room in which they are making love. A parallel story deals with a young boy, from a lower caste (his family burns corpses at the riverside crematorium), aspiring to woo, court and marry an upper caste girl. The girl is willing but soon dies in a bus tragedy along with her entire family. The boy struggles initially to reconcile with his loss – he ends up having to cremate her body! But eventually he manages to move on. Both story arcs converge as the film ends, with the young lady meeting the young boy on a boat and together they ride onward…
Set in Benares, Masaan has been winning acclaim on the international film festival circuit. And has earned praise from critics and viewers alike.
Vicky Kaushal as Deepak in 'Masaan'
Picture Courtesy: Internet To me, however, Masaan portrays the ever-flowing nature of Life. The young lady has to handle her guilt, her grief, over a choice she and her boyfriend made. Her father has to live with the ignominy of her choice. Together they have to face a corrupt cop and raise a ransom amount for the charges against the lady to be dropped. She tries to seek closure by going over to apologize to her boyfriend’s family, but they don’t want her apology; they ask her to get out! In the parallel story, the young boy has his father’s support to quit the corpse-burner tradition and profession. He has his girlfriend’s assurance that she is willing to even run away – should the families disapprove – with him provided he gets himself a job. He’s almost certain of getting that job when she dies. He has to deal with his demons. His depression almost ruins his career prospects and he’s on the verge of being a corpse-burner all his Life. But he realizes that unless he moves on, he will only be trapped ‘where he is’ and remain depressed. A state that will serve no purpose, he reasons. So, with great difficulty, he picks up the threads of his Life and lands himself a job. As both the young lady and the boy move on, they meet each other…
Indeed, there are no pauses in Life. It simply goes on. As long as you are alive, you have to keep walking, you have to keep going with the flow. You may not like whatever is happening to you. But you have to face it, you have to live through it. When you hate whatever is, you will suffer. Here’s the nub: you can’t prevent Life from happening to you. But you have the choice not to resist Life. And nothing, nothing really, is the end of the road, until you are alive, until you die. Period.
I talk from experience. On December 31st 2007, when I sat with Vaani in our bedroom and surveyed our Life, it seemed impossible to go on. We had just Rs.2000/- left with us in Life. And we had over a million dollars in debt. And no work. Yet, almost 8 years on, we have survived and lasted to tell our story. We still don’t have enough work – not even enough to cover our living expenses – and our debt remains unpaid. But we move on…living each day, working hard, facing our realities – court cases, police complaints, cashlessness at some times and very frustrating material scarcity at others – and believing that all this too shall pass.

There is no other way to live Life. It is what it is. You have to accept what is, keep working on what you want it to be and, in the process, exercise your choice to simply be, well, happy with whatever is. It is when you don’t live Life with this clarity and understanding that Life is miserable. Go on, go with the flow of Life. After all, there’s isn’t any point in refusing to flow it! 

“When you value each breath, you will learn to be happy.”

