When a picture teaches you about Life…

As Dr.Nupur Talwar and Dr.Rajesh Talwar walked free from Dasna jail last evening, this image emerged on my timeline, on the Internet and on TV.

Picture Credit: APNLIVE – Sourced from the internet

It told me so many stories about Life…it showcased…

• How inscrutable Life really is
• The unfairness and injustice meted out to this couple, their daughter Aarushi and their help Hemraj
• How to stay strong, find strength in a storm and go through Life with reflection, resilience and resourcefulness
• How to serve selflessly, how to be useful no matter how grave the circumstances are – the dentist couple refused fees for dental care that they had provided to inmates of Dasna
• The unflinching support that Rajesh’s older brother Dinesh Talwar provided the couple – he was the mainstay of the entire defense strategy, the chief-of-staff as the family soldiered on
• The focus and perseverance of defense attorney Tanveer Ahmed Mir – without whose leadership, the Talwars’ case may not have been made in the Allahabad High Court
• The brutally honest story-telling of Avirook Sen in his Book Aarushi and of Vishal Bharadwaj and Meghna Gulzar in their film Talvar
• The stoicism of the Chitnis couple, Nupur’s parents, as the family went through these harrowing 9 years
• That, no matter what, the truth ultimately prevails…and justice is always done
• How small, and petty, our own challenges are when we look beyond ourselves and around us
• Why we must always be grateful for what we have instead of complaining about what we don’t have
• The learning we must all take away: whatever happens, face Life!
• The Gulzar-RD Burman-Kishore-da genius: Musafir Hoon Yaroon…Bas Chalte Jaana Hai…

Lesson from the Talwars’ story: you can’t reason or negotiate with Life!

You have to go through what you have to go through!

Yesterday, the Allahabad High Court acquitted the Talwar couple, Nupur and Rajesh, in the sensational murder case of their daughter Aarushi. Vaani and I always believed that the couple were not guilty. We have been following the case closely over the past 9 years. We have read Avirook Sen’s book Aarushi and have watched Meghna Gulzar’s Talvar (2015, written by Vishal Bharadwaj, starring Irrfan Khan, Konkona Sen Sharma, Neeraj Kabi) too. Every shred of evidence in the case has always pointed to the innocence of the Talwars. And now the Allahabad High Court rules that there never was, and there isn’t, any conclusive evidence that proves that the Talwars murdered their daughter and their domestic help, Hemraj. Besides, anyone who knew anything about the case, also knew that the UP Police and the second team of the CBI that investigated the case, had done a very shoddy job of the investigations. So, as the Allahabad High Court’s verdict streamed in, many, many people across India felt justice had been done. Of course, some people, rightly so, seek justice for Aarushi and Hemraj – who killed them, and why is the killer(s) still roaming free? And there are others who maintain that the Talwars “got away with it” while some others believe that our system – of crime detection and jurisprudence – stinks.

I have blogged on my learnings from the Life of the Talwars a few times in the past. Life doesn’t bother what you feel about it ; Our Life design, the Master Plan is inscrutable, but it has to be accepted and faced; Judgments and opinions have no place in a Life that spares no one .

As I sat down to write today’s Blogpost, what struck me was the meaninglessness of it all, the inscrutability of Life’s design! If the Allahabad High Court eventually acquitted the Talwars, then why were they convicted in the first place? Why did the couple have to go through this harrowing experience – when they have not even been able to grieve the loss of their child privately? Who will compensate for the 9 years of their Life that the Talwars have lost battling courts and investigating agencies, serving an unfair jail sentence for over 4 years? Why do good people have to go through tough times?

In these questions lie a brutal, non-negotiable truth about Life. Our Life. Yours and mine. And that truth is this – Life just keeps on happening; it has a mind of its own! It doesn’t matter to Life whether you are ethical or talented or sincere or hardworking. No matter who you are, you have to go through what you have to go through. Asking Life questions serves no purpose. Because you aren’t going to get any answers.

Personally, I take away a lot from the Talwars – from the way they have stoically faced their excruciating Life situation. They have not just lost their only child, they have lost their privacy, their reputation, perhaps their sanity too in the wake of such senseless trial and scrutiny by media and public alike; in their incarceration in Dasna, UP, they lost their freedom too – yet they have soldiered on. At each stage, they have done what they had to do, and what they could do – which is, they have relied on the legal system. However biased the system may have been against them, they have ploughed on within its framework. To me, Nupur and Rajesh are embodiments of what the Bhagavad Gita urges all of us to do – focus on our actions, on what we can do in a given situation, and leave the outcome, the result, to Life.

