Miracles are happening for you 24 x 7 x 365

Just tune in to the Universe’s energy to experience them.

How do miracles happen only to you? This is what a friend, who called yesterday, asked me. We were speaking to each other after a few years. He wanted to know if things had improved for us. (To understand the context for this question, read more here: Fall Like A Rose Petal) When I filled him in, he asked about how Aash and Aanch were doing. The miracle question popped up when I told him that Aanch had found a sponsor who would support her Master’s Program overseas.

I remember my brother too once asked me the same question. I believe this question comes from an unevolved point of view.

All Life is a miracle. You are a miracle. I am a miracle. This moment is a miracle. Being human is a miracle. So, when every aspect of creation is pulsing with a miraculous energy, defining only tangible, visible ‘things’ or actions as miracles, to me, represents a lack of understanding of Life, a state of unevolvedness.

We think because we have an education, we earn an income and we can buy ‘things’, only such a ‘thing’ that we cannot do or get done on our own qualifies as a miracle. But if you pause and reflect, to have an education is a miracle, to have the ability to earn an income is a miracle and, therefore, to be able to buy what you want too is a miracle. So, in a very real sense, miracles are happening to all of us, all the time. We must be tuned to the Universe’s energies to be able to spot and celebrate these miracles.

I stay tuned by understanding, accepting and surrendering to the realization that Life is happening through me, for me, and not because of me. To me, even this ability to dexterously move my fingers across a keyboard, as I process a feeling that translates into a thought and forms a word on this blogpost is a miracle. I live in this constant awareness, in a perpetual state of gratitude for my miracle Life, and I savor and celebrate each moment that comes my way!

You too have a miracle Life; simply, miracles are happening for you 24 x 7 x 365. To experience them, you must tune out of the ‘earning-a-living’ mode and into the ‘living’ mode!!!

Oye Lucky! Unlucky Oye!!

Life couldn’t care if you thought of it as unfair – or as benevolent!

At a dinner that I was invited to recently, I got talking with an acquaintance. We spoke about Life. He said a common pattern he had seen was that the “honest and hardworking folks always struggled more” and that, above all else, “Life is a game of luck”! I politely disagreed with him and said that there are no such patterns to Life. Luck was a matter of human perception and imagination, it never was an intrinsic flavor of Life, I added. The gentleman invited me to substantiate my point of view.

I believe that everyone has their fair share of struggles. Everyone. If we pause to listen to every story around us we will find that people are fighting their own battles. Those who are materially challenged look at the haves and imagine they have no problems. But the truth is that those people may have a different set of issues. They may have money, but they could be dealing with emotional challenges, with health problems or with identity crises. To be sure, there’s no one on the planet who is not dealing with at least one challenge at any given point in time.

Next, on the luck debate, I have to say that it is an avoidable one. I shared with the man a couple of instances from my Life’s story. I talked about how our son Aashirwad graduated from the University of Chicago even as Vaani and I battled our bankruptcy here. (Read more here: Fall Like A Rose Petal) I told him how our daughter graduated from a college here in India and is taking up a Master’s Program overseas, even as we continue to endure our bankruptcy. In both instances, our children’s education has been provided for by the “benevolent Universe” despite our workless, often broke, situation. Our children’s education may have come to the edge of the precipice many a time but Life always bailed them out. Now, which part of our story is true? Is it that we are hardworking, honest people going through a trying, unlucky time? Or is it that despite our hardships, we are lucky enough that our children’s education has not been affected? The point I am making is simple – there is nothing really called luck. Life is just a series of happenings. When these happenings exceed your expectations, you exult and say you are lucky. And when they don’t, you complain that you are unlucky. Such labeling, and such definitions, serve no purpose. Life couldn’t really care if you think of it as benevolent or as unfair. So, by conjuring up and, worse, believing, in a factor called luck, you are quite unnecessarily complicating a simple process – the process of Life; where you only have one option, which is to flow with Life!

