A Table Full of Dishes ; Sanu Ki?

 Ubiquitous Affliction

“Sanu ki,” a usage in Punjabi, is both a phrase and an idiom. “Sanu” translates to “us” and “ki” means “what.” Together, it merely means “to us, what” or in other words “why bother?” Simply put it means “I don't care.” That is where it stops being a phrase. Depending upon the context, “sanu ki?” assumes many a meaning. Commencing from being a plain expression indicating disassociation, it can mean anything like irrelevance, irreverence, scorn, and at times the sublime state of acceptance of the inevitable. One needs to spend time with people who speak Punjabi to capture the essence of the “sanu ki” served. It can mean anything depending on how, when, and where it has been said and to whom it has been delivered.  The difference in tone can change the associated meaning. The versatility of this phrase or idiom is what caught my attention.

In Malayalam, my mother tongue, there are different versions of ‘sanu ki?” Starting from “namukku enthiru de? to “nammaku entho venam?” words, tones, etc continue to change as we travel up north, from the southern tip of Kerala.  I am sure there would be something equivalent in all languages and different versions, within the same language, depending on the local dialect. Irrespective of the language, or its local dialect they all essentially mean the same, “sanu ki?”

Harmless as it may sound, it can pack a deadly punch when it becomes an attitude. Some, having got away with it for some time, become “cordycyeped[i]” by this attitude. Irrespective of the size of the organisation or its field of operations, if even one member of the team becomes infected, then it is likely to spread to other members sooner than later, spelling disaster for the organisation.

Disaster Everyone Shut Their Eyes To

Established in 1985, Enron became a multi-billion-dollar behemoth. Everybody was sure about its future, or everybody thought so till it declared bankruptcy. The company was packed with talents. They were masters of the ruthless pursuit of profits. There was nothing stopping them anywhere and in whatever they attempted to do. Yet, Enron fell and when it fell, it fell like a pack of cards because something that talents could not prevent pulled it down from the inside.

Postmortem dissection revealed that a few at the top had lied deliberately and some around them colluded while the many other equally talented kept quiet about it. They all individually were afflicted with “sanu ki.” More than the greed of a powerful few at the top, the fall was ensured by the silence of many who could stop it but chose to abdicate. It is said that it is not the violence of the few that kills a society but the silence of the many. 

Cost of Collusion

Most of us find it difficult to speak up even when we know that the path or the decision being taken by the organisation, we are part of, is wrong. We could be worried that by speaking up we could be seen as anti-establishment, end up damaging hierarchical relationships, and spoil our chances within the organisation. Under such circumstances “sanu ki” is the path most of us normally choose. “Sanu ki” killed Enron. Dissection of organisational failures across the world would reveal that “sannu ki” was the ailment that finally killed all of them. If we look around, we can see many people within our families, organisations, and societies remorselessly abdicating their responsibility, to tell the truth. If we muster the courage to look within, we can see many instances where we too have abdicated. We can go to any extent to be seen to be nice without realising that if “sanu ki” can decimate organisations and societies it can destroy us too. The sad part of it, we actively collude with others either for favour or out of fear.

It is easy to compliment someone successful. It is easier to ignore a flaw and let it pass by when it does not impact us adversely. There are many who even at the cost of discomfort keep quiet when they see things go wrong. Most of us desist from giving the correct picture or feedback to those whom we know for fear of offending or spoiling the existing relationships. Anyone who musters the courage and gives suggestions that are contrary to what we believe in is considered offensive and even inimical. Most of us avoid such people.

On the receiving side when things have gone irredeemably beyond, the very same people who chose to be nice through silence would be the first ones to come forward with an “I told you so,” or an “I knew it.” We are conditioned to be nice to the extent of allowing our near and dear ones to fail. Luckily for this world, not everybody believes in sannu ki. Some do bite the bullet.

Bite The Bullet

Recently, on my social media page, I posted a picture of a few dishes laid out on a dining table. Many of my friends liked it and some even posted comments.

One message bucked the trend. "What do I make out of this Picture? What is it all about?" came the private message from my friend in Canada. What is so difficult in understanding a picture?" I thought. many had already seen, put their likes, and even commented. That was my instant response. I did not feel good at all. I tried to justify my act and refrained from giving any weight to his argument.

I had been blunt all my life. I had fallen foul with many for rightfully telling them what I thought was wrong with them or in what they did. Few well-wishers advised diplomacy. I tried but like all half-hearted attempts, it failed. I knew that many in the hierarchy avoided me because of my reputation. Interestingly, I was handpicked by two Director Generals only because of this reputation. I also rose in the hierarchy. I continued to be what I was. If I had chosen to be blunt then, I must give that right to others, now and always too.

After the initial discomfiture, I looked at the picture. He was correct.  Without context, the picture looked meaningless. If you want to understand how awful it was, just try switching on any Indian movie song sequence, preferably one that you have never seen before, switch off the audio, and try watching. I felt the same about the picture I shared without annotation. Most people who liked and commented on the picture must have given it their own context. Were they being kind or were they merely exercising their option of “sanu ki?” Either way, I was happy with all of them.

