The lonely sun and the family of shoplifters

On some days, I have looked at the clear, sunny sky and wondered if I experience loneliness very strongly because I am named after the sun. The sun, unlike the moon, doesn't have stars to keep him company.

****

The loneliness I experience varies in its nature from time to time.

Sometimes, it is that feeling of belonging to a wrong societal setup. Sometimes, it is that feeling of belonging to the wrong generation. Sometimes, it is that feeling of belonging to the wrong gender. Sometimes, it is that feeling of belonging to the wrong species.
Sometimes, it is that feeling of not experiencing joy from the general joy-inducing activities that people indulge themselves in. Sometimes, it is that feeling of being abandoned even by the activities you cherish doing the most. Sometimes, it is that feeling of being surrounded by people who are not as childish as you. Sometimes, it is that feeling of being surrounded by people who are not as mature as you. Sometimes, it is that feeling of going through sadness among a group of people who seem happy. Sometimes, it is that feeling of experiencing joy among a group of people who seem sad.
Sometimes, it is that feeling of not wanting to say anything to anyone. Sometimes, it is that feeling of not wanting to listen anything from anyone. Sometimes, it is that feeling of missing a person who shares the things you want to hear but don't ask for. Sometimes, it is that feeling of missing a person who understands what you mean even when you say different things.
Sometimes, it is that feeling of missing the touch of a loved one.

But I must admit that whenever loneliness casts its dark shadows on me, a gentle drizzle quickly finds its way in the form of words/films/music/friends.

Sometimes, it is a new character from a new story-idea who gives me company. Sometimes, it is a known character from a loved book/film who sits down by my side.
Sometimes, it is the lyrics of a long-forgotten song which supply the words to my blank mental page. Sometimes, it is the tune of an all-time favorite song which leads me home.
Sometimes, it is a friend who simply lets me know that he/she is there for me.

****

Two days ago, a collective experience at a movie theater overwhelmed me.

I had walked into the theater feeling lonely, not so much owing to the lack of company as much as owing to the lack of an identifiable emotion within me.

The film that I had gone to watch was Shoplifters - a hard-hitting Japanese film about a group of unrelated people who come together to become a family only to be separated by government authorities, with the separation helping them understand the selfless love each person holds for one another.

The theater was sparsely crowded, allowing each viewer to enjoy the comfort of an entire row of seats for himself.

As the film was midway, as the characters in the film grew close to one another, I felt an invisible bond birthing between us -  viewers - in our individual rows. Though we were silent, the film was speaking for and to each of us.
As the film reached its climax, a few viewers seated in the rows before me wept now and then. The scenes playing before me suggested the disintegration of a family but a warmth spread in my heart signaling the birth of a family. After the film ended and the lights were turned on, I could see that the viewers were not ready to leave their seats.

Maybe they had also experienced what I had experienced. Maybe they had also experienced a sense of belonging.

After all, isn't the pursuit of life all about belonging with the right person, doing the right thing, at the right place, at the right time?
Maybe that. Or, maybe it is about becoming that person who can belong with anyone at any place.

****

I look at the sky as I am returning to my home from office. The sun is about to set.
A flock of birds fly across the reddish sky reminding me that the moon might have the stars but the sun enjoys the company of all the birds.

The irony of art

I remember watching a short film in my college, the gist of which could be summarized as below.
A man who works at a NGO and takes care of people who have no family members to look after them faces difficulty in looking after his parents at home.

At times, I have found the artistic process to reflect the irony of this short film.
I remember a night when I was writing a post about my mother. I was in the middle of it, still figuring out how to end it. My mother walked into my room and started talking about her day at office. A part of my brain listened to her while another part of my brain continued working on the essay's end. The writer in me wanted to succeed as much as the son in me.
I remember another day when I was writing a post in my college hostel, reminiscing about the wonders of college life in it. I was writing it seated in an empty room while all my friends were in the neighboring room, cheering and shouting for India in a cricket match.

I have often questioned myself about the price one has to pay for one's art.
The want to communicate a truth of life through a painting or a poem or a photograph costs hours of solitude and days of relentless practice. I am sure that no artist would complain about the cost. Yet, aren't some experiences lost during the process of converting some parts of our lives into art?
As I type this, I remember a director's roundtable where one of my favorite actors/directors Denzel Washington said this about making a movie.
"You know...your son got shot in the face, that's difficult. Making a movie is a luxury. It's a gift. It's an opportunity and most importantly, it's a gift...don't get it twisted. It's just a movie. It ain't that big a deal."
These lines always get me. Just like Denzel's movies.

****

About a week before I joined my first job, I became nervous wondering if I would be able to continue writing despite my daily job. Not knowing a way out, I told myself that I would treat my regular job as a part-time job and consider writing as my full-time job, measuring the success of my professional life through the quantity and quality of my writing.

As I look back at the last four years, I hold mixed feelings about my presumed professional life. I feel happy about some nights when my mind pushed my body into typing down my thoughts after a long day at office. Yet, there have been some instances during the first two years of my job when I refused to join my friends for lunches/dinners/treks because I wanted forced myself to spend more time reading about and practicing art. Not in a way where words and images made me fall in love with them. But in a way where the process gave me an excuse to isolate myself and justify not connecting with people.
I had to lose a few friends to remind myself of why I got attached to art in the first place - to lead a life with better understanding and more love.

Over the last couple of months, I had returned to the zone of making myself as busy as possible with either reading about or practicing art. And strangely, as I was in this zone trying to prefer art over people, Stephen King caught me red-handed through his wonderful book, On writing: A memoir of the craft, and brought me back to life. 
"It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room. Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around."

How art makes you aware of its own importance in life is another beautiful irony.

The first flight

The date is May 1, 2019. The time is 4:46 AM. The journey is from Bangalore to Delhi. The occasion is a friend's marriage. My company is a group of amazing friends. And I am 25 years, 4 months, 8 days old. 

I wonder if I am experiencing my first flight at the right age. The age by when one has witnessed the death of a few loved ones; the age by when one has understood why the society works the way it works; the age by when one has switched sides between science and superstitions more times than one can count; the age by when one has experienced love, lust, and loss. With such baggage, does the sense of wonder still lurk around to get excited about being a part of the sky for the first time? 
I search for that wonder and find it hidden amidst layers of doubts. The doubts are a gift from knowledge and experience, and they take the form of scary questions regarding the safety of the flight and other extreme possibilities.

My mind goes ahead and creates a list of favorites - favorite person, favorite landscape, favorite time of day, favorite destination. It tries to provoke me towards having a regret - of not flying for the first time with my mom, of not flying for the first time over oceans. I manage to gain the upperhand and let my mind know that all those experiences can still be had and this flight is simply about cherishing the act of flying itself. 

I look outside my window. The sky is turning hopeful, shedding its black blanket. The clouds start turning up one after the other and begin to arrange themselves in the sky before the sun shines, like students seating themselves in a classroom before the entrance of the teacher. I recall my attention to myself and check if I am experiencing joy. I had always imagined myself with a wide grin the day I got to fly above the clouds. But now, as I fly above the clouds, joy is not the exact emotion I experience. Instead, there is a sense of peace - the peace one attains when one leaves behind life and becomes a part of something eternal. Like when one is surrounded by an ocean.

The clouds slowly separate and they bring into view the world below. Looking at the world from this objective viewpoint, I wonder if people who fly more adopt a more objective outlook towards people, life, and its workings. I look at the air hostess who seems ready with an answer to any sort of passenger queries and ponder upon asking her her thoughts on my hypothesis. I also hope that almost every person gets an opportunity to undergo the 'air hostess training' program at some point in their life so that they start treating other people with as much love as is possible.  

As time passes, the city of Delhi comes into view and resembles a 5th standard social science project. As I look at the miniature of this majestic city, the sense of wonder starts increasing. The kid in me shows up, bringing with him a bag of 'lego set' memories. Sadly, the announcement system in the flight lets us know that we are about to land. The song changes in my music player and the buddhist 'Life of Ram' song from the film 96 starts playing. As I lose myself in the beautiful lyrics, the plane begins its descent. 

