What we can learn from Jayalalithaa – no matter what or who it is, be yourself!

The key to intelligent living is the ability to overcome the temptation to please others.

Whether it was her meteoric rise to stardom or handsomely surviving in the male-dominated steamy cauldron of Dravidian politics or facing the slew of criminal charges against her or dealing with the victories and defeats in elections or just coping with her sense of loneliness, no matter what it was or who it was, Jayalalithaa was remarkable only because she was always herself.

I remember Jayalalithaa once telling this to NDTV’s Jennifer Arul: “My mother pushed me into films, my mentor MGR pushed me into politics. But for these two instances, I may have wanted my Life to be very different.” Even so, despite the contexts and circumstances that she was placed in, the one thing that made her charismatic – and perhaps, therefore, enigmatic – was her ability to be herself.

During the elections in 1991, which she won leading to her first term in power, I was assigned the task of covering her campaign. I was then working with India Today. Despite several attempts, she refused to grant me an interview. I was persistent though and befriended her personal staff at Poes Garden. They would alert me of her meeting schedules and so I would position myself outside the gate to her residence – in those days, it was just a few police constables and some of us hacks who hung around there; security measures were not so stringent then. For days on end, she would look at me dismissively and drive on each time she left her home. But I persisted. I traveled to her constituency, Bargur, in northern Tamil Nadu, and camped outside the Traveler’s Bungalow for the days that she campaigned there. I made sure she saw me each time she stepped out for a meeting. But no, she would not relent. Then one day I sent her a fax message enlisting the number of times I had tried to reach her and said that I was keen, as a young journalist, to meet and interview the lady who would be the next Chief Minister. That message worked. Later that day when she was driving out of her Poes Garden home, she asked her driver to stop at the gate where I was standing. She rolled down her window glass and told me: “See, I have nothing against you. I admire your perseverance. But I refuse to talk to India Today until Mr.X (my boss, who then was part of India Today’s editorial board and who had done a story on her around that time that she found objectionable) apologizes to me.” I was young, hardly 25, and very aggressive, I guess, back then. So I piped up, “But why are you punishing me for what you hold against my boss?” Pat came her reply, politely, firmly, with a straight face: “Because I don’t need you guys. You need me. Tell Mr.X to reach out and apologize and I will surely meet you.”

Here was a lady who was then wanting to be Chief Minister – it was to be her first time. She would have surely wanted to be in the good books of India’s # 1 newsmagazine India Today. But she refused to give up fighting the good fight – especially if it came to demanding that she be respected as a woman, if it was a question of her dignity. This is the way, for the rest of her Life, Jayalalithaa remained herself – unwilling to ever bend to social, political or gender-related pressures.

And this can be the learning we may want to take away from her Life. From the time we are born – family,  friends, society – everyone wants us to be the way they are. And somehow we grow up pandering to this social conditioning. We view each of our actions in the prism of our mind’s eye always as how we will be perceived by others. In that effort to meet the expectations of those around us, we cease to live the Life we must or want to or are capable of. When we are not living the Life that we are comfortable living, under the circumstances in which we find ourselves, we are not happy. We are not peaceful.

Undoubtedly, Life will place us in contexts we never imagined for ourselves. In each situation, there will be a temptation to please people, society and do what others want us to do. But if we can overcome that tendency and just be ourselves, we will have lived remarkably! 

PS: This post has been edited. The name of my boss has been dropped and I refer to him now as Mr.X.

Khudi Ko Kar Buland Itna…The Kalam Way!

Sigh, I have never met Dr.Abdul Kalam! So I don’t have a picture of mine with him to post here. I don’t also have anything to say of him which hasn’t been said already.

As my fellow Indians celebrate his Life by sharing what they think of him, I feel deeply too. But words cannot express what I feel about him. His presence, his Life and now his absence in a physical form can best be described as an eternal inspiration.

Cartoon Courtesy: Internet Copyright rests with cartoon’s original creator

Last night as the NDTV newsbreak notification appeared on my phone, I was reminded of the lines that Mohd.Iqbal, a Pakistani poet and philosopher (1877~1938), also famously known as Allama Iqbal, gave the world to live by: “Khudi ko kar buland itna, ke har taqder se pehle, Khuda bande se ye poche, bata teri raza kya hai.” This roughly translated in a practical sense (there are a few exalted interpretations too) means, “Make your self-will so strong, your contribution to this Universe, therefore, so unputdownable, that before making your next destiny, the Creator will ask you for your preference of what you want to be created as.”  

