Author: Rishi

Short-term View

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

There are people who do the right thing, no matter what. And then there are those who try to do something to take advantage of the situation or get through by any means, even if it means dishonesty.

I often try and behave in the former fashion and naturally like people who also try and do the right thing. I somehow am never able to agree with or like those who try to take undue advantage or are dishonest.

Last week, as we were on a trip, I experienced an incident of the latter type that left a bad taste in my mouth. It was a minor one involving the taxi driver of the cab we hired for our trip. As we ended the trip and had to pay the remaining charges, the driver came up with some false claims and insisted on getting paid for it. While it was a small amount and didn’t affect me much in any which way but what it did end up doing was negating any respect I had for that individual.

As we carried on with our trip, that evening when I sat down with the cool breeze of the lake shore, I reflected on his behavior and what may have caused it. You see, he had behaved immaculately till then but as soon as it was time to depart, he acted with a certain amount of dishonesty and greed. So, it was unexpected for me.

But as I thought deeper, it occurred to me that we often try and take a very short-term view of things. Whether it is something about work or in dealing with others or at home, we often get caught in this quagmire when faced with a choice. Do we think about it from a long-term perspective and are ready to forego certain advantage or benefit in lieu of the relationship or service standard. Or do we think about it from a short-term perspective and try and extract the maximum at that specific moment.

Most service industries or places around us believe in the short-term benefit policy. Why yield when we can get more? Not realizing that in the process the customer leaves with a unsatisfied experience and probably never comes back. On the other hand, those who truly put the customer first provide for a superior experience and have customers for life.

Extending this a little, even in our relationships when we prioritize short-term we gain little in the long run and actually end up fracturing them. But when we focus on the long-term and ensure priorities align accordingly, we continue holding those relationships for life.

In fact, even with any kind of work or activity we undertake. If we keep our focus on the long-term, we get deeper and more involved, benefiting ourselves and enriching our experience. On the contrary, anything attempted with a short-term focus generally is a very superficial one.

Basically, long-term pays more than short-term. We still choose short-term sometimes, neglecting this universal truth. Perhaps because of circumstances, perhaps because of helplessness, or perhaps out of habit.

Whatever it may be, better to think once before deciding on anything with a short-term focus. For while we may gain immediately, we don’t know what all we actually end up losing in the process…

Strong and Weak

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

Strength is always considered a virtue and weakness a thing to be avoided. But what if we have been thinking all wrong?

1

When I was undergoing training at the Indian Military Academy, we went through the toughest of routines in our initial days. It was a routine that’s usually the case for most armies but not normal for civilians.

So, naturally it took us time to adjust our bearings or even consider it as possible. A lot of us cribbed about it in those initial days. Most of us got used to it in a month or so but a few who couldn’t left.

We thought of ourselves as stronger than them and much more worthy! Naively…

2

All of us tennis fans had a tear in our eye when we watched Federer for the last time and the way it all happened.

However, someone completely clueless about tennis, who saw just a picture of Federer crying in a post match interview after losing (not his last one but some of the earlier ones), may think of him as a sore loser.

Not knowing that here stands a once in a lifetime champion, who’s crying not because he lost but because of the love and support he had received from the crowd and how he felt about it. He was just letting his emotions show.

How wrong would that assumption be about the strength that Federer, or for that matter any other champion, carries within him…

3

Travelling in the Nilgiris mountain ranges yesterday, I was telling my daughter about how people live in these places. How they build their dwellings and carry on with their usual life

I also told her about the big mighty mountains – how they appear so strong and capable of supporting so much. And yet, with so much pressure on them to support the tourism economy, they are also fragile.

My daughter couldn’t grasp initially that the mountains could be weak but as we discussed more and I related it to the environment, she could begin to understand how they could get affected.

An aspect most of us adults know but ignore – that while the environments around us are strong today, if not cared for, could turn weak and wither away!

—

These seemingly unconnected threads ran through my mind over the last couple of days, as I let it wander into free space. But as I looked back, I realised that all of them had one connection.

