Every few years , there comes a juncture in your life where you have to decide which path to take. The choice isn't always easy and the choice you wish to make is not always available . 2014 is that year . I guess last time, I made such far reaching firm decisions was possibly in year 2000 . Our life isn't always a function of our own decision, it is our social, financial and emotional environment . I state them in no particular order as the order will always change . For most part of my life, I have followed my conviction but what are convictions made of ? . Our decisions are fundamentally an expression of our convictions, which are in turn influenced by our thoughts and experiences . Both our thoughts and experiences are not in our control , always ....sometimes they are .
I have been questioned, doubted and accused of having a very "strange" set of convictions. I wish to jot down 10 on my convictions below, hopefully in best way and in the next 90 days , will elaborate on almost all of them .
First : We don't understand ourselves.
It is a general strong conviction that we know ourselves best, infact we don't. What we are , changes every moment , every day and every year . Our friends from school , expect you to be evolving from same point as they had seen you . Science says every cell of our body changes every 7 years , so we are not a stationary personality. This is one reason , the dynamics of each relationship will change , the point of reference of the person cant be fixed in a time. I am a point in time personality, what I am today, I have never been and never will be . All of us are crazy in very particular ways. We’re distinctively neurotic, unbalanced and immature, but don’t know quite the details because no one ever encourages us too hard to find them out. An urgent, primary task of any lover is therefore to get a handle on the specific ways in which they are mad. They have to get up to speed on their individual neuroses. They have to grasp where these have come from, what they make them do – and most importantly, what sort of people either provoke or assuage them. A good partnership is not so much one between two emotionally healthy people (there aren’t many of these on the planet), it’s one between two demented people who have had the skill or luck to find a non-threatening conscious accommodation between their relative insanities. The problem is that knowledge of our own neuroses is not at all easy to come by. It can take years and situations we have had no experience of. Prior to a relationship, we’re rarely involved in dynamics that properly hold up a mirror to our disturbances. I spend as much time to know myself that I spend to know others .
Second : We don't understand other people .
Everyone you come across in life is too busy "projecting" themselves, Make their best picture as their Facebook profile Picture , save their best looks for their wedding or an anniversary and their best mannerism for an interview or a date . Everyone everywhere is too busy trying to look and project who is not who they are . When you meet someone , they use their sweetest mannerism, the other stuff comes later . There are three layers of each person in my mind . One they project, to different people, a different picture , from make ups to business suits , there is a huge projection . After all you live in a country which buys "fair and lovely" worth a 1000 cr each year and "fairness" is seen as "success" , How shamefully sad . As age has progressed, I hate to project, Hygiene is different , I wish to look everyone , not too different from my worst . Second layer is what people really are, we all swear, we all fart , we all are "grey" . But there is a constant battle to look "white " , Real layer is so hard to know as there is an extensive effort each day by everyone to tuck that real you them somewhere . The blogs I so fondly follow are people who want to share who they are with zero projection . Third layer is the "Deep Grey" , most people are oblivious of their own Deep Grey how would you even know that side. Their worst fears, worst reactions and fetishes . In Summary, only a small portion of everyone's persona is visible , one more reason why after a few years we tend to part ways with some relations. Their deep grey and real self may not be in sync with our own persona. This problem is compounded because other people are stuck at the same low level of self-knowledge as we are. However well-meaning they might be, they too are in no position to grasp, let alone inform us, of what is wrong with them. We need to know the intimate functioning of the psyche of the person we’re planning to be friend . We only get to know their attitudes to, or stance on, authority, humiliation, introspection, intimacy, money, children, aging, fidelity and a hundred things besides. This knowledge however still doesn't reveal their real self .
Third: Moments are a unit of life
I have always believed that life is made of moments .There is little focus on creating moments , relishing them or treasuring them . Pause having a Chai on a rainy day, remember the day and time and year . Imprint that in memory , it wont happen again. We yearn for a stage in life but not moments . Try replaying your best moments in life , you wont be able to make a video lasting longer than 3 mins. We relish so few moments . That's why dates, events and memories are so dear to me . Making treasurable moments is bliss , is happiness , is life . We have a desperate and fateful urge to try to make nice things permanent. We want to own the car we like, we want to live in the country we enjoyed as a tourist. And we want to marry the person we are having a terrific time with.
We imagine that marriage is a guarantor of the happiness we’re enjoying with someone. It will make permanent what might otherwise be fleeting. It will help us to bottle our joy – the joy we felt when the thought of proposing first came to us: we were in Venice, on the lagoon, in a motorboat, with the evening sun throwing gold flakes across the sea, the prospect of dinner in a little fish restaurant, our beloved in a cashmere jumper in our arms… We got married to make this feeling permanent.
