Who is really on your side?

Before I begin, let me clarify – I am most definitely not in support of indiscriminate ‘feedback’ or brash outspokenness in the name of ‘Honesty’. I am a firm believer in 
"Satyam bruyat priyam bruyat, Na bruyat satyam apriyam;

Priyam ca nanrutam bruyat, Esha Dharmah sanatanah"

(Speak truth in such a way that it should be pleasing to others. Never speak truth, which is unpleasant to others. Never speak untruth, which might be pleasant. This is the path of eternal morality, sanatana dharma.) 

That said – it remains true that it takes wisdom to even interpret words and intentions correctly.

Have you seen Runaway Bride? If you have , do you recall the scene of the Luau, where all of Maggie’s friends make fun of her past ‘almost weddings’ and our friend Ike is the only one who stands by her. He rises and makes a sharp toast pointing her family’s unkindness; the audience is shamed, if only for a minute. And yet, Maggie loses her temper with Ike! Somehow, that isn’t surprising at all despite the obvious contradiction. It is odd that most people would gladly be at the receiving end of constant raillery and assume it to be in the spirit of ‘fun’. If instead, you tried to have a heart to heart with them and endeavored to make them see how they could keep from being a joke, they’d be much offended. Apparently, all the pointed jokes can be ignored because somehow they are not ‘real’. But in a sincere conversation, you’re making them see the ugly truth and urging them to do something about it. Nobody likes that! So, basically Richard Gere taking a stand in that scene made all of Maggie’s issues ‘real’.. because someone chose to see them and acknowledge them. Until that point she could just have laughed it off and assumed everyone forgot about it. I got thinking as I was recently Ike (though I’m sure I’ve been Maggie at some point).
Do you think you have been on either side?

The Intangibles

In my office, we had a couple of young folks join the Onsite team. These guys were ‘Enthu-cutlets’, as we call them in Pune. Plus, they were joining the ‘Onsite’ team, and if you are at all acquainted with the Indian IT industry, you will know what a big thing that is! They came over with a will to achieve and transform the project between the 2 of them! They were intelligent, but inexperienced – and started working unsustainable schedules. Being an Operations team, we always have something that needs to be done yesterday – so that worked well for me to meet the Team’s SLAs! However, we could see the dangers that lurked – burnout.. apathy.. I would often have 1:1 sessions with each of them and make them aware of things like ‘work-life balance; but to no avail. They were all set to do or die!

So, the long hours and working weekends continued. I could see the strain showing, but when asked to slow down, my trusty steeds would obstinately refuse. Until – something changed. One of the guys arranged for his wife to fly over and join him here. She arrived and things were never the same again! He was still sincere, still hard-working, but now, he realized the importance of ‘time-boxing’ his work. He knew he had someone waiting for him at home, and he needed to finish on time. He started organizing his meetings and his tasks much better. He ensured he was out of office by 5 latest. He started prioritizing which meetings were necessary and which questions could be answered on email. To my mind – he became a much more valuable and mature team member. To my mind – this was an actual ‘Productivity Boost’. But this was not something I achieved as a manager. This was something that was enabled by a completely intangible human factor – technically outside of my team. For this person - it was his family, as it is for most. I know of companies which leverage outside-hometown postings to drive longer work hours for employees. If you don’t have a family waiting at home, you would definitely continue to work.. at office or at home. After all, how many movies can you watch? Or Netflix? When you think of it, it is simple – but rather Machiavellian, I fear!

And then it made me wonder – what are the other intangibles that affect how a team / individual team members work? Tell me what comes to your mind!

Pleasure is a Gift; Pain is a Treasure

Many have the power to gift you joy.

The power to cause pain is the privilege of few.

The Chosen.

Is it a wonder then -

That I prize it over everything you’ve ever given?

For something I will never use – it really is far too dear!

If it belonged to someone else in the past – even that is too much to bear!

Impossible to share.

Every pang of loss you feel for the dead, is a live stab in my heart.

The broken fragments of your past leave scratches on my being.

Ghosts may not be real; but they are evidence of what once lived.

I can exorcise the ghost, but who can wipe the lifetime?

Every living moment is shrouded by the memory of the dead.

For those who feel passion – every passion is exclusive.

It will always be all or nothing.

You may find this odd – unacceptable even.

But the sense of your longing incompletes my belonging.

