Day 60 - Sallekhana

I've always believed that the act of Suicide is an indication of two extreme conflicting emotions in the individual. While at one end it is an act of extreme cowardice and an acceptance that there is no way things can get better, at the other end it is also an act of courage because taking one's own life and suffering as you go is not an easy task.

I've always believed that any problem can be solved and that life is more precious than losing it. Which is why sometimes I snicker at the Hindi movie dialogues - मैं तुम्हारे लिए जान भी दे सकता हूँ (I can even give my life for you) - wondering what use is it if you lose your life to prove your love. You won't be there to see if she cares anyway. But coming back to the point, I've been fortunate enough never to be in those shoes - shoes where as you face life you realise that there is no way forward. And I thank God profusely for that.

How can someone take one's own life?

And then as I started reading William Dalrymple's book 'Nine Lives', I came across 'Sallekhana' - the Jain way of giving up one's life or more precisely the Jain muni's (nun or holy man) way of giving up one's life. I was astounded by what I read and could not understand why someone would do it?

Sallekhana is the Jain muni's way of voluntarily embracing death when the muni sees that death is imminet due to a severe disease or old age or intuition. Sallekhana is possible only if the muni seeks and gets the approval of their guru or mentor. It is up to the mentor to decide if the person can contribute much more in life of if the person can pass on to the next world. It is a ritual fast onto death. One by one you give up all the food - first you fast one day a week, then you eat only on alternate days. One by one you give up different kinds of food - rice, vegetables, juice till you come to a stage where you take only water everyday. You then make even that on alternate days. Eventually when you are ready you give up that too. Jains believe that when you do this gradually the body adapts, cools down and you can concentrate only on the soul.

It is easy to confuse this with suicide but jains think of this as releasing the soul - attaining mukti from this world. As I sit back and think on this, I sort of agree. But what takes my pickle is the extreme confidence and peace the muni must find with oneself to actually embark on this route for once the vow of Sallekhana is taken, there is no going back. Suicide is instantaneous and an act of mental anguish. Sallekhana, on the other hand, is giving up of the final frontier. Taken in context - the Jain muni starts off on the path by renouncing everything, family, comfort. home, possesions, Sallekhana is the renouncement of the body and an acceptance of starting off in a new world.

The Jain muni lives a life of renouncement. I wonder if a lay person with desires and needs would be able to walk down the path of Sallekhana and find peace in the final moments!

Would you be able to take Sallekhana?

Day 59 - Too much love

Is there such a thing called 'Too much love'? We all love someone in our lives at all points of time. And the love manifests itself in different ways - love for your parents, love for friends, love for siblings, love for that special one or even love for your pets. Each of these has different mannerisms and different methods of getting expressed. But each form has its limits, or does it?

Can you love someone too much or is that then just smothering? Dictionary.com defines Smothering (n) as 'an overspreading profusion of anything' and this very nicely puts the point across. An overspreading profusion of love is also smothering.

Love, as we all know, is based on trust. An integral part of loving someone is that we trust them and we are secure in that relationship. We trust that our pet will not bite us and are secure that they love us more than they love the pet-handler. We trust that our parents have our best interests at heart and are secure that they don't distinguish between siblings. And the most important kind of love - we trust that our partner will not betray our emotions and are secure that they love us just as much. If these two components of 'trust' and 'security' are missing, it gives rise to smothering. You can call it by any other name - over possessiveness, protective, loving - but really you feel that the person is smothering you and not giving you space to grow.

Of course the 'smotherer' does not realise that and thinks that they are just making sure that their target is safe and unhurt. But ask the 'smotheree' and I am sure you will know that they are not happy in the relationship. They don't like being constantly asked where they are or where they are going or who they met or why they are doing a particular thing. While love is based on security and trust, smothering is based on the exact opposite emotions. In such a parasitic relationship, its just a matter of time before the smotheree breaks free and escapes leaving the smotherer to wonder what went wrong?

As you start any relationship I think its important that you look at it from this angle and ascertain if your outlook to the person is that of love or smothering? Do you trust that person? Are you secure in that relationship? Or do you have a need to know what the person is doing at all points of time? Do you wonder if that boy/girl that you partner is talking to is your competition?

If you value the relationship find out from your partner / friend if you are smothering them. Then change yourself or change the relationship so that both of you are happy. A smothering relationship is doomed for disaster at some point of time.

I found this great article that actually got me thinking about this aspect. Read the article here.

Are you a lover or a smotherer?