‘ The Happiness Road’ is a weekly Series on this Blog that appears on Sundays where I share my conversations with people while exploring their idea of happiness!
It will be easy to introduce Maneesha Ramakrishnan as “the lady who has seen death at close quarters.” But I prefer referring to her as the one who knows “the true meaning of Life and happiness”!
On 23rd February 2010, Maneesha was trapped on the 7th floor of Carlton Towers in Bangalore when the building caught fire. She survived the over-one-hour entrapment, but she had to go through nine surgeries over the next few years to be able to live on and tell her story. She has lost most of her voice, she breathes through a tracheotomy tube implanted in her larynx, and she has no sense of smell.
Before the Carlton Towers fire episode, her Life has not been exactly smooth either. She has had to deal with two relationships – that culminated in marriages which did not last; she has raised her two children, Akarsh and Dhruv, as a single parent. She has had to ‘stumble and struggle’ through various career options to ‘earn a living’. And then the Carlton Towers fire left her physically, financially and emotionally devastated when she was just 40!
Anyone in her position would have lost the will to live. But Maneesha has not just survived and soldiered on, she has learnt to be happy despite her circumstances!
Vaani and I know Maneesha through a common friend. We had invited her to receive a copy of my Book ‘Fall Like A Rose Petal’ when we launched it in Bangalore in August 2014. What she said back then, while receiving my Book, has stayed with us: “Value each breath. It is precious. I know what it means to be unable to breathe. When you value each breath, you will learn to appreciate the gift of this lifetime, and to be happy.”
On The Happiness Road Series this Sunday, I invited Maneesha to share her awakening, inspiring, perspectives on living and happiness! I have retained the Q & A format in which this conversation happened, because I find Maneesha’s thoughts simple and easy-to-hold and, above all, I feel adding on my views to them will mean diluting, or perhaps even adulterating, the essence of what she is saying! The green highlights in each of her answers are intentional – they are the key takeaways or learnings we can borrow from Maneesha’s beautiful, shaken-but-not-stirred Life!
Pictures Courtesy: Maneesha's Personal Album
What does happiness mean to you?
The act of giving myself away before I need to or I am asked to. It is, well, a responsibility!
Has your idea of happiness evolved over the years?
Indeed it has.
As a child, I used to care for my two brothers – we three were born in consecutive years. My first idea of happiness was caring for them, caring for my cousins and making other people happy. My parents were caught up in their own struggles; their focus was not on us children. So, I found great warmth and joy in visiting my grandparents in Kerala for summer vacations. I used to be deliriously happy visiting them.
So, that was my early idea of happiness.
The Carlton Tower fire changed my idea of happiness, and of Life, forever. When I reflect back on how I was trapped in there on that fateful day, I realized that I was exposed to the “deepest form of human suffering – fighting for just a breath of fresh air”! I now know the value of each breath that I am breathing, that each of us is breathing. Ever since, I have been creating a lifetime in moments. And I am addicted to it. This addiction to live fully, moment by moment, to me now is happiness.
You have been through a couple of relationships - were you searching for something through them/in them?
Because I didn’t think my parents focused on me, I grew up becoming a rebel. I desperately wanted to get out of home and so, as soon as I was 18, I married my neighbor, who I was deeply in love with. But, to my horror, I realized that he was alcoholic and had no job. My husband’s mother was very kind to me, she loved me dearly with all her soul, she protected me and treasured me. But she sadly passed on soon after my first son was born. I tried to break away from the marriage but it ended up being messy – my father made things worse by launching a legal battle against my husband. In an effort to resolve the mess, I went back to my husband to try and make a new beginning. But after my second son was born, and when I did not see any point or hope in the relationship, I separated from him.
I carried on with my Life, raising my two boys, supporting them with money that I was earning from tuitions that I was offering to children in our neighborhood. This is when I met a counsellor, whose views on Life and happiness attracted me to him. He loved me deeply. More important, he taught me the value of loving myself. He made me feel special. I moved in with him. Over time, we married. It was a Christian wedding and I dressed in my dream dress. But he was 20 years older to me, and soon, he felt he needed to let me go. But as we separated, he told me, “Thank you for the best years of my Life that you have given me.”
Both these relationships taught me something very important. That Life just keeps on happening to us. We make some decisions based on how we feel about something, about someone, at a given time. When that circumstance, or person, or both change, we must be open to change too. Clinging on to a situation that you don’t want makes you unhappy. Letting go sets you free and allows you to invite happiness in your Life!
How did the Carlton Towers fire change your Life?
I think about the Carlton Towers fire every day.
But not the way I did on 23rd February 2010, the day when the fire happened. She(yes it’s a “she”:)!) crosses my mind like a spring cardinal that flies past the edge of my eye: startling, luminous, lovely and she’s gone! The event of the fire and the tragedy is something that I’ve come to look at as a significant segment of the journey that I’ve been on in this lifetime. I have learnt from her over a long period of time. It is not about getting over it or healing. No. It’s about learning to live with this transformation. For the experience is transformative, in good ways and bad, a tangle of change that cannot be threaded into the usual narrative spools.