The Chinese Dinner My Daughter's
Mother-in-law so painstakingly
prepared for us 

On the other hand, here was a man who took time out very early in the morning, risking the friendly relationship we had forged over time, to tell me that I had fallen short. I knew it was straight from the heart and with the sole intent of correcting me regardless of what I felt. I immediately sent him a message of gratitude and made corrections to what I had done. I checked my previous posts. Most of them were without any reference to context, just like the movie song sequence that had no audio to accompany. They all had many likes and comments too. All my incomplete posts seem to have met with people who exercised their choice of  “sanu ki?” 

Today, people find it difficult to point out mistakes. Parents find it difficult to advise or correct even their own children for fear of repercussions. Imagine the damage we are inflicting on ourselves. We forget that “sanu ki” returns to bite.

Human Beings and Human Doings

Recently, a friend gave a talk about “human beings and human doings.” The content of the lecture is her intellectual property. The title set me thinking. I am convinced that it was ‘human doings’ that helped us evolve into human beings and it is in these very ‘doings’ that we, as a society or species, will either flourish or flounder. ‘Sanu ki’ goes against the grain of collective survival.

“To err is human,” didn't someone say? 

"To correct is even more human," I feel.

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[i] ‘Cordycyeped’ is a concept that I had discussed in my previous blog published on Jun 15, 2022. The link to it is given here.   

https://jacobshorizon.blogspot.com/2022/06/beware-you-could-be-cordyceped.html

You Too Can Prove Shakespeare Wrong

    

 

“Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears.

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The Evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their bones 

So let it be with Caesar.”

 

These lines came to me just out of the blue and with it, the name of Mr JS Iyer, one of my teachers. 

Act 3, Scene 2 of the Shakespearean play, Julius Caesar reverberates on stages the world over as the play itself or as part of elocution competitions in many schools and colleges. These lines did not mean anything to me beyond the next examination, those days. Strange, these lines had to come up while I was sitting in my study taking stock of life. I had just published my second book, "Dare Dream Different." With that, I checked off the 8^th of the 10 “things to do before I die,” a second time. I had drawn up that list in 1988. The paper on which the list was written could not stand its age and one day when I opened it to read, it just disintegrated. I know well the two I am still left to do.  

Thoughts have a strange way of making their presence felt. They come and go at their free will. I do not know why Antony’s speech came to the fore. It set me thinking. Is that the truth?  What about those who do good? Are they of relevance only till their graves? Are good deeds destined only for oblivion? 

Eulogies mean nothing to the dead. More of a social grace, it just adds to the frills of the spectacle called, funeral. Once the flow of eulogies from both eloquent and emotional speakers at the funeral ceases, the dead is nothing more than a memory.  Memories of people are fleeting but those of injuries, remain unobliterated. It always comes back with the same set of emotions. In an era where everybody is blaming someone dead long ago for the ills perceived today, Shakespeare, the visionary, was right. 

 

I am happily retired. I had a very successful run in my career. I did not reach the topmost position but I was considered. I blame no one for it. My bucket list is all done barring my desire to play the keyboard and obtain a pilot license. I have second thoughts on both but I have not given up. My book just got its first overseas sale. I was as happy as I could ever be. “The Evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.”  Why did this occur to me now?  How was it linked to Mr JS Iyer? Mr. Iyer taught Mathematics and not English. Suddenly, things fell into place and I solved the puzzle.

 

I vividly recalled the incident. It happened in Feb1975.

 

I was in the hostel of a residential school. It was a weekend. My father had come to visit me. I was in the 10^th class and did not show any signs of doing well in life. I do not know why; I could never sit through the full duration of an examination. I left when I thought I had written enough to pass. I scored just the pass marks in all the subjects right from the fifth standard till the tenth. There was nothing great about it but it allowed me to continue in the elite school, receiving the scholarship and free education. The board examinations were just one year away. Just passing meant nothing. Worse, it would be a loss of face especially when my cousin had passed out from the same school with honours. My father was naturally very worried.

 

We were standing at the highest point in the school from where two roads radiated down. I was at the lowest in my life and the road ahead for me was nowhere in sight. I could clearly see the dormitories in the distance and the parade ground below. There was neither any clarity about what destiny had in store for me nor did I have anything worth parading. My father was disturbed. He was counselling me and I had shut myself in. It was then I saw Mr Iyer cycling up the gradient. Those days most teachers could only afford cycles. I am sure, he must have seen worry written large on my father's face and mine too. He stopped. 

 

“Good evening, sir,” I said, as he came close enough. It was customary for students to wish their teachers whenever they met a teacher. It also helped me break the barrage from my distraught after. “Good evening, Jacob Tharakan,” he replied. “How are you Mr. Tharakan?” he asked my father.  My father opened his bag of woes about me in front of Mr Iyer. “I am worried about him,” said my father. After the little conversation, Mr. Iyer told my father, “Don't worry Mr. Tharakan, I can assure you that one day your son will make you proud. He has a great future. Take my word for it.” Mr. Iyer then mounted his cycle and went his way.