Unfortunately, there is no causal necessary connection between marriage and this sort of feeling. The feeling was produced by Venice, a time of day, a lack of work, an excitement at dinner, a two month acquaintance with someone… none of which ‘marriage’ increases or guarantees.
Fourth: Knowledge isn't Wisdom.
Try a one line description of a man or a woman , best example is a Times of India Matrimonial ad , so much focus on degrees. Traditionally education has been a reassurance of a job hence secured income , hence stable life . What we study in colleges , In B schools or in trainings . Is that Knowledge worth, will it percolate into wisdom ? Answer is No . Recently, I asked an acquaintance , a typical DU economics graduate on why she had so many parallel romantic relationships, her answer was amusing . She said , Per economics , Monopoly is bad and more competition provides better service . I was like ......ahhh. A lot of people, know so much more today, about business, economics , IT , legal but is that wisdom. Wisdom shrinks elaborate thoughts just like shers compress philosophy in a few lines . Do people seek wisdom or Knowledge ? As age progresses or as wisdom progresses, one is able to declutter thoughts and percolate them into fewer words of wisdom. Logic isn't always right, logic shouldn't always turn into conviction.
Fifth : Everyone is the Hero in the story of their life .
Each one of us has a misconception, an inherent one, that we are special . The way I hear life stories, the teller always becomes he main protagonist , the hero . The world and circumstances are Villian. The default setting we have for ourselves is "I am right" always .... . How may of us accept , I am ordinary . I often say . Manish is a dime a dozen person. See yourself from a distance, the Hero may not be there .
Sixth: There are no degrees in Emotional engineering .
Education teaches you almost everything except how to handle your emotions. How to make up with an upset beloved? How not to project lies. The emotional education is left to home and peer environment who often do a very poor job in setting your benchmarks . We learn how to love and hate by experience. Most people are ignorant of this need of handling emotions .
Seventh : You a part of crowd , accept it .
Success, Failures and happiness often have a borrowed benchmark. All success moments have some comparative reference in Moments . You log into facebook and feel like the world is having a party, going on holidays, partying, eating out , flaunting cars , houses and arm candies. Your happiness is your benchmark. My formal wear and casual wear is white cotton Kurta, and Khussa . I am a vegetarian despite being ridiculed for it . I choose my Benchmarks , I stay away from crowd. I don't like cricket, SRK (infact any Khan) or Katrina Kaif. I refuse to measure my success by flats and cars . "Things" are "Things" , People are more treasurable than things . Did you decide what is YOUR success, YOUR Happiness and YOUR failure , don't let anyone dictate that to you. Society has set age landmarks for each decade, this is what you do in 20s, 30s and 40s. Don't follow them . I don't miss being 30 . I look forward to being 50 . Remember, Gulzar wrote his best work in his late 40s and early 50s.
Eighth : God and Marriage are Man Made Institutions .
I guess Man made concept of God and Marriage to keep us all entangled . I will write on this subject in detail . God is projected as the master accountant who keeps tracks of good and bad who awards you with business class travels if karma is good and delayed trains if karma is good . His accountancy is supposed to be perfect , is it ? He can be happy and sad. Make No mistake, I am a spiritual person and believe in religion but the master accountant who tracks your Karma Mileage Points is non existent. Do Good karma in good faith and with conviction. Second, Marriage is more a legal and social connect than an emotional and spiritual one . There are no soul mates and in 20s one is never in a good frame of mind to choose a partner rationally when remaining single is unbearable. We have to be utterly at peace with the prospect of many years of solitude in order to have any chance of forming a good relationship. Or we’ll love no longer being single rather more than we love the partner who spared us being so.
Unfortunately, after a certain age, society makes singlehood dangerously unpleasant. Communal life starts to wither, couples are too threatened by the independence of the single to invite them around very often, one starts to feel a freak when going to the cinema alone. For all the new gadgets and supposed freedoms of modernity, it can be very hard to get emotional and physical intimacy .
Ninth : Morality is the dog leash of the society.
There are varying standards of what true morality is , what is immoral in Iran is trendy in US. What is immoral in US is acceptable in India . Who is moral , people who abort female fetus or people who accept an emotional relationship , without a tag . In My view, If what I can do can be shared with my 13 yr old, looking in his or eye, it is damn moral . Set your own benchmarks in morality .
Tenth : All Roads lead to the cremation Ground .
Do whatever, say whatever, fuck anyone , you will be washed and burnt in the end :)
My fav Ghazal as accompanist . It is a rare live version by Jagjit , sung in Southampton in 1999. Ghazal has been penned by Rajesh Reddy .
ज़िन्दगी तूने लहू ले के दिया कुछ भी नहीं, तेरे दामन में मेरे वास्ते क्या कुछ भी नही.
