Dair Lagi Par Maine Jeena Seekh Liya

On the outside, she’s just like any other girl. 30, Sindhi, fighting the pressure to marry, settle down, raise a couple of kids… If family could have their way, by now she’d have been parceled off to her husband’s house. But on the inside, Arty is not any other girl. She’s doing what most of us think about, but never get down to actually doing—she’s chasing happiness.

To the world, it might seem like a stupid move. Why would you chuck it all—the comfort of a family home, a steady income and the familiarity of the known? Why would someone voluntarily walk into a future where they have no idea what comes next? And yet, Arty’s doing exactly that. A few days ago, I saw her off with a one-way ticket to Manali. She’ll stay there till the money runs out or until she finds what makes her happy. Why? Because Arty’s decided it’s never too late to be what you might have been. She doesn’t know what’s missing from her life, but she’s figured now is as good a time as any to find out.

Even as little kids, we’ve always worked with a plan. First you work towards getting acceptable marks, “beta, arts ya commerce?”, then towards the university you want to go to “IIT ya IIM?”, then the company you want to work for, at the designation you want to work at. Every step of the way is planned meticulously, with very little left to chance. Love, relationships, family, everything becomes a calculated decision, a cog in the giant wheel called a well-planned life. Somewhere, amid this tearing, pressing need to plan and execute, we lose the will to make a choice. We stop listening to our hearts and give in to our brains. The voice of passion, of excitement and adventure becomes dimmer and dimmer as the voices of reason scream in our ears. So many times, we don’t make life choices, we simply eliminate risk from it. What’s left becomes our life’s path. We don’t give ourselves the option to try 20 things and figure which one we love best, because we’re all too afraid we’ll miss the bus to moneyville.

I often wonder why I chose to go to NDA… Was it because I wanted to join the army or was it because I didn’t want to study for engineering exams? Or was it simply the safest and cheapest education option available to me at the time... Did I choose or did I make answer. I remember thinking at least I’d have a secure career and a guaranteed income. I wonder what life would be like if I hadn’t been thrown out for indiscipline. Today, I love what I do, but if I hadn’t been thrown out and forced to face the darkness of uncertainty, would I have had the courage to chuck it all and start afresh? Look for a life and a passion outside my comfort zone? Who amongst us has the courage to go reverse the car while it is cruising in the fourth gear? Again, I don’t know.

I wish we had more courage. I wish we hadn’t made our peace with going from jungle tigers to zoo tigers. Sure, it’s comfortable to have food delivered to the cage like clockwork. But are tigers meant to be caged? Tigers are meant to hunt, not be fed. Why do we forget that? Why do we become so enslaved by paycheque that we refuse to consider any option that might threaten that security? Taking a u-turn isn’t a bad thing. What if we were to find our dream house on a lane we entered on a whim? What if we found ourselves while wandering in a jungle we thought we’d gotten lost in? That’s what life is about—second chances. For people and for ourselves.

Sometimes taking a u-turn feels like a mammoth task. We lose the confidence in ourselves to revive old skills or learn new ones. But I don’t think that’s true. If you’re a tiger, hunting is in your blood and you’ll always retain it. It’s like cycling or swimming or simply having sex guys... You might get rusty but if you just practise a few times, it all comes back. It’s just about taking that leap of faith and taking the first few tentative steps.

It’s not just in careers that we can take U-turns… the same rules apply in our personal lives too... We don’t have to continue being with someone or carrying the weight of a dead relationship if the original reasons for what made that relationship work are no longer valid. Sometimes mistakes happen. And sometimes people just change and are no longer right for each other. I got married… And to someone who most men would give their right arm to marry... Most people must have wondered why we got divorced. But I knew it wasn’t right for me anymore. The relationship wasn’t a mistake, but continuing to be in it would have been one. Sure, there will be opposition. The fear of what we stand to lose can be crippling. But if in your heart you know that it isn’t right for you, then that’s all the reason you need. If you don’t feel like waking up in the morning and going to work, it’s time to shift gears…