2011: I felt it exhilarating and liberating that I was free from the bondage of Life support systems. Even as I grappled with a loss of vitality, and impairment in physical functionality, I was happier being the way I was. My wind pipe and vocal cords have got constricted because of the amount of smoke I inhaled on that tragic day. Despite repeated surgeries they have refused to get back to normal. So I breathe with the help of a tracheotomy tube inserted in my larynx. When I must speak, I block the tube’s opening and that makes me audible – it restores normal functioning of the vocal cords because we do pause our breathing when we speak.
2012 & 2013: I resolved that I was going to work on myself. I began by moving away from self-pity.  I stopped obsessing over the repeated trials and tribulations in my Life culminating in some way with this gruesome fire and tragedy. I began to nurture my children. This helped me repair and resurrect myself. I started to participate in the movement to bring justice and closure to those nine families whose loved ones did not survive the fire. This gave me a sense of purpose. It was not easy. But it kept me moving in a direction that I was very happy with. I stopped viewing myself as a helpless, hapless victim. I decided to call myself “The Queen of the Carlton Fire”. That change in perspective, in personal perception, opened me to the opportunity that all of us has in embracing abundance thinking. Happiness is really celebrating what you have, celebrating who you are!
2014: I relaunched my career as a “Chef on Hire”. It gave me a physical, practical, financial and blissful anchor. But Bangalore weather can play truant with someone who now as a permanent breathing impairment. After struggling with a couple of winters, I realized I have to stop looking at external reference points and circumstances to change for me to be happy, for me to be at peace. I simply went within and have found complete bliss.
2015: Finally, I am alive again. :) Each day, each moment, I allow myself to just be! I feel all the more entitled to be living Life fully now.
Yes it’s taken five long years to get here! But I am happy I am here!
How has it been raising two boys - for most times as a single parent?
Maneesha with her soulmates Akarsh & DhruvAkarsh and Dhruv are my soulmates. They have grown up into young adults despite their entire childhood, their teenage years and young adulthood being ridden with chaos, uncertainty and stress. They have given me reason to love, live, laugh and they have loved me so unconditionally. They have taught me the value of compassion – they doted on me through my several stints in hospital; with Dhruv even refusing to leave my bedside. Ours is a great friendship – I have always been open, sharing with my boys and I am always willing to learn from them. I am so grateful to God that this area of my Life, as a parent, a single parent, has been so blissful, so blessed, so beautiful.
How do you cope with your practical lows - when there isn't enough money for a medical procedure or when you want to do something for your boys? 
We are so blessed. Yes, we have been pushed to edge several times but the Universe has never let us down! It is a very compassionate Universe. People who hardly know us have kept supporting us financially. Whenever I can I have provided what my two boys need. But when I have been unable to, I have always told them openly why I have been unable to give them what they want. This honesty has helped immensely. I have also never allowed the feeling of financial constraint to get to me. If I have not had money to give my maid or a helper at home, I have cooked them a meal. Such acts of serving, has always made me happy; and for them…I guess…they have felt loved and cared for. So, yes, there are practical everyday lows, but you overcome them with love!
How do you manage to walk the tightrope between living happily in the moment and earning a living?
Life is a tightrope walk. But you must not see only the tightrope. You must see how blessed you are to be on it, with all the love and compassion that holds you up there. I remind myself daily that I am “God’s favorite” – that I will never be let down, I will always be looked after. I have accepted the tightrope as an integral part of my Life. When you accept your Life for how it is in the present moment, you can be nothing but happy!
What is the message you would like to give to the world? To the millions out there who don't know they are blessed and instead are taking their blessings for granted and are leading unhappy, miserable lives?
See your Life as a fantastic growth school! Everything that you experience, both good and challenging, has come to you to teach you the lesson that you need to learn for you to evolve as a person. Understand this truth. Keep asking yourself, 'What opportunity does this person or situation represent in terms of your personal growth?’ This is a great source of inner peace. The best way to live Life is to live the authentic Life. Never betray yourself.
Have you ever thought of where you want to go in Life from here?
I want to share with the world this blessing I have, that of a capacity to temporarily put away all the circumstances that surround me, that hold me hostage in a physical sense, to go within and find inner peace and true happiness. Post the Carlton fire, in 2012, when I was going through intense physical trauma, an epiphany occurred to me. I chose to let my pain be where it was and chose instead to look at the pain and suffering of another. I saw the families of those who were lost in the fire. I saw their grief. I gave them all my love. That was a huge healing process for me. I want people to learn from my experience. I want to share this awareness, this method too, with the whole world.
I visualize myself driving around in a food truck, with lots of balloons, giving away food and home remedies to people who need them the most. Not just to humans but to animals and birds. I believe that in living in the beauty of each moment, fully, with love and compassion, we can be eternally happy!

