Adieu, dear Krishna! Celebrating a #BlissCatcher!!

“It is a blessing to go away doing what you love doing!”

That’s what Vaani (the other happynesswala, my soulmate) had to say.  She was celebrating young Srikrishna Sivakumar’s Life and memory this morning.

The only way I can remember Krishna is as a #BlissCatcher – he simply followed his Bliss – filmmaking; he immersed himself in doing only what he loved doing, and he was absolutely unwavering and uncompromising, and deliriously happy, when he was doing it!

Vaani and I, like the rest of the world, woke up this morning to the horrifying news of the accident on the sets of Indian 2 (that happened late last evening) that claimed three lives. Among those who died, we soon shockingly discovered, was our dear #BlissCatcher, Krishna!

Picture Courtesy: Krishna’s FB Page

Krishna connected with me first in October 2016. He was making an ad film for a smart wallet on a really shoestring budget; he wanted me to play a ‘grumpy dad’ in the film. A mutual friend had referred me to him because she knew that it was on my bucket list to act in a film in my Life! Although I was a rookie, and this was to be my first film, Krishna dealt with me professionally and with a lot of dignity. He actually sent me the script over email and wanted me to decide if I was comfortable with the role. When it came to the fee, Krishna was forthright: he gave me an option to say no because he had no “serious budget” to offer me “a reasonable professional fee”. I liked his sense of integrity and his empathetic approach, that too, to a rank newcomer. I signed up!

I believe I am blessed I got an opportunity to work with Krishna. That too on my first film, even if it was only for a 73-second online commercial! His soulmate Amitha produced the film for their Red Canvas Productions. We shot for a full day. And I saw what a deep, intense, committed professional Krishna was. His sense of diligence and discipline and his quest for perfection amazed me. I was the oldest person on the set and Krishna, having perhaps heard that I am quiet a stickler for time, went out of the way to make sure I that I was never kept waiting for my shots. I tried reasoning with him that I was only a debutant and I kept telling him that I was very willing to be led, but he always ended each of his directions with a standard, “Is that okay, Sir? Are you comfortable, Sir?” I must confess that he made a huge difference to making me feel comfortable on my first shoot. I started the day having that nervous sense deep within me, I was not sure I could emote in front of a camera, I was not even sure if I was made for this medium…but Krishna put me at great ease. There was a rare empathy in him, even as he drove a bunch of us, his actors, to give him what he was looking for. Besides, Krishna and Amitha complemented each other beautifully, making the entire process of shooting that day a warm, memorable, experience for me.

#BlissCatcher Krishna; Picture Credit: Vinodh Velayudhan

Some months later, Vaani and I discovered that although Krishna had tried being “chamathu” and had gone to engineering school, every day of the four years there had acutely reminded him that “engineering was not happening for him”. He was very clear: to him, Happiness = making films!  Over coffee with him and Amitha at Starbucks one afternoon in late 2017, we explored Krishna’s journey for our popular Conversation Series, #BlissCatchers. We learnt that, after engineering school, Krishna seized a serendipitous opportunity to be on the legendary Kamal Haasan’s team as an apprentice assistant director. Those one-and-a-half years with the man changed Krishna’s Life! Krishna always believed that he was a forever student of a “University called Kamal Haasan” and that he  would always be a “nobody” in the field of cinema! That explains why he was very grounded and humble to a fault. Yet he had this seeking spirit and was totally uncompromising and unwavering in his love for his art. After working as an assistant on a few feature films (including Vishwaroopam I & II), he and Amitha set up Red Canvas Productions making ad and corporate films. I still remember him telling us this: “Life isn’t easy but it is fun…so much fun that I have never thought of going back to being an engineer, not even once!” And on the #BlissCatchers Conversation in June 2018, he told me: “I enjoy the process of filmmaking. It not about whether it is a feature film or any other film, it the process of making films that I love.”

AVIS, Flute Jayanth, Krishna in Conversation on #BlissCatchers; Picture Credit: Vinodh Velayudhan

My last interaction with Krishna was on WhatsApp in August 2019. We were bringing up the 50^th Edition of #BlissCatchers that month and I had pinged him to invite him and Amitha for the event. Krishna said he was shooting overseas. I asked him if it was his own feature film that he was directing. He replied saying that he was only an assistant director on that film. I told him that Vaani and I looked forward to the day when he would make his own independent film and that “we would do whistle-podu” for a first-day-first-show for that film! He thanked me profusely and said he was grateful for our love and for our faith in his abilities.

