The Colored Mist

Ambika – A glimpse of Amravati

Amravati was stunned. She listened to her neighbor, wail. Her neighbor was dressed in a bright pink sari with a green and gold border, her heavy jhumki dangled from her ear lobes, like a pendulum gone wrong. The kajal that was adorning her eyes a few minutes back was now all smudged on her fleshy cheeks. She was hysterical. “Ambika is not in her room, she has run away on her wedding day. Amu, find her, go get her, Amu.” Amravati’s neighbor kept repeating as more people started pouring into the room. Most of them were Harini kaku’s relatives, who had come for Ambika’s wedding. Harini Kaku’s fingers dug into Amravati’s shoulders and she continued to wail. Amravati put her hands around the crying woman’s wrist and gently pulled both her hands down. “Shh…shh…” said Amravati. The background chatter of relatives was increasing. “Where could she have gone?”, “She must be still at the station.”, “If we go now, we could catch her.” “I will kill my daughter, if she ever did such a thing.”” Girls should not be allowed to step outside the house.” “Look what happens when you give too much freedom to girls.” The chatter kept increasing. Amravati, firmly held Harini kaku and made her sit on the sofa. She held her there, as if making sure that, she doesn’t stand and start wailing again. Somehow Amravati knew that, if, Harini kept sitting, she would keep sobbing and taking to herself gently. Amravati then turned to the clamoring crowd and placed her finger over her lips, almost like a threat. Suddenly there was a lull in the room.

Amravati felt like laughing, her stomach churned with hysteria, how she would have loved this drama to continue. But instead she decided to be sober and centered. “Ambika, went to my house to rest, she hadn’t slept in weeks, with all the wedding noise in the house.” I will go and get her. The sudden silence seemed to deepen even more, Harini kaku’s had a strange expression on her face, almost like she had lost her nose and didn’t know about it. A splash of icy cold water fell on the gossiping relatives and they dispersed.

Image Courtesy: http://jeanspaintings.blogspot.in/2011_01_01_archive.html

Jaipur Literary Festival 2015 (my experiences)

Last week I spent two days at the Jaipur Literary Festival, a festival of colors, words and enquiry. William Dalrymple and Namita Gokhale were the directors for this monstrous festival, where one could see people from all over the world. As they rightly said in their opening speech, it was like a literary ‘Kumbh Mela’. As my friend and me entered the festival, we were struck by the diversity and energy of the place. The delegates and participants were welcomed by the organizers and it was a pleasure to see Rajasthan’s Chief minister, Vasundhara Raje Scindia, inaugurating the space along with industrialists Subhash Chandra Goel and Anand Mahindra. What Subhash Chandra Goel said resonated deeply with me, about not running after profits and money but to take time out for thinking and retrospection. Taking time for rejuvenating self and its awareness by being with Saraswati, instead of Lakshmi. This thought that he brought forward made me aware that probably the Indian Industrialists are also working towards permaculture, where working with nature is important. I remember as a young auditor visting one of Essel Propack’s plant in Wada, owned by Mr. Goel and was aghast to see the mound of plastic behind the factory. It had shaken me to know that this rejected plastic was majorly put underground, which killed any vegetation on that land. From that day to this day, I hope the proximity and care towards nature has increased, and what he was saying was not merely lip service.

William Dalrymple journeyed down the memory lane, and remembered the first time they had such a gathering there were only ten to fourteen people and today this is a global event. While I couldn’t make out easily, which countries the people and author’s belonged to, the outside speakers were mostly from Britain and America. Also with my limited knowledge as I attended only two days of the festival, I also didn’t observe any Blacks in the gathering. Also eminent Hindi writers were not present nor introduced. I came to a conclusion that this was an Awesome English Literary festival, with a flavor of India.

My Odd Neighbour

I have a neighbor, who doesn’t talk to me. She and her husband look through me, as if I don’t exist. This was not always the case, and there were times about two years back, where we shared good neighbor relations. Until one day she decided not to return my greeting or smile that I shared with her one morning. That whole day I wondered what had gone wrong and blamed myself for having done something, which I may not have ben aware of. I cursed myself for having unknowingly hurt her. I kept smiling and greeting, without getting any response for quite some time. I was disturbed by the pattern and decided to confide in a friend about my issue. Now little did I know that this new friend of mine had panache for drama. She decided on her own to confront on behalf of me, she went ahead to speak to my neighbor about the response that I had been receiving. I was taken aback when I learnt about this from my friend and told her to keep away from such matters and decided not to open up to her about my personal issues. I also thought it would be appropriate to make peace with my neighbor, and directly ask her, what could have gone wrong?