मेरे इन हाथों की चाहो तो तलाशी ले लो, मेरे हाथों में लकीरों के सिवा कुछ भी नहीं,
हमने देखा है कई ऐसे ख़ुदाओं को यहाँ, सामने जिन के वो सच मुच का ख़ुदा कुछ भी नही,
या ख़ुदा अब के ये किस रंग से आई है बहार, ज़र्द ही ज़र्द है पेड़ों पे हरा कुछ भी नहीं
I have been questioned, doubted and accused of having a very "strange" set of convictions. I wish to jot down 10 on my convictions below, hopefully in best way and in the next 90 days , will elaborate on almost all of them .
First : We don't understand ourselves.
It is a general strong conviction that we know ourselves best, infact we don't. What we are , changes every moment , every day and every year . Our friends from school , expect you to be evolving from same point as they had seen you . Science says every cell of our body changes every 7 years , so we are not a stationary personality. This is one reason , the dynamics of each relationship will change , the point of reference of the person cant be fixed in a time. I am a point in time personality, what I am today, I have never been and never will be . All of us are crazy in very particular ways. We’re distinctively neurotic, unbalanced and immature, but don’t know quite the details because no one ever encourages us too hard to find them out. An urgent, primary task of any lover is therefore to get a handle on the specific ways in which they are mad. They have to get up to speed on their individual neuroses. They have to grasp where these have come from, what they make them do – and most importantly, what sort of people either provoke or assuage them. A good partnership is not so much one between two emotionally healthy people (there aren’t many of these on the planet), it’s one between two demented people who have had the skill or luck to find a non-threatening conscious accommodation between their relative insanities. The problem is that knowledge of our own neuroses is not at all easy to come by. It can take years and situations we have had no experience of. Prior to a relationship, we’re rarely involved in dynamics that properly hold up a mirror to our disturbances. I spend as much time to know myself that I spend to know others .
Second : We don't understand other people .
Everyone you come across in life is too busy "projecting" themselves, Make their best picture as their Facebook profile Picture , save their best looks for their wedding or an anniversary and their best mannerism for an interview or a date . Everyone everywhere is too busy trying to look and project who is not who they are . When you meet someone , they use their sweetest mannerism, the other stuff comes later . There are three layers of each person in my mind . One they project, to different people, a different picture , from make ups to business suits , there is a huge projection . After all you live in a country which buys "fair and lovely" worth a 1000 cr each year and "fairness" is seen as "success" , How shamefully sad . As age has progressed, I hate to project, Hygiene is different , I wish to look everyone , not too different from my worst . Second layer is what people really are, we all swear, we all fart , we all are "grey" . But there is a constant battle to look "white " , Real layer is so hard to know as there is an extensive effort each day by everyone to tuck that real you them somewhere . The blogs I so fondly follow are people who want to share who they are with zero projection . Third layer is the "Deep Grey" , most people are oblivious of their own Deep Grey how would you even know that side. Their worst fears, worst reactions and fetishes . In Summary, only a small portion of everyone's persona is visible , one more reason why after a few years we tend to part ways with some relations. Their deep grey and real self may not be in sync with our own persona. This problem is compounded because other people are stuck at the same low level of self-knowledge as we are. However well-meaning they might be, they too are in no position to grasp, let alone inform us, of what is wrong with them. We need to know the intimate functioning of the psyche of the person we’re planning to be friend . We only get to know their attitudes to, or stance on, authority, humiliation, introspection, intimacy, money, children, aging, fidelity and a hundred things besides. This knowledge however still doesn't reveal their real self .
Third: Moments are a unit of life
I have always believed that life is made of moments .There is little focus on creating moments , relishing them or treasuring them . Pause having a Chai on a rainy day, remember the day and time and year . Imprint that in memory , it wont happen again. We yearn for a stage in life but not moments . Try replaying your best moments in life , you wont be able to make a video lasting longer than 3 mins. We relish so few moments . That's why dates, events and memories are so dear to me . Making treasurable moments is bliss , is happiness , is life . We have a desperate and fateful urge to try to make nice things permanent. We want to own the car we like, we want to live in the country we enjoyed as a tourist. And we want to marry the person we are having a terrific time with.
We imagine that marriage is a guarantor of the happiness we’re enjoying with someone. It will make permanent what might otherwise be fleeting. It will help us to bottle our joy – the joy we felt when the thought of proposing first came to us: we were in Venice, on the lagoon, in a motorboat, with the evening sun throwing gold flakes across the sea, the prospect of dinner in a little fish restaurant, our beloved in a cashmere jumper in our arms… We got married to make this feeling permanent.
Unfortunately, there is no causal necessary connection between marriage and this sort of feeling. The feeling was produced by Venice, a time of day, a lack of work, an excitement at dinner, a two month acquaintance with someone… none of which ‘marriage’ increases or guarantees.
Fourth: Knowledge isn't Wisdom.