An assumption about strength and weakness that reflects our usual worldview but isn’t correct. It leads us to behaviours or thoughts which are not the best aligned with the situation or with the people involved.

And yet, knowingly sometimes, we commit this same mistake again and again in different contexts…

It all adds up…

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

We go through our life with hopes, aspirations, and goals. We also go through fear, frustration, and stress in the same breath…

If we look at it on the surface, we could say that these are two sides of the same coin and are bound to happen in life. However, if we peep inside, we will find that a lot of the fears, frustrations, and stress that we have in our life are harbored by us based on our choices. They all add up. And because we let them affect us, our health gives way to engulf in us myriad problems and diseases.

This past week, I spent a lot of time reflecting on this aspect. The week itself was one of loss and remembrance. My maternal grandmother passed away, leaving us at the wise age of 92. May her kind soul rest in peace!

As I travelled to pay my last respects to her and then returned after the humbling experience, I couldn’t put behind myself the fact that she lived for this long a time but wasn’t suffering from any particular ailments. God gave her enough strength to live happily and pass away without too many difficulties.

Recalling the time that I had spent with her and about her life, it occurred to me that one of the most important reasons for her long life must have been absence of too much stress and frustrations. There may have been other factors as well, but the fact that life was much more simpler in olden days cannot be underestimated.

Once my train of thoughts started catching speed, I realized that what I have been doing is contrary to how I should be living my life. I take a lot of stress for things that probably don’t deserve so much attention. I eat unhealthy sometimes, don’t exercise and generally spend a lot of my day sitting around in front of a computer. I don’t get enough sleep and try to do too many things together. I don’t take out enough time to spend with my family and loved ones, sometimes relegating it to the weekend.

While I take pride in myself about how I generally have walked my own path, how I am much fitter than others my age, how I don’t have any ailments (yet), how I have a lovely family, all of these are things that I need to work on more! And so, I take the following pledges for myself to focus on in the years to come.

I will reduce stress in my life. Let things be. Stop worrying about things I have no control over. Live life in a way that allows me to enjoy and experience everything.

I will focus on being healthy. Eat well, avoid things I shouldn’t be eating. Sleep well, get more rest. Exercise regularly, avoid being lazy.

I will take out time to do things that make me happy. Even if it means I don’t read that news article or don’t watch something that others are going gaga over.

Most importantly, I will take out more time to spend with my family and enjoy life. Not just on the weekend but also during the week. Even if it is just a while.

I don’t know if these are the only things I need to do or if there are others. But what I do know is following this pledge is going to be difficult. However, I will strive. For beyond this effort probably lies a better me, a fitter me, and a more wholesome me.

And hopefully by doing this and more, I will avoid all the negative things around me adding up to create a bigger hole…

A Personal Loss

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

It’s been an utterly sad day…

I lost my maternal grandmother today. She was 92, so a life well lived. May her beautiful soul rest in peace. 🙏

As I saw my father and mother get the news, I realised how disturbing it is to receive, comprehend, and react to such a shock. Especially for a child, who just lost a parent.

While we made arrangements to travel for her funeral, I also observed how excruciating it is to accept this kind of a loss. How our mind keeps going back to the days and time we spent with the deceased person, the memories we created and persevere on, and the lingering feeling of emptiness that is left behind.

Difficult indeed. Unavoidable not at all. Can only pray that we individually and collectively have enough strength to absorb and bounce back from such a shock!

In it together.

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

It was night. As usual, He and She sat down in the balcony of their house. But no one spoke. They just looked at the lights in the horizon.

It had been a tiring and long day. He had wished for it to end sooner. What else could he have thought of with such a disappointing day.

She was just frustrated. After so much that she had done, she absolutely should have been in a better place. Alas, it wasn’t to be.

Finally, after a few mins, She spoke. She asked him about why the look on his face was grim. He saw her and saw sadness and asked the same question back. She told him to share first before she goes ahead.

He spoke about how he had had an insipid day. He had been waiting for this day when he would get the results of his labour of last 6 months. A deal that he was chasing and was nearing closure was going to give him that edge over others at work. And when it mattered the most, luck had deserted him.