When I knocked on her door, her servant open the door, I waited for around five minutes before she appeared. I asked her, if I could come in and talk to her. She nodded and we sat. When I asked her if everything was, Ok, she said, of course, there is nothing that could go wrong. After a few moments she helped me realize that I had forgotten her birthday, and also did not wish her husband one time. I was taken aback but went ahead to say Sorry. Also mentioned that I can’t remember birthdays and even my mother has similar issues with me. I said thanks and hugged her for have supported me in my realization.

Everything went fine for a couple of months, but again she stopped responding to me. In fact she would turn her back or not face me at all. Even today if she sees me in the elevator she would rather walk the stairs up than take that elevator. It find it strange, but I have now grown. I feel no need to beat myself up and I still forget birthdays. So if I am happy being the way I am, it is perfectly fine for me to have her choice of response.

I do find it odd, but I am definitely not running behind any explanations, not from me and not from her. I am happy that we are able to live adjacent to each other, without the burden of owing anything to anyone.

For a long time I worked with my shadow to see, what is in me that I was projecting on her. Then I came to peace, that there are parts of me, which I will not understand and it is ok, not to. I found completion in my incompletion, just like Amravati the lead protagonist of my upcoming book.

Amravati

Amravati sat in a corner, knees folded at her bosom and her long hands tightened into a hug as she cradled herself between sobs. Her brown and grey hair was tousled and soft curls framed her petite tear stained face. Her black- brown cloudy eyes were full of remorse and hurt…her wrinkles told tales of a life long lived, the harshness of her features showed the struggle that life had been. Her whole body looked beaten by the whip of time. She gently blew her nose on the crumpled beige cotton saree wrapped around her tiny frame. As she did so, a thread of the well-worn saree got entangled with her nose ring. She squinted her eyes and struggled to remove it, a curse left her parched lips. She kept muttering to herself as the thread refused to give up on the nose ring; it was getting painful while she kept tugging on the thread. Amravati got up and slowly moved towards the window where some light was filtering in, she continued to concentrate on the task at hand. The room was shadowy with very little light. It had a musty smell due to lack of ventilation, and probably it was closed for a long time. The grey paint was chipping off in every corner; the floor was a cold concrete without tiles. There was one small plastic table with a deformed steel jug and an aluminum plate with hard Roti on it. There was only one small wooden window, which opened a little. Opening this window was difficult and then it became a huge task to close it at night if you wanted to ward off the bitter cold that forced itself in. The door to the room was large, with heavy thick chain to lock it both from inside and out. There was a sigh of relief, which echoed gently in the room as Amravati successfully rescued her beautiful nose ring from the tugging thread of the pathetic old saree.

The Conscious Marathon

I was introduced to the concept of a Marathon by my sister ten years back. She had registered me in a city Marathon to give her company. It was funny as I remember wondering, what am I running for, It said some Charity, but I still wondered, Why would I run for Charity? Anyways, I gave up and followed my sister. My sister’s friend Kabir was supposed to have our number tag, but as we were couple minutes late, we learnt that, Kabir had run ahead with our number tags. So it was early morning, there were thousands of people running, which reminded me of a gentler version of the European bull fighting festivals. We stood watch the hordes run and Kabir ran with our tags.

My sister was upset, that she couldn’t run. I felt sorry too. But I realized that a part of me was very happy that I didn’t have to run, I didn’t need the tag to run. My sister found her Marathon later that year and she ran. Seven years post that incident, I ran two back to back Marathons, and felt a sense of achievement, almost felt like I had become part of a new community, a community of runners. It was so cool to have run a Marathon.

Running a Marathon almost gives you a feeling of a community that runs together for a cause, similar to a Tribe that dances together. The only difference is that there are too many Marathons happening and no community dances happening at least not at the scale of an marathon. Also Marathon posters carry sponsorships and charity causes, I wonder, what does that signify?
Could it be, because people don’t run without a cause. they are either running for something, running away from something, or running towards something? What are you running for?

If not sure, a Marathon could actually be a Morothon- a Marathon for morons, I have been there so I know. How could I have run better, faster, in lesser time? Are we present to our body and running with mindfulness? or a mass energy is making us run? Are we listening to our body or just want to punish ourselves? or looking for acceptance and belonging? “I will accept my body only, when it has run forty two kilometers”. “I will feel good about myself only, when I have completed this run in so much time”. So much harshness in self-acceptance and dissonance with self-love.

This insight is not created by me, but by events and circumstances that I was a witness to. There is an extreme competitive spirit that a Marathon evokes, it creates an energy to prove self-worth. The language of a Marathon is generally involves, focus, benchmarking, target, threshold, keep going, don’t stop, conquering the body.