We hope the Creator will ask this of Dr.Kalam. And we hope Dr.Kalam will ask to be created, yet again, as himself, as the most devoted, committed, true Indian that ever lived.

Dr.Kalam inspired us to believe that this Life is unlived and incomplete, if you have not touched lives. He lived this way to make his Life his message. In celebration of his Life, let us live that spirit of humility and selfless service – today and always…

‘Accept and Fight’: Thanks for the invaluable Life lesson, Suzette Jordan!

Life’s injustices must surely be braved and corrected. But you will do well first to accept any situation before you work towards changing it.The key message from Suzette Katrina Jordan’s eventful and tumultuous Life – that sadly, abruptly, ended yesterday, owing to meningoencephalitis, in a Kolkata hospital – was this.

Suzette Jordan Picture Courtesy: India Today

Suzette was a single mother of two girls. She was warm, compassionate and believed deeply in herself and in the cause of empowering women – something that she championed till her very end. She survived a gang rape on Park Street in Kolkata in February 2012. But, importantly, instead of hiding being the “Park Street Rape Survivor” tag, she came out in 2013 and revealed her identity on national television. It is sad and ironical therefore that her death has been reported across most sections of media as “Part Street Rape Survivor Dies”. Personally, I feel, a fitting tribute to her fight, for dignity and justice, would have been to say that “Suzette Jordan passes away, but the fight she started will go on”. Even so, it is not surprising that the media, that thrives on ‘keywords’ to grab eyeballs, used the ‘rape survivor’ tag to announce Suzette’s demise.

I reached out to Suzette in July 2014 inviting her to receive the first copy of my Book – ‘Fall Like A Rose Petal – A father’s lessons on how to be happy and content while living without money’ (Westland, August 2014) – when we launched it in Kolkata. I am not sure I had her correct email id and so I wouldn’t know if she ever got my invitation. But I learned from someone she worked with that Suzette had become very reclusive. This person, who headed an NGO for women in Kolkata, told me that Suzette had been numbed by the mud-slinging and witch-hunting that the West Bengal administration had launched against her: “Suzette is shocked no doubt with the insensitivity of the Chief Minister and her entire cabinet. But she is in no way cowed down. She accepts her current reality, she realizes that the odds are stacked against her, but she is determined to plow on.” For the record, Mamata Banerjee had termed Suzette’s charge of rape a ‘sajano ghotona’ (fabricated event) and her cabinet colleague, a lady, had called it a ‘sex deal gone awry’. In response to these charges, Suzette told NDTV’s Monideepa Banerjee: “People make mistakes, you know,” she said. “She made a mistake. I don’t hold it against her.” Yesterday, Monideepa recounted this further on her blog: “Over the last three years, almost to the day, I met Suzette many times, at her home, at my office. She was indomitable, determined to fight for justice though the legal process dragged. The main accused is still absconding. She told me how in court, the three accused and their parents abused her, cajoled her to drop the case. But she fought on. Without resources. Three years, no job. Her mother lived with her, besides her two daughters. Her mother’s brother in Australia sent her money. Her daughters’ school fees were waived. She was celebrated across the country, speaker here, speaker there. But no end to hard times.”

And so, with her passing, in a way, the physical version of Suzette Katrina Jordan’s fight for justice has ended. But the spirit of her struggle, the message of courage and indomitable will that she spread in the three years since that barbaric attack on her, and the inspirational metaphor called Suzette Jordan will live on. She was the one that told the Indian media to stop using the word ‘victim’ for those affected by rape; she then modified it to ‘survivor’ and then daringly came forth and declared: “I am sick and tired of being called the Park Street rape survivor. I am Suzette Jordan.” Through her willingness to accept her Life for what it was she taught us the value in and power of acceptance. Through her activism for the cause she led, she also taught us that acceptance is not a passive state. It does not equal inaction. By being accepting of a situation, you conserve valuable energy which you would have otherwise expended in resisting that situation. When you accept your Life for what it is, you can channelize your energy intelligently to focus on doing what’s required of you to change the situation or to fight an injustice done to you or both!