 

“He can say all that. He was only trying to console me. I find it difficult to believe it,” my father said. I liked what he said. I also knew that Mr. Iyer was being kind. “Maybe one day I will do well,” I said to myself. Later that evening, after my father had left, sitting with my friend Jayakumar, in the corner of the farthest football court, discussing our future, I started believing in what Mr Iyer said. Our discussions about what we would be became more meaningful. It changed the way I looked at myself. Mr. Iyer helped me change the way I looked at myself. It changed my life. Jayakumar later became a banker and I joined the Army.

 

I became an Army officer in 1981. I did very well in all the Army Courses. I became a Brigadier in 2010. One evening, sitting with my wife and enjoying our tea, I felt like calling up Mr Iyer. I managed to get hold of Mr. Iyer's number and dialled. I knew my call would be a surprise.  He had retired long back and must have been quite old. I had never tried to contact him before that. I was not sure if he would recall my name. “Good evening, sir,” I said when he picked up the phone. “Good evening, wait,” he said. I could immediately make out that he was trying to jog his memory. “Jacob Tharakan, Ashoka House, My son, Suresh’s classmate,” he said. He even called out my roll number. It was my turn to be surprised. 

 

“Sir, you still remember me?” I asked. “How better can a retired teacher spend his sunset years?” he said. He asked me everything about what I had done all these years. “I am very happy you remember your teachers. I am grateful you called. It made my day,” he said. He was emotional and so was I. “Sir, how can I forget you? I can forget anybody or anything in this world but not you. You trusted me when even I had lost faith in myself. I know my call is many years overdue. I called to thank you for what you have done for me,” I said. I must have spoken to him once or twice after that.  

 

Corporal punishment was the norm those days.  Some teachers let their anger loose on hapless children. Nobody questioned them. I have received some myself. Mr Iyer never hit or admonished any child. I never saw him getting angry. He was a gentle soul. He was not at the center of any alumni activities and never got the attention or recognition he deserved; not that I know of. He was a Guru, who did his job and faded away. I retired on the 31^st of July 2017 as a two-star general. Mr. Iyer passed away on the 19^th of Jul 2019.

 

I am not young anymore but I am surer about myself than ever before. I spend time telling stories to my grandchildren when they come to visit; just like my grandfather did when I visited him. This is one story I will tell them when I meet them next. The story of my teacher, Mr Iyer who proved Shakespeare was wrong.

 

Maybe with kindness and empathy, we too like Mr Iyer can prove Shakespeare wrong. Maybe our grandchildren can tell others how their grandparents proved Shakespeare wrong. Maybe, proving Shakespeare wrong can be the next item on our bucket list.

Two Telephone Calls The Redwood Trees and A Stamp Pad

 

The First Call

It was a call from a former colleague and friend. He was organising an event to get former army officers and their spouses together, on an informal platform. He and a coursemate of mine reached out to all the veteran officers. Their efforts bore fruits. Many officers confirmed their attendance. I presumed he called up to discuss something about the meeting. 

“Sir, I want you to give a talk on ‘group dynamics’ at the meeting, he requested. I could not decline. Each attendee had a distinguished career behind him. Most of them had commanded and led troops in operations. They were masters at keeping teams together and eliciting performance from them in the most trying circumstances. Their spouses had seen it all from very close quarters. Talking to them about team dynamics, I knew, was like showing a candle to the sun. 

I scoured the web for research papers on the subject. All the articles, I laid my hands on, were clinical in their approach. Those in the realm of behavioural sciences took the psychology and psychiatry routes. Papers dealing with management used medical, clinical, and industrial inputs to explain the why of everything. They prescribed how to increase organisational harmony, growth, and productivity. I wanted my talk to be something other than academic because I was to address men and women who risked their own lives for the safety, honour, and welfare of the country and the men they lead. I wanted my talk to connect with their hearts.

When urgency dictates responses, people normally choose easy fixes. I loathe it because such solutions invariably become residual problems that persist. I just dig deeper, strive harder, and normally succeed in coming up with solutions that don't become problems later. I have been lucky. My mind was hard at work. I had not yet come up with any interesting connection. 

The Second Call 

It was quarter past eight in the evening and bedtime was fast approaching. My mobile buzzed. The message was from one of my cousins. "Will you be at home on the 28th of September?" it said. "As of now; Yes," I responded. "Can I call," he asked. "Certainly," I replied. 

He was older than me and was more of an acquaintance than a cousin. Our childhood interactions were brief. We were next-door neighbours and also members of the same local club. Members of the club were a band of youngsters, all in the same age group, looking for adventure and fun. He came to the club only to play badminton and steadfastly stayed away from mischief we worked up. He was studious, focused, hardworking, detached, reserved, and determined to carve a niche for himself. I was part of all the mischief that we, friends, planned and executed unless they decided to pull one on me. 