Vaazha en vaazhvai vaazhave
Thaazhamal melae pogiren..
Theeraa ul ootrai theendave
Indrae ingae meelgiraen..
Indrae ingae aalgiraen..

The never-ending lawsuit against life

Why do we constantly seek justice from life/universe/God?

We demand that good deeds must lead to good outcomes and bad deeds must lead to bad outcomes.

I, for one, have been a strong believer of karma. Any friend of mine who has opened up to me about a problem in his/her life can vouch for receiving this text message from me - "Good things happen to good people. Stay strong". While I would love to believe this, and though I might always continue to send this message to any of my friends facing a problem, I want to objectively inquire if life/universe/God actually operates in a transactional manner.

Let us take a look at the animal kingdom.
How many chickens that are slaughtered for our appetite might have actually committed a crime? How many goats that are beheaded for our religious ceremonies might have actually been bad? How many deer that are hunted by a lion would have actually wished bad for another deer?

Let us take a further step and look at the plant kingdom, mainly trees.
Apart from the Whomping Willow that features in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, I am yet to come across a tree that causes any kind of harm. 

Trees provide shelter. Trees provide shade. Trees provide fruits and vegetables. Trees provide rain. Trees take in carbon dioxide. Trees prevent soil erosion.
Considering these traits of trees and assuming that life/universe/God operates in a transactional manner, we should all be living in forests. Clearly, that doesn't seem to be the case. The forest area on our planet only seems to be decreasing with every passing day.

If we are able to make peace with the random deaths/losses of animals and plants, why is it that we - humans - expect life to be transactional only to our species? 

When a harmless rabbit is randomly killed, why should a harmless human be aptly rewarded?

During a conversation with a friend, I put forth this theory to him. He looked at me shocked. "Dai! I thought you were the only person in our group who has an optimistic outlook towards life. What has made you so pessimistic?" 

I couldn't help laughing at his response. I then tried to explain with an example.
"Consider animals. We know that the lion is more powerful than the zebra. And so, when a lion kills a zebra, we simply call it 'survival of the fittest'. Now, let's take a look at our society. According to the societal definitions of good and bad, let's assume that there is a person who is good but not that smart, and there is a person who is bad but really smart. Among these two, who do you think is better equipped to survive the challenges of life? Isn't the 'bad but really smart' guy better equipped? Isn't it easier for him to succeed and isn't that too simply 'survival of the fittest'? Why do we then make such a fuss when we see bad (but perhaps smart) people succeeding in life?"
My friend looked at me appalled. "Dai Soorya! Do you realize what the corporate world has done to you?"
I let out a hearty laugh again and changed the topic of the conversation. 

****

Have you ever played the mafia game?

(If you haven't played the game or heard about it, then spend a minute or two going through the rules of the game here).

The victory of this mafia game is determined by which is the last majority group in the game - the mafia or the villagers/civilians. The entire game is moderated by the 'narrator'; my friends and I, during our mafia games, refer to this person as 'God'. 

Now, imagine that you are playing this game with your friends and you have been assigned the role of a mafia member. The game begins and you devise smart strategies with your fellow mafia members and you successfully eliminate one civilian after another in every round of the game. As the game is midway, the narrator/God suddenly decides that it won't be right for the mafia to win the game and starts influencing the voting process of the entire group, trying to get the mafia members killed. 

As a mafia member, when you see this happening in the game where the narrator/God is acting against you, won't you feel enraged? Won't you want the game to be played in a fair manner? 

When this happens to be the expectation from a game, why does our expectation change when the playground becomes the real society/world?

****

The writer Mark Manson, in his blunt and brilliant book, The subtle art of not giving a fuck, narrates a true story. 

In 1983, a talented young guitarist had been kicked out of his band without any prior warning or a discussion. And this incident had taken place a couple of days before the band was about to record their first album. The young guitarist, naturally hurt and sad, had vowed to start a new band and become so successful that his old band would regret their decision. And over the coming years, he managed to actually do what he had vowed to do, forming a heavy-metal band called Megadeth that would go on to sell over 25 million albums worldwide. 

When I read this story, I experienced a feeling of personal victory. A person had been wronged and he had managed to put aside his defeat and emerge victorious. But what Mark Manson wrote next caught me off guard.

The band that had kicked out the young guitarist went on to become Metallica, considered by many to be one of the greatest rock bands of all time, that would sell over 180 million albums worldwide. 

After I read this, I could not help smiling. It was such an unexpected twist. 

Though Mark Manson does not use this story under the same context as I have in this article, the story helped me realize something. 

Our literature and cinema have always conditioned us to expect a magnificent victory for the underdog, for the wronged man, for the man who is put through extreme hardships. We have come across so many triumphant and 'happily ever after' endings for these characters that we tend to develop the mindset that if we feel we have been wronged by a person or by life, we expect life to compensate for our pain by future fame and success and happiness. But what about the unwritten and not-filmed stories of millions of people who were wronged and faced extreme difficulties and continued to fail throughout their lives? 

Does this mean there is nothing to look forward to in our lives? 

Absolutely not. I want to suggest a simple change in the way of looking at life. 

If you believe that you are a good person and if you happen to continuously fail in life, do not feel cheated. If you believe that you have been wronged by somebody or by life, and if you happen to face constant difficulties, do not feel let down. If you believe that someone is a bad person or if you believe that someone has wronged you, and if he/she happens to succeed at something, do not feel betrayed. 

Life/universe/God never offered a guarantee that a certain moral value would be rewarded and a certain moral value would be punished. It is us - humans - who have set up such expectations. 

The same way that we, as a society, have defined successes and failures. 

A low-paying job need not be a setback because the business experts say so; the end of a romantic relationship need not be the end because the romantic authors say so; a smaller circle of friends need not be a failure because Facebook users say so. 

An experience in life can be just that - an experience that teaches us new things about ourselves and the people around us. It need not be perceived to be good or bad because the society defines it so. And it definitely need not be a blessing or a curse from life because you have lived and behaved a certain way. 

If life has paved the way for a deer to coexist with a lion, then perhaps good can also coexist with bad. If the universe has paved the way for a tree to coexist with man, then perhaps right can also coexist with wrong. One need not always triumph over another. 

Life does not take sides between good and bad. It just goes on. 

It will be great if we also live and simply experience all that happens to us, abandoning our biases and expectations and demands. 

25 realizations from a 25 year-old

After I turned 25 last month, I was struck by this desire to list down 25 things I have understood in my life over the course of 25 years. This is perhaps a result of being exposed to such lists on Medium and Quora every alternate day. After I started preparing this list, there were many questions that popped in my head. Did I really have anything important to say? Have I lived enough for creating such a list? Did I understand life well enough for such an exercise? Being caught in an internal conflict, I visited points 9 and 22 in my list. What would be the use of publishing such a list if I failed to implement them myself? And hence, the list below. 
None of the points are groundbreaking or new - they are all the same old pieces of advice that are gifted to us from our family members and good books. But, personally, I have come to understand that I take a life lesson seriously when it is not just offered as a piece of advice but is offered with an example from life. In such an attempt, I have tried to present each point with an example to the best of my efforts. As a reader, if you find even one of the points below to be helpful, I would be a happy writer and a happier human being.  

