ALL THAT WILL REMAIN IS A BBM UPDATE...

I was in sunny Cape Town and about 3 hours behind India, time-wise… So when I woke up that morning, I was surprised to see that my BBM was inundated with the same update over and over. Everyone was talking about Dev Saab’s sad demise… Some had his song lyrics as their status messages, others used a quieter, ‘RIP Dev Saab’, to pay tribute to him. But each and every person I knew back home was feeling the loss. And here I was, in a land far, far away from home… Amongst people who maybe had heard of Dev Anand, but in most likelihood had not, and were detached from his death… Unaffected and uncaring. As the morning turned into afternoon, the BBM updates turned to the mundane for fodder. Work stress, deadlines, schedules, joys, sorrows and fights demanded attention. And the time for mourning was clearly over. The world was moving on, minus one amazing man this time. And as I sat on the beach, looking at the sky above me, I couldn’t help but wonder… Is this what is to become of us all? That no matter how amazing someone’s journey, a common fate awaits us all at the other side of the finishing line… To become just another BBM update?

Dev Saab was a man possessed by the art of film-making and his love for cinema... For him, the celluloid world was far more real, more his own, than the physical world we all live in. And he enjoyed his world till the very end… making and talking films till his last breath. All his life, all that he’d ever done was to make films. Good, bad or unbelievable, he’s made them regardless of what anyone thought. And as I sat in Cape Town, away from Mumbai and the life that I have here, I began to realise that somewhere, we all do this to ourselves.

We become so obsessed with what we do... With our lives… Our existence… Our goals, purposes, wants and wishes, that we forget that there exists a huge world outside the box we call our mind… A universe that doesn’t really know who you are or what you do. A universe that doesn’t care about your achievements or ambitions… We forget, far too easily, that at the end of the day, we’re just a tiny little speck in the universe… And we start believing that the world revolves around the speck that is us. All our time is spent in thinking about what we’re doing and what our lives mean. We get so engrossed, so involved in our lives that we forget the larger picture... we forget that there is more to life than just us. No matter how big we think we are, there will always be a part of the world that doesn’t even know who we are or what we do. They don’t care whether our last film was a hit or not… Whether our client got media coverage or not… Or whether the actor is happy with his clothes or not… They don’t care what’s happening in OUR universe.

One of the things that traveling has taught me is that we shouldn’t take ourselves, our lives, our work and everything around us so seriously… We shouldn’t get so obsessed with it that everything starts revolving around one tiny cog in the wheel… Because when that happens, we tend to blow up and exaggerate that cog’s importance. Everything around it becomes larger than life. We lose perspective. And once you lose perspective, you’re in no way different from a headless chicken that clucks around in all directions.

I’ve witnessed two football world cups and travelled across several countries for it. And some of my most cherished memories from those times revolve around the people that I’ve met while travelling. I’ve met people from those corners of the world that have never even heard of Mumbai or Bollywood. Nor do they want to. I’ve met people who don’t give a damn about Shah Rukh Khan and would look at me like I’d sprouted horns if I started discussing the falling TRPs of shows on Indian TV… When you are in this large gathering of people from all over the world, people who don’t care about the things you do, people whose lives are diametrically opposite to yours, you learn to look at things the way an outsider looking in would see them. And most often, you don’t end up liking what you see. And things that seemed life-altering, stop mattering… The definitions change and the glass casing in which you had unknowingly locked yourself, comes crashing down. It becomes easier to breathe when that happens, doesn’t it? Because the air isn’t thick with the tension of failed expectations, mental pedestals and broken dreams. It is clean and pure. And infuses you with life, instead of sucking it out of you.

But it’s not just work that we use as the hinge for our precarious lives. Our relationships have an equal role to play. We become dependent on the people around us. Sometimes for material gain, sometimes for what they do for us mentally, emotionally or physically. What they say and do and think becomes prism through which we see ourselves. So a lot of our effort goes into acting in a manner that they will approve of. But we forget that our happiness is bigger, and much beyond the scope of what someone else’s perception of us is.

We lead such self-centered lives, don’t we? All we care about is what is happening within a radius of 2 sq. kms of our lives… The people who live there and the work that we do in that area… We obssess about it and make it the centre of our existence. We push ourselves, our bodies, our limits to reach that elusive thing called success… Something that lingers just an inch away from our grasp. We’re constantly climbing the hill, hoping that someday we’ll reach the top, that one day we’ll be on the number one position. We’re forever hungry for that look of appreciation in someone’s eyes… For that pat on the back... Not realising that it doesn’t really matter… Because once you jump out of the fish-bowl and into the pond, you will see a world that you had never imagined. A world where there will always be a bigger fish, a world that will make you realise that you’re just one tiny part of a large, complex, multi-layered eco-system.

No matter what we do, what we achieve and what journey life ends up taking us on, ultimately, it’s all going to come down to a one-line BBM update… And only for a few short hours. So let’s not think that everything begins and ends with us… Because it doesn’t.

I WANT TO BE NUMBER 1 BUT I CANT!!!

Two recent events have prompted me to write this post. Two completely unrelated events, except both the events had two things in common—super successful men and their detractors. Both the cases had men who were at the top of their game on one side; and a bunch of boring, mediocre people whose greatest pleasures in life came from finding chinks in people’s armours, on the other. The eternal pessimists. The clouds that’ll do everything they can to hide the sun.

A few weeks ago Steve Jobs passed away. He was a great, one who can proudly claim to have invented and designed some of the finest gadgets that the modern world has ever known. Here’s a man who came from nowhere and had nothing but his talent, vision and ambition. And yet, he managed to make it to the top, all thanks to his sheer determination and relentless hard work… And yet, within days of his death, the scavengers had come out to party. Almost every part of his life was put under the microscope and scrutinized. Each shortcoming amplified and all achievements dismissed. Newspapers, magazines, websites, the TV, etc. were flooded with unflattering stories about his working style, his arrogance, his unethical business practices and whatnot. He was made to look like a heartless, soulless man with no morals, no ethics. It was like his death had opened up the floodgates for all the people who had a problem with him. And they weren’t about to let this golden opportunity to last out at Steve pass.