Instead of the deal going through smoothly, an unnatural act of nature had forced the backers of the deal to back off and now they had called it off. His most anticipated day had turned to be the worst suddenly. And he couldn’t do anything about it! This was what made him listless.

It was her turn to speak then. She wanted to give him some advise but held on to it for the time being. She then revealed that she actually wasn’t looking forward to the day at all. Her day, as usual had started early, by getting the children ready for school. After finishing all the chores, as she got to work, she realised that she had tons of things on her table. That took her entire day.

By the time she could get back home, it was dinner time. As she entered, the first thing her children asked for was food. They had an aversion to eating outside and the cook hadn’t come that day. Exhausted, she quickly prepared something and got them to eat and wind up for the day.

After she finished, He jumped in. He had been wanting to talk to her about why she had been feeling so pressured. His point was simple. She didn’t need to prove herself all the time. She was beyond that now. Instead, she could just do things without aiming to exceed expectations always. It was ok if she didn’t meet expectations some times. He will make sure no one will judge her all the time, at least at home.

She felt better. She then suggested that he ought to let go of his disappointment as well. He had tried what he could and one thing falling off didn’t mean the end of the road. He will surely have many more opportunities and some of them will click for him. Instead, he should look back at what he was able to learn and achieve in this short span and how that is going to help him. He too felt better.

As they looked at each other, they realised that they were unnecessarily holding on to things that didn’t matter as much.

What mattered was, having each other and being truthful and supportive! Being in it together…

Companionship

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

It’s a beautiful word. And complex too…

While most of us think about it in terms of a partner, I think there is a broader definition to it. For some of us, a companion may mean someone who we are attached to through our soul – a parent, a child, a sibling, a pet, a friend, or maybe even a passion.

For a lot of us, the companion is a key part of our regular existence. We love them, fight them, console them, argue with them, forgive them; but come what may we generally cannot do without them.

It’s very rare to see someone not have any companion in their journey of life!

Past few days, as this word came up in my discussions with different friends a couple of times, it raised a thought in my head around the various facets of companionship.

I have been lucky. I found my life partner most naturally and we developed a great relationship and understanding between ourselves right from the start. It was as if we were destined for each other. We had a great time before getting married and it has been an equally interesting ride post that. She complements me well and takes care of me, and I would like to believe that I am the pillar of support she looks at for all things in life.

We spend a lot of time together and partake in each other’s companionship. Do we fight? Yes, a lot of times. Do we disagree with each other? Absolutely yes. But that’s par for the course. For what is a relationship without some bickering. However, what trumps all of this is the love and respect we have for each other as individuals and collectively for ourselves as a family that carries us through. And this companionship keeps us bonded and carries us through.

So, clearly I am not someone who has experienced the other side of things.

But as I thought about those few people I have seen around me, who aren’t married or in a relationship, I realized that while they may not have a companion in the traditional sense, they have a similar affinity with someone in their close circle. And usually that relationship means a lot to them.

Even as I thought harder, I couldn’t find a single person in my known circle who could prove to be an exception. Maybe there is someone who doesn’t have a companion right now, but they are already looking for someone. Or maybe they are engaging with someone else in their close circle in a similar capacity. Or maybe they are wedded to their passion.

Does that mean living life without a companion is hard or impossible? I don’t know. May be possible still. But then, that person would find solace in something else – perhaps a hobby, or any activity which keeps them busy. Even if it is for a brief while. Otherwise, it would become insanely difficult to make life interesting and continue living.

A beautiful and complex word and association, which is not only important but also essential to our life then…

Accidental ‘Chef’

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

It’s been something that I have forever been called out for by my wife – my lack of skills in the kitchen! No prices for guessing then, this post is about an accidental achievement that I managed to turn out of nowhere…

As it happened, I was engrossed in my work and decided to take a break in the evening, as I usually do. While preparing my green tea, I saw a couple of packets of milk and so emptied them into a saucepan and put the saucepan on the stove on a low flame to boil the milk.

I must have drunk a lot of antioxidants that day in the green tea, because I forgot all about the saucepan on the stove, while I completed my evening stroll on the terrace and then resumed working. By the time my wife returned from office and found out about my mishap, I was already on a call, oblivious to my achievement!