After graduation, he pursued studies in engineering and secured a career with a prestigious company. When I graduated, I joined the Military Academy and became an army officer. We drifted apart and raised our own families. We met just twice or three times in the last 40 years. Social media opened up avenues to catch up with people and we found a place on each other's contact list but never contacted each other. His message, therefore was a surprise. 

My mobile rang. “It has been many years. I want to meet you, sit down, talk with you, and hug you. We all are running against time. I want to spend some time with you before it is late,” he said. I could sense the sincerity in his words. We agreed to meet on the 30th of September. My mind was still hard at work when I retired to bed. “Why did he call me up?” 

That night I had a strange dream. I saw a forest full of giant Redwood trees. The name ‘redwood tree’ lingered on. I got up from the bed and drank water. Redwood trees? The dream was about things alien to me. I went back to sleep. I dreamt of the Redwood trees again. 

The Redwood Trees

Normally, I find it difficult to recall dreams once I wake up. This dream refused to fade away. I had never been to any Redwood forests. Then, out of the blue, I recalled having read something about the redwood trees of California while I searched the net for places to visit in the USA. I searched again.

Redwood trees are amongst the tallest, biggest, and oldest trees in the world. Some trees are said to have a girth with a diameter of more than 20 feet. It withstands rot, fire, and pests. What is visible to the naked eye is not its actual strength but the manifestation of the real power that lies hidden beneath the surface. Storms and floods cannot fell a Redwood tree. They hold each other. I decided to make the secret of the Redwood trees the ‘connection’ between me and the audience. 

 

The Secret

All trees send roots down; the taller the tree, the deeper the roots. Redwood trees are the tallest but adopt a different strategy. The taller the tree, the farther its roots travel. Like other trees, it does send its roots deep down but unlike other trees, it also sends its roots away in search of other Redwood roots. When the roots of different Redwood trees meet, they embrace each other and eventually merge. It is believed that each redwood tree is connected, at its roots, to all the other redwood trees in the forest. Imagine the strength of each tree held firm by a forest full of roots. No storm or flood can harm a Redwood tree. Storms and floods are inevitable.

Storms 

Individually, each one of us might be super achievers. We might tower over everybody else around us with our achievements. Our wealth and health may seem unassailable. We may even feel undefeatable. Unfortunately, aging is inevitable and afflicts all of us, however mighty we may be. It is also an uneasy process. It brings along storms every day; to each man his own. 

“Empty nest” is a common challenge. We plan the future of our children and strive hard to raise them to succeed in life. When our children grow up, they leave the nest in pursuit of careers of their choice and also raise their own families. Initially, we take great pride and satisfaction in saying that our children have gone far but as age catches up one realises that the nest is empty. It is a situation that we all strive to bring upon ourselves and therefore an irony that we have to come to terms with. Emptiness is the first storm to hit an empty nest.

The storm gains fury as we age. Physical ailments, lack of sleep, and loss of purpose accentuate emptiness. Days become shorter, nights become longer and the horizon looks a bit closer than before. The clock sounds louder at night signaling the presence of emptiness in our nests. The inability of our children to meet our demands on their time, proximity, and care starts hurting us and even negates the pride we once carried about their achievements. The more we demand the less we feel we get irrespective of whatever and how much soever they do. Emptiness is the most dangerous form of cancer. It rots one from within.

Loss of spouse and friends, inevitable in our journey in time, worsens emptiness and makes the storm unbearable. Those amongst us who toiled all our lives only for ourselves, like trees sending their roots down without connecting with the world around, can find emptiness unbearable and storms hard to survive. Those unwilling to mend ways have nothing but bitter emptiness for company, as they age. Their escape comes through Dementia, Alzheimer's, and eventual death. Luckily, it is never too late to start extending our hands of friendship and cooperation to the people around us. There is just one impediment, the baggage we carry.

Baggage

The only impediment to sending our roots out in search of other Redwood trees is our ego. We think no end to ourselves because of the success we attribute to ourselves. We might have been anybody when we were at the zenith of our profession. The place we considered our thrones, the very symbol of our achievements and success, has to be handed over to someone younger even if we don't like it. There will be people more capable than us even if we don't accept it. It is better, we understand that positions and authority are transient and we have travelled beyond them. It is the same with our failures. Success and failures are comparative and perceptional. Pivoting happiness on success and failure is the ultimate cruelty to oneself. This realisation can make it easy for us to let go of the baggage of success or failure that weigh us down as we age. Unwanted cargo only helps a ship drown faster in a storm.

The Stamp Pad

 

Finally, the day I was to address the veterans dawned. I opened the closet to choose the shirt I was to wear. The first thing that caught my eye was the stamp pad. 