Last week saw the release of RA.ONE, a movie that led to an almost uncontrollable outburst of emotions online. Some liked the film and others hated it. Which is understandable. But what astounded me is the venom with which the movie and everything associated with it has been attacked. It is in a league unto itself. Right from SRK’s acting prowess: “over and done with”, to his business sense: “wasted his money on a trashy film”, everyone had something nasty to say. It seems like the hate SRK campaign had taken on a life of its own.

Both these instances made me wonder: why do love to hate successful people so much???

Remember the time in school when the report card was read out? We always had an opinion about the student who came first... For the one who stood second, he was teacher’s pet and was given extra marks... For those that didn’t do as well as they hoped, it was because he spent hours taking tuitions. For the ‘cool’ ones in class, he was a dork. For the unimaginative ones, he was simply lucky. Everyone had a convenient explanation, an external factor that his success could be credited to. There were a million explanations, and none of them were ever flattering. No one could simply acknowledge that perhaps he had studied hard, perhaps he had decided to work as hard as needed to come first in class. Because to do so would mean acknowledging the fact that he was, indeed, special. That he was, in fact, better than the rest. It’s an uncomfortable thought, and so we look for excuses.

We never miss a chance to criticise successful people—whether it is the team that won a cricket match or the boy that the most beautiful girl in college chose to be with. The team must have cheated or the girl must be with him for his money. Aren’t the most enjoyable dinner or coffee table conversations those that are spent dissing the lives of the rich and famous? We love swapping tales of their inadequacies. We love pitting them against each other—who is the most corrupt of them all. We love nothing more than to find out that an actor is an immoral bastard. Or an actress slept her way to the top. Every success story must have an evil, sinister side to it. We must find something fallible even in the strongest of them. There must be some force than can bring even the best man to his knees. It’s sad when people spend their entire lives searching for that one imperfection, that one moment of weakness, when the game-changers can be pushed off their pedestals.

But in the race to see who will lead to their undoing, we often forget, or perhaps don’t care about, the fact that the number one man is human too. And as vulnerable to hurt as any other man. Perhaps more so even, considering the whole world is playing judge and jury to him.

Perhaps that is the reason that the population of hyenas and jackals is ten times the population of tigers and lions in a jungle. It’s only when the kings of the jungle are slightly vulnerable that the hyenas and the jackals have the courage to come out of hiding and join forces to corner and hurt them. Aren’t we a lot like these jackals and hyenas, always lurking in the shadows, waiting for that priceless nugget of information that will destroy the jungle cats??

Success is difficult... It is elusive and comes to only a select few… very few. We don’t want the successful few to flaunt their cars, their money and their elevated position in life… Why? Because it makes us feel small and brings us face to face with our own mediocrity. But that’s life and we should just suck it up and get used to it…

Why is it that we’re unable to accept that the rich and successful are where they are not because nature conspired against us, but because they somehow karmically deserved it…? If we believe in god, then it was their destiny… If we believe in karma, then it was their good karma that led them on the path of success… Whatever the reason, the fact remains that some people make it and others don’t… And all we can really do is accept and make the best of the life we’ve been blessed with. But we won’t do it. Instead, we’ll look for the sinister side of success.

Whys is success so lonely? Why is it so difficult for the world to handle it and let the person who has earned it revel in it…? Why is it so difficult for us to not be jealous and negative when someone else succeeds?? Are we as human beings incapable of accepting someone else’s success, popularity and wealth? By channelising all our energies on what others have more than us, are we not disrespecting what we do have? Not all of us can be at the peak of the mountain called success. Let’s accept this and respect those who have reached there… Because they have done something to be there… And I’m yet to find a man who wouldn’t want to be there. It’s another thing that most of us couldn’t reach there.

I think the ability to be happy for people better than you, to be able to celebrate their successes without veiled contempt is the true test of a person’s character.

 It reminds me of something I read in Readers Digest a while ago: “It is the mediocre and weak who are cruel… Those with strength are gentle.”

I'll Be There For You...

Some things are just meant to be… This post is one of those things. It was simply meant to be written. For a while now I’ve had a couple of topics on my mind. Yesterday, I knew it was time to put pen to paper but the only thing holding me back was the debate in my head: what to write? I switched on the TV and the answer presented itself. FRIENDS was playing and so the decision was made.

I came back from a trip from Colombo a few days ago… It was a 3-day trip with 3 guy friends… We try and do this once every year. Just take off for a bit, leaving behind our stressful careers, demanding lives and daily struggles. Luckily, things fell in place and we managed it this weekend. And that’s how Tony, Kallu, Sammy and I found ourselves in Sri Lanka. What’s important is not what happened there, but the things that I realized after the trip… About friends and about friendship.

We have so many notions about friendship, ideas about what it should be like and how friends should make us feel… Most of us believe that friends should be there for us, that they must be around when we need them... That our friends know the real us, that they know us… Basically, our idea of friendship is based on everything we’ve heard and read, things that people tell us, things that we’ve learnt to accept as true… We’ve all read enough about friendship, but here’s what I believe friendship ought to be like…

Friendship is about accepting friends the way they are… And yet, being able to tell them what you feel is the right thing to do… And they should have the courage to accept and respect your views… They might not like what you have to say, but you still have to be able to say it… You have to be able to tell them if you think they’re wrong. If you’re scared of saying what you feel, then that’s not friendship… Friendship isn’t conditional. It doesn’t revel in saying ‘I told you so’. Just the way you should be able to express what you feel, even if they’re wrong, they should have the unwavering faith that if they fall, you’ll be there to help them up. That you’ll love them—warts and all—even if they keep making the wrong decisions over and over. Friendship is not about finding the similarities; it’s about learning to accept the differences.

Friendship is about not being embarrassed to be seen with the people you call friends… They might not adhere to what your definition of appropriate dressing and behavior, but that shouldn’t matter to friends… They might not say the coolest or most intelligent things… There might be times when they subject themselves to public ridicule, but those things shouldn’t matter. What matters is that they should make you happy. If they do, then you should be able to stand by them and look like a fool too. Friendship means not stopping friends from being the way they are, no matter what the price of keeping that honesty intact is.