1. Respect love that comes the easy way
• A realization that hit me during the final year of my college. A realization I wish I had known earlier and a realization I wish is easy to keep up to. The adventure of impressing a new person/a new group always seems more interesting than the routine of keeping up with an accepted love (family/friends). The most painful part (in retrospect) is when you have people who will not let you go, who will not love you less even when you don't repay their love in the right manner. I have had many such angels who have loved me more than I deserve, and have also made me understand that true joy lies in love that you reciprocate than love that you seek. 
2. Be kind to yourself
• Another late realization that has made me a better friend to myself and others. I put in considerable efforts to be a good friend to others without noticing that the person who needed my friendship the most was myself. It is easy to be harsh upon ourselves because we never have a chance to break up a relationship with ourselves. Which I came to understand as the exact reason why being compassionate to ourselves is mandatory. Post this realization, whenever I have had a bad day and whenever I have wanted to place all the blame upon myself, I have started drafting a mail with the beginning, "Dear Soorya..." And trust me - our inner voices tend to love us more from the 'third person' point of view than from the 'first person' point of view. 
3. Fall Be in love
• It is easy to fall in love than it is to be in love with somebody. It took me countless mood swings, pointless arguments and repeated visits to Kris Gage's beautiful article before I understood that love is not a feeling but rather a commitment. To quote Kris Gage, "Good love is just the everyday — every day." And if one decides to be in love with someone, why not just extend it to all the people around oneself? There is no greater motivation to live/work than realizing that there are thousands of unexplored possibilities to make your loved ones happy. Hence, be in love. Always. 
• Another lesson I had to learn the hard way (and from the above shared Kris Gage's article) was to stop expecting the other person, in any relationship, to be my cheerleader 24x7 for 365 days. After all, the other person is still a person - someone capable of having a bad day, having a sad day, having an exhausting day. He/she is not entitled to be our source of happiness just because we are in love. Our happiness is our responsibility. If the other person also makes us happy, fantastic! 
4. Express what you feel about other people to them
• I remember watching an Indian television show in which an American actress was being interviewed by an Indian anchor. One of the questions was about the actress's married life and she replied that she had one of the greatest husbands possible. Before the interviewer could move on to the next question, the actress quickly asked the interviewer if he was happy with his married life. He replied with a confident 'Yes'. She then asked him smiling, "Did you tell your wife 'I love you!' today morning?" The interviewer responded with a sheepish smile. The actress repeated her question with genuine care.  The interviewer replied with an uncomfortable smile, "We don't do that in India." The actress was taken back. "Don't you guys tell your wives that you love them everyday?" The interviewer shook his head in silence. 
• That interview affected me. That, and another incident. There was a monthly short story writing competition conducted by a newspaper. I submitted three short stories for three consecutive months and for all the three months, my short story did not make it to the top 10 list. On the third month, the day when the results were published online, I felt very bad. That night was a difficult night and as I lay on my bed feeling hopeless, I received a message from a friend, out of the blue, stating that she had come across my blog after a long time and she really loved a few of my recent posts, with one post having moved her to tears. That message - that message that the friend needn't have sent - made all the difference between a happy night and a sad night. I will always be grateful to her and from then, I have always expressed my feelings/gratitude to other people whenever I can
• P.S.: This is more important with family members like parents and siblings who never really expect anything in return.  
5. Understand others. But primarily, yourself.
• Till I went to college, I did not even feel the need to understand myself. But in my college, especially in my hostel, after I was exposed to various groups of people who held very different perspectives on sports or movies or even life in general, from the ones that I held, I made an attempt to understand my tastes and traits. Why was it that I got easily bored by a very entertaining 20-over cricket match but could be extremely engrossed by a slow-paced Russian film? Why was it that I remained abnormally silent during group discussions but burst out with energy during a one-to-one conversation? Why did I prefer being alone even though I absolutely loved every person I met? Why did I have to practice an imaginary back-and-forth conversation before I placed a phone call?  Why could I never grasp sarcasm or crack a joke spontaneously? Why did I want to start a blog and share incidents from my life when I found it difficult to open up about certain things even to my loved ones? Why did I even have so many questions about myself? It was only after I found answers to these questions did I convince myself that there was nothing wrong with me. But more importantly, understanding myself helped me understand others. Whenever I was part of a group activity and I noticed someone being silent and feeling uncomfortable about it, I eagerly extended a hand. Whenever I was part of a group activity and I noticed someone who couldn't help being the center of attraction, I also learnt to appreciate that. Don't all things need love? Be it silence or be it stardom. Be it books or be it parties. Be it movies or be it scriptures. In this way, I have come to love myself for all the things I love, and I have come to love others for all the things that they love. 
6. Listen when you can, speak when you have to
• I must admit that I started out listening to people and their stories without interrupting/advising/opining because I wanted to gather material for my writing. But very soon, I understood that people opened up a lot more when their statements are received with silences instead of judgments. Which led me to get genuinely interested and grateful. In this 'social media' era when we are encouraged to express our opinions on a movie/sport/political issue (which is definitely good in a way), it becomes easier to do the same during conversations. Such an act is welcome in a conversation where one's advice is sought but it hampers conversations where the other person wants to be just listened to. We needn't always be an interviewee in our lives. Being an interviewer also has its own perks.  
• P.S.: Listen to nature as well. The song of a bird and the music of rain also needs an audience.
7. Be grateful for the successes, and more importantly, for the failures
• I used to be extremely grateful whenever I faced success and become extremely sad whenever I faced failure. One day, I decided to sit down and list all the events from my life which I considered to be failures. After I listed them down, I realized something. Each of my failures had actually paved the way for something better/happier in my life. To list a few examples,         
• My failure to secure great marks in my 12th Board examinations and thereby, secure an admission in a Chennai college led me to secure an admission in a college situated about 300 kilometers from my home.  This college changed me in ways I had not imagined and made me a better son, a better friend, and a better human being
• My failure to get romantically involved in a relationship in college led me to take up writing again (a childhood hobby I had given up during my teenage years) and start this blog
• My failure to get selected in the interview round of a Chennai-based organization led me to secure a job in Bangalore and have an amazing 2-year stay with my brother which expanded my views on art and life 
• Failures, in that way, are like Kamal Haasan's films. When they arrive, they are not received well. But a few years down the line, they will end up getting celebrated.
8. Dream big. Dream wild. Most of them come true
• During the first 2 years of my college, I developed an extreme fondness for cinema and also turned extremely introverted. Despite such a paradoxical mix, I would constantly dream of 2 things that I wanted to accomplish before I left college. 
• Talk about cinema and its power to an audience in a packed auditorium 
• Screen a short film/video that I had made to my entire class
• If I had shared these dreams with any of my friends, they would have laughed. And I would not have blamed them. Because I was not a part of any cultural club in my college and I did not make any attempts to start/shoot a video in college till my second year. Yet, the dreams continued and my efforts to understand cinema continued. During my third year, a classmate of mine asked me to participate in a Tamil cinema quiz which I took part in, solely, for the joy of seeing a question paper that contained questions about Tamil films. Unexpectedly, me and my team made it through to the finals of the event and ended up becoming the organizers of the event for the next year. As a result of that, I got to stand on top of a stage in my college auditorium and address an audience about cinema and its power. Something similar happened with my second dream. On the penultimate day of my 7th semester, a dear friend and a classmate of mine asked me to create a farewell video for my class. I went ahead with the exercise not really knowing what would be the outcome but at the end of it, the farewell video ended up being screened to my entire class on a projection screen.  
• Do all dreams come true? Maybe not. But dreams that inspire you, dreams that make you better, dreams that make you work towards them do come true.
9. Say 'Yes' to things that make you uncomfortable (in a good way, of course)
• When I look back at my life, the things that I fondly recall and the things that I am proud of have all happened only because someone forced me or I forced myself to say 'Yes' to them. I signed up for a two-day photography workshop after severe compulsion from a dear friend and I still remember the extreme discomfort I experienced on the morning of the workshop. What if the workshop was filled with terrific photographers and I was the only amateur? What if the photos I captured during the workshop turned out to be pathetic? I had to pressurize myself to turn up to the workshop and after the workshop ended the next day, I was a happy man who had learnt a great deal about photography and had met a few photographers with very different perspectives on photography. Something similar happened on the morning of my first solo trip in 2017. There were numerous fears troubling me. What if I got robbed? What if I got lost? What if I got extremely ill during my trip? I had to pressurize myself to board the bus that afternoon and a week later, I was a happy man with a pleasant baggage of experiences. 
