In Comparison.

October 10, 2021October 10, 2021 ~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

It was the summer of 96. I had just settled down into a new place and passed out of 9th grade.

It was also a season of change. There were changes everywhere and in my group of friends too, everyone was getting a new bicycle.

In those days, we used to ride our cycle to the school and pretty much everywhere. So for every kid, a bicycle was the most prized asset. In small towns across India, this used to be a pattern with kids going in for changing bicycle designs every 2-3 years.

96 was one such year. But I felt miserable. My current cycle was 4 years old now and due for an upgrade. There was a new design in town and with most of my friends now owning the new design, mine felt automatically old.

And yet, my father won’t approve of it. He explained to me that I can carry on in my current one for another year at least and he will get me a new one the following year.

I was devastated and couldn’t comprehend why I couldn’t get the new model. So I again had a chat with my dad, trying to coax him. He told me to shake it off and gave me some analogies to explain that I shouldn’t be comparing myself to others and rather be happy and thankful about what I have. It took some time but that lesson hit home.

I didn’t ask for a new one again until next year, when he himself readily agreed to buy one. I was overjoyed and needless to say, treated it like a prized possession.

What I didn’t realise then but do now was the way he made me understand an absolutely necessary fact of life. Stop comparing yourself to others. And be happy in all circumstances.

That lesson has stayed with me since then. Often, as is natural, the urge to see how I am faring against others crops up and tries to push me down the road less desirable. It’s only these lessons, which somewhere got etched in my memory, that have helped me reset my compass.

This week as something again propped up on the horizon and the inner voice tried to push me in that direction, I was reminded of this lesson about not to compare and held myself back. As I shook myself off that track and reminded myself to stay true to my own path, I realised that this comparative approach is often just an innate desire to prove to ourselves or to prove our worth to others.

It is a strange feeling, taking away the fun of what we have done and pushing us into a corner where our mind starts believing that we ought to do better. And more often than not, it wins in overpowering our minds and polluting it.

It is perhaps due to the fact that we have always viewed competition as virtuous. Or perhaps due to the reason that we believe in ourselves and want to outperform. Or maybe just because we see others behaving in this fashion and join them.

Whatever might be the case, we owe it to ourselves to keep a check on “these feelings” and be mindful to walk our own path.

For truly that is when we can seek and hopefully find happiness!

The secret to better experiences

September 26, 2021 ~ Rishi ~ 1 Comment

Saturday morning, I and my little one got up at almost the same time and as it was the weekend, lazed around in bed “talking”.

As we spent the next 30 minutes having a hearty conversation, the topic centred around how she should speak up rather than feeling something in her heart or mind but not blurting it out. She is a sensitive child and I wanted her to understand it is ok to speak up and let the other person know if she doesn’t like something rather than bottling her feelings inside.

We got through that conversation and did multiple other things during the weekend. But the entire 2 days, this was a theme that kept recurring in my mind…

We are by nature socially active and thrive in the company of others, whether its family, friends, or colleagues. However, there are groups where we feel and act better than in others. It might be because of multiple reasons that we have different experiences in different groups, but in my analysis most of the times, the one thing that really defines the experience for me is what is the level of communication in that group.

I didn’t realize it until I had a sub-par experience during one of the most seminal phases in my youth. It wasn’t my first bad one with a group. But I was perhaps more matured than before. And as I thought about it, I had a difficult time understanding the reasoning behind why it so happened. But as I reflected back on it in solitude, I figured that the communication between me and the others in the group wasn’t really great and it contributed majorly to the experience I had.

Ever since, I figured that if I want to make the most of what any group has to offer me, I better communicate and do it well. And that has been the most important focus area for me as I passed through different experiences in the professional and business world.

What has constantly amazed me though is that most of us don’t realize the importance of communication and the role it plays. Most of the times, we take it for granted and assume that it is going to be at a de-facto good level. What we miss out is that it takes two to tango and building the right level of confidence in each other’s communication takes time and effort. And if not handled in the right manner and early enough, we can miss the boat.

In fact, not just in our professional relationships, even in personal ones, communication is the key to thrive and succeed. If we let it slide, it can soon create a crack wide enough for the relationship to get stuck there. It can happen in the best of relationships and the only way to guard against it is to be mindful of it at all times.

Critically, according to my limited experiences and from what has worked for me, just being honest and upfront works most of the times. Something that our polluted adult minds refuse to believe at times.