Restless Routine

Riverscapes

A river flows some little way out from my home. At least- I call it a river. After each dam that blocks her way has claimed a part of her for itself, she is little more than a trickle by the time she finds her path to freedom. Some have even taken to calling her a stream... or ‘Naalaah’. (But we meander… and we will go far afield if we do! :) )

It is to this river I often head when I’m seeking a quiet evening to myself. My usual trajectory takes me up one side of the river, across the bridge, and down the other bank. The river is always playing witness to a diaspora of human emotion and conversation. All along the bridge are faces as similar and as distinct as pebbles on the river bank.

Walking along, I catch snippets of conversation… glimpses of a familiar emotion on an unknown face. It is strange how we reveal a little bit of our deepest emotions to an unknown pedestrian, simply through the connection of being human. A couple seated on the stony steps- her head bowed; he seated next to her… ready to comfort her, yet giving her the space to recover her strength. I walk on in haste lest I intrude into a private moment; but the briefest picture reveals the entire story.

Groups of youngsters animatedly discuss the day’s events. It is quite entertaining how each of us imagines that all that we think, feel, experience is brand new and unique to us! It is- in a way. So when a 19 year old holds forth eloquently on her life plans and sees no possibility of them not working out, the confidence is only slightly amusing and a lot more inspiring. For that moment, a fresh energy surges through the mind cleaning the slate for some brand new drawings! For a moment one becomes 19 again, forgets the exhaustion and disappointments and smiles a real smile.

Looking away, my eyes rest briefly on a mother and daughter in earnest conversation. The words are few, the emotions many. The young age of the girl, the flowers in her hair, the shiny new Mangalsutra (Hindu equivalent of a wedding ring), and the expression on her mother’s face make for a poignant picture. Youth bubbled over to express itself; Age looked on with patience - recognizing similarities, noticing differences, and coming to terms with a growing, independent reality. Such a moment -what more could one ask for in one's pursuit of the picturesque on the banal landscape of routine.

And yet, the river flows on. She doesn't pause to eavesdrop. She doesn't whisper her own advice. She does not mock the futility of it all.  Somewhere along its banks lovers whisper… somewhere a debate flares… somewhere two friends enjoy a dialogue of perfect silence… and somewhere a lonely heart tells the universe its sorrows. Next time I visit my river, I shall listen closely- for I might hear an unexpected gurgle of mirth… I shall look closely, for I might just discern two recently shed tears joining the tide.

Turning pages..

It is not every day that we come across a creation that completely engrosses us, cuts away every thought and makes us inhabit a different world - or perhaps I am hard to please. But I take heart in the fact that at least every once in a while, this does happen.

As recently as last week, I think I ran into my book equivalent of a soul-mate. While Ayn Rand has been a consistent love in my life, and Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters have been like-minded friends; somehow nothing had ever resonated so closely as did Mr. Julian Barnes’ words in ‘Sense of an Ending’. Perhaps, these are the workings of time. At the point when I read this book, it was like meeting the little person who lives inside my head. It also made me wonder if those are the books we like most- the ones that make us feel, ‘if I wrote, this is how I’d sound’. This was a book where I savoured each idea, each word- and comprehended each as clearly as if it were my own. Does that happen to you? Does it happen that for once, you are not eager to force your eyes and mind to run through the words because you can’t wait to see where they take you; instead- you wish to amble, retrace, loiter. The author’s ideas of life, art, history- I wish I could have them all by heart to cite at every appropriate instance (while we’re wishing- I wish I’d written them!). The book has several intertwined threads of separate lives wound around the recurring themes of philosophy, history and their relationship with reality – which, when woven together, wrap one is a blanket of seamless beauty. There are some works of art you can reach out and touch, and then there are some that envelope you with their many, many dimensions! Just as meeting your soulmate makes you wonder about all the past worthy and unworthy dalliances you've had, so did I find myself reflecting on my reading choices over the years.