In almost 50 years of knowing Life, all I can say is that Life never promised any fair-play to anyone. It is only your expectations that bring you agony. Drop all expectations, suspend all judgments and don’t ever play up the luck theme. Then, you can only be at peace with yourself – no matter what your circumstances are!

When you cease to relate to someone, simply let go and let be!

In any relationship, only the two people in it have a right to a view on it.  

A reader recently asked me how I could talk so openly about the lack of chemistry I have with my mother. He was referring to a chapter, “You Can Never Get A Perfect 10!”, in my Book, Fall Like A Rose Petal. He said that the most sacred relationship in Life is the one between a mother and child. “How can you demean that relationship by talking about it in public? In Indian culture a mother is equivalent to God. How can you rubbish your God,” he asked.

I never deny anyone the right to ask me questions. In fact, it is only through questions and answers, and more questions and more answers, that clarity is got. So, I thanked the reader for his question. And then I explained my point of view.

It was precisely for the reason that the reader deems as sacrosanct that I decided to talk about the broken relationship I have with my mother. I was telling my children (my Book is a set of letters written to my children Aashirwad and Aanchal), and through them I was telling the readers, that Life is never the same for everyone and everything is never perfect in everyone’s Life. Some department or the other is always broken. Some have a health issue. Some have a career issue. Some have relationships issues with spouses, siblings, colleagues, or as in my case, with a parent or parents. Struggling to make your Life perfect, which is striving for a 10/10, is what leads to your suffering. Denying that a problem exists or hiding from it also causes suffering.

For the longest time, I suffered. I thought something was wrong with me. How can my mother and I have a broken relationship, I asked myself. After all, she bore me in her womb and brought me into this Universe. But the more I tried to adjust, accommodate or atone (for my excesses in trying to fight her ways), the more I found her manipulative. So, I decided to be honest to myself. I said that, perhaps, I don’t have smooth, compassionate, mother-child equation in my Life’s design. I let go. And I let be. Almost magically, a 25-year strife-ridden environment fell peaceful. Here I must appreciate my mother as well. She too appears to have let go and let be. I believe this brutal honesty has helped our entire family. We all remain estranged, with Vaani and me on one side, and my parents and siblings on the other. But I guess everyone is peaceful where they are.

In trying to make sense of strained relationships, you can never get anywhere as long as you try to understand who’s right or who’s wrong. Because each party will keep maintaining that they are right. Instead, be honest with yourself first. Are you able to relate to the person you have a relationship with? If you are not able to relate, then no reason is a good one to cling on to the relationship. No amount of arguing, justifying or showcasing evidence is going to help. You both don’t relate to each other because your value systems don’t match; you are on different wavelengths, you live in different orbits! The nature of the relationship is irrelevant when there is no relating. All this talk about society, culture, dharma, tradition, sacredness and God – all this is a whole lot of fluff! No one but the two people in a relationship have a right to talk about their issues or how they feel in each other’s presence or how they experience each other. And even if one has a problem, even if it is because of their own doing, they have a right to recognize that relationship as dead.

Life is inscrutable and unpredictable. It defies logic and definition. And therefore boxing relationships in frameworks and talking of culture, tradition or roping in God to preserve a suffering-infested status quo is meaningless. Just as a husband and a wife can have a problem and separate, so can any two people, in any relationship, have a problem and choose to separate. Bottom-line: when you cease to relate, no matter what is the relationship, or who it is with, let go. And let be.

Why truth rocks!

In any situation, stay with the truth.

In a workshop session I led recently, a young manager asked me if speaking the truth was worth it at all. He said, “I feel most comfortable saying things as they are. I prefer being in-the-face. But I am soon discovering that people don’t like it. I am losing friends and relationships.”

The manager raises an interesting question.