The “suchness” of Life is that Krishna never got to make that independent feature film.

Even so, his Life and memory calls for celebration. Simply because, he had the courage to follow his Bliss. He lived a short, meaningful, happy Life, doing only what he loved doing. And, as Vaani pointed out this morning, he went away following his Bliss, as a student of the University that he truly believed he belonged to, and with Kamal Hassan on the sets when he passed on!

Krishna’s short Life, as you will further glean from the #BlissCatchers Conversation I had with him, reminds us that we must never postpone our Happiness. We must not feed our insecurities, our fears, our worries. Instead, invest your time, attention, energy and resources only in your Happiness, in what makes you truly come alive. Remember, this is the only Life you have!

(Vaani and I send our prayers to Amitha and the family, and to the families of the others who lost their lives in the Indian 2 accident.)

Note: AVIS and Vaani are the happynesswalas. They believe their Life’s Purpose is Inspiring ‘Happyness’! They are going through a fascinating, Life-changing experience – a crippling bankruptcy!!! Look them up here: www.avisviswanathan.in and www.avinitiatives.co.in.

How creation speaks through you!

When your Bliss comes calling, let go and trust the process of Life!

Do you find your Bliss or does your Bliss find you?

We discussed this all-important question in the 52^nd Edition of #BlissCatchers last Saturday. #BlissCatchers is a live, reflective, non-commercial Conversation Series that Vaani and I curate and host, exploring the journeys of those who have gone on to what they love doing the most in Life. This Series is supported and sponsored by the Odyssey Bookstore in Adyar, Chennai.

The guests in Saturday’s Edition of the Series were Learning Experience Designer Harish Srinivasan and Photo Journalist and Cinematographer Wide Angle Ravi Shankaran.

AVIS, Wide Angle Ravi Shankaran & Harish Srinivasan; Picture Credit: Raam Frames

Harish may well have ended up as an engineer-turned-corporate-warrior! But, while in Engineering school, in an ambitious bid to find a cure to “fix our unimaginative education system”, he asked a question that led him to follow his Bliss: “Are we willing to listen to the voices of children?” He explored this question and its possible answers with two of his classmates, Aravind and Jaikanth. Straight out of college, the trio set up Infinite Engineers in 2014. As this company’s uber-cool Learning Experience Designer, Harish’s current mission is to make science fun for children. “I am hoping to inspire a few generations to use their intellect to not just acquire knowledge, but to do, think, learn and innovate,” he says.

Ravi believes it is destiny that led him to his Bliss. 35 years ago, playing around with a doctor friend’s camera, Ravi fell in love with the medium. Then, the venerable news photographer Subha Sundaram, his mentor, instilled in him a value that he strives to live by daily – which is, “to bring his unique creative vision into every picture he shoots”. And then came the opportunity to learn from the Master, P C Sreeram, who taught him how “to create art with the magic of light”. “Each of these events were simply meant to be. They have shaped my Life,” says Ravi. True. Without them, there may be no Wide Angle Ravi Shankaran – an ace photographer who straddles the business, news and celebrity genres seamlessly; a brilliant cinematographer who has done documentaries, ad films and several full-length movies; a #BlissCatcher who has showcased his works in five exhibitions!

In both their journeys I found that their Bliss had found them. For instance, when the chairperson of Harish’s college reprimands him and his colleagues for not focusing on their engineering studies, the trio are angry – not defeated – and channelize their anger to go set up Infinite Engineers. And when Ravi is toying with a friend’s camera, he unwittingly embraces a medium that would eventually shape his entire Life. Listen to my entire Conversation with them here.

Not just with Harish and Ravi, but in exploring over a 100 #BlissCatcher journeys, over the last 5+ years, Vaani and I have repeatedly found this pattern: When you step out of the earning-a-living or economic circle of your Life, when you are willing to allow Life to lead you, your Bliss will come calling. It will come back, again and again, whenever you step out of the earning-a-living circle…until you embrace it, until you make your Bliss your Life! This is an irrefutable truth, this is how Life works! Rumi, my favorite poet was, after all, right: “What you seek is seeking you too…!”