Yes, it’s not always easy. Sometimes you can’t think about just yourself. Sometimes our lives are so inter-connected with people’s that taking a U-turn would mean not just changing the course of our own lives, but those of all the people around us. Spouses, children, parents, they’re all part of the circus that keep the shackles of logic and doing the right thing firmly in place. I don’t say we lead our lives independent of the people who depend on us. All I say is, sometimes, it’s okay to put ourselves ahead. Maybe it has to start with a laughably small gesture—liking giving up on that extra assignment to make time for guitar classes twice a week. Maybe it would mean an iPad 2 instead of an iPad 3 for junior. Or travelling economy instead of business class… But would that be so bad? All I’m saying is, while it’s okay to wait till the mortgage is paid off and the children have left the nest before you switch lanes on the highway of life, but it’s important to keep the dream alive. And keep feeding it little nuggets of hope. It’s important to keep giving yourself a reason to believe that the dream will be realised. And that you and no one else is its architect. The good thing about dreams is that they don’t come with an expiry date... You can take the U-turn at any time. You just have to find a way to do it. Just like you found a way to sneak in ice cream even when it wasn’t allowed... Or the way you jumped across the wall to the girl’s hostel. If we want it badly enough, we make it happen. I hope all my friends want to be happy as badly as I do, in life. Because then they’ll find a way too.

I hope Arty finds the path to happiness in the mountains of Manali… Kyunki dair lagi par usne jeena seekh liya...

Dil To Bachha Hain Ji

It was the usual Sunday morning… I woke up lazily around noon, feeling good about a day of nothingness that stretched invitingly ahead of me. There’s something about Sundays that you love no matter how old you get. It’s one of those parts of childhoods that you never quite leave behind. You can become your own boss and work on your own time, but Sunday never stops being sacrosanct.

With this feeling of utter peace, I started my usual Sunday morning routine. The toothbrush was gleefully ignored and I plonked on the sofa and switched on the TV. One of my favourite movies, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, was playing. Soon I was engrossed in it. I’ve seen the movie many times, but that particular day, a dialogue stayed behind with me. As Hrithik irritatedly told Farhan to grow up and act his age, I couldn’t help thinking about this ‘Bade ho jaao’ dialogue that I’ve heard countless number of times. And the question in my mind is, why? Why this obsessive, compulsive need to grow up? What is the big deal about growing up anyway?

When you think about it, what have we achieved by doing this ‘growing up’ thing? As a child, the idea of being big and important was wildly exciting and wickedly delicious. Back then it felt like grown-ups were having all the fun. And childhood felt like the dues you had to pay before life could become one long party. Every time my mother fed me something unappealing or admonished me with her usual, “If you don’t eat properly, how will you grow up?” I consoled myself thinking that soon it would be my time. I was in a tearing hurry to live the grown-up life.

But now that I’m living that life, I yearn for those childhood days… Of leaping first and thinking second, of taking risks, of grabbing a dog’s tail just to see what would happen, of not asking questions because I was afraid of the answers… Because quite frankly that’s all that growing up seems like to me. The myth has broken, and broken hard.

As an adult, I can confidently say that the world would have been a far more beautiful, uncomplicated, uncorrupted and peaceful place if we hadn’t grown up. Children inspire love, adults create war. Childhood is about togetherness, growing up is about creating boundaries of religion, caste and creed. As children we don’t think of hoarding money, playing political games, owning arms or going to war. These are all things we were taught when we became mature and grown-up. We didn’t know how to deceive as kids because we weren’t ashamed of our actions, we learnt to lie as adults, because we don’t have the courage to face consequences. Children are brave—they invent and create. It’s adults who fear—the unknown and the unexplored.

As children, each experience was an adventure. We didn’t do things to prove a point or to move ahead in the rat race. We did things because they were fun. Because they gave us pleasure. All great inventors kept the child inside them alive till the very end. It was their childlike curiosity that helped them embark on each new journey without the baggage of previous failures.

 I wish I had that ability to be fascinated by life each day. I wish I could feel each emotion in my heart in its purest form—without rationalising feelings in my head first…

The pressure to grow up, settle down and take our places in the world order is all around us. The prototype of a responsible adult is dangled in front of us relentlessly, until we give in and join the queue. But every once in a while, I’m tempted to step out of the line and hand the reins to the child in me. As a child, my most prized possession was my cricket ball. It was my most favourite toy. But when I lost it, I did what every child would do—go an buy myself a new one. I wish I could simplify my life and my relationships like that once again.

I don’t want the child inside me to die. Some days, he comes out and plays on his own. Other days, I have to fight for him. The good news is that kids are resilient. I think somewhere inside each of us still lurks that little guy who is just waiting to come out and play. As a child, it was always a fight to get me to brush my teeth. And while the adult in me might make me brush every morning and every night, every Sunday, the child overrides reason and logic and does what he wants. Akhir dil toh bachha hai ji… Isse baccha hi rehne do.  