We too have been told, or have sometimes experienced, that staying with the truth can be a competitive disadvantage. Sometimes, we wonder if speaking our mind will make others uncomfortable or even hurt them. We desist from speaking the truth also because we want to cover-up. But let me tell you, from my experience, that truth is a liberator. It is a healer. It is a very deadly weapon, a brahmastra, in our arsenal. I believe we fight shy of using it only because we are worried about becoming vulnerable in this ‘big, bad, cold and merciless’ world.

Fundamentally, our world view has to change. The world is not made up of hypocrites, cynics, facists, corrupt folks and terrorists alone. They are but a small part of humanity. There is a lot of goodness among the rest of humanity. You will be able to relate to this perspective only by making yourself vulnerable, by clinging on to the truth, irrespective of the circumstance. This alone will fetch you the love, compassion and warmth of like-minded people around you. If someone deserts you because you spoke the truth, then they really were not worth being in your Life. Period.

Here’s an excerpt from my Book (Fall Like A Rose Petal) that details one situation (among many) when I have seen the truth work to our advantage (my Book is a collection of letters addressed to my two children Aashirwad and Aanchal; Mom here refers to Vaani):

For example, a year ago, a government department slapped a claim of ₹14 Lakh on our Firm. Our auditor refused to represent us to meet the authorities because we had not paid the audit firm their fees in two years. Mom and I decided to meet the officer in the government department directly and explain our circumstances. The auditor, whose son studies in the same class as Aanch, warned us against ‘putting our hand into a snake-pit’ but we decided to go ahead. Our reasoning: it was better to deal with the issue head-on than live in fear.

We met the official concerned and while narrating our story, concluded by telling him that we were not even contesting the claim because we were not qualified to do so. We asked for his understanding and for time to pay up. We said we can’t pay now and we can’t bribe.

The official, in whom were vested sweeping powers to slap claims and effect collections, was surprised at our candor. He said that in his 30 years of service, he had never encountered such an honest and proactive approach or heard such a moving story.

“My heart goes out to you and your family, Sir. This is a department where people like you come to bribe people like me only after they have been coerced into submission by the department. When we forcibly summon people, they seek both illegitimate, and often unreasonable, waivers. We allow them the waivers because that’s how the system works. We threaten people and they cough up. But here you are, proactively coming and meeting me. I am moved by your story. Just leave. Forget about this claim. You have bigger things, like saving your family, to deal with,” he told us, flinging the claim file for our Firm to a pile beside his desk.

Telling the truth as it is, however impractical and unbelievable it may seem, and by always choosing to wear my Life on my sleeve, has always worked for me. And for us. It has taught us that people always respect the truth and revere honesty.

Besides, when you stay with the truth you don’t have to remember what you said! Most importantly, having embraced the truth, you will sleep well. When you can sleep in peace, you are truly blessed. Nothing else, believe me, matters!

Honest conversations are key to parenting adult children

Trust not just your children to make informed choices, but trust the process of Life itself!

A friend called me saying his adult daughter who is in her final year at college does not speak much to him or his wife. She keeps traveling on some pretext or the other and prefers to be aloof. She does not seek any advice nor does she offer much information. “I am aware that she is making her choices without involving us because she feels we may not approve of her decisions. But in letting her just be, am I failing in my duty as a parent,” he asked.

Good question. Parenting is always a full-time job no matter how old your children are. With adult children there is always a question of having to respect their privacy. This is a conundrum that every parent faces.

So how much involvement must parents show in the lives of their children, especially if the children are young adults?

Let me share from our own experience of parenting. Vaani and I have kept our equation with our children simple. We have let honesty be the primary basis for all conversations. In any situation, we offer our perspective – not necessarily our opinion – and we leave the final choice to Aashirwad (26) and Aanchal (22). By perspective, I clearly mean we share what we have learned from Life in the given situation. We don’t ever say our way is the only way to have dealt with Life. We say: “this is what happened with us, this is how we dealt with it; it is up to you if you want to borrow from our experience.” We have always maintained that there is no right way or wrong way to live Life; there are no “our generation” or “your generation” issues; so we, in a way, have always encouraged experimentation and learning. Yes, on issues relating to values – integrity, compassion, respect for individuals – or non-negotiables – like drugs or drinking and driving – we remain unflinching and ruthlessly discourage any deviations. This approach has worked for us greatly. Aashirwad and Aanchal have always made their (informed) choices in Life, they have always kept an open channel of communication with us and important, they know that irrespective of the choices they make, they are always welcome back home should all that they try ever fail.