Two years back I went for a marathon with my neighbors, who parted to go ahead and focus on their run. I ran at my own leisurely pace, with my husband running besides me and chatting with me about various things. He was not participating, but thought it was a great idea to just run besides me, I love him for these little things he does. I ran a ten kilometer Marathon and after I finished, I met a school friend also a Marathon participant and stood chatting with her. She told me she was waiting for her boss who was doing a twenty one kilometers marathon, she asked me if I would wait too. I decided I would wait with her and catch up on old times. We waited for about half an hour and when her boss didn’t arrive, we went our ways. Almost fifteen minutes after I reached home, my friend called me to inform that her Boss had collapsed and died on the spot. He was well trained, young and a sports person. He had no previous records of any ailment. It was his birthday. He had finished a twenty one kilometers Marathon. It took me sometime to recover from the shock. The reason that I share this story is to remind myself that life is beautiful and don’t just run by it.

Sight of several thousand people running evokes the sight of an corporate rat race, sponsored by corporates and most of the runners are unaware of why they are there?

I enjoy running my marathons; they remind me of my childhood days. High energy spurts almost make me giggle as I run. I watch the colorful display of pants and jackets running in front of me. I feel sad for the guy panting and running adjacent to me almost looking depressed, as if he is losing something, if he can’t make it till the end. I enjoy listening to conversing college girls as they slow run. Then there is that man who stops every one kilometer to pick a banana. One really fat aunty with a really fat uncle who ran and stop, ran and stop and smiled at all those who ran past them. I love to see familiar faces meeting and crossing lanes to hug and give a high five.

I love Marathons which evoke self-love and create a human community full of compassion and consciousness.

Image Courtesy: http://www.yomommaruns.com/2012/03/spirit-of-marathon.html

The Balance of Effort and Ease

Have you heard the story of an Ant community, which lived and worked happily until a Grass hopper thought of doing a study to make the system more efficient. So he hired a Cockroach as a manager. The Cockroach had a secretary to do all the back end work that the cockroach thought was important. They then hired an auditor to make sure all the paper work was done properly. They hired a Supervisor to follow the routine activities of the ants. The ants were now always under stress and tension of completing the work, which earlier used to be effortless for them.

Effort, I believe is overrated in several ways. Anything that comes with ease doesn’t seem to have the same value, as something else that you have broken your back for. This is a very strong belief system that most of us hold. Whilst it is true that some things may need effort, it is once in a while important to see whether it is ‘our need’ to put effort or the situation really demands it.

Whether you open and respond to all your emails the whole day or you set out two hours each day to respond to your emails is a choice that you can make. There will not be much difference in the result yielded hence. Many processes are so simple that they can be done very easily and sometimes all you need is a click in this computer savvy world. However you will see many people putting in a lot of effort in very simple things. Example, people would travel long distances for a meeting, where a Skype would save time, money and effort. Ok, for some meetings you may need that personal touch, but believe me you, for most others it is just your belief system that is dragging you around to meet people personally. The probability of success is almost the same in both personal as well as meeting over Skype. Well this is just one type of example. There are others where, due to our value or need for contribution, we just go all the way to prove ourselves, where something could be easily delegated. I have seen people go through several proposals and rounds of negotiations and then closing at a rate, which you realize is not worth the value of time and effort spent on the activity. In organizations this is more rampant as showing that effort is needed can buy more time, it can get more budgets and resources, and meanwhile the stone doesn’t fall too far. To show that something is simple or easy is actually counterproductive for most of the people working in organizations. The organizational systems seem to value effort more that ease. If something is being done with ease and comfort can actually psyche the people around. When you look stressed and putting in a lot of effort, you get valued as a team member as well. I remember a incident when I was working with a consumer goods giant. There was a ingredient, which had failed a test. Everyone was focusing on the problem and kept looking at how we can correct the ingredient. More than two man days of top manager meetings were held to brainstorm next steps. When I came to know of the issue, I had laughed and suggested there was no need to correct the ingredient through expensive processes. The ingredient was perfect to make an alternate product. The idea was immediately implemented and the ingredient used in another product line, without much ado.
I have always been a person of ease, as I am very possessive about my time and for me self-care is a value which I have developed over years. I know the value of effort and I know it is important. But doing a cost-benefit analysis has always helped me decide where to put effort and how much. Another question, which I ask myself often is, what could be a simpler way of doing this?
To find a balance between effort and ease is important, as experiencing both creates a flow of energy, which makes even effort easy.