As some of you may very well know, when we boil milk for a long time on a low flame, it becomes viscous with reduced consistency and the cream clots up in small knots. This preparation, topped with saffron, cardamom, and some dry nuts is often served in different parts of India as a sweet dish called ‘Rabri’. It also happens to be one of my favorites.

So, accidentally, I ended up preparing a sweet dish that I had no intention of (well, of course with my creative wife’s help). My wife, probably happy that the milk had not boiled over and spilled as it usually does under my jurisdiction, decided to click a couple of pics and posted to my parents and in-laws, terming it my creation (not the one in this post, that’s from the internet). They were equally astonished about this surprise turn and were actually quite shocked that I could do something like this, until I clarified about the accidental bit…

While we ate the rabri, which was of course delicious in spite of the accidental nature of its preparation, I realized that this is how life also is at times.

A lot of times, we face difficulties and a lot of heat. Sometimes, we let the heat affect us too much and boil over, spilling onto our near and dear ones and laying to waste our own happiness. When we do that, no one gets affected as much as ourselves. But it still happens in an uncontrollable manner at times, such is our human nature.

However, when we let those difficulties pass through and get by that phase in our life, pretty much absorbing the heat and making ourselves stronger and increasing our learnings, we end up transformed. With some garnishing of new experiences and personal resolve, we turn that phase on its head and emerge to do better than what we could have earlier.

It is then up to us to mould the way life shapes us, if we keep our bearings and don’t get bogged down by those umpteen curveballs that keep getting hurled at us time and time again. For what is life without a bit of clotted dreams and simmering situations!

By the way, as I finished eating the rabri and thanked my wife for all that she had done to make it more delicious than I ever could, I realized that it holds true for a lot of other things in my life. More on that in some other post…

Enormity of our Effort!

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

These last few weeks, I have learnt so much working with my dad, to help him give shape to a long held dream of his – publishing a book that my grandfather wrote!

I was born three years after my grandfather passed away. So I have only heard about him from my grandmother, parents, uncles, and aunts. Some of them say I resemble him and that’s one of the reasons that I have been slightly intrigued by who he was, what he did, etc.

Over so many years, I have heard interesting anecdotes multiple times, tried to peep into his personality based on old reminiscing by different elders, and hoped to emulate him in terms of what he achieved in life. Yet, I never quite grasped the enormity of what he did around his literary aspirations.

He was a writer and a poet and quite well known in the central Indian region in his days, with regular articles published in various magazines. He was also very well known locally around my home town and hence I have heard bits and pieces of the kind of work he did in those heydays.

However, what turned out to be the most astonishing fact to me, which I discovered recently, was that he worked for over 14 years to give shape to his magnum opus. Something that he started working on when he had just crossed 40 years of age, and was almost due to complete before his untimely demise. And it wasn’t that he took time off or kept going in loops on some parts of the book.

I was in awe when I understood the enormity of this effort. For someone to dedicate 14 years of one’s life to a single pursuit is not a common occurrence. It takes a huge amount of patience and just continuous persistence to be able to do something like this. And then to not be able to publish it must have pinched him a lot in those last days.

He certainly isn’t the only one in this category. There are so many other examples of people continuing to pursue a single minded goal for years altogether, undeterred by difficulties in their path. Sometimes they don’t achieve what they had set out for but enrich themselves so much in the process. Most of them are champions in the literal sense!

As I thought more about this and how we live our lives, I couldn’t even think of comparing it with how we view a lot of things these days. How for a lot of us, it is about instant gratification and the need for external validation for everything we do. How we want to win everything even before we have understood the real meaning of winning. And how if we don’t get something, we move to the next best thing, forgetting about our original pursuit.

We don’t give enough due to those who continue to persevere and keep going at something specific. We view them as incapable or a failure, when they could very well be on the verge of success. What we miss out is, while they may take time to get to their destination, that duration of effort does not take away anything from their success. For they are the ones moving the needle on difficult things, or things which they probably weren’t good enough at, or just needed that time to find their rhythm and achieve success.