I believe that in dealing with adult children we must accord them the dignity as individuals and their privacy must be respected. If an adult child chooses not to discuss something with you it must be seen as one of two things – either the child does not trust you or the child wants time to herself or himself to sort things out. Either choice must be respected. Yes, if the child does not trust you, it is very important to understand why – but it is important also to recognize that the mistrust has crept in over time, over honest conversations not having been had.

Parenting is a blessing. But it is never easy. So, whenever in doubt, I simply lean on the one God of parenting I know – Khalil Gibran – and his wise words. They help me anchor in peace and learn to trust not just my own children better, they help me trust the process of Life itself!  

 

Rise in love, than fall in and out of it!

Loving is present continuous, evolving, as it is flowing!

A young reader reached out to share her friend’s predicament. The friend’s boyfriend of a few years had suddenly declared, overnight, that he had “fallen out of love” with her. The two were considering marriage. The young lady is, naturally, heart broken. She is figuring out a way to deal with her situation. And I am sure there are countless people out there who are struggling with such break-ups.

Interestingly, in the specific context of the young lady’s boyfriend, I actually commend him for his clarity. He at least knows that he has fallen out of love with her. This makes it amply clear to the lady – and to all of us – that the problem is not with the lady, it is not with her boyfriend, it is not even with love, it is with the lack of loving. When there is no loving, there is no relating. And when there is no relating, where is the question of a friendship, a relationship, a marriage?

I come from an Osho school of thought. Osho always warned against this tendency to fall in love. He said that only because people fall in love do they even fall out of it! Instead, he championed rising in love. Think about it deeply – what he says is simple, yet profound! Which is why, in my Book, Fall Like A Rose Petal, I titled a chapter Rise In Love to share how the companionship between Vaani and me has thrived over the years. Here’s an excerpt (my Book is a collection of letters written to my two children Aashirwad and Aanchal; Mom here refers to their mom, Vaani!):

“…I want you both to understand the essence of companionship in Life, drawing upon how inspired I am by your Mom. Sooner than you both believe, you too will be in love. You too will meet and want to be with someone whom you want to spend the rest of your Life with. But remember, being in a relationship alone does not mean being in love. Being drawn to someone for their physical attributes is not being in love either. Being happy in someone’s presence is also not being in love completely. You are in love completely when you can be someone’s best friend and can have that best friend’s friendship forever. A best friend is a soul-mate. Someone who can help you see who you are, accept you for what you are and in the future may become one who does not shy away from speaking the truth; holding a mirror and critiquing – not criticizing – your actions and someone who is willing to walk with you to where neither of you has been before. A soul-mate is always understanding, demanding, forgiving, compassionate, teaching and uplifting.

“It is not difficult or too complex to be a soul-mate. You can be one too. Being a soul-mate requires one to know, understand and appreciate the meaning of Life. Life in your teens and early adulthood will be full of exploration. Especially of your sexuality. This is where you will find joy in kissing, feeling and, perhaps, in today’s generation, having sex. Please know that there’s nothing wrong with any of that. When you get past the physical dimension of love, you begin to see the value of wanting to spend a lifetime with that person. It’s a great feeling, full of anticipation. Of your own home, of your own children, of your own Life together; living, happily ever after.