Few questions which you can use to find your balance of Effort and Ease:
1. What is the Purpose of this?
2. How is it connected to my Purpose?
3. What am I trying to prove?
4. Is it worth my time and effort?
5. How can I do it in least possible time?
6. How can I simplify it?
7. What is at stake?
8. Who are the beneficiaries?
9. At this time you may find your solution or you can loop back to question 3.

Initially this process itself will look a little cumbersome, but soon you will realize that even if you have used this process twice in your Effort and Ease balance, it becomes a part of you. It will happen with Ease.

So best of Luck in finding your Balance!

Image Courtesy: http://underthebluedoor.org/2014/04/17/grant-me-the-stormy-seas-over-a-life-of-ease-the-toil-and-madness-of-a-life-of-effort-and-adventure-and-meaning-the-safe-harbor-is-not-for-me-not-for-long-let-the-fearful-stand-at-the/

Love, Hate and Friendship

The emotion of Love, is one of the first emotions that most of us receive as children. As children we share our emotions freely and express it constantly, sometimes to the distress of our parents. Our parents and society in general don’t know how to deal with our emotions, so we get conditioned into not expressing certain parts of ourselves. It is the expression that nurtures us and provides us a sense of belonging and wellbeing. Love becomes a source of motivation and energy as we grow, and start to experience life, we keep searching and looking for it in all the spaces we touch. But Love in real life is not absolute, it is difficult to appreciate the depth of love without experiencing intensity of hatred. In this journey of love and hate the quest is to find a balance and acceptance of both within ourselves. To say I am full of love but do not experience hatred is like saying, that an object in light can be without a shadow. In this blog I am considering hatred as an shadow of love, but I do not refute that it could be vice versa. The full potential of love can be experienced with the complete experience and acceptance of hatred. Most of us remain in the cusp, not experiencing either of the emotion in its full intensity. Sometimes we are scared of what will manifest if we were to really experience these emotions fully inside of us. So we live in an obscure denial of our own emotions and feelings, safe in superficial conversations, which are easy to deal with. We are constantly searching for a high. We drink, smoke, take drugs to experience a high on life, but once the effect of these extraneous agents has dissipated we are back into the devastating grind of routine. We remain unaware of the fact that acceptance and experience of our emotions fully can give us a natural high that our souls crave for.

The expression of hatred or love towards something or someone attracts attention, unnecessary perspectives and interpretations, which we are not ready to deal with, so there is no authentic expression. We lack confrontational skills and ability to deal with its after effects and we can’t let go. Even in best of friends, we play safe, anything that will attract any attention is kept out of conversations, except when it is about someone else. Someone who is not present. We also don’t discuss, ourselves enough, our feelings, thoughts, observations of self, amongst friends. I don’t want to sound like a boring purist in this context, so yes we all enjoy some gossip and creative bitching, but only that and no sharing of self reflections, kind of takes the awareness out of the friendship. Consciousness of who we are, sharing that consciousness with our friends can make a friendship deeper and more nourishing. Bringing awareness of love, hatred and other emotions that we experience can increase the dimensions of our interactions with our friends. Embracing our friends for who they really are and what they experience can enrich our life and get us to a energy high, that no drink can bring.

In this New year I pray to God to gift me and all my friends

The Courage to face our fears,
The Courage to share our sorrows,
The Courage to ask for love to heal the hurt,
The Courage for compassion to deal with our anger,
The Courage to show our Joy in its full magnificence,
and finally Self-Love.

Image Courtesy: http://lileviljess.deviantart.com/art/Love-and-Hate-213470998

Is Aggression Necessary?

It is easy to judge aggression from outside and difficult to own aggression within. Yesterday was a strange yet significant day. I was home all day immersed in my paintings and doing household chores, until a woman from the neighborhood knocked on my door. She said that my son had hit her son and she was there to make me aware. I was a bit upset with my son and I called him in front of the complaining mother. My son just said it was a mistake and he is sorry and went into his room. After the woman and her kid and a few other neighboring kids who were accompanying her left. I sat down to calm myself. I know my son as being a extremely composed child, and wanted to know what had actually happened that led him to hit another child. When I entered his room he was crying and was very angry, upon enquiry he said, “Do you know that boy troubled and killed a poor Grasshopper?” That Grasshopper was my friend. I told that boy don’t hit my friend, but he stamped on him, and I couldn’t stop myself and by mistake punched him on his stomach. I am sorry.” I realized that my son was giving me an important lesson, on aggression.
One, when aggression is done on someone of something that can’t speak for itself, aggression will go unnoticed, how much ever the degree of aggression. This doesn’t mean that in someway it won’t come back and hit us. Be aware of all such aggression.
Two, There are different types of aggression, one which comes from the conscious judgement of right and wrong. This gets deeper when there is a subconscious need to prove our right as right and subjugate all that we see as wrong. Another when there is past suppressed aggression (could be a byproduct of first type) waiting to be vented and third is picked up aggression, this aggression is ignited by others aggression, we pick it up without realization. This is usually seen in mass violence.
The third lesson is to be aware of the aggression inside of you, only that can help you relate to the aggression outside. Else the world will seem like a brutal place where every one has to be aggressive for survival.