Why this kolaveri, kolaveri….?

Ambition is fine. But never let it blind you, consume you.
In a reflective conversation with Vaani over coffee this morning, I discussed the pointlessness of trying to overachieve in order to be successful in Life. The papers have been full of news of jazz pianist Madhav Chari’s untimely passing. Here was a man who gave up a PhD in Mathematics at the University of Illinois to make music in Chennai. I never knew him. But to me, his obituary, much like the perfectionist that I believe he was, reads perfect: he followed his bliss and went away, perhaps too soon, having lived a full Life. Osho, the Master, made imminent sense when he said that between a choiceless birth and a certain death, this Life is nothing but drama, often a comedy too. What he meant really was why do we take Life so seriously, why are we trying to acquire, amass and struggle to cling on to material stuff – stuff that we can’t take away with us? I think Madhav Chari’s Life is a good Life to live. Do what you love doing and leave when you must.
Honestly, I was never this way – simple, spiritual or sensitive!
As I confessed to a young journalist the other day, and as I have shared in my Book (‘Fall Like A Rose Petal’; Westland, August 2014) , I once had this kolaveri, this murderous rage, brazen, belligerence to earn money, to be successful, to be famous. But over the years, I have slowed down. I realize the value of faith (in oneself, more than in an external reference point) and patience. I understand that it is more important to take in the scenery than only worry about getting to a destination. And, of course, I believe that while you have a right to be ambitious, don’t ever let that ambition possess you to the extent that you can’t enjoy the process of getting what you want.
Ambition is good as long as it nurtures your sense of purpose, gives you a direction to move in and helps set the pace. But ambition must not ruin your sleep. It cannot make you jealous, restless, angry, belligerent and obsessed. Being competitive is fine. But learn to compete with a champion’s attitude – wanting to do better than your last effort. Don’t let the pettiness of winning at the cost of someone else consume you!
Let me clarify that ambition and belligerence need not pertain only to for-profit endeavors. Even if you are leading social change, if you are engaged in a purposeful endeavor to make the world better, don’t let your do-gooder ego drive you nuts. The same principle of following your bliss and moving onward with grace applies here too.
A lifetime that has been lived fully, every moment of it, by touching lives, is far more inspiring and relevant than working overtime, to create an awe-inspiring resume that no one has the time to read, or worse, remember. In the end, you will have two ways to review your Life – with gratitude for a time well-spent here, or with regret for having had this murderous rage, this kolaveri, to overtake, overachieve and win. Make sure, you never have to ask yourself this: “Why this kolaveri, kolaveri…?”

Living with and loving what is, is happiness

Don’t try to control your Life. You can’t. Instead, simply go with the flow!
Someone we know is going through a tough phase in Life. None of what he’s doing or is trying to do is yielding him the results that he is looking for. In fact, for most part, his efforts are not fetching him any results. He’s trying harder each day, fighting frustration and depression, but he’s just not getting what he wants. He asked me what he should be doing.
I said: “Simply, go with the flow!”
But what do you do when you don’t like the direction of the flow? The truth is, you don’t have a choice. Well, when you are unable to proceed in the direction you want to move in, you can either resist Life and suffer. Or you can simply accept – and want – what you get. Wanting what you get is the key to happiness. Truly.
Here’s what I have learnt from Life. Don’t control, don’t resist, don’t grieve when it doesn’t go as per your wishes, your plans. Stay anticipating and welcoming the possibility of an exciting adventure and you will never be unhappy. On the other hand, you will be able to feel and be the bliss in each moment. What is a sudden health diagnosis: a cancer or any other debilitating disease? It is an adventure. What is a job loss? An adventure. What is a broken relationship? It’s an adventure. You call something an adventure when it is an experience that you have not been through before. Almost all the time since you__and I__were born we have been encountering Life at its own terms. One surprise after another. But we see it in a linear fashion. We see our Life go through only these stages: birth to starting school, starting school to finishing school (pre-school to high-school), starting a course to qualifying for that degree, starting a job to starting a family, finishing actively caring for children to retiring from your job, starting retirement to reaching death. So, while are essentially flowing with Life, we think we are in control. Surely, a lot of these stages apply to almost anyone who is capable of reading this post now. But if we look deeper, peeling off layer after layer in each stage, we will notice that there have been so many unforeseen events at each stage of our lives, events that we have been able to overcome them and get to today. So, why this anxiety about Life’s next surprise or adventure? Why the fear of an ‘unknown’ future? Why do you want to control Life and steer it away from adventure to predictability?
Going with the flow does not mean giving up. It only means that you must not think anything’s wrong with you just because your efforts are not fetching any results. When you think you are the problem, you will feel frustrated and depressed. Instead look at the problem – and address it. Do whatever you can and you must in a given situation. If you don’t get the results you wanted, try again. And again. And while you keep trying, go with the flow of Life too. Going with the flow means living with what is. Living with and loving what is, is happiness!