Zen And The Game of Football

Zen & The Art Of Football

It was his first football trip, we’d bought tickets for the Champions League finals in Munich on a lark, and thankfully we managed to make it to Munich on those dates. I’ve been to many football games before… I’ve travelled nations, crossed continents—the works—to witness history being made. But for my friend, it was a whole new experience, a whole new universe that had suddenly opened up for him… It was like watching Alice take her first few tentative steps into the wonderland. At the end of two days, my football-virgin friend was a convert. Watching my friend finding delight in football made me take a closer look at my own relationship with the sport I’ve spent almost two decades with. Football is so much a part of my life, we’re so deeply connected, that I’d forgotten the time when it all began. Spending time with a newly minted football fan led to a paradigm shift. Through him, I revisited the start of my journey, pondered about the long road I’ve travelled since and marveled at where I stand today. I realised that the game that I love so has changed me as a person, taught me lessons I wouldn’t have learned otherwise and has been a symbol of permanence in my life. It’s my own personal life coach, therapist and spiritual guru all rolled into one!

Let me start with the most basic of the life lessons that football has taught me. It’s taught me to push and break boundaries set by others. Think about it: when you’re sitting in Germany sandwiched between a man from Mexico and a woman from Vietnam, watching an English team owned by a Russian guy with players from the Ivory Coast, France and Portugal, playing against a German team with just 4 native players; what will you think about? At that time, Samar Khan, Mumbai, India, becomes a very small part of my identity. I’m a part of something bigger, and something within me surges to meet and embrace that new bigness of purpose.

The world comes together on a football field. Not just physically, but mentally. It’s awe-inspiring to be living an experience with people from more countries that one person can visit in a lifetime of travelling. It is exhilarating to find a friend in a pocket of the world you didn’t even know existed! A football field makes you realise the vastness of the world and the smallness of our lives… When we’re restricted to one small corner of the world, we start believing that our problems and our joys are bigger than they really are… That we’re actually just a very small piece of a very large universe… The football field is the best place to discover that the world and our lives don’t need to end in our backyards…

I’ve witnessed two football world cups and both times have been life-changing experiences. Your passport ceases to matter on a football field. You’re just two people, from opposite corners of the world sitting in the bleachers, sipping beer and possibly making a new friend. You might be supporting each others’ nemesis, but the love of the game is too big, all-encompassing and all-consuming to be tarnished by these differences. I wonder that if we can do it for football, why can’t we apply this principle in all spheres of our lives… Why can’t we break boundaries and be unified by a common love?

Football is what is common between 178 nations in this world... Each country has its own food, culture, clothes, flavours and weathers. But amidst all these distinctions, there is one common ground where all these countries meet—football. It is the one game that is played the same way all over the world. Unlike cricket, there are no versions of the sport, or different formats like in car racing… It is the same everywhere… It is the medium through which the underprivileged of these countries can come into their own and take their place on the world stage. It doesn’t need any fancy training or special equipment to play… It is simply a celebration of pure talent and grit. The games history is littered with examples of legends that have come from nothing and gone on to conquer the world with their genius in the game. Football is an equalizer. It treats humble beginnings the same as it would a kingdom’s heir.

Often enough, in our hectic lives, we’ve wished for the world to stop for a few seconds so we could get off the carousel that our lives have turned into. For me, football is that emergency lever that brings everything to a screeching halt. When I’m watching football, the world and its problems cease to exist and to matter. Football is my reprieve from the maddening world. The unadulterated joy after a goal, and even the crushing disappointment if my team loses, are like escape routes in a burning building for me. Those 90 minutes are the closest one can come to feeling an emotion in its purest form. Those emotions are not at the mercy of the aches and pains of the real world. The mind stops working and the heart works overtime. So there is no politics and no prejudice… Just pure love for the sport.

It gives me hope… It makes me believe that if I’m capable of loving a sport with so much passion, I can love many other things created by god for us… Thanks to football, despite the confusing and multi-layered world I live in, I know I’m capable of pure love and passion. Most of us lack that kind of faith in ourselves. I owe my reaffirmation to football! Its something that has liberated my soul

PS: If any woman ever feels that men can’t be loyal, make her meet a football fan. More likely than not, he still supports the football club he supported as a child! ;)

THE BUSINESS OF LOVE

Joey… that’s the name of the black Labrador that I brought home 7 years ago… They say dogs love their masters unconditionally… In many ways I believe that’s true. No matter how badly I behave or how bad my mood is, Joey always manages to make me feel loved. He doesn’t love me only on the good days…nor does he want anything in return for the love that he gives me. Joey knows only to give love…without conditions, censorship or limits… Every time I look at Joey, I wonder, why is it that an animal is able to preserve the essence of a beautiful emotion like love, but we humans have converted it into a business deal? Why do we treat love like barter between two individuals, in which both parties must give and receive in equal measures or else the deal falls through? Shouldn’t love be freely given, without any pre-conditions and exit clauses?