Why Sabbatical is Necessary For a Leader

If you have been in a Leadership position for more than five years and you haven’t taken a sabbatical, might mean that you and your team is not in a good mood. Sabbatical is a long leave, where you just rest and are away from the otherwise daily routine of life. A sabbatical is an important part of career as it helps you either hone the skills required for reaching higher positions, find another career path for yourself, travel the world, or just be with yourself and relish your company. It is like a recharge time, where you may find your abundant childlike energy, to rejuvenate your career. It helps you create a healthy atmosphere around your space, where you seem more present and aware. If you have a leader who doesn’t believe in taking time off, then you will feel like you are in a hamster’s wheel. Always in a illusion of moving forward but staying where you are. Strange but true most of us spend our lives in the illusion of moving forward and are always very busy doing it. This illusion provides us some sort of a daily purpose and keeps our grey matter active. The only flip side is that we never come to know what happiness truly means, what freedom truly means, we don’t even realize our multifaceted personality, which gets submerged into a mundane monotony. A Leader, who takes necessary sabbaticals and keeps himself energized, connected and happy can create a much happy atmosphere for himself and his team. Such leaders can bring in new thought processes and ideas, they do not believe in unnecessarily punishing themselves to a relentless mechanical life.

Sabbatical is a natural rest process, which is also given to the Earth, when farming is halted, so that the land can refresh and rejuvenate its minerals and nutrition. A land, which has had a sabbatical gives much more harvest than land, which has been depleted of all its nutrients and has to be boosted with chemical fertilizers and nutrients. A leader’s Sabbatical is like a Vision quest, which may help the leader deepen his/ her understanding of self and nurture the soul. When such a Leader comes back he/ she brings back compassion, enthusiasm and deeper wisdom to the work place.

The Unseen Mistake of the Leadership

There is a common mistake, which has been repeated time and again and still can’t be worked out. It is the “Control” that all leaders seek in organisation. Whether it is a project or a routine report, whether it is top line or the bottom line, the only anxiety in business is how can I “control” it all? With the control anxiety at the subconscious level, the source of every organizational behavior is “Fear”. Is “Fear” all bad? No, not really, it helps us to do some risk analysis, if we can look at ourselves and the business objectively. But we hardly have time for any objective risk analysis, which can be used in Strategic planning. Instead we get into a frenzy of activities, which will help us put off the perceived fire. Everyone becomes a fire fighter and Leaders get into a competition about who is the “Hero”. The behaviors of the “Hero” are listed as follows:

1. They generally would walk very fast towards a meeting hall, looking as if on a mission.
2. They would exude a passion and talk highly of the organisation and top leadership.
3. Generally will talk very fast and grow up the career ladder even faster.
4. They would stay back late and sacrifice family for work. Will expect his/ her team to do the same.
5. They would talk about Leadership and delegation to their Juniors and act as if they are doing a great contribution to their subordinates life, just by being empathetic.

These leaders know exactly how the perceptions of people work and they cash on them amply. These leaders may show results by pushing all the right buttons at the right time, however do not uproot the core organizational issues. Infact there may not be enough time for that, as everyone is busy with showing numbers.

The “Real talk” goes missing and those who validate the Leadership, stay and others leave, or get suppressed and unproductive. The employees with perspective very different from the leadership, are not often encouraged as, superiors themselves seek validation of their ideas. This insecurity is unreal and often is a primal survival instinct. As humans we see ourselves a certain way, we are always checking if others also see us in the same light, and when they don’t we are upset, and when they do, we can relate to them. Today’s leadership will have to grow beyond these psychological entrapments and have conversations which are courageous. Conversations and perspectives, which will help us look beyond the “Fear”, would help organizations grow, not only financially but in spirit. Pushing issues under the carpet, is not a great idea, as anything pushed under carpet for a long time will create a fishy smell. Anybody entering the organisation can actually smell that. The organisation may grow well financially but the inside “rot” will keep the honest and sensitive leaders out of bounds.

Some organizations are now understanding the importance of straight talk and implementing certain systems to bring collective perspective, however this is at a nascent stage. The “Fear” still continues to drive most organizations, and in Maslow’s law of hierarchy most well known organizations are still at the lowest level and in complete denial of it.