But when your Bliss comes calling, you have a huge responsibility: you must trust the process of Life! You have to let go of whatever you are clinging on to and go with the flow of Life. It may be scary, even unnerving, at times, but this is what makes Life’s fun; so, celebrate that sense of uncertainty, that romance, that only an unscripted adventure can offer you. Harish dived deep into his Bliss when he chose, after Engineering school, not to take up a corporate job. And Ravi gave up a regular, well-paying, job to set up Wide Angle; then, when his freelance photography career with Wide Angle was soaring, he took another deep dive, into cinematography – offering start as an apprentice, at age 40, with the Master, P.C.Sreeram.

 

Now, at face value, it may appear that Bliss requires you to do something daring, something extra-ordinary. But when you pause and reflect, when you examine the lives of happy people around you, folks who are doing what they love doing, you will notice that all these people have allowed themselves to be led by Life. So, Bliss only asks for something simple, something fundamental, something intrinsic to Life, from you. It only asks for you to trust Life. It requires you to let go of the fake sense of economic or social security that you are clinging on to, and take that leap of faith. That’s when your Bliss will find you and draw you into its fold. And, as American mythologist and author Joseph Campbell says, when you do follow your Bliss, unfailingly, doors will open – every single time!

Note: AVIS and Vaani are the happynesswalas. They believe their Life’s Purpose is Inspiring ‘Happyness’! They are going through a fascinating Life-changing experience – a crippling bankruptcy!! Look them up here: www.avisviswanathan.in and www.avinitiatives.co.in.

On Gulzar, Bliss, timelessness and your art becoming immortal!

Bliss has this supernatural, superhuman, quality – it makes Creation speak through you.

We watched Meghna Gulzar’s Chhapaak the other day. It is a simple, powerful, film – great storytelling of acid attack survivor Laxmi Agarwal’s journey, a very nuanced performance by both protagonists, the extremely talented Deepika Padukone (who is also the film’s producer) and Vikrant Massey.

Laxmi’s story is well known. Even if you had not heard of it before, in watching the pre-release promotions for Chhapaak, you are sure to have realized that the film is based on a true story. Meghna makes the film an engaging, engrossing, immersive experience for the viewer. Her brilliance as a filmmaker shines through every frame in the film.

But what stays with you, and keeps coming back to haunt you, again, and again, and again, is the title track of the film.

This song has been written by Meghna’s father, the venerable Gulzar. It narrates the pain and anguish of an acid attack survivor. The lyrics are very disturbing. They stir your conscience. You feel helpless at your inability to do anything about this dastardly, cowardly act. If a lyricist-composer (Shankar-Ehsan-Loy)-singer (Arijit Singh) can evoke that response from within you, it is a remarkable feat! Even so, Vaani and I remain mesmerized by Gulzar’s writing here.

Sample the genius of his lyrics in this song:

Koi chehra mita ke, aur aankh se hata ke
Chand chheente uda ke jo gaya
Chhapaak se pehchaan le gaya

Ek chehra gira, jaise mohra gira
Jaise dhoop ko grahan lag gaya
Chhapaak se pehchaan le gaya…

Aarzoo thi shauq thhe, woh saare hat gaye
Kitne saare jeene ke dhaage kat gaye…

Let me attempt a simple (perhaps not authentic) translation:

A face was erased, was removed from sight…with sprinkling a few drops, in a splash, (someone) took away (my) identity

 A face fell, like a pawn falls, like sunshine is eclipsed, in a splash, (someone) took away (my) identity…

 (My) Aspirations and wishes, all of them have disappeared…So many threads of (my) Life have been snapped/cut away…

Listen to the full song here.

For us, the most evocative part of these lyrics is where Gulzar says, the splash, the chhapaak, from the acid attack, took away the survivor’s identity – pehchaan – and not (just) her beauty!!! Just this line, this brutal truth, leaves you angry and numb.

Gulzar. Gulzar. Gulzar.

I wonder how this man, at 85, still remains relevant, fresh and prolific? And the answer to that question, I guess, is simple. He has always, only, followed his Bliss.

Coming to Bombay from Dina (now in Pakistan), after the Partition, he started his songwriting career in 1963, with S.D.Burman in Bandini. Gulzar believes that discipline and feeling the pulse of the people, the world, around him are the key to his art, his Bliss, continuing to flow through him even after all these years.

In a 2016 interview to Harneet Singh in the Mint, he says: “Yes. Every day I am in my study. I write. I read. I research. You have to. Lafz dhoondne ke liye kaam toh roz karna padta hai (one has to work hard in order to find the right words).”  