“Now, almost everyone who falls in love first and then marries gets into that relationship with the same sentiments and expectations. Then, have you wondered, why do people break up? Why do marriages fail? It is because, relationships, as I have learned from Osho, the Master, signify the death of the same something, that precious feeling that inspired you, in the first place, called love. You love someone when you relate to that person. People fall out of love because in a marriage, while there is a law, a label, society, family, caste and religion – there is no more relating!

“I think what has worked for Mom and me is that we continue to relate to each other. Age, place, or circumstance, don’t seem to affect or pollute our precious, pristine shared space, where our love for each other continues to thrive. It is not something unique to us. We have just made our friendship, our way of relating to each other special…”

A young film-maker Shalu who read my Book decided to make a film and called it Rise in Love to showcase how love thrives in the face of adversity. Between my Book, and the film, a common thread you will see that keeps me and Vaani going is our loving. It is present continuous. It is a verb. It is not static, it evolves as it flows.

So, that brings me to the boyfriend’s choice. Of course, what he has told the lady will hurt her. It is a sure cause for a heart-break, a depression. But it is actually an opportunity to celebrate too. Celebrate that this is not the person that, over time, she would have been able to relate to anyway; so let him go! Celebrate also that the gentleman had the courtesy and courage to take an informed, evolved, decision, instead of two-timing her. This attitude, to look beyond the obvious, beyond the physicality of the situation, is crucial to intelligent living. Now that the lady is in the throes of a break-up, if she chooses to rise above the apparent heart-break, she will discover that a companion who will compliment her, complete her, no matter what the circumstances may be, is waiting for her! She just has to rise in love to find him!

Clearly, beyond what families want, beyond what society dictates, beyond marriage, lie loving and companionship. When you have found that truly loving companion, who will continue to be loving no matter what, you will have risen in love too!

Adulting is simple if you are ready for everything!

A switch in attitude is crucial to “handling adulting s**t” as you enter your 20s!

The other day, at a café, I overheard two young people in their early 20s talk about how complex adulting is. They shared with each other the challenges of having to manage paying their bills, balance their cash-on-hand situation, their pay slips and tax returns; and also plan their investments in gadgets, vacations and wardrobes. It wasn’t that I was eavesdropping. But they were talking loudly – enough to distract me from checking Facebook on my phone! One of them added that she wasn’t ready for marriage yet because she wasn’t quite sure she could handle all this “adulting s**t”! “I can’t now start raising babies when I myself have not grown up from being a baby,” she remarked.

I found the whole perspective amusing. I met Vaani when I was 19, I proposed to her when I was 20 and we married when I was 21. We had Aashirwad when I was 23 and she was 24 – she is a year older than I am! I don’t want to sound like a boring old man now and say how small our monthly income then was and how we managed and blah! But instead I want to say that adulting is so much fun.

I guess it clearly depends on how you look at it. Having been under the watchful care of parents for almost 20 years (I always feel Indian parents too should embrace the American way of sending away their kids into the big world when they turn 17), our children tend to take for granted a sense of security. This, besides the fact that almost everything – housing, food, out-of-pocket expenses and education – are taken care of. There is always this attitude that most urban Indian children, coming from middle-class and upper middle-class backgrounds, have: they are groomed, raised and tuned to ask, is everything ready for me? When they step into independent adult Life, they are perhaps not even attitudinally ready. They ought to be thinking, feeling and saying, am I ready for everything, in fact, anything? This orientation, this switch, is crucial to be adult-ready!

I believe as parents we have to engineer this switch in attitude. No serious preparation is required. Just honest conversations – not only on how money is earned and bills are paid, but also on relationships, the upheavals of Life, on compassion, love, loving, relationships and the Purpose of Life itself. We did that a lot, and still do that, with our children Aashirwad and Aanchal. When Aash went away to University of Chicago he was barely 18. He wasn’t ready then to absorb perhaps everything that we were sharing with him, but his “adventures through adulting”, I guess, helped him connect the dots. For Aanchal, just her physically being with us as we navigate a tumultuous, cathartic phase in our Life, (read more here: Fall Like A Rose Petal), helped her grow into being adult-ready. She had to often jump in and take charge, which she always did, apart from watching, from close quarters, how real world challenges are faced and dealt with.