It happened a year back, I had called the Soldier welfare officer, requesting an appointment with her. My wife and I were required to affix our thumb impressions on a document in her presence and get that document attested by her. The fine lady had a busy schedule that day. She could not give us an appointment on that day during office hours. She, however, visited us on her way back home. She even carried the stamp pad for the thumb impression. She left the stamp pad back with us. Her act was one of absolute benevolence. I have kept it as a memento. Every time I see the stamp pad, I am reminded of, not just the immense kindness she showed but all that I received all my life. It also reminds me to be grateful for anything I receive. 

A sense of gratitude is a great nutrient. It changes the way we look at life. We become aware of our interdependence as members of the community we live in. It helps initiate, maintain, and sustain fruitful relationships and contribute without expectations. It also works as one of the best antidotes to the ailments inflicted by ego. The older we get, the more reasons we can identify to be grateful. The more we age, the faster we must shed our egos. 

Sans egos and filled with gratitude it becomes easy to stretch our hands out for friendship. When many hands come together each one of us becomes tall like the Redwood trees in the forest, immune to storms and floods that we encounter in our daily lives.

Of Boundaries, Barriers and the Forbidden Peach

COVID, lockdowns and the consequent uncertainty ensured that the journey I planned happened two years late. On the 15th September, finally I managed to fly out to fulfil the last item on the bucket list written way back in 1999. It’s also time to draw up on a fresh one soon.

Jet lag and the associated fatigue is no match to time zone induced insomnia. Body and mind gets into an invisible conflict where there are no winners. However hard I tried, my body clock just wouldn’t align itself to the new geographical time zone. I was left with no other option but wait for the daylight to break.

Patience a virtue, for most is nothing but helplessness. Armed with the newly acquired virtue, I decided to walk out to explore the neighbourhood.

Hardly had I commenced my walk, something strange caught my attention. There were many beautiful houses in the area, not far from each other. However, the conspicuous absence of boundary walls and fencing between them baffled me. The landscape was distinctively different from what I had experienced all my life. Properties without boundaries?

Native to a community that prides itself in making houses and enclosing it within boundary walls and fencing, the sight was nothing short of a cultural shock. The entire colony barring just one house, had neither fencing nor boundary walls separating one property from the other. On enquiring about the ‘ odd man out' I learned that the owner had raised the fencing to ensure that his pet and small children don’t trespass into other’s property.

 Considered a highly competitive and capitalist society where everyone is believed to be strongly individualistic and known to zealously guard their privacy, every property should have been well-fenced off from each other. This colony was different. May be others won’t be like this; I thought.

A drive around the area was good enough for realisation to sink in that across the landscape the story was same. There were no boundary walls or fencing that separated one property from the other.

Walking around the house that I was staying I noticed two pear plants laden with fruits. Some had fallen to the ground. My first question to my host was; can I pluck one? His answer was that we could not because that was in the neighbour’s property. Small things but great lesson!

Clearly everyone around knew their boundaries and never crossed the barrier they had imposed on themselves to infringe upon somebody else’s property. Truly impressive.

 Later in the day I took a drive out to the local grocery store . I was impressed with the manner in which common people conducted themselves on the road driving their cars. At every crossing, traffic light or not, without fail people actually stopped their cars just because a ‘Stop’ sign was painted on the road! They looked for other traffic and gave way to the person with the right of way. At many places I saw them being extra polite giving way to someone they thought deserved priority. How could I be not impressed?

On the few occasions I went for a walk, I was greeted by individuals, total strangers, whom I crossed. That too was a novel experience to someone who crossed many in such walks back home. Most refused to return a smile or acknowledge my presence. It was not that everybody here was polished civilized and good. But those who didn’t smile or wish were mostly exceptions rather than norm.

The boundaries between right and wrong seemed to be distinctly clear and deeply ingrained in almost everybody. Societies where distinctions between right and wrong, privileges and obligations, rights and duties, entitlements and expectations are internalized and practiced, there maybe no need to erect boundary walls or create unsurmountable barriers between neighbours, people and citizens. In such societies, people themselves set barriers for themselves and do not cross it.

They don’t need to blow their trumpet about how great they are. It just shows.

I have a lot to learn. I have more to internalise. May be I can start doing it myself. I am eager to get home. My new bucket list, however small it would be, considering the residual existence, would be significantly be influenced by what I learned here. It may or may not make any significant dent but my earnestness will not be insignificant.

Milk Negativity for Gains

 

Exhortations

The most repeated exhortation in motivational and corporate training circuits is about remaining positive’ irrespective of circumstances. Having been on the circuit, I have done it, many times over.  But talks about positivity is meaningless unless we understand negativity, its contours and content and context.

Negativity is everywhere. Overt or covert in application, crass or sophisticated in execution, words or deeds its manifestation, its existence recognised within or experienced from outside, negativity comes in countless shades and has little in common to call as character. Inseparable companion for some, identity for few, fuel for aggression or weapon of defense for many, we encounter negativity in some form every day.

Interestingly, people reeking of negativity complain most about others’ negativity.

 

Power of Negativity

I realised the power of ‘negativity’, first time in the mathematics class. We were attempting to solve a linear equation. When answers were called in, we found ourselves in two camps. All of us noticed the negative sign but most of us ignored its implications and turned in wrong. The vigilant few who recognised its power took appropriate steps turned in right.