In a 2017 interview to fellow lyricist Kausar Munir in the Hindustan Times, he says: ““You ask how I stay relevant even after more than five decades of writing?” He points to his table, “By feeling the pulse of the gully-mohalla, the nation, the globe that I live in. Being master of Urdu doesn’t interest me, being part of the global society does, breathing hope into that society matters to me”.”

 I firmly believe that Bliss has this supernatural, superhuman, quality – it makes Creation speak through you. Gulzar’s amazing, beautiful, expansive, often soul-stirring, body of work is evidence of this belief of mine.

You see, as Khalil Gibran has said so powerfully, we are all created from Life’s longing for itself. Without doubt, we have been born through a physical, biological act that involved our parents – yet they were mere vehicles to bring us into this world. Life created you and me not for us to slave away earning a living, but to do what we love doing, to create art, to create magic.

The real reason for your creation, your raison d’etre, is embedded in you, by Creation, by Life, even as you are born. And that reason is intertwined with your Bliss, with your idea of what makes you truly, deliriously, happy.

So, when you follow your Bliss, magic happens. Life speaks through you and everything you do is art, everything you do touches people, and every offering of yours makes the world a better place. We lose this opportunity to experience and co-create this magic when we sacrifice ourselves on the altar of economic security, often choosing to do what makes us intensely unhappy just so that we can earn a living. To be sure, Gulzar too, when he was Sampooran Singh Kalra and was a painter at a motor garage (Vichare Motors) in Bombay, almost sacrificed himself on this altar. But thankfully for himself, and for all of us, whose Life he has enriched, he followed his Bliss.

As I listen to the Chhapaak title track one more time, I bow my head in salutation, in prayer, in gratitude to Creation. I thank Life for giving us Gulzar. I thank Life for giving me an opportunity to live in his lifetime. And I thank Life for reminding me, through his beautiful journey, that when you follow your Bliss, you become timeless, even as your art becomes immortal!

Note: AVIS and Vaani are the happynesswalas. They believe their Life’s Purpose is Inspiring ‘Happyness’! They are going through a fascinating Life-changing experience – a crippling bankruptcy!! Look them up here: www.avisviswanathan.in and www.avinitiatives.co.in.

No year is good or bad, it’s just a happy one!

Life’s upheavals and scars, interestingly, make it beautiful, meaningful.

Last evening, I sat alone with my coffee at Starbucks. And I thought back on the year gone by.

It’s been an interesting one surely.

My dad passed on in April. It has been a new, unique, often reflectively painful, experience living without him. In May, our daughter Aanchal graduated in her Master’s program – thanks to two angels who sponsored her. Even so, she and our son, Aashirwad, have had to deal with their own share of challenges. Watching them deal stoically with these Life-defining experiences definitely made Vaani and me proud. But there were spells of agony too – arising from our inability to help them as parents; at all such times, we took refuge in prayer. Nalli’s Kuppuswami Chetti came forward serendipitously, voluntarily, miraculously, to publish the Tamizh translation of my book Fall Like A Rose Petal – and so, Uthirum Roja Ithazh Pola launched in October. Our 100^th non-commercial Conversation, as the happynesswalas – Inspiring ‘Happyness’, happened in April. And the 50^th Edition of our popular, longest-running, non-commercial, Conversation Series, #BlissCatchers, was hosted in August.

Although we awoke each day with renewed vigor to reinvest ourselves in the task of turning around our business and repaying our over 170 creditors, we have been pushed back by Life. One more time. Another year has passed without a steady or serious revenue opportunity. The glimmer of hope that came between end-2017 and mid-2018 evaporated this year, plunging us into yet another phase of worklessness; leaving us to survive on grace and grants. So, as we enter 2020, we continue to endure our bankruptcy – and all its material, emotional and legal challenges – into its 13^th year now!

Both Vaani and I are over 50 now. So, understandably, some persistent health issues certainly raised alarms all through 2019. They pointed to what could be potentially debilitating conditions, but without the means to immediately deal with them, we have left them where they are – for Life to heal, to take care!

As I thought deeply, I felt 2019 offered itself for review on two counts.