• Adding one of my favorite quotes from the book, The Last Lecture, "The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something." 
10. Find joy in the small things
• Once, when I was in college, I was sad one morning owing to an argument with a friend in hostel. After I reached my classroom, one of my classmates noticed that I was not in good spirits and asked me about the reason. I told him about the argument. Later in the day, after the lunch hour, he came over to my bench. He had noticed that I had become cheerful again. "What happened? You seem to be happy now. Did you sort out everything with your friend?" I smiled and gave him my answer. "No..No..I still haven't spoken to him. The reason I am happy now is because I had an amazing cup of filter coffee in our college canteen." My friend stared at my smiling face for a few seconds and then, he walked away. 
• Coffee. Podi dosa. Fallen flowers. Books. Butterflies. Balconies. Beautiful handwriting. Rainy roads. People wearing black colored clothes. My list of things that gift me joy are mostly simple. And more often than not, they help me stay happy most days. I believe that joy from such sources becomes important as we age since we tend to complicate our definition of happiness with more exposure to life. Adding a quote from one of my favorite writers, Ruskin Bond, "And when all the wars are done, a butterfly will still be beautiful". 
11. Do not idealize your parents
• During a conversation with two of my colleagues a few years ago, one of my colleagues complained, "I just hated the 4 years I spent in college. I wanted to join a different college and I fought with my father for that. But he just wouldn't listen. And I will never forgive him for that." I was surprised by his anger and asked him if he was angry upon his father or upon the college. "Both, of course. But, more on my father. He should have known better." I remained silent and my other friend took over. She asked him, "What according to you was your dad's mistake?" My friend replied, "He should have known which college would suit me better. After all, he knew me from my birth." My other friend got visibly angry and asked him a question. "Don't you know your younger sister from her birth? She's what - in her twelfth grade now? Would you happen to know which college would suit her the best?" My friend tried putting up an ineffective defense. "But yeah..I know what my sister likes. I know what sort of a person she is." My other friend promptly responded again. "But what if she doesn't like the college you choose for her?"  My friend remained silent while my other friend went on. "And tell me this..You wanted to join some other college, right? Imagine your dad had agreed and had gotten you an admission in that college. What if you had not liked that college? What  then? Will you blame your dad for that as well?" My friend did not have an answer. My other friend continued. "First, I do not completely agree that your dad committed a mistake. But even if he had, at the end of the day, your dad is also a normal man, right? He might be 50+ in age, he might have known you from your birth but still, he can also make mistakes, right? Take our manager, for example. He is also a man of 50+ years. He also has more than 20+ years of experience in our domain. But a decision he made last month almost shut down a project. You seem to be willing to forgive him but not your dad. Come on..cut your dad some slack." After she finished, the three of us remained silent for some time.  
• It is easy, especially in an upbringing in an Indian society, to always view a father as a Father and always view a mother as a Mother. Understanding them as individual men and women, with their own set of positives, negatives, and desires makes life easier and happier for everyone.
12. Every person has a story and a talent
• I have always been a believer of this but after I moved to Bangalore and after I started using Ola/Uber at a higher frequency, my belief in this has gotten stronger. After I board a cab and after I figure out that the driver likes having a conversation, I slip in the question, "Aap kahaan se ho, Sir?" (Where are you from, Sir?). That generally suffices and by the end of my ride, I get down at my destination having learnt about the life-journey of another fellow traveler in this world. And I must admit that every cab driver I have conversed with has had such an interesting/affecting backstory that I have convinced myself that the easiest way to overcome a writer's block is to take a cab ride. 
• I remember one December when my friend and I sat down to create 'Secret Santa' chits for my teammates at office. We had decided to assign nicknames to all my teammates and list down a few of their traits instead of using their original names in the chits. After my friend and I had created all the chits, I was pleasantly surprised by noticing how unique each of my teammates' traits were and how talented each of them was. The biggest gift I received that Christmas was to understand the greatness of each of my teammates.
• Never ever underestimate any person. If you tend to feel that a person has an easy life or a person does not have a special talent, just understand that you need to know the person better.
13. Find what you like and have a hobby
• Hobbies really help. For conversation starters. For making a resume stand out. For leading a happy life. I remember many nights when my work had driven me to a difficult place and my writing had helped me recover. I also remember many nights when my work had made me happy and my writing had complemented it. It is very easy to lose oneself in the rat race and I have found many times that my hobby has kept me human(e).
14. Ego doesn't help. Never.
1. Being a single child to my parents and having been doted upon by almost all my family members, it took me a while to understand that I am not the sole special person in this universe. Prior to that, I always held other people's opinions at an arm's distance and I never embraced any feedback which showed me that I was wrong. "How dare you say that I am wrong? It's just that you do not understand me and my circumstances better" was how I would react. I had to go through some failures and some pain and some amount of self-abuse before I could admit to myself that I can make mistakes. It took me some more time after that to admit to others that I can make mistakes. After understanding that I need not always be right, and every person around me is equally special, life has become easier.  
2. Ego in relationships is a different beast. Why should I be the one to text/call first? Why should I be the one to respond first in the WhatsApp group? During my initial college days, I made it a point to respond to any text message only after 15 minutes because I felt that responding immediately would mean that I wasn't really busy (though I wasn't, most of the time). Even in a friendship, I wanted to hold the upper hand. And then arrived a friend in my final year of the college. She was unlike any other person I had come before and she totally destroyed the existence of ego in our friendship the way children destroy the rules in an adult world. "I don't care whether you want me as your friend. You are my friend and that's all that matters to me," she would jokingly say. I understood the power of this statement only during my sad times - the times when I make it extremely difficult for any person to help me or even be around me. It is during these times that each of us need a friend who says the above statement. How great would it be if we could be that friend to others?
15. Pay back your gratitude to the society. Pay it forward as well
• Last year, I came across an article about the efforts of an Oxford University graduate to set up a mobile library in Afghanistan. The attempt to set up a mobile library was owing to the fact that parents were not ready to send their children to a library set up inside a building. In Afghanistan, public buildings can become easy targets for terrorist attacks. After I read the article, I was touched by the extent to which the graduate had gone to ensure that reading became a part of the Afghan kids' lives. I was also stunned by the realization that I had never considered spending endless hours in a library, inside a building, as a privilege. Which made me reconsider all the other gifts from my society that I had taken for granted. My food. My shelter. My education. My job. My freedom. Isn't it only appropriate for me to pay back my gratitude to the society, by helping those whom the society finds it difficult to help?
• My father was a man who always believed that if someone wanted to donate his savings for a cause, he should choose education. He held this opinion because he believed that if an underprivileged kid could be given the right support for education, he could be empowered to improve the state of his family and his society. The empowered kid might go on to enable a few other kids with education which could continue to form a network of humanity. In a twist of fate, after my family lost my father, my family became financially weak and it needed support for my education. Thanks to various NGOs and welfare groups, I was able to have the education I wanted. I also know another friend of mine whose family was in a financially worse state than mine, and he has managed to improve the state of his family now, because someone supported his education along the way. Whenever I meet this friend, after all the chatter and jokes and banter, we end up discussing about any new article that we had read about a social activist or any NGO that we had heard of which was supporting underprivileged families. Isn't it only appropriate for us to pay forward our gratitude to the society, by helping those whom the society finds it difficult to help?
16. Discipline does wonders
• In the final year of my college, I had a routine that I followed sacredly. Every morning, I would wake up at 5:30 AM, set out for a morning walk around my college, capture photos of things that fascinated me, and return to my hostel to read a book or the newspaper (if it was optimistic enough) for about 30 minutes. There were many mornings when I did not want to get out of my bed, when I wanted to steal another half-an-hour of sleep. But I always forced myself to get out and in retrospect, I am extremely happy for my doggedness in my final year. As a result of that morning routine, I managed to publish 85 posts in my blog within the span of 1 year. Which, for me, is a considerable feat since the number of posts I have published over the next three-and-a-half years is about 120. And I know the reason for this decline in output - I simply stopped my morning routine and took a break from being disciplined. 
• Is discipline mandatory for a happy life? I am not sure. But I have found it to be of great help in writing and even in my everyday life. Discipline provides that touch of normalcy in the happiest and the saddest of times. Discipline provides you something to hold onto when life leads you astray and eventually, you make life into such a strong habit that even during the strongest storms, you still find your way home. 
17. You cannot control everything that happens in your life 