Day 58 - Age and Sexuality

When you think of sex and sexuality what comes to your mind. Most of us would think of a taut young body with a good figure and assets (if you are a guy) or six pack abs and muscles (if you are a gal). Most of us - of course it could work the other way as well but the point is that sex and sexuality brings to mind images of young bodies. And why is that? Why is it that sexuality is always associated with the young? Why is it that as we grow older we are supposed to give up our physical needs and focus more on spiritual ones?

I was browsing through my friend Arundhati Ghosh's facebook profile when I came across this beautiful note from one of her friends which in turn connected me to the work of the photographer -Karen Brett . (Wow....this is like pealing onions - one layer leads to another till you reach the core). And this got me thinking along the above lines.

How many of us are cringing as we even read this? Or cringed when we saw the photos? How many of us are thinking that love and sex is meant for the young and the middle-aged, definitely not for my parents and God forbid - my grand parents. They should be concentrating on God and the metaphysical aspects than the physical ones. We have been conditioned from our childhood that love is meant for the young at heart. Sex, after all, is the physical representation of love and hence that too is for the young. We have seen this around us and have grown up on this staple diet of information. We have never seen our grand parents show their love in front of us and have watched movies where the couple - after they have become parents - hide their physical manifestation of love by saying "Bacche dekh lenge to kya sochenge?". So it is but natural that we shy away from the very thought of old people falling in love or showing their love. Even our movies don't focus on this aspect.

The closest I think that our movies have approached this subject is the Rishi Kapoor - Dimple Kapadia starrer "Pyar Mein Twist" which shows them falling in love but even that movie shied away from showing any physical manifestation of it. 'Cheeni Kum'came closest to showing it. Do you remember the scene where Tabu makes AB run across the park and come back so that she can find out about his stamina? He then drags her almost into a hotel saying let me show you my stamina. When you realise the implication of that scene.....do you cringe and thank God that they did not show them going into a hotel room? Why shouldn't they? After all, they are in love and will want to express their love to each other?

I think we need to be a bit more broad minded when we see an old couple holding hands and/or expressing their love for each other. Love is an emotion that can strike anyone at any time. It does not look for colour, caste, creed, nationality or age. If we are willing to accept that an old man can fall in love with a young woman or vice-versa, we need to accept the fact that two old people can fall in love with each other as well and would want to express that love as well.

Lets all grow up and accept that. Who knows you fall in love at 80 and want to express that love to her or him! Teach your children now that its OK for old people to fall in love as well!

Day 57 - Lakshya

No......this is not about the movie, although I've put the poster on this blog. But the idea came to me from the movie. I'm watching the movie as I type this and it depicts so beautifully the fact that if you have a goal in mind, if you have a लक्ष्य life becomes easier and it gets direction. The character differentiation between those of Karan (Hritik Roshan, who does have any aim in life in the first half) and Romi (Priety Zinta, who knows exactly what she wants to be) is beautifully brought out. More importantly is the portrayal of the direction that Karan'slife takes after he decides what he wants to do and goes behind that with complete dedication and focus.

How many of us knew what we wanted to be as we approached that critical point in our lives? Whether its to do with career and work or to do with personal beliefs. Every person reaches that 'moment of truth' at some point in their lives......or at least they should. Once you reach that moment and you choose the path, life becomes a bit more easier to live.

I can count two such occasions in my life. When I was in school and approached that critical point in life (Class XII) I knew I wanted to be an engineer. But half way into engineering I knew that a technical job was not my cup of tea and I couldn't do that for the rest of my life. So I moved into a Sales role and have stuck with Sales and Marketing as a career. Once I knew that this is what I wanted to do my career took its own direction as all my moves were in that field. My sister found her career lakshya when she joined Lufthansa after drifting around for quite some time. She realised that that's the field she wants to be in and now her life has a direction and is that much easier.

My second moment was when I fell in love with a girl when in college. When college got over she moved back to the city she came from and I had a choice. But my lakshya was very clear that I had to make her mine. Once that goal was in mind life and its decision became that much easier. I moved to Bangalore as well, wooed her here all over again and finally married her and we have been married for 11 years now.

ज़िन्दगी में लक्ष्य होना बहूत ज़रूरी हैं । लक्ष्य मिल जाए तो उसको पाने के रास्ते अपने आप आसन हो जाते हैं ।

Its important to get a goal in life. Once you set a goal the routes to attain that goal become easy on its own!

So got out and set a goal! Notice how decisions will become easier.

Day 56 - Happily Ever After

What does the above line remind you of? Quickly........Fairy Tales, right? That's the line that all Fairy Tales ended with.........And they lived happily ever after. As a child you felt secure when you read the last line and knew that the Prince had found his true love (or the Princess, if you were a girl) after all the trails and tribulations and would now be happy forever. No more bad people around them and no more hardships.