Perhaps we need to unshackle our minds and speak directly through our hearts to rekindle our relationships and improve trust and understanding. Or maybe, just communicate better and frequently to remove those clouds of misunderstandings that start forming every now and then.

Or probably just keeping it simple like my daughter, who promised me after my boring lecture on Saturday morning, “Ok dad, I will not keep things to myself now onwards, I will speak out and share my thoughts as it is for the other person to understand me better. I know, I will feel better that ways”…

False Narratives…

May 16, 2021May 16, 2021 ~ Rishi ~ 1 Comment

They abound!

In every sphere of our lives.

At home, at work, in the society, within ourselves.

They are constructed in our minds. In our words. And in our actions also at times. And then some of them escape us and land with others and start a chain reaction. Once released into the open, they have a life of their own.

Sometimes these chain reactions help us stay afloat and live our lives believing and holding onto dear hope. And in other cases, they may drown us in sorrow and lead us to a downfall.

Sometimes, these chain reactions stop sooner than we want them to. On other occassions, they run amok beyond our wildest imagination and in spite of our best efforts to curtail them.

As long as they are limited to matters of personal interest or to trivial pursuits, these can serve as a reminder of the alternative or a check on whether we are doing the right things. In fact, some of them may be beneficial for us to meander through our lives, difficult as it is.

It’s when they go beyond the realm of personal or trivial, is when they can assume gargantuan proportions. They then permeate the society in myriad ways and channelise our lives in different directions depending on what we believe.

With the rising trend of easy internet access, tools to enable social connections, and unchecked platforms to spread whatever one believes in, all of this has just become EASY. And that’s what is worrying the most.

Because, these false narratives have the power to alter our reality and push us into directions which may not be worth turning to. Or they may compel us to act in ways that could be counterproductive for ourselves.

And that may cost us many a things!

So, how do we discern between the truth and the false?

No one is an expert in this subject. But hopefully with our own judgement and best intentions towards self and the ones we love, it is probably easier to understand the intention of the narrative and the direction it may take us into. And then asking ourselves a question – do I really want to go down that path?

For beginners, this hopefully may be enough to put us at a reduced risk of being sucked up in the whirlwind of these false narratives and the ensuing madness…

PS: COMMENTS WELCOME!

Ego!!!

March 21, 2021March 22, 2021 ~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

Ego. It’s a perplexing word, defined as as person’s sense of self-esteem or self-importance. Encapsulates so much in just 3 letters. Holds the worth of self together. And can mess up so much.

It is pervasive in the human race. And sometimes in animals too. Helps animals to behave like humans at times and definitely pushes humans to behave like animals a lot of times.

Something that gives us a sense of pride in self, acknowledging how far we have come in our journey. And something that can easily blind us as to where we have to go…

Builds up from what we have done in our lives and who we are. And ebbs when we know there is so much more to do. A special feeling that when subdued or challenged can work wonders for people and propel them to greater heights. And when unhindered, can lead to downfall of even giants!

Makes us feel worthy to go out and do what we have to. Devours us from inside and stops us from doing right when the worth becomes more than the sum total of all its parts.

Makes it possible for a child to stand up in the world and make a place for herself. Makes it impossible for some adults to continue building from where they are.

Builds relations and bridges between communities. Destroys even long held friendships and camaraderie.

Leads to mutual respect for one another. Also leads to hatred and enmity between friends and lovers!

It’s something so fascinating that can push nations into solidarity and oneness. And something so hideous that can cause wars between two.

Is that one thing that all of us aspire for. And yet, when we have it figured out, some of us lose it all and start behaving in a fashion which no one should aspire to.

And in spite of so many dichotomies, as we all live our lives and go through the grind, we develop it, nurture it, and utilise it as we go along. What matters is whether the nurturing and utilisation is positive or negative!!!

Social Levels

February 7, 2021February 7, 2021 ~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

We all live in a society. And the society has its peking order. That’s what we have all seen in our lives. And that’s how we behave mostly!

This weekend, as I finally finished watching ‘Rome’, a series covering the history of the Roman empire during the times of Julius Ceasar and Octavion Ceasar, I grappled with these thoughts in my mind. While I always enjoy history and the stories that it tells us, it was most interesting to study the intricacies captured in the series related to different social levels, ranging from the nobles to the senators to the plebs (common people).

As I thought through, I realised that the same structure has been theorised in all the ancient cultures, whether it is Indian (recall Shabri in Ramayan or Karna in Mahabharat) or others (circa Rome). It is as if all through our history, people have always been divided into social levels based on who does what or who owns what.