• Till I finished my schooling, my performance in examinations was the one thing I cared about greatly. My performance always remained within my control and life was easy. After I entered college, when my priority shifted to people and relationships, life got slightly difficult. Because people and their choices and their actions cannot be controlled. A couple of years back, a dear family friend was diagnosed with a fatal disease. Life got increasingly difficult. How does one control diseases? Last year, a friend had to break up with his 3-year long girlfriend because their families opposed their marriage citing caste differences. Life got unbearable. How does one deal with caste and religion? And then I got my answer. One cannot control everything that happens in one's life. How then does one deal with life? I quote Iain Thomas's lines from his beautiful book, I wrote this for you. "You will only be hurt a finite number of times during your life. You have an infinite number of ways to deal with it."
18. Some lies are good
• I love truth. Simply for the fact that it makes life easier. And up until a few years back, I forced my truth upon everyone else around me as well. I did not care if the other person liked it or not. I just put out my truth and expected the other person to be mature enough to face it and accept it. It was only when I was faced with a few truths that I found difficult to handle did I understand that every truth needed a timing. People generally tend to be pretty harsh on themselves (remember point number 2?) and at times, a lie that can motivate someone or a lie that can lighten up someone is good. At least till the time they are ready to face the truth.
19. Happiness and sadness are internal
• The story writer in me made me understand this. Whenever I got an idea for a short story, depending on the tone of the story - whether it was happy or sad, I would spend the next 3-4 hours listening to songs and recollecting memories pertaining to the tone. If it was a sad story, I would listen to a playlist of songs that made me feel sad and ruminate on incidents from my life that made my heart heavier. If it was a happy story, I would start watching Robin Williams's interviews and I would be remembering memories that made me smile. Through such an approach, I found it easier to enter a happy/sad mind space from which I could write the story in its appropriate tone. And it was during such a session of setting my mood for a story that the thought hit me. If I could make myself happy/sad for a story, why shouldn't the same work in my life? 
• After this realization, whenever something significant happened in my life, I made it a point to understand why I felt a particular emotion. I always ended up understanding that my emotion was owing to a past memory or a future assumption related to the event but never because of the event itself. Our emotional reactions, in that way, are like the manipulative background scores used in films to underline happy and sad scenes. Most of these scenes, when watched without sound, do not actually make us feel anything. It is the background score that directs our emotions. Why then shouldn't we become the music composers for our lives? Fortunately, I have a host of A R Rahman's background scores to take inspiration from.
20. All good things take time
• If someone asked me the question, "What would you never give up in your life?" my reply would be this. "The potato curry my mom prepares." It has become such an integral part of my life that on many days when I have felt sad, I have simply set the photo of my mom's potato curry as my phone's wallpaper and attained peace. Though I hold so much affection for this dish prepared by my mom, during my college days, I would take a dig at my mom saying, "You have been making this potato curry for twenty years now. And you still make it the exact same way. What a bore!" It was only after I moved to Bangalore and started cooking for myself did I understand how difficult it is to achieve consistency in cooking. I then asked my mother as to how she managed the consistency, despite preparing it under all sorts of conditions - with very less time, with all the time in the world, with freshly purchased potatoes, with potatoes purchased long back, while only preparing for me, while preparing for the entire family during a function. My mom replied smiling, "It is because of the same joke you crack. I have been doing this for more than twenty years now." 
• I am generally a person who likes to do things in a slow and unhurried manner. One of my friends even pointed out once that I use the word 'slowly' often in my stories. But lately, having been exposed to a lot of Amazon prime and Swiggy, I tend to get uncomfortable when I see things taking their own sweet time. During such occasions, I ask my mom to prepare her potato curry. When I lay my eyes upon the golden brown beauties after they have been cooked, I tell myself two things. First - if it takes twenty years for something to get this good, then so be it. Second - as a Bioinformatics graduate, I need to identify if a potato-preparation gene has been passed on from my mother to me.  
21. A job is a part of life, not life itself
• There were two incidents that made me snap out of the mistake I was committing - treating my job as important as my life. The first instance was when a dear friend was quitting my first company. Her farewell ceremony was about to be held at 9:30 PM and I had a call scheduled with my US-based client at the same time. I could have rescheduled the call with my client or asked my teammate to take over. But the professional in me overtook the friend in me and directed me to make the client call successful. After about thirty minutes, the client call ended successfully and so did my friend's farewell ceremony. In the next five minutes, I realized what I had lost and what I was never going to get back. The second instance was again after a client call. One of my clients was explaining about a new data security regulation implemented at his organization and I was listening to him with all my attention, not letting myself be distracted by anything else. After the client call, as I began to type the discussion points from the meeting, I was struck by a realization. I couldn't remember the last time, in about a month, when I had paid absolute attention to my grandmother during a phone call of hers. I had always been doing some other work in parallel and had only been partially listening to my grandmother's questions and answers. This want of mine to impress my client more than my grandmother saddened and scared me in equal measures. After that day, I made it a point to never do any other work when my grandmother spoke to me over phone. If I could set aside 30 minutes everyday for a US-based senior director I had not even met, I could definitely spare some time for the woman who had raised me.
• I am not sure if this point applies to everyone. Because I have come across some people who are genuinely in love with the work they do and do not mind letting work dictate all their other choices in life. But for some of us who absolutely love the people in our lives, who measure the success of our lives by the success of our relationships, who love life too much to care more about the experiences than the earnings, who sometimes get the priorities mixed up, I believe this point holds good. Ending with a quote from the extremely moving Tuesdays with Morrie, "Well, the truth is, if you really listen to that bird on your shoulder, if you accept that you can die at any time - then you might not be as ambitious as you are".
22. Do not postpone what can be done now
• My maternal grandfather had always wanted to visit Bangalore - he had a special place in his heart for this 'garden' city. After I shifted to Bangalore for my job, I wanted to invite him to stay with me and take him around the city over a weekend. But whenever the thought arose, I told myself that I needed to move to a bigger/better house and needed to earn more money before I invited him. As a result, I did not invite him to Bangalore for about a year after I moved here and then, suddenly, one night he passed away. Every now and then, the regret of not having invited him to Bangalore hurts me. And it also drives me to act immediately upon something that can easily be postponed, and later regretted. That apology to that friend can be asked now. That family trip, paid for with your salary, can be had now. There will always be tomorrows but our desires tend to have deadlines.
23. Every person's problem has a different solution
• One of my dear friends told me this. I was sharing a problem in my life with him and he narrated a similar problem that he had faced earlier in his life. After explaining how he had overcome the problem, he told me, "But, Soorya! I am me and you are you. What worked for me might not work for you. Every person's problem has a different solution." Which I stand by till today. There are no rules for life. There are only guidelines. How we put them to use in our lives depends on our understanding of ourselves.
24. Some of your loved ones would leave you. Some may die. Life still goes on
• I had a very close friend when I was in kindergarten. We remained friends for about three years and after we reached the second grade, I concluded that it would be impossible for me to attend school without my friend. The next year, his father got transferred and my friend left my school. I was heartbroken and cried for many days. At that point, I decided that I would not be able to digest another departure of a loved one. Post my decision, I have lost my father and both my grandfathers. And I have lost a few other loved ones too. But my life goes on. It goes on with the memories of the ones who left and gratitude for the ones who remain. With every death and separation, I learn to value the love of the people around me more. 
25. Life is wonderful
• Life is absolutely wonderful. In the pursuit of more success, it becomes easy to lose ourselves in the next goal. I agree that goals are good motivators but time and again, it is also necessary to look back at life and be grateful for all the things that turned out good. That one person you love - imagine the odds of him/her being born and brought up in such a way, being influenced by friends and society in such a way, being shaped up by school and college in such a way, being affected by books and films in such a way that he/she turned out to be someone with whom your likes and dislikes matched. That one dish you love - imagine the odds of it being invented by some cook centuries or decades ago and having been passed down from generation to generation, without it having been lost to time or gone out of popular demand, for you to be tasting it today. That one city you love - imagine the odds of it having such a geography, such a culture, such a group of people and buildings, and not having been destroyed by a natural event, for you to explore it today. That one piece of art you love - imagine the odds of the artist having lived such a life, having chosen such a profession, having been affected by such an idea for you to cherish it today. Life is absolutely wonderful. And how can it not be, when I have lived to become me and you have lived to become you?