Life is like that; you ignore negativity to your peril. It is omnipresent. Success and happiness to a large extent depends on how well, one can recognise and manage negativity in life’s equations. Unmanaged, it can be overwhelming. Negativity can impact personal life, as also play significant roles in shaping social issues and its outcomes.

Irrespective of its nature and purpose, negativity commences with and from individuals. Whether it is out of an inherent psychological disorder and consequent delinquent compulsions or as an element of purpose, it needs perpetrators and victims; person, persons or groups. Easily weaponised, it can vitiate even the most pristine and benign of environments.

Negativity, becomes a weapon of menacing potency, only if it finds conducive mediums and through them attain the threshold kinetic energy. It is true for individuals, groups, organisations and society.

Weaponising Negativity

Most of us, if not all, suffer from bouts of negativity. It is a natural survival kit that warns us of threats. It kick-starts instincts to survive adversities. Apprehension and anxiety we experience are negativity elements, but extremely useful survival tools. But when negativity persists and becomes the identity and predominant trait of an individual, it is a problem.  Individuals become negative mostly out of unaddressed inadequacies.

Negative outlook, in most cases, is a carryover of abusive childhood, intense physical or psychological trauma suffered anytime in life or flawed upbringing. From the cause and effect perspective, negativity comes from deep sense of insecurity. Responses may vary.

Negative individuals tend to see threat where none exists. Even in the best of situations they can create monsters, play spoilsport, experience discrimination, imagine apocalypse and seed and spread disharmony where such eventualities are otherwise impossible. Some of them do it deliberately and others do it by compulsion. Low on self-esteem,  most of them unsocial and at times anti-social, some withdraw into shells they create, few turn quarrelsome and violent but most are content being selfish and manipulative; and seem to gain immense pleasure even from small acts of disturbances they cause. Mistrust and being untrustworthy are sure signs of deep-rooted negativity. Education, economic status, job profiles or place in the social ladder don’t matter.  Apparently leading normal lives and earning livelihoods, they infect the environment they live in.

Look around; one may find such people.

Negative people seldom recognise their plight. Most of them live in denial, oblivious to their own misery and the misery they spread. Few weaponise it to achieve short-term objectives oblivious to long-term losses.  When others are inconvenienced because of them, they become convinced of the effectiveness of their strategy, only to compound their illness further. Those who can, avoid them and those who can’t, suffer fait accompli.

 

Harvest From Negative Narratives

Negativity is contagious and easily spreads through association. It is the most effective means to get messages across big audiences.

It is natural to view existential threats with apprehension. If such a narrative is created and propagated, it spreads and grips the community. Each individual, if not extremely diligent, by instinct becomes a medium and diligence is a rarity.  More the mediums, more virulent becomes negative narratives. Initially only a few may add content but as is wont, mass gets added arithmetically in the beginning, geometrically then and imaginatively exponential thereafter. 

There are people who thrive milking negativity. Many politicians and religious teachers, world over, exploit their ‘subjects’ deliberately injecting negativity. When the group is fed narratives of an impending doom, mostly conjured and propped up with lies dressed as truth, the threat looks real. The group, then naturally listens. Those who bite the bait not only believe in the ‘negative’ but go around baiting others. World across, the wily have come to power using this magic formula.  

Once ‘we’ and ‘they’ are defined, minds become fertile grounds for negativity. Almost all contemporary political campaigns across the world effectively uses negativity to garner votes. Social media proliferation is a boon for virulent spread of such narratives. Spreading fear about after-life consequences or threat from other religions or even sects within, some religious leaders harvest money, fame and power from negativity.  Growth of most cults, if mapped, often reveal underlying threads of ‘negative’ narratives

Group-negativity, initially is confined to words. However it soon turns into deeds and left unmanaged become reprisals against the ‘other’. The silent many who remained content being spectators sooner than later become participants and perpetrators. The holocaust is a grim reminder to humanity of what negative narratives can yield but time seems to have numbed our senses.

Ironic but true; though negativity starts when objective logic fails, its only logical reasoning that can put an end to negativity. Unfortunately, reasoning dies a few deaths with those taken in by negativity. It is not only the illiterate, ignorant poor that make the gullible crowd but even educated well-placed individuals stream-in, “ever hearing but never understanding”, “ever seeing but never perceiving”.

Is there a way out of the marauding negativity?

 

The Equation

Constructing cause and effect equations to understand situations help deal with negativity. But people drowned in negativity seldom see the life-rope. Persistent chipping away at the causative factors does help but negatives have a strange overpowering presence.

A blot on a clean apparel, however small catches the eye first.  Despite the large clean canvas around the blot often refuses to let the eyes go. Notional or imaginary losses have the same impact. Having made riches off paltry investments, people fret about the falling stock indices. Industrialists, taking their own lives having suffered losses, would not have thought even once about the growth they charted their way up and the huge growth possibilities ahead. Engrossed in the web of negativity they spin about themselves, they distance themselves from any meaningful help only to be fatally consumed.