Perhaps we will do well to keep this in mind as we get on to that next project, that next job, that next relationship, or just that next personal goal. The enormity of our effort is not determined by the outcome that it garnered but by the enrichment that it leads us to and the fun had while at it…

PS: Salute to my father and uncles for taking it upon themselves to get this unfinished work published now!

Attachment

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

How we get attached to those who are looking out for us? And what they mean to our lives?

As I spent a few days with my close family, including first cousins, uncles, and aunts, this question kept coming to me.

There are many people who cross our paths right from our birth, through our life, till we bid our goodbye. But there are very few for whom we really hold affection in our hearts and feel attached to.

I have written about this multiple times from different perspectives, covering friendships, relations, and colleagues. But as I dug deeper this time, I realised the answer is actually very simple.

Most of us are attached to our parents and our siblings, which is most natural. Maybe a couple of uncles and / or aunts, and maybe a few cousins also form our close circle. While we may have a good rapport with the other members of our extended families, these few people matter a lot to us.

They matter to us because the relationship with them is built on trust but without the weight of expectations. It is symbiotic and therefore benefits both.

This group is like our confidant, our punching bag, and also our supporters from the sidelines. We love them and we fight with them but whichever way you cut it, we spend most of our time with them.

In turn this attachment and affection helps both the sets of people to rely on each other for anything, creating a virtuous circle and helping us keep ourselves rooted and bonded. They mean the microcosm of a perfect world to us, wherein we can do whatever and be whoever, without worrying about anything else.

And that attachment continues even as time passes by and people drift apart physically. For the trust without expectations equation still holds true!

I have experienced this personally. I stayed in a joint family in my formative years and am heavily attached to my uncles, aunts and my cousins. That affection and attachment has continued even though we don’t get to meet each other often.

When we do, we all effortlessly sync in whatever setting we are put in and spend time together laughing, crying, quarrelling and caring for each other. More importantly even when that time ends and we go back to our usual lives, the level of affection and care continues in our remote interactions.

All because of trust on each other without any expectations! Important tenets for not just our close relationships but every connection that we value in life…

Dreams

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

It’s a fascinating word, encompassing thoughts that cross our mind. While mostly when we are asleep but for some even when we are awake!

But what do those thoughts tell us? What do they mean?

This has always been fascinating to me. Since childhood, I recall waking up and then recounting my dream(s) to see if there was something interesting hiding there.

Most of those dreams were worthless trinkets. Hallucinations about things I had done that day or in the recent past and which recurred for whatever reason.

But some were exemplary gems. My imagination running wild and taking me down the rabbit hole into unknown lands, making me meet interesting people, telling me great anecdotes, and making me laugh and cry. All while I was asleep.

I remember, after waking up from those gem dreams, I always had a flush feeling of having conquered something. For whatever reason…

Then slowly, as I grew up and entered adulthood, those dreams receded. There were some still which were interesting but none was as exemplary as before. It was as if the imagination was lost in the woods. Without a path back home.

I endured this phase in my life for almost 20 years. Initially in this phase, most of my dreams used to be about training horrors. After all, what do you expect a Gentleman Cadet training in the Indian Army to dream about! But post that phase, it was mostly work related or some fantasy that I was chasing as life changed colors from being single to being married to being a parent.

This long phase made me forget all those sojourns that used to happen in the private space between my ears. I almost resigned to the fact that I will continue to dream about the usual stuff only now.

Until a couple of years back…

Egged on by my daughters dreams and what she made me listen to on an everyday basis, I started remembering how I used to be in those days. I also started turning my creative wheels, writing regularly and thinking a lot about multiple things, in a way I hadn’t applied myself yet.

Perhaps both of these things combined to give me some of my power back. Maybe it was something else.

But I was elated when a few days back, I passed out in the dark of the night and my asleep mind took me down a rabbit hole I hadn’t visited in ages!

It was exhilarating to wake up and think about how the dream panned out. From whatever details I could recall, it did seem like some ride. Maybe not up to the standards of my childhood. But a start, nevertheless…