Transitioning out...

With about 3 weeks left before my exit from my current organization, my manager and my on-site counterpart placed a request before me. "Please ensure that you help your replacement gain the complete business context and process understanding of your project."

After I finished creating the KT (Knowledge Transfer) plan, I was saddened by the realization that such a procedure did not exist in real life.
Wouldn't life be easier if a person exiting our life could identify a replacement and conduct a KT of his/her responsibilities? Don't many of us helplessly struggle with voids that grow into a quicksand of emotional turmoil?
Yes, most deaths cannot be anticipated. Yes, most people cannot be replaced. Yet, couldn't some pain be avoided?

After I created the KT plan, I worked upon creating an exhaustive QC (Quality Control) checklist that could mitigate the possibility of errors in the project.
Wouldn't life be easier with the existence of a QC checklist? Aren't many of us guilty of repeating the same mistakes, be it with some relationships or be it with some events?
Yes, outcomes of certain choices cannot be anticipated. Yes, certain circumstances cannot be changed. Yet, couldn't some suffering be spared?

As I continued pondering upon this topic, something struck me.

KT plans and QC checklists are created in an attempt to transform a project from being people-dependent to being process-dependent. Why then should these be applied to life? 

Don't we already have enough processes in our lives in the form of smart phone applications?  

Moreover, what would happen to philosophy and poetry if life became process-dependent instead of being people-dependent? Would we like our lives to be filled with user manuals and procedure documents instead of being packed with poetry and literature? 

I, for one, would definitely not want that. 

Like Philip Pullman said, Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever. 

You've got a friend in you!

Last month was a difficult month. It demanded major decisions from me, personally and professionally.
The decision making process made me realize many things. The lack of maturity I had always prided myself of possessing in abundance, the irony of my 'Decision scientist' designation at my organization, the role of a father in his child's life were a few among them.

I generally consult only my brother before making a major decision. Not because he has it all figured out. But he is one person who asks the right questions to help me figure out. He is one of the best fits for my organization in that sense. He doesn't just solve problems; he helps you figure out your own way of solving problems.
But last month, when major decisions were demanded of me, I did not just stick to my brother for advice. Adopting the typical team leader mentality of 'more resources = faster & better work', I went about seeking advice from a lot many people. As I explained my problems to each of my friends and as they offered me possible solutions based on their life experiences, I was surprised to find how different my friends' lives & opinions are. Though the diversity gladdened me, the collection of solutions to my problems resembled a pizza menu - similar in their approaches with slight variations to the outcomes. And I must admit that I am bad at choosing a pizza type; all pizzas taste the same to me. 

Having reached such a mental barricade, I did not know how to proceed. Instead of using my energy to list down my problems and solve them one by one, I started being hard on myself. I blamed myself for lacking maturity. I blamed myself for being fickle minded. I blamed myself for not taking enough risks. I blamed myself for every problem I encountered in a day from being stuck in traffic to missing an elevator at office to a database issue at the client's end to an incredibly priced Uber pool fare. As the days passed, the blame-game got worse and I started hating myself. 

It was at such a point that a friend from a previous project at office approached me for some advice on her MS plans. "I am not sure if I should even be aspiring for a Masters program. What if I am not cut out for this? What if I am not smart enough and I am just not realizing it?" I let out a hearty laugh after listening to her and asked her to take a deep breath. I then had a long conversation with her during which I tried to encourage her and make her understand how wonderfully talented she is in contrast to her fears. After that conversation and after a few recollections of the good old times we had had being in the same team, she was about to leave. As a conclusion to our conversation, I offered her a piece of advice which had stayed with me from a beautiful TED talk.
"Do not be too harsh on yourself. Be that friend to yourself that you would be to another friend in need."
It was only after my friend left that my advice hit me like a hammer for my own hypocrisy. 

If a friend had admitted that he lacked maturity, would I have tried to encourage him or would I have tried to put him down? If a friend had admitted of being fickle minded, would I have tried to motivate him or would I have tried to add more pain to his guilt?

I realized that I am a considerably better friend to others in comparison to the friend I am to myself. 

A few days back, I gifted myself a slow, long walk around my neighborhood. Throughout the walk, I offered advice to myself the way I would have offered to any other dear friend of mine. By the end of the walk, my heart felt a lot lighter than it had been the entire past month. 

After I returned home, I took out my notebook where I have written down the names of all my friends from school, college and office. I made a new addition to the list which should have been added long back. 

Soorya Prakash S.

Understanding art through a haircut and bruschetta

Last weekend, I visited the barbershop in the neighboring street. The barbershop where my barber friend offered me a haircut for 70 rupees and his political opinions for free.  
Last weekend, the topic of discussion happened to be Karunanidhi's death. As hair strands kept falling before my eyes, we discussed about the possible protests that would have erupted had Karunanidhi been denied his final resting place at the Marina beach. In the middle of our discussion, my friend suddenly paused and held a mirror behind my head. He asked if I was satisfied with the amount of trimming on the back of my head. I did not care to pay much attention and hastily nodded in agreement. 
Our discussion continued and a couple of minutes later, my friend paused again to ask if the trimming on the sides of my head was enough. I smiled and calmly replied, "Just give me a haircut that will keep me out of your shop for at least 1 month." My friend laughed and continued his work. 
After about five minutes, he wrapped up his finishing touches and admired my hairstyle. He held the mirror again to the back of my head, to the sides of my head and eagerly looked at my reflection in the mirror hung before me for my approval. I showed him a thumbs-up and as my friend happily began to untie the cloth that had covered me from the falling hair strands, a realization hit me. 
My barber friend cared more about my hairstyle than I did.
For me, the haircut was just a solution to keep my hair out of my ears and eyes. Nothing more. Nothing less. But it wasn't so for my friend. Which gladdened and saddened me in equal measures. 
I was glad because I had met a man who put his heart and soul into his work. I was sad because I did not even attempt to understand his work. 

****

Four days after the haircut, I visited an Italian restaurant near my office. I ended up there since my team was in a mood for authentic pizzas and pastas. As my teammates patiently examined the menu card to decide upon the most mouthwatering dishes, I downed my second glass of drinking water in an attempt to prevent my face and stomach from emitting signs/sounds indicative of my terrible hunger.
My hunger made me wonder if my teammates assumed that they were on a real Italian vacation. They seemed to be conversing and laughing and deciding dishes at a very leisurely pace. Screw you, Dolce Far Niente! In comparison, I seemed to be a man stuck in a Bangalore traffic signal, irritated by the ten seconds remaining for the signal to turn green.
Fortunately, after what seemed like the time required to explore the entirety of Venice and Rome, the waiter brought the starter dish. It was called bruschetta. My hunger did not care if it was bruschetta or bhel puri or bisi bele bath. All that mattered was that it was edible.
I did not care for dining etiquette and reached out for the dish. The waiter stopped me. "Let me serve you the dish, sir." I agreed with a forced smile as my stomach growled.
The waiter took a piece of roasted bread and slowly applied olive oil to one side of the bread. Meanwhile, my stomach armed itself with a pistol. The waiter then took a tiny piece of garlic and gently rubbed the same side of the bread. My stomach unlocked the safety lock in the pistol and was ready to fire at the waiter. The waiter then placed a basil leaf on top of the bread and slowly arranged diced tomatoes one after the other on the basil leaf. Boom! Boom! Boom! My stomach had fired 3 fatal shots already.
The waiter then carefully placed/presented the dish on my plate. "Oh you poor soul! You have already been executed." My stomach let out an evil laugh at the waiter. I picked up the bruschetta and ate it, only to be reminded of the bread-sandwiches I would prepare with my brother when we did not have enough time and ingredients.
My hunger satisfied itself, giving up all hope on food, and I relaxed on my chair, embracing the Italian lifestyle.
But as I relaxed, I noticed the waiter passionately preparing the bruschetta, one after another, for my teammates. His face glowed as he repeatedly applied the olive oil, rubbed the garlic on the bread, placed the basil leaf and arranged the diced tomatoes. His face glowed more as he saw smiles spreading out on my teammates' faces as they chewed upon the bruschetta. Which gladdened and saddened me in equal measures. 
I was glad because I had met a man who put his heart and soul into his work. I was sad because I did not even attempt to understand his work. 

****

For me, fashion and food are only the means to an end (a good life) and not an end in themselves. Owing to this, I have missed many opportunities to appreciate the artistry behind hairdressing and cooking/serving. 
As I understood this aspect of mine through the above incidents, I also understood people who have missed many opportunities to appreciate the artistry behind writing and filmmaking. 
For many people, books and films can be only the means to an end (a good life) and not an end in themselves.  