Friendship is about not wanting anything from your friends except themselves… Most of us confuse our acquaintances and lovers for our friends. But there’s a very clear difference between them. We need something from our lovers… We want things from our acquaintances, but friendship doesn’t have such clear-cut rules. We should be able to have friends that we don’t want anything from… They should be able to give us what they can and we should be able to find happiness in whatever little that might be. Expectations lead to pressure and pressure causes rifts… Friends aren’t meant to be at our beck and call all the time… They’re not supposed to have the answers to all our questions… Friendship isn’t about give and take, it’s not a balance sheet that should be closely monitored so that it doesn’t go in the red.

Friendship means not having to be nice to each other all the time… You don’t have to be a standard that has to be upheld, an example for others... We are all mean to the people we love at times… We’re cruel and selfish sometimes. Friendship is about giving your friends the freedom to be all these things. And having the freedom to show the less-than-perfect side of your personality to the people you call friends… It’s about being able to be cruel and selfish and thoughtless at times and being forgiven for it without having to apologize.

What I learnt on this trip was that you don’t have to be on your A-game all the time… You don’t have to put your best foot forward… And you certainly don’t have to be on your best behavior at all times… It’s okay to not always be sensitive to each other… If you have to pretend, pretend with your acquaintances, not with your friends

Friend are also not people we interact with over a season and lose touch with.. even if you lose touch with a real friend you can pick up from where you left off…..some  people come into our lives cause we needed them at that time or worked with them at that time and then they move on…friendship is like a single malt you have …it takes time and a lot of hard work to reach that taste….seasonal acquaintances are like rum and coke..great flavor when you consume it but it would  not have that lingering after taste that a single malt will give you

I’ve also learnt that as we grow older, it becomes tougher to make new friends… People are less tolerant of you… People have lesser time to give to you… You get one shot at everything. If you’re very lucky, you get two, but no one gives you more than that. Which is why most of us stop making friends after a certain point in our lives... We make acquaintances… Collect people around us and then we learn to tolerate them. We laugh with them, hang out and party with them, but they’re not our friends.

I think we use the term ‘friends’ too freely… We fling the word around to carelessly, too loosely. We’re undervaluing our true friends when we do this. They deserve to be differentiated from our casual lovers and acquaintances. So for those amongst us who are lucky enough to have true friends, hang on to them… They’re in short supply.

Permanence is a myth!!!

It’s the biggest fallacy of the human brain and something that never ceases to amaze me: our endless struggle to hold on to everything and refusal to accept change and move on.

We want the world around us to never change. The day should never turn into night, Winters should never go away and summers should never come. We want our children to never grow up and ourselves to stay young for ever. We want all the images that are imprinted on our memories to remain a reality for ever. All we want is permanence, and we spend all our time chasing that impossible dream.

Why are we so afraid to change and let change become a part of us and our lives? Why are we scared to let go of the emotions, people, situations, relationships and everything else around us and allow new ones to take their place? Why are we scared of the unknown? Why don’t we embrace the new, instead of holding on tight to everything that already exists? Is it just the comfort of familiarity? The false sense of security that comes with the knowledge that you’ve been there, done that and lived to tell the tale? I think that the very fact that you’ve lived to tell the tale should make you want to open your palms and let the rain soak you, instead of diving for cover the second you spot grey clouds.

It’s like our old tooth brush and the t-shirt we sleep in… They give us a sense of comfort and familiarity. We know that no matter what else changes in the world while we’re asleep, when we wake up we’ll find these two just where we left them last night. Don’t we treat people, our emotions and life somewhat like that old sleeping t-shirt? We hold on to them because they help us make sense of the madness, sometimes despite the fact that we know it’s time to let them go…

We all hold on to people and our relationships, hoping against hope that they will never change, that everything around them--the way they make us feel, the sense of belongingness--remains permanent. The way they look, the way they behave, the way they react to us… Everything that will made us feel comfortable and gave us a sense of well-being is held on  to very fiercely by us. Mothers do it to their children, couples do it to their better halves and friends do it to each other… We refuse to accept that people have changed, are changing and will always change. And we almost never appreciate the change. We know that life will change. Our wants, dreams and desires change all the time. Then why do we fight the inevitable? Why is it so hard to accept the change?

Our biggest complaint against people is, invariably, “You have changed”, or “You are not the same person anymore”. Life moves on and we grow older, but when it comes to relationships and people, we often live in our pasts. Our bodies might live in the present, but our mind is filled with thoughts of what was. We want to have the same people around us and feel the same emotions always. We fight ourselves and everyone around us so that we can keep living the dream, but it doesn’t really work that way… and ultimately, we are saddened by the change. All because we couldn’t bring ourselves to befriend it, to look it in the face and give it a chance. Instead, we make it out to be a monster, let it disturb us and bother us till we break down.

Life is a journey of constant change and charting new territories. If it was possible, we’d have loved to be presented with the blue print of our lives when we were born. If we could, we’d remain young forever… Live in the same house, have the same friends, love one person and grow old with them. But isn’t the fun of life in going into the unknown and exploring the unexplored? In discovering a new jungle, finding the pond in the middle of the desert and reaching a destination you hadn’t yet imagined…?

Change is what makes life so much fun, makes it an adventure, a trip that is unpredictable. Change is what makes me want to open my eyes every day, knowing that a surprise awaits me and I just need to get out of my bedroom and make it mine. True, sometimes the surprises aren’t as nice as we might have wanted them to be. Sometimes it seems like ‘this’ wasn’t worth the effort of waking up, but I still wouldn’t want to take away that control from life. Because nasty surprises are like a curveball that life throws our way, and we could all do with a little practice on our swerves.

Don’t let change bother you… The lack of it should be the worrisome fact. If we embrace it and treat it like a buddy that will always turn up at unexpected and sometimes inconvenient hours, change can actually be a lot of fun. It brings with it a newness which makes for interesting living…

We have to accept that everything around us will change one day or the other, that nothing can ever remain exactly the same… Days will turn into nights, seasons will change and no matter how hard we try, we will never be 21 again..No matter what the beauty ad’s claim:)

To Say Or Not To Say

I wanted to say it so much and then finally I did… I missed her and I wanted to see her. I had held back, not wanting to say it… But then I finally decided to take the plunge… What happened after that is irrelevant… What’s important is that I was afraid to say it… To say what my heart was feeling, to express my emotions. It’s the question that plagues us all—To Say Or Not To Say.