The whole process of parenting and grooming adult children is not at all as complex as it appears to be. And I repeat, adult Life is a lot of fun! The simple change in attitude that we must all encourage in our adult children and what they must embrace is this: stop asking is everything ready for me and instead ask, am I ready for everything, anything?

Life is inscrutable – we all know that. So, the best way to meet Life daily is to be ready, and willing, to accept everything that comes your way! This is not specific to adulting at all. This is what Life is all about. But since this lesson is never openly shared in the course of everyday conversations in our homes, our children aren’t oriented to look at Life this way. Just that switch in perspective can make their adulting experience so much richer, so much more enjoyable!  

Sorry, but Taimur Ali Khan Pataudi alone has the right to protest his name!

Ever thought of it? What if we lived in a world where people had no names?

I am appalled that a lot of Indians are crying hoarse about Bollywood stars Kareena Kapoor Khan and Saif Ail Khan naming their new born son Taimur. To comment on someone’s name is sad and intrusive enough; to hold a discourse on how people should name their children and give the entire story a communal twist is pathetic. It is both insensitive and totally avoidable.

The couple appears to have named their son so because in Arabic Taimur means “iron”. But people on social media are trolling the couple and, worse, some are alluding to the fact that the Khans don’t have a right to call their child Taimur because his name reminds Indians of the barbarbic Mongol conqueror who, when invading India in the 14^th century, massacred several thousand Indians, almost all of them, allegedly, Hindus.

To me, this episode smacks of a holier-than-thou attitude. It is a case of poor social etiquette. Why are we, as a people, are always interested in the affairs of others? What right do we have to opine on the right of parents to call their child what they want? If the name is culturally a misfit, then the consequence of their choice rests with the parents and the child. If anyone at all must protest his name, it is Taimur Ali Khan Pataudi. And at barely a day old, he’s incapable just yet of either defending his name or heeding society’s sage counsel. Isn’t it petty then that we rubbish a new born who can’t yet speak for himself? So, please, let us leave him and his parents to enjoy each other. And let’s not offer an opinion just because we have access to a smartphone and a social media handle!

I also don’t believe in this theory that people must live up to what their names stand for. That’s asking for too much from people. Let people just be. And let names just be too.

A name is a name. Having a name one way or the other doesn’t change who you are. On a spiritual plane, a name is just an id. If you didn’t have a name, you won’t have a means of being identified among the 7.5 billion people that inhabit the world. In fact, should the whole world choose to go nameless, much of the problems we as humanity face today will be gone! There won’t be a need for religions and nationalities. We will just be one, united world. To be sure, no other species on the planet has names – or, consequentially, religions and nationalities. If we can borrow from Life around us, we too can be a great people that live and thrive with each other, namelessly, without religions and without passports!

I wish this were true. But alas, we will live in a real world that believes in naming and, as we so often discover, in shaming! I talk from experience. When our son was born in New Delhi in July 1990, my parents traveled from Chennai to be there for his naming ceremony. My mother demanded that we don’t name him Aashirwad and instead insisted that we name him Vishal. I fought my mother vehemently, violently and decided to go with the choice Vaani and I had made – he is a blessing in our Life, so he was, is and will be Aashirwad! But just as no one asked you and me how we prefer to be named, no one asked Aashirwad either. Maybe if he had been able to exercise his rightful choice, he may have preferred a totally different name. Just as you and I would have preferred it too. From that experience, I realized that ultimately, naming a child is a ritual. And for reasons of process ownership, the parents have the right of first decision, always! But eventually, a child will, if required, exercise her or his right to either live with or shun the given name. I, for one, gave up my given name. AVIS started off being my nickname. But because I don’t relate to my given name anymore, I have chosen to live with my nickname as my first name! (PS: Why I don’t relate to my given name is another story, for another day! Plus, I love being called AVIS! J)

Therefore, to me, all this drama around young Taimur Ali Khan Pataudi is totally ludicrous. There’s so much more about our own Life that demands our urgent, immediate, attention than giving our unsolicited opinions on someone else’s child’s name! Think about it deeply. Hopefully, it makes sense!