It is absolutely normal, to feel the burden of negativity. It is good to be aware of the negative within. Willingness to accept its presence within and address it helps us turn in right at the end of the linear equation. Ability to identify negativity outside increases the probability of successfully negotiating it.

The equation is simple, straight and linear. Whoever has eyes, let them see!

 

LIFE’S PURPOSE: THE GARDEN BENCH AND FEW REVELATIONS

Background

The cemented garden bench, across my house, with bright golden yellow borders and white cross members, looks perfect a partner for the strange tree painted on the wall next to it. The unnaturally multi coloured leaves, all imprints of hands, make the white wall come alive. I do not know what the artists want to convey. To me, it represents a declaration of the arrival of the new generation, colourful and different. The symbolic leaves, reveal the unmistakable urge for attachment despite the deliberate choice of detached existence, uneasy coexistence of silent symmetry with loud asymmetry and subtle yet visible order in the chaotic riot of colours. 

During day, the bench and the tree on the wall merge into insignificance with the surroundings. But as darkness descends and the caretaker switches the light on, they transform the area into a surreal spectacle, seen to be believed.

Occasionally few, of those ‘palm-print artists’, occupy the garden bench, in a huddle, mostly loud, sometimes in hush-hush mode, but always deliberately unmindful of our existence.

The Trigger

The post-supper conversation between my wife and I sitting, out on our veranda chairs, is a ritual we rarely miss. Our neighbour a septuagenarian widower joins us nowadays. We find something to talk about every day.

It was the first of February and we were half way into to our discussion when I noticed the caretaker of our colony sitting still on the bench.

Appointed for security, he is of minimal security value.  His primary job is to switch on and switch off the water pump that fills our colony’s overhead tank. Very particular in switching it on, which he does many times a day, he often forgets to switch it off. Sensitive to water wastage, I often switch it off. His disarming demeanour makes it difficult for me to scold him, though I do at times. At 72, he is active, always happy and happier after a glass of toddy, which he manages, at least once a day. Resourceful, he easily manages more. Despite the hard life behind him, he carries no grudge.

Sitting motionless on the highlighted bench, he seemed like one who had achieved the ultimate bliss through denouncement. Whether it was toddy induced stupor or age inflicted deafness, I don’t know, he remained oblivious to the sound of water gushing out of the overflow pipe. I shouted out to bring him back to the duty-bound world. He immediately rushed to switch off the motor and came back with the excuse always given and his characteristic smile. Thereafter, he returned to his room to sleep.

As he walked away, I remarked, look at him! He lives for the moment. Neither today nor tomorrow seems to worry him. He has no savings and estate to leave behind with an elaborate will. His daughters are married and wife has a part-time job in the nearby pump. He is not bothered about how his old age will pan out. He lived like that all his life. Content with his state of meagre existence he lives to enjoy the moment.

Think of it, he is a lucky man.

In the hope of making our old age safe and secure, we exhaust ourselves and our lives, struggling to accumulate and hoard things? If that wasn’t enough, we start working to secure the future of our children and even the ‘yet-not-thought-of’ grandchildren. The self-imposed burden of defining their destiny becomes the very purpose of our life and the sole driving force of existence.  Though we know of the uncertainty, today holds and tomorrow brings, we are relentless in our toil in vain.

This realisation compelled me to ask my wife and my neighbour, “What could be the purpose of his life?” “What is the purpose of our lives?”

The Counter

Anniey, my wife is a very intelligent and practical lady. A gold medalist of her times in academics, she is well read and keeps an ear to the ground. “Well,” she said, “He must surely have had some aspirations in the past and some now.” He would have wanted to have a house, wear good clothes, eat good food, travel. Surely every man and woman would want to have all that”.

Yes. Certainly. Everyone in whatever state he or she is born into, would want to become better. Desire to own, improve one’s own state of existence, part take in comfort should be our aim. I believe its our duty to be richer than when we were born.

That is not what is marketed by all sorts of Gurus as ‘purpose of life’. They tend to add halo to our existence and in the process complicate a simple natural process called life.

Life’s Purpose

The ultimate advice gurus give us, is to define the purpose of life. They convince us to connect our present with the future and life beyond, compelling us to do things, normal living things are not supposed to. Most of us are convinced that we Humans are the only ones blessed with possession of Soul.

Even though every one of us know, that there is a definite end to each one of us, we toil today to live tomorrow and even dictate the life after. Many of us want to leave something movable or immovable for posterity. The driving force, accepted or denied, behind such action of ours is the desire to be remembered by our progeny, their progeny and even the society well after we're gone. Most of our actions under the banner of ‘purpose of life’ is undertaken solely with the aim of leaving our footprints, hoping that it lasts for ever[i].

Life's purpose is not a recent discovery. It has been spoken of even in old tests. If we should be driven by a life's purpose now, even those before us would have felt the same!