One of the things that has always been a topic of debate, and for many of us a problem in most of our relationships, is our inability to say what we feel… To express our thoughts and to let the other person know what’s going on in our hearts and minds, regardless of whether it’s good or bad… We’re afraid to tell people when we miss them or when we love them, all because we fear the consequences of our words. We almost never say things the way we feel them, the way they are...

Whether at work or in our relationships, we’re always holding back for fear of getting hurt and having our hearts trampled on. Work, I can understand… It’s a political world with as many egos as there are people, so keeping your mouth shut about how you really feel might be a good idea, but should we do the same in our relationships and in matters of the heart?

Why are we so afraid to tell a person that we care about him or her, and want to be with him or her? Why are we so afraid to tell people when we miss them? When we love them? Why are we so afraid to open up heart and let someone see it?? Is it for the fear of it being broken and not being appreciated…? Why do we let the fear of rejection paralyse us? Why are we so averse to experience even a little bit of hurt? We want to love, we want to be loved, but we don’t want to be hurt… We simply never want to be rejected… We are afraid of showing our vulnerability and are scared of being emotionally manipulated… We’re scared of  hearing something we don’t want to know... All valid fears, I agree. But should those fears be allowed to become bigger than our feelings? Should we keep holding back, keep preempting and gauging the possible reactions to what we say before we express ourselves? Should we keep waiting till we’re sure that our feelings and questions will meet a positive response? Is it even possible to do that?

We can’t eliminate the possibility of getting rejected or hurt or not getting a favourable response… Because love and life don’t come with guarantees. Life doesn’t always pan out the way we want it to, nor do feelings always listen to reason. We can’t manipulate how someone thinks or what they might say... But that shouldn’t stop us from saying what we want to... If you miss someone, say it… If you want someone, say it… If you love someone, say it… Those are your feelings, they’re positive emotions and they should be expressed, if you’re feeling them. You shouldn’t be held back by thoughts of what the response is going to be, or the fear that they will make you vulnerable… Because it’s always better to say what you’re feeling than to not say it at all… There is no love without hurt, there is no emotion without the heart feeling somewhat vulnerable. But some risks are worth taking. We all fear rejection and heartbreak, and so we hide our true thoughts. But sometimes, unless we take that leap of faith and say it, we miss being with the one person that our heart wants… If only we had found the courage within ourselves to just say the words… We lose a friend we could have saved, if only we’d picked up the phone and told him that he was special, or we miss hearing the words ‘I love u too’, because we could never get ourselves to say 'I love you' in the first place. Hurt and rejection and exposing your heart to vulnerability is all a part of living… Say it… Because regret is the worst feeling to live with… Worse than rejection even. 

MAIN KAUN HOON

Happy Independence day... A wave of messages, or something akin to that, comes our way every 15th August. People proclaiming their love for India and how proud they are to be Indian… Not a bad emotion at all. We all love being Indian--the same way a man born in Australia loves being Australian, or a man born in Kenya is proud to be Kenyan... We're all proud of our identity!

What makes a person’s identity? What are the things that define our being and the life that we lead on earth. Our name... It defines what we are to be called for the rest of our lives... Our religion… It defines our way of life... Our culture... It defines our thoughts and practises… Our sex... It defines our emotions, our approach to relationships and our morals… And our country... Which pretty much defines our entire personality. So it's Name, Religion, Sex and Country... I am Samar Khan, a man born in the Islamic faith and of Indian origin. So this definition will govern almost everything that we set out to do or be in our life… But isn’t it ironic that none of this is given to us by choice, that all these labels come to us as a matter of chance… Or destiny... Something we have no control over.

No one asks us for permission before giving us a name, something that will become our calling card for the rest of our life... Something which will become the badge of our identity for ever… A newborn can't decide which country he or she should be born in, it all depends on the nationality of his parents and the choices they have made... A baby can't decide in the mother's womb the sex that he or she wants to be born as, or the religion he or she should follow for the rest of his or her life. An unborn has no control over his name, religion, sex or country, but it is these very things that will decide his identity for his entire life. And we fight so hard to protect the values that these identities represent… We are always fighting for the values of our country, we are always guarding the virtues of our religion, extolling the virtues of our sex and feeling proud of our name. We make these four labels the pillars of all our beliefs... Of all that we stand for and all that is dear to us. But do we ever stop and think, even for a moment, that we actually had no contribution in adopting these pillars of our beliefs? We didn’t have a choice in becoming who we are. And yet, we fight so hard to hold on to them.

Then shouldn’t we at least try and break the boundaries set by our name, religion, country and sex? Shouldn’t we be trying to explore who we really are deep inside and what we stand for? And does it really matter whether we’re Indians, Muslims, men or women or what our names are??? Why should it matter to anyone? And why should we be defined by something that we had no control over ??

We spend our entire lives protecting the sanctity of who we are and fighting to hold on to our values. But in reality, these values don’t belong to us. They never did. Lets not get stuck with values that have been given to us through an accident of birth. Values need to be a product of our own thoughts and choices, decisions and our reactions to their consequences. Allow the mind to explore lands beyond the ones we have inherited. Lets at least try not to let these boundaries restrict us. Let us not allow our religion, country, sex or what our name means to shackle us. Instead, lets break free from those thoughts and ideas and be willing to explore what lies beyond the four pillars of our identity…

And lets not take these pillars so seriously please!! Let it not matter what country we are born in, or what religion we follow, or what our name or sex is… Because they were never yours, they were simply given to you. 

Heart Dead or Brain Dead...

It’s the classic debate, follow the heart or follow the head… Should we do things that the heart tells us to do, or let the brain analyse every situation and then make a decision... Which organ of our body should govern the life that we lead ... The heart or the brain??... Hmmmmmm... BTW have you ever thought about why even medical science has also, despite all its efforts, been unable to keep a man alive if his heart stops beating??? A person can be brain dead and still be alive, but he can't survive if he is heart dead!!