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Papa-Mama, Don’t Preach!!!

Can you gift your children their best friend today – “You”?

My blogpost yesterday on parenting had some people write in to me. A common thread that linked all the questions and sentiments was this: “How do you draw the line between being a parent and a friend? How do you decide when is the good time to step in and take charge when your child is drifting away?”

I will answer this from our own experience of raising Aashirwad (now 26) and Aanchal (now 21). We resolved early on to treat them both as individuals, allowing them the freedom to make their own choices from when they were toddlers. When they entered their teens, we told them both that we are their best friends, that we will always be available for them. And, we made it clear to them that in certain contexts, we will surely talk from our experience of what is right for them and what is not. To take our advice or draw from our experience, we said, was always left to them. We often summed up any parenting conversation with this line: “We are your best friends. But if you see us behaving like your parents, remember, you are responsible for it.” Let me tell you, this empowering approach with our children has really worked for Vaani and me. Of course, our children have stumbled, fallen, got hurt, cried and made poor choices – but each time they have come back to us, and continue to come back, for our perspectives.

So, I would recommend that if you want your children to grow up to be mature, intelligent, responsible, good, caring, loving human beings, stop being their parent. Start being their best friend.

True friendship is the ability to speak your mind, without being overbearing, and yet being available without being emotional or nasty or preachy with a regrettable “I-told-you-so”. The only way we can enjoy parenting without worrying and being anxious, is by being our kids’ best friends. Remember: they are your children. They are intelligent. They like to be treated with dignity. Sit with them. Have conversations. They will want to go back to Facebook. They will want to be on the phone for hours together talking silly nothings. They will want to run away for a movie than stay back and do the dishes. Don’t lose patience. Friends don’t. Parents do. And sometimes, despite your advice not to do a certain thing__like enter into a relationship or take up an extracurricular activity that will distract from the core academic curriculum__ your child may do it and then will come back home, heartbroken, defeated and want to cry on your shoulder. At that time please don’t say, “I-told-you-so!”  Say instead, that you know what it means to feel lost in Life and that you say so, because you too have been there, done that. That’s how friends talk to each other. Tell your child you know what it means to be in her or his shoes. Watch the difference in your child’s attitude. See the learning, the awakening happen.

At the same time, good parenting is also being firm and steadfast on values. Your conversations with your child must be always full of anecdotes and not just preachings. You must lead the values campaign at home by example. If you want your child to know what integrity means, then demonstrate it. Don’t expect your child to practice integrity if you both are going to watch a pirated movie downloaded illegally online or if you are going to bribe a cop on the street (in India) because you parked wrongly! If you want your child to understand dignity and equal opportunity, practice that with your spouse first. If you don’t want your child to smoke, you must quit smoking yourself. If you don’t want your child to drink and drive, you stop doing that first! Of course, children will want to experience sex, sooner than we would want them to. Again your conversations help here. Don’t stop them from doing it. Tell them instead, when is it a better time to do it. And why.

And then take a few positions on what’s a no-no as far as your family is concerned: swearing in public, drugs, being rude, dishonesty, lying, whatever, lay down certain ground rules and make sure no one __ that includes you __ breaks them. Despite this if your child breaks one or more of them, get back into conversation mode.

Our parenting doesn’t make a child rebel. Our being unavailable when they want us is what makes them rabid. Fundamentally understand that children are human too. They have their own independent view of a world they are waiting to explore. Let us allow them that space while we remain available to them. Let us not bring our anxieties, insecurities and experiences into limiting their lives. If you believe you are a good human being, despite all that you have seen and been through in Life, know that your child too will eventually emerge as one.