After this realization hit me, I visited the barbershop in the neighboring street. My barber friend was discussing about the floods in Kerala with a customer. I interrupted him, shook his hand and thanked him. My friend did not understand. "I feel extremely light-headed now." My explanation did not help him. I thanked him again and walked out.

Choosing hope...

A project that I am currently leading in my office is about to shut down in two weeks' time because of funding issues at the client's end. A teammate, during a conversation two days back, asked me if I had started approaching other teams in my office regarding available openings. I told him that I was still hopeful of finding a sponsor for our project from the client's side. He let out a chuckle. "Don't you think you are being too optimistic? Haven't you faced bad times? Are you a guy who believes in happy endings?" 
I understood where his questions came from. 

There exists a perception that being hopeful arises out of an inexperience of life's hardships, or out of naiveté. But why cannot hope be a choice?
Life does seem unfair more often than not but isn't it better to believe than to just buckle in?
Isn't it better to strive for a surprise or a shock than simply surrender?

I am not trying to romanticize suffering by the above lines. Suffering does cause a strain. 
But by succumbing and settling in a safe shelter, aren't we losing out on living a full life? With such an outlook, when would our hearts get to reach a high?

I tried explaining these thoughts to my teammate. His face turned curious. "But, doesn't losing hurt?" I nodded and added a learning. "Not putting in the effort hurts more." It is better to hope and get hurt than hold regrets. He was not convinced. I asked him to hope for hope. He laughed. 

****

When I began publishing posts here four years ago, I would start typing down a piece only when I had my thoughts structured in their entirety, from the start to the end. The content mattered more than the form. But as I persisted with the translation process of thoughts to text, I started falling in love with the writing process more than the idea. 
The endings of the posts started mattering less. I liked letting words conjure up sentences and come to their own conclusion when they could continue no more. 
I started writing simply for the sake of writing and not for publishing. 

I believe being hopeful is a similar process.
One starts putting in the efforts and starts staying positive not primarily for the outcome but for the simple pleasures of living.
A post might turn out good or bad. An event might turn out good or bad.
But one is always the better for having written/hoped.

Understanding life and death

"So, how is the experience?"
My grandmother questioned me an hour back, wanting to know about my experience of having spent 2 days entirely at a hospital. I was accompanying my grandmother who had to be under medical observation for her fluctuating haemoglobin count.

"So, how is the experience?"
When you are an aspiring writer, it gets increasingly difficult every time you are asked to describe an event or an object. The words do not escape your mouth unless they have become a part of a breathtaking sentence.
"When you speak, it is just the first draft. You do not have to put in so much effort as in writing," I tell myself. But the words become paranoid patients, not willing to be discharged before they spend good time at the Intensive Thinking Unit.
I still took my time to collect my thoughts and tried speaking like a writer to my grandmother. I said, "So much blood and so many bandages makes one understand the frailty of the human body and the strength of human bonds." The nurse who was administering medicines to the neighboring patient threw me a look which diagnosed that I also need to be kept under medical observation.
And so, I got down to typing my experiences, wondering why the human mind found it comfortable to write/read truth than to speak/hear it.
(Which led me to remember this earlier post.)

Hospitals seem to be the place where most grandparents and parents face regret for not forcing their children to pursue MBBS. I heard an old lady resting in the neighboring ward say, "We missed the opportunity to make our boy a doctor. Let us at least search for a bride who is a doctor."
Would the future to-be-bride have imagined that her wedding oath would be decided by her Hippocratic oath?

Hospitals also function like cinema theaters playing Indian movies, with a range of emotions being displayed in a room of 4 patients. You see joy. You see longing. You see sadness. You see anger.
One patient was overjoyed because she was informed by the doctor that she could follow her normal diet from the next day, which meant that she could return to eating non-vegetarian food. One patient longed to know if the people in his apartment enquired about him after his admission to the hospital. My grandmother was sad that she was troubling her family members owing to her ill health. And another patient was angered that her Lord was fond of placing one hurdle after the other on her journey. 
I clearly remember a nurse's response when the patient blamed her Lord in anger. "The Lord only tests those who are strong enough to face difficulties."
I wished that every doctor included this quote in his prescription, along with the names of medicines that provide very less motivation.

I also experienced a wide range of emotional states at this place.
Fear. Gratitude. Joy. Sadness.
Fear every time I crossed the casualty ward on my way out of the hospital, that I might suddenly hear a scream of grief. Gratitude that the society and the world are still at a state where they are filled by more screams of anger than by screams of grief. Joy that many nurses alternate very easily between gossiping and being guardian angels. Sadness that the shit of a disabled human still needs to be cleaned up by another human.
And only when I noticed my moods oscillating to the extremes, did I understand how beautifully Buddhist a doctor had to be.

In the room that my grandmother was admitted, the doctors visited the patients every 2-3 hours and provided affirmations that they were en route to becoming healthier. As I noticed this, I marvelled at the irony of the medical profession. Would there be another profession where the employees genuinely wished that their clients never faced any problems, though that meant lesser growth and opportunities to the employees?
I tried imagining a data analyst who wished for his client to never face any challenges with his data. And I understood that my imagination needed some data treatment.

As I continue to type my thoughts, I notice my grandmother looking at me like a kindergarten kid who is eager to narrate the new story taught at school. I stop typing and ask her if she wants to say something. "Do you remember the old lady who lived alone in the house above ours?" she asks. I nod, preparing myself for a tale that could be made interesting only by my grandmother. The writer in me tries to disagree initially, wanting to type more but he gives in pretty soon, realizing that a part of the writer would not exist if not for this storyteller-grandmother.
And so, a tale unfolds. So does my understanding in this place of life and death.

May I borrow your life?

I am seated in an air-conditioned Volvo bus, on my way to office. My life and my day have shaped up the exact way I had promised myself not to pursue 3 years ago.

With an hour-wise planned day ahead, and with very little elements that might surprise me, I stare outside the window. An old man is asking for alms on the other side of the road and the cold air that blows out of the air-conditioning vent angers the communist in me.
I then notice a cyclist riding his bicycle at a leisurely pace, earphones plugged in, and a peaceful smile spread out. He seems to be living life at his own pace, letting in only the music he wants to be affected by. 

Would he still pay attention to the hungry wails of a labourer's child, the angry honking sound of a middle-class motorcyclist, the cries of help from an old man seeking alms?
Maybe he would. Maybe he would not.
But looking at the cyclist and the languid pace at which he is traveling, I want to borrow his ride. Perhaps, even his life. For a few hours.
And then, I wonder if he would be willing to borrow mine. How would I sell my life to him if I had to convince him to borrow mine?
"Hmm.... A slightly bumpy childhood but you would get to have the most amazing mother.. A short, dark phase at the end of school and college days but you would get to have the best friends life could offer..."
As I frame sentence after sentence trying to package my life in a pleasant way, I realize that I do have a pleasant life.
Agreed that I am not riding a bicycle at a leisurely pace. Agreed that my day is well planned with very few surprises, at least on the creative front. Agreed that life sometimes gets difficult enough to dole out poems like this. But all said and done, I realize that I cannot bring about myself to lend or replace the people in my life, even for a mere few hours. 

What if my mother wants to recharge her mobile number? There is no way I am going to let some other person accomplish that divine task.
What if my dear brother wants to discuss about a great documentary he has seen recently? I would rather get into a gladiatorial fight before I let anyone else replace me in that discussion.
What if my friends at office want to get together for dinner at the office cafeteria just to make fun of my philosophical outlook? Sorry, mister. The spot has already been taken. 

My people. My childishly possessive life.

As these thought waves crash on my conscious shore and slowly recede to the subconscious ocean, I am hit again by the cold air blowing out of the air-conditioning vent in the bus.
"Some of the essays on your blog are good but your blog description sucks," a dear friend had told me once. I wish that I had also attempted to put out a life description so that I would have gotten to enjoy the bus ride from its start.
Still, better late than never. The Bangalore traffic always lets you enjoy the ride a bit longer.