Why do we live?? What is the great desire that pushes us every day to wake up and live another day… Experience all that life has to offer... Isn't it to be able experience happiness?? Joy?? Excitement??? That rush of adrenaline when you see, feel or do something new…? We all live for that and for many of these moments... We all want to be able to experience what we call happiness and joy. And everything we do leads us to that… But what feels those emotions? It's definitely not the brain, because the brain has been made to analyse, not feel... It is meant for data collection and analysis, calculations and caution... Not to feel, not to experience joys and sadness.. Victory and defeat, the ups and downs in life... That is something that only the heart can do… It feels the smiles of joy and the tears of sadness… It is the heart that tells us when we are happy and when we are sad, and decides what makes us happy and sad... The brain can only count the pros and cons… I am sure we all, somewhere inside, know all of this... We know it but we choose to forget… But why?? I feel it's because we are fearful of the sadness, the defeat and the downs… We are afraid because we want only the bright side of life to always be on our side... We only want the sunshine and the roses without the thorns… But that’s not going to happen, and we all know that... Then why do we not embrace the sadness, the hurts, the defeats and the downs and make them our own too??? Many of us are unable to handle them because we don't understand these feelings... We don’t want to welcome them and aren't ready for them… But what if we prepared ourselves?? What if we just said fuck it, lets get hurt... Lets be prepared for the defeat and lets not be scared of the dark… Remember the first time you were left alone in a dark room.. It was scary as hell and you couldn't wait to get out... But then you got used to it and the darkness became your friend... And now, sometimes you look forward to that darkness…
We dont accept any of them because the brain has told us that getting hurt is WRONG, losing is WRONG and sadness is WRONG. And we've  and tuned ourselves to believe the brain… There is nothing wrong in feeling anything because all feelings have to be embraced, accepted and then let go of... Would we rather turn ourselves into robots and not feel anything at all? Would we rather become analytical machines that are only capable of calculations and making lists of what's right and wrong about all choices we're contemplating? Isn't it better if we let our feelings guide our actions. Wouldn't it be better if we just went all out and accepted that love brings hurt? That playing a game will bring either a win or a defeat... That there will be joy, and there will be sadness… Wouldn't it be better if we don’t let the negative feelings come as a complete surprise to us, that we're ready for them and we face them and then let them go...? Is it not better to live life, experiencing everything that it has to offer, rather than just sitting in a corner and not experiencing anything, because the brain has told us in its infinite wisdom that the cons outnumber the pros…?

If God wanted us to follow our brains, he would have given us a blueprint of our lives when we were born and told us to follow that path and that path alone. He wouldn't have given us a heart that allows us to feel the emotions that every action brings and prompts us to do more… We use our brains to earn money so that the heart can feel the joy... We use our brains to study hard and come first so that the heart can feel the excitement… It’s the heart that has to be the driving force in our lives... Sure, we will make mistakes... Sure, we will fall down and get hurt... Sometimes so badly that it takes all our courage to rise again and continue on our path... But don’t let the brain tell you that it's wrong to get hurt and feel sad... It's fine, because only then will we feel happy and can feel the true joy of happiness... If we've never felt emptiness, we can never feel the joy of being with someone...
If Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs and many other “brainy” people never followed their hearts and did what they did, the world would be a poorer place... The heart tells us to take risks and push the boundaries and only then will we ever expand and move ahead...
Lets be brain dead, but never heart dead...

PS: If the brain took all the right decisions, the world economy would not be such a mess, guys... better let the heart make a mistake... At least it will feel it

DAAR LAGTA HAIN TANHA SUNE TO JEE....

A friend of mine just broke up with her boyfriend… For as long as I’ve known her, she’s been in a relationship—some abusive, some bad for her in other ways, and all of them with one thing in common—they’ve all failed her at some point of time or the other. I thought she was finally done with the last one for good but the next minute, she was back with him. She couldn’t even stay away for long enough to wipe the tears and think about what had happened. I wonder why she’d do that, knowing fully well that going back was perhaps not the best choice she’s made, that he and the relationship aren’t doing her any good. When I asked her why, her answer was simple---my friend is afraid of being alone.

So basically, she’s okay with being in a relationship that is bad for her on multiple levels because of the one fear she has been unable to overcome—the fear of being with herself. It got me thinking about all the people out there who are the same as my friend. Because most of us fear being alone. And I call this phobia SELF PHOBIA.

We say that human beings are social creatures, we like the company of people around us and we thrive under attention. We spend our youth making friends and our adult lives surrounding ourselves with people, friends and acquaintances and now, thanks to social media, we’re pretty much connected to the whole world all the time. And in this constant urge to collect and be surrounded by people, and know what’s happening in their worlds, we forget to introduce ourselves to the most important person in our lives—OURSELVES. In the never-ending process of widening our social circle, making new friends and then developing those friendships, we forget to invest in the best friend we can ever have—OURSELVES. Right from childhood, we are encouraged by our parents to make new friends… In school, we’re almost forced to know all our classmates intimately, play, mingle and make friends. We’re never really given the option to stay alone. And those who do choose their own company over others’ are called problem children. Right from then, we’re made to believe that being alone is a bad thing, something to be frowned upon. And we carry that lesson like a heavy bag on the journey of life.

We grow up believing that the more friends we have, the more popular we are… It gives us a sense of power, makes us feel young and invincible, to be the one with the most friends. It gives us a high, knowing that our birthday party will have the largest crowd, knowing that people would much rather hang out with you instead of someone else. We start people like trophies instead of friends. The more we have, the more powerful we feel. Do you even remember in your childhood, during your school-going days when you were alone for more than a couple of hours at a time? Or a time when you weren’t being told to make friends with this boy or that girl because she was so good at studies, or he was so good at sport? At that time, making the right friends was the biggest peer pressure ever, constantly being judged on the basis of the company we keep. The conditioning was so strong, the brainwashing so persistent, that we actually grow up believing that being alone was the worst fate possible, to be seen as an utter failure of our social skills… We start fearing the idea of being left to ourselves because we’re told that only depressive people stay alone, only the unpopular ones live alone and only those who aren’t loved by anyone are left alone… And over a period of time, we start believing in these notions. We make them our holy grail. And being alone becomes synonymous with being unloved.