Every book has a personality; it is like meeting a person – oddly enough, a personality born of the reader’s perception, and not the author’s! In effect, every book is a rendezvous. There are some narratives that are familiar as an old friend – thoughts heard once before; in fact, hasn’t it happened to you that you can almost hear an entire narrative in a dear friend’s voice! Then there are those pacy, whirlwind affairs that we rush into, where logic takes a back seat and it’s a pure head rush. Remember Perry Mason? And of course, almost all of us have gone through a 'Sidney Sheldon phase'! My favourites over time have been those books that are like friendly banter on a lazy afternoon… words that swing you on a hammock with sunshine and good cheer for company. A languid Summer’s day that seems like it’d go on forever, yet, all too soon is over- but not without leaving a lingering warmth. That’s how I feel when I am idling on Corfu with Gerald Durrell or taking my imagination for a stroll at Blandings Castle. :) Some other books I’ve ‘met’ are enigmatic and wary… they reveal themselves slowly- and so do they exert their power. It is not until you’ve reached midway that you realise you’re inextricably hooked. Sartre’s Nausea did that to me – I was labouring through word by word, digesting each idea, wondering if I really had the appetite – and then suddenly at some point, there was a connection. This is the love we savour slowly – a love that almost wasn’t to be; but is

Some books, or entire genres, are so unlike ourselves that we really don’t expect to like them. Biographies – Auto or otherwise- was a genre I had stayed away from, on these very grounds. Why should I be interested in someone else’s real life? My own life as a protected and pampered child was sailing so smoothly, that I could only turn to fiction to learn of its vicissitudes. I hardly expected any person’s real life to match, let alone surpass, the romance and adventure of fiction! In fact, I recall I once took up Feynman and did not get beyond page 20. Shocking, I know. But you see, back then- I read about the radios, and I thought- “This is just mechanics!”. Today, I can see a curious mind, a passion for the world we live in and above all- the zest to experience Life! I was always an avid reader, but my poison was the classics! It took me a couple of heartbreaks, struggle for  acceptance and a taste of the real world to begin relating to stories of other peoples’ lives - to appreciate that truth is indeed stranger than fiction! That’s when I started appreciating Biographies. That's also when I realised, whether you're reading a book or writing one, empathy is perhaps the most important constituent. When they speak of the ‘pain’ you need to create beautiful art, they speak of experiencing battle, emerging with war wounds and painting the epic for the world to see. Your paint may be pigment, your brush may be words, your strokes may be dance- but the life in your art is always that unspent anger, unspilled joy, that resonates within you and everyone who has experienced Life!

I am Special

Are you at some chronological point between 25 and 35, at a financial place we like to call ‘upper middle class’, and in a state of dissatisfaction?

I know I am- most of the time- dissatisfied that is; the age and economics are pretty much stable! And sometimes by myself, sometimes in cahoots with similarly oppressed friends, I try to find out the root cause of this unnecessary, inexplicable distress.

Based on my own judgment of my life thus far, some thoughts have evolved.Sharing my ideas with you good people in the hope of a better understanding of this non-dilemma!

I am including pretty much everyone between 25 and 35 in this group. Given that the gaps between generations keep getting deeper and closer together, I am not sure how right this is. But based on purely subjective experience, I am going to continue with the same demographic sample.

Most of us in our late twenties are either single children, or one of a pair. As such- we have received more than our fair share of attention. While a good education was ours by right, most conveniences too were only an ask away. Not all of us were the best of students, but then the alternative areas of achievement were many. Some played badminton, some danced, some swam, some sang- most of us did more than one of these! It was basically very doable- thanks to a mixture of comparative affluence, perceived ability, and of course- peer pressure! So what I’m driving at is- we’re quite an ‘accomplished’ generation. All of us have had a growing up phase liberally sprinkled with achievements - a district tournament here, a music award there. And since parents had only one or two children to focus on, the appreciation was abundant too.

And then we grew up.

Where once we were a ‘superstar’ for every 50/50 in Maths, small appreciations became hard to come by. I guess we assumed adult life would be an extension of the individuality we had always enjoyed. Each of us stood out from our peers in some way or another, and it was only natural to assume that the ‘individual identity’ would continue. However, as adults, we found ourselves working at something a thousand others do, struggling through courtship and marriage like everyone does, getting caught in traffic with a hundred others.

Nobody’s special.

I wonder if that's the reason we're seldom 'mad-happy' in adult life. We have taken our ‘awesomeness’ for granted and assumed others would see it too. Well, I’m sure each of us is very special in some way, but not enough to set us apart the way a ‘1^st prize in athletics’ did in school!

Perhaps we miss that.

And we look for it in the minor victories that life has to offer.

But it’s just not the same, is it?