And that’s been a cause for strife. Whether the fights that have happened through the ancient history centered on religion, or the wars and battles in the medieval history emerging from the fight for ownership, or the revolutions in the modern history focused on rights, all have one thing in common. The oppressed and the downtrodden have risen and revolted against those who are in power or are better off, to take back what they think is rightfully theirs.

Now it’s not in my domain to comment on what or who is right or wrong. People have fought and continue to do so because we humans can’t live with each other for long before disagreeing.

But what I realised is that before all of this, when we were still evolving and had to survive in the wild jungles, there surely wouldn’t have been so called ‘social levels’. Yes, there would have been a leader of the pack (assuming animal behaviours that I know of), but otherwise it would just have been an equal footing for everyone. All working together to fend off danger and survive to the best of their abilities.

As an analogy in our current world, often when we are faced with a danger, we group together and fight it, forgetting if the others are of the same social level or not. People who aren’t likely to sit together, help each other in crises like a terror attack, a flood, a famine etc. But go back to normalcy, and the camaraderie also goes away…

These social levels permeate our behaviour in many ways. Whether its deciding where to live or what to do and how, we all try and abide by the societal norms of our level and aspire to grow to the next level. Be it in our kid’s education, or the company we wish to keep, or the way we change our conduct as we start progressing in life. Even when it comes to marriages, we solicit a match for our sons/daughters based on our social level and seek someone higher up if possible.

This psyche unfortunately divides us into splinter groups as a society. And creates fissures. The servant or maid who works for us doesn’t get the same opportunities for his/her family and while serves us faithfully (?), despises us and secretly wishes to rise up and show us some day that s/he is an equal. Or the people who assume an air of superiority and try and showcase their “upper class”, leaving some of us jealous of their success and ready to do anything to reach the same status.

Does it really help us as an individual or family? I don’t know. It probably is a very superfluous mirage to hold.

What it definitely does is create a sort of dissatisfaction within us about why we are not at the next level yet. And that’s troubling. Because, that takes away our happiness and the beauty of our lives in the present…

Individual Identity

January 17, 2021 ~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

After having dinner with a couple of friends this weekend, we went over to have a paan (betel leaf preparation). A casual conversation with the store owner bought about a new perspective!

We were standing and discussing about our hometown(s) when the store owner intervened in the conversation and asked us where we were from. That led us to ask him the same question, to which he answered Allahabad. We casually joked with him about the city, stating that it is where Amitabh Bachhan comes from and he must be happy to be from the same city. He confidently replied, “it is not I who is from the place that Amitabh comes from, it is he who comes from my place”!

His confidence was exemplary. Without a trace of hesitation he put across his point of view very simply but assertively. He reasoned that he considers Allahabad as his city, as he grew up there. And whosoever is from there, irrespective of the stature of the person, he considers them from his city and not vice versa.

On my way back, I recalled one such incident that happend with me. During the introduction round of my post-graduate batch, I had mentioned that I was from a town called Khandwa, which is famous as the place from where Kishore Kumar came from. A senior professor later retorted and asked me about why did I feel the need to qualify my hometown as such. I was not sure what led me to making that statement and relation then.

But as I reflected today, I realised it may have been because I wasn’t confident enough at that time about where I came from. Perhaps, looking at others who came from the big cities, I was intimidated. Or perhaps, I felt the need to qualify my statement to help others relate something to my place of origin and recall it later as easily as they would have remembered other places.

It was only later that I became comfortable in my own skin, irrespective of anyone’s presence or background; and confident enough to know that I can stand on my own in any kind of a setting. To see that level of confidence in the store owner today, was a refreshing feeling.

As that conversation played in my mind again and again on the way back home, I felt that this extends to not only something as basic as our place of origin or what is our background but to all facets of our lives. We always try and relate ourselves with people, things, events, etc. In a lot of those cases, we belittle ourselves by choosing to associate ourselves with others just to fit in or to make ourselves relatable. We forget that there is an individual identity we own that makes us unique. That uniqueness defines who we are, with each of us standing out in a crowd, rather than looking all the same.

I believe, the ones who understand this fact faster in life, have an easier existence than those who take time to come to terms with it. Accepting one’s uniqueness frees us from the encumberances of the society and allows us to freely express ourselves. It also leads us on a path where we are not at odds in different settings, helping us to give our best to whatever we are doing. And lets us be.

Hopefully our young ones, who are much more confident in their skin on almost all things, would reverse this trend. After all, individual identity is what we all strive for and what they ought to discover sooner than later…

Bored.