The more I talk to my friends, the more I realise how scared we are of silence… Because that’s the time when we’re able to listen to ourselves and see our true selves… And that’s an uncomfortable thought. Because we’ve never taken the time out to get to know ourselves, to befriend the person we are. It’s like being left alone in a room with a virtual stranger, a person who has existed in your space forever, but you know nothing of what lies within. Because we’re all too busy making friends and surrounding ourselves with crowds, the larger the better, because there’s safety in numbers.

I wish we’d open our minds to our one true best friend—Us, Ourselves. I wish we could overcome this fear of feeling unloved unless we have a zillion friends around us, and focus on discovering ourselves… I wish we could be okay with spending time with just ourselves without giving in to the crazy urge to connect with the world, always fearing that if we don’t, we might be left out. Would it make our lives richer? I think it would make our relationships stronger, because then we’d know that the relationship isn’t based on the fear of being alone. Our relationships wouldn’t be obsessively clingy, because we’d be okay with keeping ourselves company. They would be healthier, because we wouldn’t be constantly running for cover, finding ourselves under the umbrella of fear. And most importantly, they would be happier, because the need to be in the relationship would be for positive reasons, for the way the person makes us feel, rather than the fear of the negative… The fear of being alone… We wouldn’t spend our lives looking for a partner, simply because we were afraid of being alone when we’re old.

We never spent time with ourselves while growing up, so we never really got the chance to know ourselves. We were never given the chance to make friends with ourselves and grew up being afraid of being alone. But like all fears, this fear can be overcome too. All we need to do is admit that we’re scared and realise that we need to tackle the problem. Don’t be afraid of your own company. I’ve tried it and it’s wonderful… It takes off so many of the pressures of socialising and makes relationships healthier … It is a welcome relief from having to make conversation all the time, just to be able to keep someone else’s interest in you alive… But it’s not worth compromising our real needs for. Compromising ourselves is not worth the bargain.

If only, as kids, we weren’t told that being alone is a bad thing…

Shayad phir darr na lagta tanha sune main jee…

Are you right or left handed ??

She finally did it… P broke the news to her parents that she is a lesbian last week… You’d think that in this day and age, admitting to her sexuality shouldn’t be a big deal for a woman like P. She’s 36 years old, works in a film company and has studied at the London School of Economics. So it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect that such a person would be comfortable with her sexuality… Apparently not. And it’s not that she’s been confused and just figuring things out until now. She knew at 23 that she was homosexual. But it still took her over 13 years to muster up the courage to tell her parents that the reason she couldn’t get married and “settle down” was because she was attracted to women.

She told me this over dinner last week. I’d always suspected it, but the subject never came up. And I wanted her to tell me of her own free will. I’d always thought that this would be one intense discussion; that there would be drama, some hand-holding and an emotional culmination to it all. It was nothing of the sort. She blurted it out over pork khichdi and coke, without any preliminaries or warning. It was anti-climactic, to say the least. Or maybe, I imagined the moment to be a bigger deal than it was because I watch too many movies and read too many books. Maybe these moments are actually meant to happen just like that, when you’re least expecting them.

 We had a long chat after that… about why it took her so long to tell me, why she’d waited 13 years to tell her parents, and so on…. I found out that not many people know about this part of her life. By her own admission, the count stands at only 7. That’s a very small number, considering she’s known for 13 years herself. But given that she’s been hiding her true self from the world, I guess she wasn’t ready to share the information. I’d have never thought of P as somebody who would worry about being judged by friends and acquaintances. She’s always been the well-read, well-travelled, opinionated one. She’s the life of a party and someone you would instinctively turn to in times of trouble. She has a heart of gold, and I can’t imagine why she’d think that her sexuality would overshadow all the qualities that make her the awesome person she is. Why would a person like that fear that their sexuality would become their identity? And in a city like Mumbai, no less. I’ve lived in Mumbai for 17 years, and she’s been here for almost 7 years herself, and I’ve never really thought about it. But P’s admission got me thinking—despite the progressive nature of our lives and the city, are things really simple?

If things were simple and uncomplicated people like P wouldn’t be grappling with basic identity issues. Is it really such a big deal to be gay??? Isn’t it as simple, and as natural, as being either left-handed or right?? I’ve known P for five years. So basically, it took her that long to build up the faith she needed to have in me to be able to tell me such a simple thing. And it took 13 long years to tell her parents. Yes, I can’t get over that fact. And I don’t know how long it’ll be before she decides to stop hiding such a huge part of who she is from the world.

While I was thinking about our conversation, I couldn’t help drawing parallels between her and every other person I’ve known. Including myself. At some level are we not somewhat gay ???Somewhere, deep down, don’t we all do exactly what P has done. Do we really know who we are and what we stand for? And do we accept our reality? How many of us are true to ourselves? Don’t we all, on some level, live the life we project, while keeping the other, lesser attractive parts of us hidden away from plain sight? Aren’t we all as terrified as P to show the world who we are for fear of being singled out, of being judged and found wanting?

We all do it, right? We’ve all hidden parts of our personality that are less than complimentary, the things that we know would make people uncomfortable and make it difficult for us to fit in. I’ve seen smart girls dumbing themselves down to be with the men they like, tomboys turn into dolls and normally nice men act like jerks—all to make the initiation into the ‘It’ crowd easier. No matter how much we try to convince ourselves otherwise, there’s safety in numbers. And at the end of the day, we all want to know what our place in the world is.

A few days ago, I wrote on my FB wall that when you reach a crossroad in life, sit on the pavement and take a coffee break. Since then, I’ve realized how much all of us need that coffee break. Simply to figure out where we’re coming from and where we’re headed. And what we’ve done to ourselves along the way. To strip away the frills and fancy packaging that we’ve wrapped ourselves in and see our naked truth. And to embrace that truth. When was the last time we did that? When was the last time we were brave enough to admit that we might be different, knowing that our declaration might find us standing on the pavement, cold, lonely and friendless? On the outside looking in. It’s true that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. But is the reaction always a good enough reason to withhold the action? It takes real courage to know the consequences and act on our convictions, regardless of the unpleasantness of the consequences. 