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Kaadhalikka Neram Illaya?

Live and love your Life fully – because you have only so much time left here!

A friend who called me yesterday wanted to know how the ‘romance’ between Vaani and me has stayed alive – although we have been together for close to 30 years. He said, “As the years go by, people say they get into the rut of everyday Life and claim there’s no time for romance!” He went on to pun on the famous 1964 Tamizh film by C.V.Sridhar ‘Kaadhalikka Neram Ilai’ (English: No Time To Love; Muthuraman, Nagesh, Rajashree, Sachu, T.S.Baliah) and asked, “Everyone says ‘Kaadhalikka Neram Ilai’ but you seem to make the time! How do you both do it?”

Well, there’s nothing special we do. We just wear our Life on our sleeve (in today’s context, sleeve includes Facebook!!!) and live it 70MM! That’s it. You get what you see with both of us.

Again, let me reiterate that there’s nothing special about what we do. I feel the romance between two people is dubbed private quite unnecessarily. If terrorism and violence can happen openly, if trolling can happen openly, then why can’t people profess their love for each other openly? I believe there is no stigma attached, and must never be either, with expressing ourselves openly. After all, it is only through our love and companionship, that Vaani and I are able to journey along through our cathartic times. Besides, when everything material has been taken away from us, what we have left is only our love and togetherness as a couple and as a family – including our strong bond and friendship with our children, Aashirwad and Aanchal.

But Vaani and I go beyond us, or our children; we also love Life! We totally believe that there is magic in each moment. And so each moment must be fully lived, appreciating and valuing what is, loving what is. For instance, on our walks, Vaani will stop by a flower in someone’s yard and admire it. She will point to the birds chirping and celebrate those sounds. We both love movies, so we watch whatever comes up on TV. And invariably, each movie, irrespective of language, has a spiritual, Life learning. We pick it up. We read something in the papers, we will research it, learn from it. When we talk about our problems, we will address them squarely without judging them, without hating them. So, in a sense, there’s a romance there too – as in, we say, “The problem is here, we can’t wish it away, what do we do to deal with it with equanimity?”

There are some times when we are in unenviable situations and contexts, like I was on a radiologist’s table, being scanned, some years back. If I had the condition that the surgeon was suspecting, I needed an emergency surgery. And we had no money, no health insurance. So, if the worst happened, I would die. The moment this realization came into me, my fear and insecurity dissolved. I just started smiling. I was in a way admiring the moment and the Life I had lived. I smiled also because I was confident that should I die, Vaani will pick up from where I going to be leaving. So, this is the romance, the love we both have for not just each other, but for Life itself. This is what keeps us not just going, but thriving, with enthusiasm, with Life! (PS: The scan results pointed to a different medical condition that did not require surgery but need only a dose of antibiotics!)

I don’t think anyone should complain about time as scare resource in any context. It is uniformly available to all of us. After the breath we take, time is what is available without any prejudice to anyone, uniformly. So people who complain about lack of time to do what they want to do are kidding themselves. If you want to do something, you will always find the time. My humble plea to people is that don’t postpone loving, don’t postpone happiness, don’t postpone living! You can wait for eternity to solve all your problems and then start living, loving and thriving. Or you can keep journeying through Life romancing its every moment. We prefer to love Life and live it fully, happily, despite our circumstances. So, we find the time, anytime, to celebrate each other and what is. To be sure, what we have, what is, constitutes our ‘perfect’ Life. For all of us – for you, for us. Because it is always what it is. As the Buddha says, “When you realize everything is perfect, you will look up at the sky and laugh!”

I just did that! 🙂

So, if you don’t have time to love, review your priorities. Because there’s only so much time you have left here and you had better utilize all that time intelligently! Surely, when you do that, you will realize, kaadhalikka mattum thaan neram irrukku! Meaning, there’s time only to love – to love Life and to live it fully!

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