As the Diwalis get quieter...

I have never been a huge fan of bursting firecrackers. I have always been governed by the notion that the soul of the Vodafone-advertisement-pug resided in every cracker that I set fire to, and so, every cracker would fly towards me and burst beside my body, showering affection and ash powder. 
I also felt very uncomfortable taking a walk on Diwali days because it made me pity the heroes of the games 'Temple Run' and 'Subway Surfers'. 
A lit firecracker there. Run left. A lit firecracker here. Run right. A small girl is about to light up a 100-wala. Run straight.  

But over the last few days, I have been setting out on uncomfortable walks of a different nature. 
The streets and the apartments around my house, in Bangalore, present a sight that would be any photographer's delight. The houses and their balconies have been lined up with lamps and little light bulbs. 
But it has been a very silent Diwali.
And, strangely, a part of me misses the non-stop noise of cracker after cracker after cracker. A part of me misses becoming a 'Subway Surfer' hero on the streets. A part of me misses the sight of colorful pieces of paper crowding the road.
I hear the adult in me saying that this might be the way to celebrate Diwali, going forward. For the sake of noise pollution. For the sake of the environment. For the sake of the street-sweepers.
But the part of me that wants a noisy Diwali recalls my mother's childhood stories, which she keeps narrating every Diwali with uncontrollable joy.
"From a week prior to the Diwali day, we would start bursting crackers. There would be intense competition between my house and the neighboring houses. Your uncle and I would be the representatives from my house. Every evening, we would ensure that we burst more crackers than the surrounding houses. The number of pieces of paper that lay outside our houses were the measure of our might. And we would never let my father or grandfather sweep the pieces away. Even if they did the cleaning when we were asleep, we would gather the paper pieces from the garbage and disperse them all around the house. Winning the Diwali-cracker-contest meant a lot."

I ask myself - Why the fondness for crackers when I am not exactly a fan?
My mind seems to be behaving like a college student on his farewell day, not wanting to leave the professor who had scolded him the most through his college years.

As I ponder upon the reasons for the reduction in the magnitude of bursting firecrackers, something which I had seen even in Chennai during my college years, I cannot resist the thought that my parents' generation had had a simpler taste in life. 
For them, going to the movie theater had been an event. For them, going to the restaurant had been an event. For them, bursting crackers had been an event. 
They seem to have led their lives listening more to their hearts than to their brains.
Which reminded me of the debate topic in the special talk show shown on Sun TV yesterday.
Which attains more importance in a home? Intelligence or love?
One of the speakers narrated a beautiful story to argue why she considered love to be the winner.
An old couple is seated on a park bench. The wife suffers from a memory disorder. She forgets her husband's identity every 20 minutes. But the husband remains seated beside her, holding her hand, and explaining every 20 minutes who he is. Why would the husband do this? Because he had had the smartest wife? Or because he had had the woman who had loved him the most?

I smiled after I heard this story. And I smiled now after I typed the story. 
I reread the entire piece above. I realize that most of it has come from the heart and very little from the brain. 
Maybe I belong more to my parents' generation. Or maybe I am just emotionally charged in the middle of a quiet Diwali.

A proverb a day...

We tend to resurrect proverbs only when the days get difficult. Why don't we respect them even during the happy hours?

The things I cannot write about

One of my dear friends was texting me about his travel experiences from a trip he had taken the previous weekend. As he finished describing the locations, he moved on to the dishes he had gotten to taste on his trip. He started,
"The taste of Haleem - You really can never describe its taste to anyone. It's weirdly like that!! It's amazing! Trust me. Things just melt in your mouth and it's super rich in nutrients. Your body just craves it as you have it. All of what I said does not come remotely close to the actual taste though."
And then he added,
"But if someday you get to taste Haleem (don't dismiss the idea of tasting meat and keep it as a possibility in your head), do take an attempt to describe the taste of Haleem to me."
I could not help smiling. I considered the possibility of me tasting Haleem, or any other non-vegetarian dish, and it seemed very bleak. I felt sad that there was a very high chance of me never being able to describe Haleem to my friend. 

As I pondered upon this, my mind slowly moved on to other things that I have not been able to use in my writing, owing to my non-experiences of them.
The hangover after a long night's celebration. The slow-motion-universe after getting high. The inability to make a comparison that went '..it felt like the inside of your mouth after you had smoked the third cigarette in a row'. 
The thoughts gradually climbed the stairway to the next floor in my mind.
The smell at Manikarnika ghat in Varanasi. The touch of snow. The fear of flight. The waterways of Venice and the alleyways of Paris. The terrors and wonders lurking in nooks and corners of the Amazon rain forest. The never-ending stretches of Sahara. 
The thoughts climbed another flight of stairs.
The sleepless night in a fully bombed city. The slow acceptance of memories as reality post the death of a loved one. The joy / fear of having a life in my womb.

I realized that I still had a chance to experience some of these. But some were not under my control. 
The more important question was - Do I have to experience all of these and a lot more to make my writing wealthier?
Perhaps yes. Even if not my writing, my life would remain poor if not for some of these. 
Which led to another question - Do we not cherish art for this very reason?
Do we not devour paintings and photographs and books and music and films since everyone cannot experience every emotion and every relationship in every continent?

I understood that art served as a gateway to enter new worlds and to enhance one's own understanding of the existing world.
But in parallel, I remembered Robin Williams's lines from the park scene in Good Will Hunting.
"You’re a tough kid. If I asked you about war, you’d probably throw Shakespeare at me, right? “Once more unto the breach dear friends”. But you’ve never been near one. You’ve never held your best friend’s head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help.
I’d ask you about love and you’d probably quote me a sonnet. But you’ve never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable, known someone that could level you with her eyes. Feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you, who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn’t know what it’s like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer."
The difference between learning and living, I thought. Or perhaps, the difference between knowledge and wisdom.

Work-life balance | Weekly Status Mail | 04 August 2017

Please find below the updates for the week starting on 07/31:

Temporal Processing Tool

• Continuing from the previous week, the current week also had its every passing day caught in its own strange rhythm 
• The mornings seamlessly flowed into their nights and the nights blended into their mornings. The input parameters for wall clocks were set to zero but still, the 'hour' hand seemed to follow a steep and consistent rise, as normally observed in the 'second' hand 
• Some of the key findings: 
• Facial hair was trimmed every couple of hours
• A cup of coffee was sipped every second minute 
• WhatsApp statuses of friends got changed every 20 seconds 
• Initial presentation to the stakeholders about the 'rhythm of the days''received comments as below: 
• A plastic token in a tiny eatery that keeps travelling from the bill counter to the parcel counter and back to the bill counter 
• Water in a fountain that keeps spraying out and seeping down the drain back to spraying out 
• A lift operator who travels to the top and to the bottom and back to the top 
• We plan to observe the patterns for the next two weeks before concluding that the ‘mundaneness’ metric has reached its tipping point 

Interpersonal Interaction Performance dashboard

• US toll free numbers dominated 76% of the ‘Most Frequent Contacts’ monitoring, Indian toll free numbers following with 14%, leaving a meager 10% to other personal contact numbers 
• In the ‘Most Frequent Messages’ word bubble, we observe that there has been a reversal in the first and second positions 
• Caught in a meeting.. Ttyl – 47% 
• Sorry for the delay in replying – 34% 
• Belated birthday wishes :) - 11% 
• Other responses - 8% 
• Microsoft Outlook emerged the clear winner in the ‘Most Active Mailbox’ monitoring, for the 7th consecutive week, with the heat map indicating that the most preferred time for mail responses is 12:30-2:30 AM 

Weekly task completion status

• We observe a radically different picture of the completion statuses of the official deliverables and passion projects 
• The statuses of the official deliverables promised this week resemble a satellite image of the Amazon rain forest, whereas the statuses of the passion projects planned for this week resemble a satellite image of the sun 

With the above mentioned updates, we are very happy to end another week with >100% productivity achieved towards improving the quality of work, continuing the trend of very little to no effort directed towards improving the quality of life.

We have refreshed the tool, dashboard and the status report in their respective locations. Kindly let us know in case of any queries.

Regards,
Someone torn apart by an equal love for work that pays and work that satisfies