Our very first experience with love comes in the form of parents and then god. Society, our families and everything around us teaches us to love our parents and god. It is a universal truth and a norm in almost all cultures. In principle, we’re told, right from our childhood, that our parents and god love us… And they do… But is that love unconditional? And is our love for them unconditional either? 

My contention is that our love for god is based on greed and fear, two of the most negative emotions that we’re capable of. But I can’t even blame a child for viewing god through the prism of greed. Because when have we ever been taught to love god unconditionally? From the time we begin to understand things, understand right from  wrong, we’re told that only if we live life ‘a certain way’, will god love us and shower us with his blessings. We’re made to believe that unless we walk the path as prescribed by our religion and religious texts, he won’t love us and give us what we want… Who amongst us was taught to simply love god and all his creations? Who was told that god will love us back unconditionally, even if we choose to walk a path that others frown upon? That it didn’t matter whether you eat pork or drank whiskey or married outside your caste...god would still love and cherish you. Why were so many disclaimers attached to god’s love? Shouldn’t he love us unconditionally…irrespective of our mistakes or failures? Why is god’s love measured against a balance sheet…where only if my good deeds outnumbered my bad ones, would I be worthy of god’s love?

And why should my love for him be based on fear…fear of his wrath and its consequences… Shouldn’t at least the love for god be pure and honest…unaffected by what he gives us and when? It shouldn’t diminish when things don’t pan out the way we wanted them to, or overflow when we get exactly what we desired. But unfortunately, it does.

Next, our parents… It’s not a pleasant thought, but I don’t think that even a parents’ love for their children is unconditional… If it were, we wouldn’t constantly be pushed and prodded in the direction that they think is best. If we truly believed our parents loved us unconditionally, we wouldn’t always be worried about adhering to their moral code, principles and ideas. If we were secure in the knowledge of their love, we would be free to grow in like a tree…in any direction that we chose too. We wouldn’t constantly feel the need to prove ourselves worthy of their love. There would be no need to show how much we ‘loved’ them by doing things they wanted…

Most parents emotionally blackmail their kids into adopting their beliefs in the name of love. The love that they give their children while raising them is expected to show returns—with interest. Parents expect to be repaid in kind. Each sacrifice and every gesture is recorded so that they can be tallied later.

I do concede that even if we decide to chart out own paths instead of following theirs, most parents wind up accepting it, and more often than not, still love us… But somewhere deep inside, the feeling of disappointment and resentment continues to linger...and it erupts the moment we falter or fail. We’ve all felt the bitter taste of the words, ‘I told you so,’ at some point in our lives, haven’t we?

My point is, if the two most elemental loves of our lives—from the time of birth, to our growing up years and adulthood—are based on a carefully monitored balance sheet, how are we expected to love unconditionally when we grow up and have adult relationships?

Most of the relationships in our adult life are born out of our needs and not a desire to give or love without reason. We ‘love’ only those people who fulfill a certain need or requirement in our life. But that isn’t love, that’s simply a convenient and businesslike arrangement.

When was the last time we loved without wanting anything in return? It might be unrealistic and utopian, but wouldn’t we hurt less if we loved unconditionally? Because then we would demand and expect less from the people in our lives. We would give without the anticipation of returns.

Nature has a way of loving unconditionally… The sun doesn’t ask for anything in return for the sunlight that it gives… Neither does the moon for the calming serenity that its light gives us… Or even the rain for washing away negativity with each cooling drop. And I believe that god doesn’t want anything from us in exchange for his love either. So why have we turned love into a business? Why do we calculate love like we would calculate the profits and losses for our financial year? Why do we insist that people who we ‘love’ and are in relationships with, must behave in a certain way, do a certain kind of things and think in a certain way?

Some might say it is impossible and impractical. But I say, love is not meant to be practical or sensible… It is meant to transcend logic and reason…it only makes you feel… warm and fuzzy…just the way Joey makes me feel when he licks my feet even when I’m at my grouchiest worst. And even if I pull my feet away, he doesn’t sulk or withhold his love… He simply finds my feet again, like it’s the most natural thing in the world to do…and resumes licking them…without questioning my mood or wanting to change it. Joey knows how to give love and give it unconditionally… Maybe it’s time I learnt it too.