This conversation with one of my closest friends made me realize how all of us are hiding something from the world…. Vital portions of our personality that make us who we are, just so that we can lull the other person into the false sense of security that comes with having a person all figured out. And after a while, it becomes too late to break that cocoon, too late to step out of the comfort zone. The stakes are too high and we’ve got too much to lose, so we continue living the half-truths and the superficial life. And eventually, we’re so far removed from our real selves that we’re scared to even look inwards, afraid of what we might end up glimpsing, and worse, not liking what we see.

You had the courage to tell me that you’re left-handed, P… It’s something many of us are still trying to find....

MUMBAI...THE KILLER OF ALL RELATIONSHIPS

17 years… yup, it’s been 17 long years since I moved, bag and baggage, to this city of dreams, as someone called it then… With the hope that one day I will make my dreams come true… Dreams of making it big, of seeing my name flashing on neon signs, of leaving my mark in the city… I dreamt of making a success out of my life, and followed this dream to Mumbai… But while dreaming these bright, glittering dreams, I never, for once imagined that I’ll fall in love here… that I’d find relationships and my life partner here somewhere… I never thought of finding someone I could cherish or care for… Like many before me and countless after me, I came to Mumbai for one reason and one reason alone--I was in a tearing hurry to make my dreams come true. I had to do it before someone took it away from me. We all are in a rush, hoping that we can get there before someone else does. But in the race to reach the finishing line, we forget that there are two parts of our personality; and one without the other leaves us incomplete… Each one of us has a yin as well as yang in our system… A  materialistic part that takes care of the nuts and bolts of our life… And then there is the emotional side, the one that looks after the matters of the heart. Mumbai develops one side of our personalities to the hilt, but kills the other part completely… Or, if not kills then at least stops it from prospering… Everything is possible in this city of dreams, everything, except relationships, that is.

Let’s analyse the breeding ground for a healthy relationship… It needs nurturing, an understanding of the other person and the effort to spend time with each other… and therein lies the biggest problem… TIME, the one thing that none of us have. The city that promises you the moon and the stars robs you of the most precious gift you can give a person--the gift of time. Because all your time is spent in chasing the elusive dream that drew you to the city in the first place. We spend our time taking care of the humdrum of daily life, of trying to keep up with the expenses that increase every year no matter how hard you try to bring them down… Time is taken away in commuting to and fro, by the BlackBerry, by the deadline that is forever looming large… And whatever little time you manage to squeeze out of your our everyday existence, you’re expected to give to your partner. Because even your relationships need time. But in this constant struggle to make time for everything and everyone, we forget to make time for the most important person in our life--ourselves. Time for ourselves to simply sit back and take a breather from life, to switch off your brain and think of nothing at all. And I feel that when we don’t get time for ourselves, we start resenting things that take away the little time we have away from us… our work, our dreams, and, yes, even our partner and our relationship… The cracks start to appear and before we know it, the love that we were trying to nurture turns into something else... We reach a stage where we start blaming our relationship for stealing this precious time from us… I know so many couples where the man and woman have disagreements on what to do on a weekend… It starts with disagreements, snowballs into fights and ultimately ends up killing what made the relationship so beautiful at one point in time… We’d like nothing more than to spend the weekend with the object of our desire when we’re courting the person, but later, we start detesting the forced togetherness, the weekends that we wanted just for ourselves but were made to share. Because we really needed that alone time. Sounds familiar??

Often, our job needs us to be nice to people… Sometimes we need to be nice to perfect assholes that you would rather be rude to and tell them exactly what you think of them… But we can’t. Instead, we spend almost 10 to 12 hours a day being nice to them, simply because our job demands it... And after work, we’re forced to put up with people driving like idiots on the roads. You want to yell obscenities, but all you can do is grind your teeth and wait for the ordeal to get over and you finally reach home. By the time we get back home, the being nice to everyone business has so sapped us of our energies that most of us simply give up. We just don’t have it in us to be nice to anyone anymore. Again, sounds familiar? But that isn’t the end of the story. Because back home, the questions are waiting, loaded and ready to be fired. Why aren’t you being nice today ? Why are you so quiet today? What happened at work today? And the answer to all these questions is just one--I. Don’t. Want. To. Talk. About. It!!! It’s no one person’s fault; but having to be nice to people day after day and week after week sometimes just saps our ability to be nice anymore and that again contributes to the death of a relationship….

Everywhere around this city, all you see is concrete…. Buildings without a heart… Soulless constructions of steel and mortar… Have we also somewhere become like structures of steel and mortar? Beautiful, but without a heart ??? Are we spending so much time feeding the yin in our personality that we’ve forgotten that yang needs nurturing as well? That we need to look after the part that cherishes moments and encourages us to think from our heart, to value more than just the bank balance? I think we have. The city of dreams has no place for the heart and for relationships... Not until we are jolted out of our false reality and made to realise that life isn’t so much about the so-called success or the size of our bank balance. It doesn’t really matter whether you have a 3 or 4 or 5-room apartment, because honestly, we use just about the same space to live in that we did as kids… And we can do without the frills if the heart is in the right place… Just don’t let it turn into concrete…

Kahin building kahin trame
Kahin motor kahin mill..
Milta hain yahan sab kuch bas milta nahin dil …
Yeh hai Bombay meri jaan …

PS: This, I am guessing, is true for many other so-called BIG cities… But hey, I live in Mumbai!

We chase ..we chase …we chase …until we drop dead

The race actually starts even before we are born, because if we weren't the fastest sperm to catch the egg, even birth would not have happened, so maybe it's not a surprise that from that moment onwards, the rest of our lives are spent chasing after one thing after another and our lives turn into this mad race during which we never stop to breathe, never take a moment to enjoy what we have.. enjoy the sights and smells around us and savour the life that we have been given... all because we've been programmed to chase and chase and chase... Till we drop dead.