Examining their life and its outcomes could help us define the purpose of our life and draw up pursuit strategies.

World’s Greatest

The most powerful student of Aristotle, Alexander III, mostly known as Alexander the Great, in 33 short years of his life, ruled ancient Macedonia for 13 years, most of which was spent in ruthless empire expansion. There is no written word about what his purpose of life was, but whatever it was, he would have done everything, with all the force at his command to fulfil it. If it was the creation of an endless empire, or a way of life he wanted others to follow, everything he created over unimaginable bloodshed and countless mutilated bodies disintegrated soon after he died.

Genghis Khan, who created the world’s largest contiguous empire between 13^th and 14^th centuries, often called the ‘green invader’, killed so many, that huge swathes of inhabited and populated land became depopulated and became forests! What his life’s purpose was, remains a mystery. Whatever it was, it isn’t around!

They are not alone. Ruthless rulers, lying leaders, shrewd businessmen; none of them had any different fate. Each of them devised means to decimate opposition, overcome challenges and create suitable environment for exclusive growth and spent a lifetime attempting to create systems to carry their names till eternity. Addiction, it turns out to be, turns them blind to reality.

But we can see! The same story is being spun in vain even now, across the world in every country, society, business and even at home.

Empires, fiefdoms, institutions and people; they all obey this law. One may find few examples to dispute the hypothesis. The disagreement comes from our inability to see the graph ahead in time. Extension of the graph forward on axis of time eventually proves that the exception is merely a visibility issue.

No exceptions?

Exceptions Prove the Rule

There could be an argument that ideologies could beat this law. Therefore, if the purpose of life of an individual is to create and propagate an ideology, would it last long, if not forever?

Dispassionate dissection of the argument would easily dispel the fallacy. The loftiest of ideals, fervently celebrated, could also find itself being trampled upon, at times by the very same people who use it to usurp power. Contemporary National and international politics is witness enough to the weaknesses of the argument.  Communism has acquired capitalist colour driving equals and more equals further apart; religions have evolved finding better ways to sell salvation and assassin of the ‘Father of The Nation’ is repackaged as freedom fighter. Time can make zeros of heroes can and martyrs out of killers.  Nothing is forever; not even gratitude.

‘Purpose of life’ is fallacy that we have been conditioned to believe in; a collective narcissistic pursuit. Though just one element of a complex interwoven food chain, we fool ourselves us into believing that we are special and ordained to lord over others. Kept alive by the grace of flora and fauna within and feeding on flora and fauna outside and mortally susceptible to even the tiniest bacterium or virus, we are only as good as any other species and definitely bad for others. We exploit the earth at the cost of other species and continually endeavour to exploit even others in our own species. Our cruelty remains unmatched among all species. All that we say about finding purpose of life masks either our selfish or escapist motives.

Crass Pessimism?

Against all lofty teachings?

If not for a purpose, what must we live for?

The Truth

Truth is often unpalatable. Purpose of life, irrespective of the owner, has a shelf life.

The Great Wall of China stretching over 21,196 km, was built by a series of Emperors from different dynasties. Built for the ‘purpose’ of fortifying northern borders of ancient China, it has long outlived its original purpose. China continues to claim real estate far beyond the wall, now primarily a tourist destination!

Shorn of hypocrisy and narcissistic masks our purpose of life is existence. Penned plain and simple, there is nothing to achieve beyond ourselves in this life. Everything else, said about us, binds us in pursuit of a mirage. The primary task is to live and let live with dignity. If a purpose has to be defined, then it is just to be good to oneself and others around. Mutually inclusive thought and action would mitigate almost all problems that the world is facing today.

When humans start considering that other races within our species and other species in the inter-species realms have the same rights of existence, the world could be a better place for living. If inventions and discoveries were deployed only for the good of mankind and not used as exploitative means of socio-economic and political dominance, life could have been different for all of us. It still can be!

It is often said that there is enough and more to satiate everyone’s needs. It is the greed of some, that makes it difficult for others to meet even their basic needs. That remains the bare fact.  The pleasure one gets through cheating and untrustworthiness, little or big acts of smartness, would all be in vain.

Being good to oneself can happen even while being just and good to others. Look at life as an opportunity to be good to people.

Bare Fact

On 2^nd February while coming home from the local barbershop, our caretaker fell by the roadside. Passers-by carried him to the medical college nearby. He passed away on 10^th February.

When I went to pay condolences, I saw him peacefully asleep dressed in the purest of whites. I was one amongst the crowd at the funeral. I watched his mortal remains locked in the coffin being pushed into the burial vault. Along with him locked in his coffin, went the purpose of his life; if any he had. Everybody and everything he loved stayed back.

You and I too would soon be gone and with us all that we believe in. All that we built and plan to build will not.

Paradoxical, but true, each of us, leave ‘footprints on the sands of time’, each one momentary, however impactful and seemingly indelible.

Are you still thinking of a great purpose of life?

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[i] Vehement denial could be the first reaction