November 29, 2020 ~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

My 5-year old has learnt a new phrase. Whenever she feels that she needs to do something exciting and is not getting enough attention, she says “I’m bored”!

As the situation has progressed and months have passed, the utterance of this phrase has only increased. At first, we thought it was something new she had learnt from her friends and was just showing off. However, we soon realised that it was frustration at not being able to do a lot of things that she could do earlier.

The more I have talked to other parents, friends, colleagues and people, I have realised this is one side of the pandemic situation that we all are facing in common. Most kids, across age groups are ending up with this feeling of being bored.

With the schools closed and online classes becoming the new way of teaching, they are not getting that time they used to spend with their buddies at school. Naturally, they are missing the fun and frolic that the school environment allowed them to have daily.

To top it up, while they see their parents the whole day and theoritically have time to spend with them, with the parents being caught up in office work and household chores through the day, that window is very small.

And while, they play with friends who live in the same community or area, it clearly isn’t satisfying their need to be constantly doing something exciting and fun. And that’s probably the reason for the increased occurrence of the “I’m bored” syndrome.

As I was talking to a friend over this weekend and we were lamenting about this common issue, I realised that this is a problem that may have some long time repurcussions.

Specially for young kids who are in their formative years, the years which form the basis for their learning. About how to build bonds and friendships. About social behavior. About dealing with different situations on their own…

But try as we might, this situation isn’t changing quickly. And therefore, as parents, it is upon us to expose our kids to whatever we can, in the spaces we are confined to.

So that, when things re-open, they don’t find it awkward to get back to the normal life, like we used to have! Hopefully, sooner rather than later…

Time travails!

July 26, 2020September 20, 2020 ~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

Over the last 1 week, I have seen 2 movies where the concept of loneliness gets mentioned prominently. Ruminating about the present situation, in both the cases, there is a satirical solution to solve for the problem most people in these modern times face…

Sitting idle on a rainy Sunday, eschewing the choice of watching another movie or reading another book, I decided to delve deeper into this abyss.

Being a working couple, with multiple calls and meetings jam-packed into our schedules, we have been finding it tough to get time for ourselves, apart from the household chores that never seem to end. That leaves us with very little time to talk to each other on most weekdays or have fun as a family.

It wasn’t so earlier. I remember, in the previous decade, while work was hectic, there was a physical cut-off time that most people followed and respected. And while there were those odd days or weeks, where you had to put in extra hours, without the always connected, ubiquitous gadgets, our lives were much simpler.

Evenings after office work used to be spent in chit-chatting about sundry things. Or in watching some television. And talking to other family members and friends.

During childhood, it was even better. I recall that when my father used to return from his work, we all used to sit down and have a hearty conversation. And so it went on, until dinner time and sometimes, even post that. That was the daily succour with very little options on television – the only thing being the evening news that was part of the daily routine.

As we have got more options to remain connected and have more gadgets at our disposal, somehow we have been robbed of our time. When we are not working, we feel the urgent need to connect with the world through the technology in our hands. That behaviour has percolated down to children and today it is not uncommon to see teenagers glued to their screens with scant awareness about what’s happening around them.

And then there is the entire focus on ‘Me Time’. About doing something which dissociates us from the daily tribulations of our work. While earlier, most people had constructive hobbies to pursue during such time, these days it is spent mostly on streaming platforms, or browsing through social media, news, shopping websites, WhatsApp chat groups, and what not.

Most of us have fallen in this trap of always being connected, with a false sense of interacting with the world and being informed, instead of spending time with those that matter the most in our lives. And that is what I feel is leading to this feeling of loneliness and hollowness.

While we cannot do away with the demands of work in an inter-connected, hyper-sensitive and globalised environment, it is upon us to draw out our boundaries to ensure that we maintain a balance between work and life. And that spare time can be utilised for not just browsing the phone but also talking about anything and everything under the sun to the people who matter in our lives. In person or on a phone call (not virtually!). And to teach the same to the next generation!

Having consciously tried to minimise after-work and weekend screen time over the past few weeks, my wife and I have been able to find those small passages of time, where we reconnect and talk to each other. And that has helped us refresh ourselves mentally, winding down in the evening or on weekends. It has also helped us reduce the screen time for our daughter, who otherwise used to be gunning for another go at some cartoon show.

While I cannot claim to have found the elixir to this lifestyle crisis, the progress in our personal case gives me hope that we have it in us to undo the side effects of technology use and get real again!