None of us can say we understand what they have gone through and how they must be feeling now after their acquittal. But what we can do is to learn from their story – we can learn that we can’t reason or negotiate with Life; we have to go through what we have to go through! And yes, we can, of course, send them all our love and prayers…

Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi – understanding the ‘suchness’ of Life

Receive Life with open arms, accept its ‘suchness’.

Someone we know separated from her husband 10 years ago. She’s tried in vain to ‘settle’ down in all this time – but despite having been in three relationships, she hasn’t been convinced of any one of them being the ‘right’ one. She met an astrologer who told her that she would be single all her Life. Depressed with what she had been told, she reached out to ask me for my opinion. I said, “I am not going to advice you on what to do. But my view is that if you are not happy with any relationship it may well be because you aren’t relating to any of the men you have met.” “Learn to accept the suchness of Life and move on…not everyone needs to marry and ‘settle’ down in the conventional sense…be happy…if you can find love and companionship in Life, that’s more important than getting married,” I added.

She wasn’t entirely convinced with my perspective. She plodded on: “Why does this often happen in Life? That the most irrational things happen to people?” I replied, “I wish anyone had an answer to these questions. Because, such is Life!”

It was the Buddha who has talked about the suchness of Life. So, in Buddhism there’s this concept of tathata – the suchness of Life. It means, simply, like the title of that famous section in Reader’s Digest: “Life’s Like That!” Or, as the famous show on Doordarshan, that I adored as a teenager, was called: “Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi!”

To understand the concept of tathata – the suchness of Life, let’s pause to think about how Life plays out for us, around us. Almost everything that happens to us, or to anyone else, in Life is just an event. A mere situation. But we humans analyze it, we interpret it and we label it – as wow, good, bad, horrible, whatever! But our labelling a Life event does not change anything. If at all it does cause anything – it only makes us miserable when we think of it as ‘bad’. Life has no agenda. There’s no conspiracy to fix you, just as there is no grand scheme of favoritism to reward you. Life just keeps on happening from moment to moment, from event to event.

When the event in question meets or exceeds your expectations, you rejoice; when it does not happen the way you want it to, you grieve. Now, evidently, there are times in Life when what you want will not happen – no matter how hard you try, how faithful you are, how honest you are and how talented you are. This is when you must understand that talent and integrity do not assure you of a comfortable – defined per your expectations of comfort – passage through Life. Sadly, we often miss this clarity and end up pitying ourselves wondering whether we deserve to be treated so harshly, so unfairly, by Life. But such is Life. It never promised you any fair-play at all when you were born. It offered you no guarantees. So whose fault is it when you expect Life to treat you in a certain way? Understanding Life truly means understanding its suchness. That it is what it is. That what once was will never be forever. That there are no guarantees, nothing’s fair or unfair, that Life just keeps on happening to you the way it wants to. And yet, despite all your challenges and problems, you must go on living your Life, enthusiastically. This is what accepting the ‘suchness’ of Life means.

If you can’t see how you can wrap your head around this concept, think of Aarushi’s parents, the Talwar couple, think of R D Burman, the genius who died without acclaim and work, think of Nirbhaya who was brutally raped and killed, think of someone you know in your family who’s going through an illogical, irrational Life phase just now – all these people’s stories are evidence of the suchness of Life! So whether you are rendered immobile by Life or cashless or companionless or jobless – whatever it may be that Life has dealt you at this time, know that it is so because such is Life! The surest way, therefore, to be anchored in peace, despite your circumstances, is to accept the ‘suchness’ of your Life, unquestioningly.

Life doesn’t bother what you feel about it

Understand that Life may sometimes appear to be unfair. But there’s no point fighting Life. It’s an exercise in futility.   

Rajesh and Nupur Talwar Picture Source: Internet/Financial Express

I am still to come out of the shock of watching Meghna Gulzar’s “Talvar”. Based on the sensational double-murder of Aarushi Talwar and Hemraj, “Talvar” is very, very, very disturbing. Like journalist Avirook Sen’s book on the murder case and trial, the film too points to the injustice against the dentist couple Rajesh and Nupur. The film just corroborates something we all know about our system in India – that it is apathetic, inefficient and in several ways, dysfunctional! There is absolutely no prima-facie evidence that the couple killed their daughter. In fact, all evidence in the case is purely circumstantial and whatever is has been badly collected, analyzed or documented – either by the UP Police, who first investigated the crime and later by the two CBI teams. If anyone got close to solving the murder mystery, it was an upright CBI officer, but he was side-lined when a new CBI Director took over. So, nett nett, the two possible culprits roam free while Rajesh and Nupur are serving a prison sentence, having been convicted by a Special CBI Court, in Dasna jail in UP. They are accused of murdering their only child – only because, of the four people who were (ostensibly) in the apartment that night in May 2008, two are dead and the other two are them!