As you grew older though you realised the fallacy in that last line. Happily Ever After? Yeah, right......your troubles have just begun baby. Wait till you get married and have to take care of the house and kids and in-laws and friends and............ah forget it! Those were your thoughts as you read the lines but you also wished that the lines were true. That love leading to marriage could lead to 'happily ever after' as well.

The thought of this blog came up (thanks to my sister) when I posted a quote from Grey's Anatomy on my facebook account - "Why can't I just be the happily ever after person? Why can't I believe in that?". And the truth lies in that statement.......why don't we believe in the 'happily ever after' statement anymore?

The reality lies in the answer to a very simple question. What makes you happy? It may sound like a simple question but the answer to that is anything but simple. Our answer to that question changes constantly like the sifting sands in a desert or the tides on a beach. It varies from a good job to a good salary to love to spiritual well being to different things at different times of our lives. It depends a lot on our expectations of the people around us and of ourselves. Can we possibly curb our expectations and be happy all the time? I don't think so. Anyone who says that he is a happy person is a liar. There will always be some aspect of your life that you wish was better and in that small space you are unhappy.

In a fairy tale the line is supposed to bring an end to all worries. Its a full stop in that story. But in reality the full stop never occurs. Oh..maybe it does when we die but before that our definition of happiness changes constantly.

I think the key is to define 'happiness' in small portions rather than grandeur plans. As we attain those small targets we can get incremental happiness. Revel in that. Find solace in that small happiness and try to spread that happiness around.

Remember ' Happily Ever After' is like the horizon.......its there, you can see it, it seems attainable, you must strive towards it but you may never get to it!

Day 55 - Why are Nursery Rhymes so morbid?

I have a 2-1/2 year old son and our music system is being dominated by nursery rhymes now. As he learns the rhymes in school he recites them at home and we have to play these on the CD as well.

Twinkle Twinkle; Ba Ba Black Sheep and so on. But have you ever thought why some or most of the nursery rhymes are so morbid? I have been wondering that for some time now.

• Jack & Jill talks about tumbling down and breaking head.
• Humpty Dumpty talks about him breaking himself and no one able to put him together again.
• Rock-a-bye-baby, supposedly a lullaby, talks about the baby falling down from the tree.
• Goosey Goosey Gander talks about throwing an old man down the stairs.
• Three Blind Mice tails are cut by the farmer's wife
• In Ding Dong Bell the cat is thrown into the well
  
• ......................and there are some more.

I always wondered why would we teach our children such rhymes that talk about injury and don't seem to foster good manners. But no one seems to change these nursery rhymes and we still teach them. What do our children learn from these rhymes? And more importantly where did these nursery rhymes come from? What is their origin?

The internet is of course the best way to find out and I did.

• Jack & Jill is about the beheading of King Louis XVI (Jack) followed by Queen Marie Antoinette (Jill). But do we need to teach our children that? Why did schools start teaching this?
• Humpty Dumpty is actually a story of a huge cannon used during the English Civil War during the siege of Colchester.
• Rock-a-bye Baby does not have any such explanations. It refers to Native American Indians in US who used to put a cradle across two trees and rock their babies to sleep using the wind. Anyone in India would have seen this in most construction sites as mothers put their babies to bed using a cloth cradle.
  
• Goosey Goosey Gander refers to the fight in 16th century between Catholics and Protestants. If the Catholics were caught by the zealous protestants saying their prayers in Latin and not English as the Protestants wanted, the priest and the family harboring them were executed. Hence, 'there I met an old man who wouldn't say his prayers'.
• Three Blind Mice refers to same period of Catholics v/s Protestants although in this case it refers to Catholic Queen Mary I who could not convert three Protestant nobles and so had them burnt at the stake. The nursery rhyme of course refers to them being dismembered and blinded.
  

Most of the nursery rhymes have hidden meanings and a historical perspective. If you want to know more about the history of nursery rhymes refer to http://www.rhymes.org.uk/ . Its a great site to do some fun reading. Another good site is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nursery_rhyme

But I still cannot understand why English schools took these rhymes up to teach to their children. Thankfully the children were not taught the actual meanings of the rhymes and were just left to learn and sing them.

Frankly why can't we have some good rhymes teaching some good manners rather than these morbid ones?

Someone need to give this a thought!

Day 54 - BigB

So finally I am writing about one of my two passions in recent years - One,of course, is Star Wars and the other is BigB or Amitabh Bachchan.