Go beyond hope and hopelessness, go take action!

When there is no hope, remember, you are still alive. And as long as you are there, the ‘God’ within you too is alive, kicking and capable of a miracle.
Most often, hopelessness leads you to conclude that it is all over. That you are finished. You miss something very crucial at that time, that all your data points, all the evidence, that you use to arrive at that conclusion, are external. They lie outside of you. Your prayers also are to reference points outside you __ a ‘God’, as in an idol in a faraway temple, or in a sacred church, or at a distant dargah! When you find that your efforts to seek a miracle for yourself are reduced to a naught, you amplify your conclusion and say, nothing is possible. You resign. You give up. In all this time, even for a moment, you have not looked within. You have not realized the blessing of your being alive. There’s a famous saying, “With God anything’s possible!”  That ‘God’, that miraculous energy, is what’s powering you. The fact that you can conclude, basis external reference points, that you are finished, is proof that you are alive. If you are alive, that Universal energy is powering you. Dip into that energy. Go within. You will then realize the futility of benchmarking all your wants and needs on external reference points.
On 30th August 2012, we had to pawn Vaani’s last piece of jewelry – her thali(a gold chain, the equivalent of a wedding ring in South-Indian culture) – to raise cash for us to survive as a family. As we did that, I remember telling ourselves that “after this effort, when this cash dries up, we are on love and fresh air”. We had nothing more of value to liquidate to raise any more cash. The 30-odd months that followed saw us being roasted, as a family, over the hot coals – with zero income and zero cash on many, many, many occasions – but both Vaani and I never lost hope – not in ourselves, not in humanity, not in the Universe. It’s over 3 years now, since that day, and we have still not recovered from our 8-year-old fragile, bankrupt, insolvent situation (To know more about this story please read ‘Fall Like A Rose Petal – A father’s lessons on how to be happy and content while living without money’; Westland, August 2014; available to order on this Blog). But we have survived. And we have survived only because Vaani and I believed, deep within us, that we would.
This experience has taught us that hopelessness is a wasteful emotion. To live through any crisis you just need to be aware of your being alive! With this awareness try and understand how you are feeling at the moment. If you are sad, accept that reality. If you are fearful, accept it too. If you are anxious, again accept it. Whatever you feel, acknowledge it, accept it. Then ask yourself, what can I do to change this reality? List down your actions that you can take to leverage your being alive. Some of them may be painful, uncomfortable actions. But if you have to do them, you have to. Because you want to change how you feel, right? With the actions you take, the problems you face, that led to a state of hopelessness in the first place, may not immediately go away. But if you are feeling good about what you are doing, you can be sure that you will walk into a new reality.
Every new journey starts with a first step. That first step is to change the way you are feeling about whatever’s your current reality. You may not be able to see your destination yet, but if you have sat in the plane, fastened your seat belt and have closed your eyes, you can be assured the pilot will take off, and with the available data on probability, chances are good that you will land where you intend to in some time.

To be sure, both hope and hopelessness are imposters. One tricks you to imagine that all will be fine. It breeds inertia. And the other deceives you and tells you it’s all over, nothing’s possible. Again it breeds inertia. Whereas visiting the energy that powers you, you feel rejuvenated, inspired and begin to act. Inertia can never get you started. Only action can. 