The more I think of it, the more the unfairness of it all rankles me. But there’s no point in feeling so. The truth is Life never promised any of us any fair-play. You are created without your asking for it. Things happen to you. And you must take each even as it comes in your Life, as it happens, accept what is, and simply move on. This way, while you cannot prevent what happens to you, you can at least choose not to suffer. This doesn’t mean you should not fight injustice. Of course, the Talwar couple are moving the High Court in Allahabad seeking a review of their sentence. But given the long list of pending cases and appeals in that court (like in most other courts in India), it may be some more time (read years) before they get a hearing and a review. When you read Avirook Sen’s “Aarushi”, you will discover that the Talwars have adopted an accept-what-is while being-at-the-problem-to-fight-the-injustice stance.

That can be your learning too. So, while you fight the injustice in any context, make a choice not to be bitter. Bitterness will only cause you suffering. When you suffer you cannot focus on and deal with a situation. You will feel drained and defeated. So, in your own interest, in order that you fight the good fight, you simply must first accept a reality – any reality – for what it is, the way it is. When you accept a reality, you can understand its ramifications better. When you understand something well, you can deal with it wholesomely.

Life is inscrutable no doubt. But it is also a series of happenings. To label any happening or event in your Life as good or bad or ugly or fair or unfair is of no use. Life doesn’t bother what you feel about it. So, when you can’t enjoy a situation, don’t fight it or resist it either. Simply endure it. This is the only way you can be at peace – despite your circumstances.   

Our Life design, the Master Plan, is inscrutable – but has to be accepted and faced!

Anything, absolutely anything can happen in Life. You just have to learn to face it and deal with it.  

A couple of days ago I finished reading “Aarushi” (Penguin, 2015) by journalist Avirook Sen. The book obviously tells the story of the double murders (of 14-year-old Aarushi and the middle-aged housekeeper Hemraj) that shocked all of India in May 2008. But more important, the book tells us that Dr.Rajesh Talwar and Dr.Nupur Talwar, Aarushi’s parents, did not kill her.In telling us so, Sen makes few things very evident to the reader: how flawed our judicial system is, how there is a heartless, cold bureaucracy that thrives at our premier investigating agency, the CBI, and how lawyers, and their often flaky strategies, can ruin a good chance for a client. Sen does not make an explicit summary of these points. This is what you glean through reading his unputdownable book. But above all that is evident, there is also the implicit Life lesson that one picks up – anything, absolutely anything, can happen in Life; and all you can do is face Life and deal with it.

Sen quotes from Dr.Rajesh Talwar’s journal entries on the immediate few days/weeks the couple spent in Dasna jail after their conviction on 25 November 2013. I reproduce some of the quotes as they are:

3 Dec 2013: Still can’t understand how this happened to us. If only I would have gotten up….I could not even save my dear Aaru. Very difficult to live without her.

9 Dec 2013: Miss Aaru so much and that time and our Life. People talk about their children and what they are doing. They come and meet them in jail. But for us, nothing.

10 Dec 2013: Met Nupur in the afternoon. It’s really strange what Life has dealt us. But this is what it is.

18 Dec 2013: This is the 25^th year of our marriage and we will celebrate 25 years on the 19^th of January (2014). Could anybody imagine where we would be on our 25^th anniversary? No Aaru, no house, no clinic, no money and sitting in jail for something we haven’t done.

Dr.Talwar’s journal entries gives us a peek into how we think through a cathartic time in Life. When you read “Aarushi” you will realize how the Talwars have been done in by Life. Yes, we can blame the investigators, the judicial system, the witnesses who were influenced or coerced and whoever else we want to; we can even blame the Talwars for sleeping through the most dramatic and gruesome night of their Life. But ultimately this is the design for the Talwars’ Life: No Aarushi, no house, no clinic, no money and sitting in jail for something they haven’t done. They simply can’t escape it.

This is the way all our lives are designed. We can’t escape that design. We can fret, fume, kick around, bawl in agony, fight, resist – we can do all we want and can do, but Life goes on happening to us. The way it wants to. The Life design we all have to face and deal with is inscrutable. Some call it karma. I believe it is a Master Plan. And as I have learnt from someone, and learnt from being through Life’s experiences, the Master Plan has no flaws. We may think it is flawed because we believe we don’t deserve what we get or what happens to us. But in the end, it all adds up, all of it makes sense. You do eventually realize that whatever happened, happened for a reason and, believe me, for the good!