Try a one line description of a man or a woman , best example is a Times of India Matrimonial ad , so much focus on degrees. Traditionally education has been a reassurance of a job hence secured income , hence stable life . What we study in colleges , In B schools or in trainings . Is that Knowledge worth, will it percolate into wisdom ? Answer is No . Recently, I asked an acquaintance , a typical DU economics graduate on why she had so many parallel romantic relationships, her answer was amusing . She said , Per economics , Monopoly is bad and more competition provides better service . I was like ......ahhh. A lot of people, know so much more today, about business, economics , IT , legal but is that wisdom. Wisdom shrinks elaborate thoughts just like shers compress philosophy in a few lines . Do people seek wisdom or Knowledge ? As age progresses or as wisdom progresses, one is able to declutter thoughts and percolate them into fewer words of wisdom. Logic isn't always right, logic shouldn't always turn into conviction.
Fifth : Everyone is the Hero in the story of their life .
Each one of us has a misconception, an inherent one, that we are special . The way I hear life stories, the teller always becomes he main protagonist , the hero . The world and circumstances are Villian. The default setting we have for ourselves is "I am right" always .... . How may of us accept , I am ordinary . I often say . Manish is a dime a dozen person. See yourself from a distance, the Hero may not be there .
Sixth: There are no degrees in Emotional engineering .
Education teaches you almost everything except how to handle your emotions. How to make up with an upset beloved? How not to project lies. The emotional education is left to home and peer environment who often do a very poor job in setting your benchmarks . We learn how to love and hate by experience. Most people are ignorant of this need of handling emotions .
Seventh : You a part of crowd , accept it .
Success, Failures and happiness often have a borrowed benchmark. All success moments have some comparative reference in Moments . You log into facebook and feel like the world is having a party, going on holidays, partying, eating out , flaunting cars , houses and arm candies. Your happiness is your benchmark. My formal wear and casual wear is white cotton Kurta, and Khussa . I am a vegetarian despite being ridiculed for it . I choose my Benchmarks , I stay away from crowd. I don't like cricket, SRK (infact any Khan) or Katrina Kaif. I refuse to measure my success by flats and cars . "Things" are "Things" , People are more treasurable than things . Did you decide what is YOUR success, YOUR Happiness and YOUR failure , don't let anyone dictate that to you. Society has set age landmarks for each decade, this is what you do in 20s, 30s and 40s. Don't follow them . I don't miss being 30 . I look forward to being 50 . Remember, Gulzar wrote his best work in his late 40s and early 50s.
Eighth : God and Marriage are Man Made Institutions .
I guess Man made concept of God and Marriage to keep us all entangled . I will write on this subject in detail . God is projected as the master accountant who keeps tracks of good and bad who awards you with business class travels if karma is good and delayed trains if karma is good . His accountancy is supposed to be perfect , is it ? He can be happy and sad. Make No mistake, I am a spiritual person and believe in religion but the master accountant who tracks your Karma Mileage Points is non existent. Do Good karma in good faith and with conviction. Second, Marriage is more a legal and social connect than an emotional and spiritual one . There are no soul mates and in 20s one is never in a good frame of mind to choose a partner rationally when remaining single is unbearable. We have to be utterly at peace with the prospect of many years of solitude in order to have any chance of forming a good relationship. Or we’ll love no longer being single rather more than we love the partner who spared us being so.
Unfortunately, after a certain age, society makes singlehood dangerously unpleasant. Communal life starts to wither, couples are too threatened by the independence of the single to invite them around very often, one starts to feel a freak when going to the cinema alone. For all the new gadgets and supposed freedoms of modernity, it can be very hard to get emotional and physical intimacy .
Ninth : Morality is the dog leash of the society.
There are varying standards of what true morality is , what is immoral in Iran is trendy in US. What is immoral in US is acceptable in India . Who is moral , people who abort female fetus or people who accept an emotional relationship , without a tag . In My view, If what I can do can be shared with my 13 yr old, looking in his or eye, it is damn moral . Set your own benchmarks in morality .
Tenth : All Roads lead to the cremation Ground .
Do whatever, say whatever, fuck anyone , you will be washed and burnt in the end :)
My fav Ghazal as accompanist . It is a rare live version by Jagjit , sung in Southampton in 1999. Ghazal has been penned by Rajesh Reddy .
ज़िन्दगी तूने लहू ले के दिया कुछ भी नहीं, तेरे दामन में मेरे वास्ते क्या कुछ भी नही.
मेरे इन हाथों की चाहो तो तलाशी ले लो, मेरे हाथों में लकीरों के सिवा कुछ भी नहीं,
हमने देखा है कई ऐसे ख़ुदाओं को यहाँ, सामने जिन के वो सच मुच का ख़ुदा कुछ भी नही,
या ख़ुदा अब के ये किस रंग से आई है बहार, ज़र्द ही ज़र्द है पेड़ों पे हरा कुछ भी नहीं
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