1. This was yet another tumultuous year, one that was often punishing. Given that we have already been faced with a grave challenge for over a decade now, on whether we deserved a year like 2019, we could possibly label it as bad or as ugly. Well, it certainly was not a good one on that scale!!!
2. A constant theme for Vaani and me, that was evident all through 2019, is Happiness! Clearly, Happiness has held us together and helped us endure and survive. Our ability to be non-worrying, non-frustrated and non-suffering – which is, essentially, being happy despite our circumstances – shone through the year, through one more year!

I quickly dropped the first count. And as I embraced the second one, I smiled to myself – in gratitude, in prayer, in surrender. I thanked Life for reiterating a lesson that we have learnt and known only too well over this past decade. Which is, no year is good or bad. It’s just a happy one!

You see, a year is, at one level, a simple measure of time that we humans invented. It denotes approximately 365.256 Earth cycles around the Sun. Good, bad, ugly – well, these are human labels, again human inventions! Something happens that meets or exceeds your expectations – you label it as good. Something that you don’t want happens to you and you call it bad. And if that something causes you acute trauma, makes Life unbearable, you call it ugly. Such is the human response to Life events. And a year gets labeled based on how you, as a human, have chosen to evaluate the events that occurred in your Life, based on your expectations! But although their actions deliver this unit of time called a year, the Sun and the Earth are not bothered about how – and what – we mortals think. Hafez, the 14th Century Persian poet, says this so beautifully: “Even after all this time, the Sun never says to the Earth, ‘You owe me’. Look what happens with a love like that, it lights up the whole sky.” Now, this is how Nature operates: without any concept of time or of profit or loss. The Sun simply, unconditionally, without judgment, lights up Life on the planet – it lights up our lives – even as the Earth keeps going around the Sun! There’s love, there’s abundance, there’s a selfless giving in both these acts. Therefore, there is no worry, there is no frustration, there is no suffering in how Nature works. There’s a pure, unadulterated, sense of just being – a.k.a Happiness!

Which is why a year can really, truly, be filled with Happiness! No matter what you are faced with, if you don’t complicate your Life with human ideas – if you don’t bring up your expectations, if you don’t analyze what you want and what you deserve and instead humbly accept what you are given – you will be happy!

Yes, as is with the process of Life, at every step, you will face upheavals. Just as you will be blessed with grace.

…~ You may find and follow your Bliss. People you know will die or leave you. There may be times when you will deal with material loss or there will be others when you have to cope with heartbreaks. You may not get what you want – someone else may get it though; and you will feel frustrated and suffer when you compare yourself with them! Your Life’s Purpose may find you. Some of the challenges you are dealing with may leave you numb. You may want answers to your questions or seek logic and reason that can explain whatever’s happening but you may end up being more frustrated with Life’s inscrutability. You may find love. A child may arrive in the family. The government you voted for with so much hope may let you down – horribly! You may win a jackpot. Or a dreaded health condition may not be what you have. Towards the end of the year, you may realize that your resolution to lose weight may have dissolved long, long ago, because the pangs of earning-a-living held you in their vice-like grip.~…

So, all these, and other, scenarios may well play out through the year. And such is the process of Life! To be happy you must simply trust this process. You must celebrate the suchness of Life. You must go with its flow.

In Japanese culture, there is this ancient art called kintsugi. It is the art of fixing broken pottery with golden lacquer. As a philosophy, kintsugi invites us to celebrate imperfections. It reminds us that what happens to an object, including its breakage and repair, is an integral part of its history. Which is so true of your journey through Life too. Every experience that you go through is part of the process of the unfolding of your myth. If you sit back and reflect on your own 2019, on how Life dealt with you this year, you will see how every upheaval, every scar in your Life, is precious in its own way. You will realize how you have emerged stronger and wiser from each experience you have been through. You will be amazed at how you have learnt to cope, how you have moved on this year too, just as you have done, all your Life.

This is why it is pointless to label a year as good or bad (or ugly). A set of events simply happened to you this past year. And another set will happen in the year coming up. Instead of over-analyzing and labeling the year gone by, embrace what is, and train your mind to be non-worrying, non-frustrated and non-suffering. This holds the key to your Happiness. This is the way a “Happy New Year” stays true to its meaning and you stay happy through those 365.256 times that the Earth circles the Sun!

Note: AVIS and Vaani are the happynesswalas. They believe their Life’s Purpose is Inspiring ‘Happyness’! They are going through a fascinating Life-changing experience – a crippling bankruptcy!! Look them up here: www.avisviswanathan.in and www.avinitiatives.co.in.

Your Bliss will draw you into its fold

When your work is your prayer