Don’t you remember the time when we were kids and were taught that we have to chase after the highest position? Our self worth was based on how fast we ran, or how high we finished. How far we left the closest competitor behind, and god help you if you stopped for a moment to enjoy the victory you worked so hard for. No, the chase was on again for the next level, the next position or the next medal.. We were told that standing still and savoring the victory was not worth it, because there were greater goals to be chased down... bigger positions to make our own, higher benchmarks to be reached... And so the chase started again. When we had the toy that we really wanted, we wanted the new toy that came into the market. When we had the newest dress in the store, we wanted the one that someone else had... Because suddenly ours wasn't pretty enough and theirs was way better... when we had the prettiest girl in the class on our arms, we wanted the prettiest girl in the school. Someone or something was always better than what we had and so the chase began again... When we finished at the top of the class, we chased the record that was set by a somebody we didn't even know. But suddenly, beating them became crucial to our happiness…

Why were we never taught that the journey of life is about enjoying the path instead of seeking the thrill of the chase? Why were we, as kids, never explained that it isn't so much about the speed at which you drive yourself on the road of life, but the route that you take and the joy that the journey gives us that truly matters? Why were we never made to understand that life isn't about reaching a pre-decided destination, but about enjoying every moment of that journey, and sometimes about letting the wind blow us in directions and on paths we'd never considered ourselves? When our lives are driven by the compulsive need to chase and conquer, don’t we surround ourselves with negative emotions?? Do we really want to spend our lives looking over our shoulder to see how far behind our closest competitor is? Does it really matter if we reach our goal a few minutes after we thought we would? Why are we consumed with jealously at the thought of  someone overtaking us? Why do we set ourselves up for that gut-wrenching feeling loss and despair if we don’t make it where we wanted to, if we don’t get what we want or finish at the top? It's because we make the destination so important that we forget that the journey was the fun that was to be had ..

We do this chasing in our work, in our relationships and in everything else of significance to us. We simply never stop chasing... From one destination to another, from one dream to another. We run at such high speed from the moment we are born, convinced that if we run fast enough, nothing and no one will be able to catch up. But that isn't quite how it works out, does it. Because one day, life does catch up and demands an explanation... And unfortunately, for most of us, by then it's probably too late. It's at that time that we realise that the summit that has been reached is not the final summit and we have to chase again.. It's at that time we realise that the grey in our hair is not because we savoured every moment of that journey, but because we were just so caught up in running at breakneck speed...

We chase happiness too... We chase the person who we feel will give us the happiness we seek, but what do we do when we get that person? We don’t cherish the moments we have with them, simply because we're programmed to become restless and start chasing for something bigger, something better. Suddenly, that happiness isn't enough and it's imperative that we move on to the next target before we're nudged out of the race. Teach your kids that life is a journey and not a never-ending race... It's about moments and not some finite destination that they must reach... It's about the sights and sounds and smells that are waiting to greet us, if only we let them, by the wayside on the road called life. But we can only enjoy them when we stop running after the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow… Because the pot of gold will never be enough... But what can be enough is the joy that you experience while living that journey... If only you let it.

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving anywhere, because no one knows what the final destination really is...

Relationships come with an expiry date ...Love Shouldn't

I stand in my apartment balcony at 11.45 this Tuesday night and see the twinkling lights of the city in the distance… there's nothing more beautiful and enthralling than the night and a clear sky after a bout of rain that has swept away the dust… I love the night and its beauty... but somewhere inside is the fear of losing it... I know that in a couple of hours, the sun will rise and take this beauty away… It's inevitable… This night, like every other night, is mine for only a certain number of hours... It comes with an end written at the time of its beginning…

Aren't  human relationships something like this night that I'm standing and enjoying in my balcony? What has to start has to end, and what has begun will conclude… Don’t we all know that??? And if we do, then why do we try so hard to hold on to relationships? Sometimes, we try so hard that we suffocate ourselves, making the next breath impossible to take… Why do we allow the pain of a breakup to become so intense that the heart feels like it will stop beating? Is it because we are afraid of loss, or is it because we've not accepted that whatever starts will end, and whatever begins will one day fade away. It's something similar to what we did as children… We all had a toy which we loved the most, much more than all our other toys… We loved it so much that the fear of losing that toy sometimes took away from the joy of playing with it… We hid it from the world, didn't let anyone ever touch it and many of us lost sleep, worrying about what we'd do if someone was to take that toy away from us. The thought was so unbearable, and we spent so much time worrying, that we didn't have enough time to enjoy the toy, to experience the pleasure of playing with it while we still had it. For most of us, that child still lingers somewhere inside. We're still scared of losing the toy to someone or something. And that fear makes us forget that now is the time to play with it, to make the most of it and make the best of the time we have with it. Won't our lives and relationships improve if we simply accept that all relationships come with an expire date, that there will come a day when two people realise that they've enjoyed everything they had to give to each other and have made the most of their time together??? That it's time to finally let the toy go...

Why do we meet people??? Why are we attracted to that one person in the crowd?? I think it's our energy that attracts other energies. My theory is that we're constantly drawn to, and attract people who will fulfill what we are missing in our lives at that point in time... Like yin and yang… A vital part of the energy that'll make us complete is missing and from somewhere in the universe, somebody is sent to complete us… And we complete them… But what happens when that energy is completed and we feel a sense of fulfillment?? Is it time to quietly let go, without pain and recrimination, or draw something out till what was once beautiful becomes distorted and ugly? Because pain is inevitable if we stretch something out even after karma and nature have run its course. When we hold on to karma unnaturally, we cause hurt and grief… A relationship should be a celebration of the time spent together, not a preparation for the pain that it's end will bring with it. Because all relationships come with expiry dates, but love shouldn’t.

As I stand in my balcony, I know that the sun will rise in a few hours and take away my cherished night... But I also know that it will set again, and the night will be back again… It's simply karma; if something is taken away from you, it will come back eventually… At least we can live in that hope… But even if it doesn't, we can still hold on to love… Because it's a feeling that comes with no expiry date… … I was looking up the meaning of the word 'love' and wherever I looked, it didn't mention anything about possession, holding on tight, or keeping something or someone for keeps. All I found was that it's an emotion to be felt deep inside, onei that should liberate, not suffocate... We suffocate our love when we tie it down within the confines of a relationship…

Kaanch ke Khwab hain …

Anknon main chobh jayenge …

Palko main lena inhe …

Anknon main ruk jayenge ..

Yeh raat hain Khwab ki

Phir wahi raat hain

Raat hain khwab ki ..

Dekha karnge tumhe ..

Raat hain khwab ki…

Thankyou Gulzar saab …..