Dr.Talwar runs a dental clinic inside the Dasna jail. Even as he and Nupur await their appeal for suspension of their sentence by the Ghaziabad CBI court to be heard by the Allahabad High Court. The truth is, reveals Sen, the Allahabad High Court is presently hearing appeals from the 1990s. So, you can imagine how long it can take for the Talwars’, who were convicted in November 2013, appeal to be heard.

That brings us to a key operative word, a killer App, if you will, to face and deal with Life stoically – that word is “acceptance”. You can’t control what is. You can’t create what is. And because it is what it is, you simply have to accept what is; while continuing to do your bit to make each day count, and keep on living the Life that you have!  

Judgments and Opinions have no place in a Life that spares no one

As much as is possible, stay opinion-less and don’t judge anyone. For, anything can happen in Life to anyone – including you – at any time!  

As the Aarushi Talwar whodunit continues to flummox an entire nation, a CBI court, in perhaps a first of many sentences to follow in this case, holds the parents guilty and has awarded stringent punishment for them. This is a case where it’s common knowledge now that crucial evidence has been either lost or destroyed and where the investigators have evidently, consistently, bungled. The latest issue of Outlook magazine runs a cover story titled Everybody killed Aarushi! The story details how several gaps exist in the CBI theory, how, mysteriously, evidence has gone missing, how, curiously, the CBI court refuses to ask pertinent questions and how everyone – the media that has thrived on sensationalizing the case all the time, the inefficient UP Police and CBI teams and the public at large, who have been recklessly pronouncing judgment from day one – has contributed to the trial being driven more by popular opinion than by intelligent, evidence-based reasoning.

In the midst of all this, one can’t even imagine what the dentist couple, Rajesh and Nupur Talwar, must be going through. Whether the Talwars are guilty or not should have been ideally determined through an unimpeachable investigation and an unchallengeable judicial process. From all that is available in the public domain, it just appears, at least to many, that the Talwars did not get a fair trial. Yet, I am not going to invest myself in dissecting the case more than it already has been. Instead, I invite you to consider another opportunity here. This bizarre (ongoing) episode can teach us something about the nature of Life – if we care to pause, reflect and learn from it!

If we look at ourselves, we will realize that all of us have opinions about anything and everything under the sun. Further, we like to offer these opinions, freely, with complete abandon – often when they are never really solicited. Worse, we rush to judge people and events based on hearsay or on what we imagine or, as sadly is the case these days, on what the media has to conjecture! In an urban, educated, tech-driven world, ruled by nano-second social media virality, trial by the people, by popular and ill-informed perception, is as irresponsible as it is instantaneous. Really, of what use are opinions that don’t concern us? Why comment on someone or something, without knowing the truth, just because you want to make a statement, and, more important, be seen as making one?

All of us are a product of the time that we go through. What is happening to the Talwars can happen to anyone – not so much in terms of the specific context but in terms of being put in the dock with nowhere to go to or hide! Life can be totally unfair and can sock you again and again and again – without respite – leaving you no opportunity to even find your bearings or gather yourself. You can go on beating your chest and keep crying from rooftops saying you have been dealt with unfairly. But since Life never guaranteed anything, and most certainly does not promise any fair-play, it will simply go on. Life’s events and course have no logic or explanation. For instance, you can be in the wrong place at the wrong time and may be implicated in situations that you did not bargain for. Or you can invite a situation because of your actions. Either way, you have to endure what the cosmic design has ordained for you. You simply can’t escape it. People with a different perspective will refer to the cosmic design as destiny and explain it by way of Karmic theory. Without refuting such thinking just because we don’t necessarily understand it, let’s remember that Life’s just the same, inscrutable and unpredictable, for everyone – no matter what the packaging looks like with respect to each person’s lifetime and what the individual label reads.

Judgments and opinions have no place in a Life that spares no one! So, if you are the Talwars, you stand accused and, now convicted, for murdering your own daughter. Or someone can call you a cheat simply because your  business sank and you went bankrupt. Or someone can say your marriage failed because your spouse suspected you of infidelity. The stories are endless – as many as there are people on the planet. And each one will have a twist of its own, its own tale of Life’s vagaries and, often, injustice. Each and every one of us has to live the Life that’s already cast and is in store for us! Remember though that each Life event or encounter is not an accident. It is there by design – to teach us something new, while making us better, stronger and humbler.  

So, just because your Life-changing crisis hasn’t arrived yet, just because you think nothing dramatic will ever happen to you, it’s probably not a great idea to let your opinions and judgments about others run amok. A simpler, and definitely more peaceful, way to live will be to wish everyone well. Don’t judge anyone. Don’t offer an opinion for the sake of making one. Let people live their lives per their unique designs. While you live yours knowing fully well that the Master Plan has no flaws!