I've always been a fan of Amitabh Bachchan....yes even in those years when he was not doing good movies and was down on his luck. I remember feeling very disappointed by his role in 'Mohabatien' when SRK was given more prominence and BigB's role was not up to the mark. At that time we did not know that BigB was in need - dire need - of just some acting to pay the bills. Today everyone is a fan and everyone loves him.

I had an interesting conversation with Ani this evening. I was watching Big Boss and Amitabh Bachchan interviewing Ismail Durbar who had just been evicted from the house. At the end of the interview, Ismail Durbar cried on his shoulder and his wife touched BigB's feet. I was watching this and wondered what is it that drives people to do that for Amitabh Bachchan.

What is Amitabh Bachchan? At the very core level he is but an actor - nothing more, nothing less. What has he done for you and me for us to feel so passionately about him? What has he contributed to our lives that we feel so strongly about him? At least I do! If you refer to my post of Day 26 on 28th August you will find that No. 5 on my list of 10 things to do before I die is to meet Mr. Amitabh Bachchan. Why? And what will I do when I meet him? Gush over him, take an autograph, take a picture and remember that for my lifetime. He won't even remember if he meets me. So why this love for him?

I realised that my love for BigB has increased since the time he started writing his blog about a year back. I follow it daily like a ritual. Through his writings on his blog I have understood what a principled man he is. How he values his time, life and family and how he swears to protect them against anything. How intelligent he is and how lucid he is in his writing and prose. How he makes us feel like his family and values our time and comments.

I respect him for the fact that he had seen the heights of fame, the outpouring of people's love, the depths of loneliness and dis-respect and how he bounced back from the brink of disaster through his hard work. How he swore to and did pay off his creditors and how he built back his legend.

But mostly I love him for his desire of excellence in his work. The fact that even at an age of 65+ when his contemporaries have long since hung up their boots, he is doing challenging roles and work like Last Lear, Black, Nishabd, Cheeni Kum and the soon-to-come revolution in Indian Cinema - PAA! Here is a man who does not need to prove anything to anyone, who goes back and does a role of a 13 year old when he is 65 himself. Why? Because of the need to excel in his art. And that's a legend!

I can keep writing on this subject but I would like to end with Paa's director Balki's statement on the movie: "The challenge of "PAA" was to present Amitabh Bachchan minus everything we all know, love about and idenify with Amitabh Bachchan. Yes....it was a challenge for Abhishek Bachchan, Vidya, Paresh, Arundhati, the kids, the make-up artist, PC and me. But it was a challenge that finally had to be met by Amitabh Bachchan alone. Paa is a tribute to possibly the greatest actor that Indian cinema has ever produced and an example of how an actor can undo the very things that have made him an icon and will do something iconic"

We are lucky to have been born in an era where we are seeing the best works of a great actor! Can't wait to see Paa!

Day 53 - Value

Why is it that we understand the value of anything after its gone away? This holds true more for the emotional state of mind rather than the physical materialistic things.

In the physical materialistic world the next car, computer, mobile phone, TV, music system etc is better than the previous one. We strive for getting the latest cutting edge technology into our lives and the concept of value is fluid.

But some into the emotional space and 'value' suddenly takes on a completely different meaning. So the question really should be 'In the emotional space, why is it that we understand the value of anything only after its gone away?'

Its been a month since Gina's passing and the outpouring of grief and statements of love make you understand that people miss her so much. I knew her for 12 years and always took her for granted. For me, she was the invincible one - the one who will outlive all of us for her sheer energy, her exuberance, her joie de vivre, her healthy lifestyle and just her will to live. One month ago all that suddenly changed in one second. And I understood her 'value' in my life and the deep respect that I had for her. Why did I realise that only after she was gone? Why don't we show our value for people when they are with us? Why do we wait to say all the things about a person only after they are gone? I realise today that if I had to do anything innovative, off the world and that would open people's eyes - Gina was the person to go to.

Do you value your parents? I have always maintained that every child must go to a hostel to understand the value of what parents do for them and the value of 'home'. We take all this for granted. But when I went away to a hostel to study engineering, I realised the value of home and parents. I understood the value of home food and the taste of it. I value my mom's cooking more today and wait for her to come to my house on her vacation. My wife who has never lived away from her parents does not understand that as much and early in our marraige would not understand why I needed to talk to them long distance every week.

The whole concept of 'show your value for someone' is so cliched! But its also very true. If you value someone remember to show them that from time to time. It need not be the fact that you call them or face them and say 'I Value you and love you' everytime but it could be through a show of small things like calling them or maybe giving them personal gifts on their special occasions or even making something for them.

Tell them and show them that you care and they are valuable! Its important!