You need to be happy, and not secure, to live fully

Between being happy and being secure, choose being happy. Because security is fake and guarantees nothing except consoling you that you are safe, despite the fact that you are not.
You are as safe as you are in this moment. You will never be able to tell, ever, what will happen to you, of you, in the next moment. You, like many, will be rushing this morning to work at a job that you loathe, yet you cling on to it because of a fake sense of security your pay check guarantees you. You think you are secure if you have money, if you have a social standing, if you have a well-heeled job and if you have a house to call your own. Security comes from comforting yourself with how much you have. Happiness comes from being content with whatever you have.
The problem with seeking too much security is that what you try to possess will eventually end up possessing you. If you have a million dollars in the bank and have lost your job, invariably every thought of yours will concern your depleting the bank balance with every delay that your job search encounters. Clearly, the bank balance is possessing you now. On the other hand, if you want to be happy, all you need to do is to consider yourself lucky that you have a bank balance to live off in the time that you search for a job.
On a spiritual plane, it is also really foolish on our part that we should feel insecure. Because from the time you were born, you have lived each moment without knowing what will happen in the next. Which means you are an expert at dealing with the unknown, with insecurity. Yet, you fear it all the time? Life is a bungee jump into the unknown in each new moment. And all of us have been doing it effectively, efficiently all these years of our lives. So, a sense of security is a wasted sentiment. You don’t need it to live. You can live with insecurity, as you always have. Happiness however is crucial to live Life fully! If you have felt an emptiness, an incompleteness in you, it is not because you are insecure, but because you are not happy!

Happiness is an opportunity that each moment is pregnant with. To be happy, you have to make a choice of letting go of the need to be secure. You will then be soaked in happiness!  

No one can live (with) a lie for too long

If something makes you happy do it, don’t crave for social acceptance. The time you spend trying to make others happy, if you invest on what makes you come alive, you will find your Life having more meaning than it has just now.
Last evening I watched Bombay Talkies (a 2013 anthology featuring films by four directors) one more time. The opening film Ajeeb Dastan Hai Yeh by Karan Johar tells the story of a man Dev who discovers that his entire Life has been a lie – he is gay but he doesn’t want to admit it.
The 30-min short ends on a moralistic note – jhoot bolna buri baat hai; “It is wrong to lie”. This may sound like a clichéd, lofty message. But it is important, every once in a while, to pause and ask yourself if you are living your Life the way you want to? Or are you living your Life to please others? Simply, to put it bluntly, is your Life a lie that you are trying to hide from?
Interestingly, I don’t believe there’s anyone out there who does not know what they want from Life. I think people have a fairly clear idea. Yet people don’t want to go do what they want to because they are keen to secure social approval. Recently, a young friend said he doesn’t believe, at a deeply personal level, that securing “likes” on Facebook matters to him but he wonders if those “likes” are a sign of his social stature – of acceptance, of popularity. I feel my friend has answered his own question – as long as something doesn’t matter to him, why should he worry about gaining social acceptance? The same logic applies to each of us in all contexts of Life.
The key to intelligent living is to simplify Life. Be true to yourself. Do what gives you joy. Trying to work for social approval will only make you feel miserable over time – because no one can live (with) a lie for too long.  

Zen and the Art of Taking Decisions

To live a complete and full Life you must be decisive. Without you taking a decision, you are going to make no progress.
But decision-making is not a very comfortable process. More often than not, it involves making uncomfortable choices. And you will try to duck taking the responsibility and accountability for your decisions.
The problem is not just with you. It is with all of humanity. And it is because of our upbringing, our conditioning.
As children, parents have taken all our decisions. What to wear, what to eat, where to go, when to play, when to watch TV and so on. And then teachers decide what to teach, when to teach, when to test and when to grade. Then it is the girlfriend or boyfriend who decides, and then it is the boss, and often it is the government too! So, in effect, if you have succumbed to that conditioning, that’s really the way you will remain. Indecisive, always shirking responsibility and afraid of taking risks. And which is also why you remain unhappy, muddled in the head and why you merely exist on the face of the earth. You are not alive to the moment, you are not living a full Life!
The reason why you also dither is because you are fearing the unknown. The known is so comforting. But an unknown experience, while it tempts you, is scary. Yet, if you want to live fully, embrace the unknown. Decide to do what you have never done before. Try it. And if you didn’t like it don’t do it again. And if you liked it, but felt it is not the right or appropriate thing to have done, then again, don’t repeat it! But if you enjoyed it and know that this what you want in Life, go for it. It is only through deciding to live fully, by venturing into unchartered waters, by experiencing the unknown and by deciding which part of it you want to relive, without guilt, without remorse, will you truly encounter inner peace and joy.
Apply this framework to any decision that you may have been dithering on. You will then realize what living fully really means!