Life’s situations are like an erroneously inflated BSNL bill. You can cry foul, you can rant, but BSNL will begin a dialogue and process to redress your complaint only when you first pay up their claim. So it is with Life. You have to first accept what is. Only then can you look to work on changing it!

The higher you go, the more grounded you must be PS: Also, please hold your own umbrella!

Irrespective of who you are or become, if you can stay humble and grounded, you can claim to have lived your Life most meaningfully and intelligently.

Obama with Vice-President Ansari Picture Courtesy: Internet

US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle were our special guests at this year’s R-Day Parade earlier this week. An unseasonal steady drizzle required that everyone had to deploy umbrellas. While most Indian dignitaries, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had people holding up their umbrellas, both Obama and Michelle held up their umbrellas themselves. People across the sub-continent did not miss this subtle cultural trait that differentiates perhaps much of the Western, particularly US, world from us. We are still steeped in wasteful colonial practices, in the name of “tradition” and “protocol”, while folks from the US are – as they are in several other countries – far more humble and down-to-earth. This is an important lesson to be learnt by us in a country where, at the drop of a hat, people switch to a do-you-know-who-I-am mode and drop names to declare their clout and powerful reach.

Obama holding up his own umbrella, to me, is also an un-ignorable spiritual metaphor. The learning is that the higher you ascend, the more powerful and popular you become, the more grounded and humble you must be.  At the end of the day, we must all realize, that we are merely messengers. The art we claim to be masters of, the work that we do, the success we achieve, and the wealth we believe we create, are all manifestations of the energy that flows through us. Simply, Life is expressing itself through us. We are what we are not because of us but in spite of us! This is the truth. So, if you were a musician and music is flowing through you, how can you take credit for the music? How can the microphone – which is what you really are – take any credit for creating the music? The microphone must simply be happy at having been an instrument that helped broadcast the music. Staying humble, therefore, means to know that you cause nothing – neither your successes, nor your failures.

Does a PM need an umbrella “holder”? Picture Courtesy: Internet

Of course, the world around us is unevenly skewed in favor of those who declare their might and success with pomp and a misplaced sense of self-worth. To them, they are unfortunately the majority, their hard work has led to their success and so they insist they have the right to flaunt it. Which is why a Mukesh Ambani chooses to build and live in an Antilla and Narendra Modi, apart from not wanting to hold his own umbrella, loved being in pin-stripes that had his name embroidered in place of the stripes! Contrast that with Amitabh Bachchan who, last week, was asked by NDTV’s Barkha Dutt to describe himself in a line. He replied, with his legendary, trademark, humility: “Just another name!”

I guess people know who they love more. The kind that flaunt or those that are self-effacing. But, on a personal note, I can tell you that the best state to be in is to believe that everything happens through you, in spite of you, and never because of you! This is the secret and key to inner peace and happiness! 

An unputdownable lesson on happiness from a slain soldier’s wife

Sometimes Life may just disturb a perfect, picture-postcard family. There are no sure ways to deal with such a situation – you just learn to cope and live.

At R-Day 2015: Indhu set to receive the Ashok Chakra from the President awarded to Mukund posthumously Picture Courtesy: Internet

Yesterday, I learnt this lesson, one more time, from Indhu Mukund. On Republic Day yesterday, as the entire nation watched, along with our special guests, US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, Indhu, 31, wife of slain Army officer Major Mukund Varadarajan (who died in action in Shopian in Jammu and Kashmir on April 25,  2014), received the Ashok Chakra – India’s highest peacetime gallantry award, from President Pranab Mukherjee, that was awarded to her husband posthumously. Indhu later told NDTV’s Barkha Dutt (see the full interview here): “India should see the man Mukund was, not my sorrow.” Indhu added that it was “Mukund’s day, his moment” yesterday and she did not want any trace of her own emotion to “interfere” with it. Such stoicism is a rare blessing. All I can do is to salute her and send her my prayers and positive energy.

The picture-postcard family: Indhu, Arshea, Mukund Photo Courtesy: Internet

Until a year ago, the Mukunds were the perfect family. Their daughter Arshea was barely 3 years old and everything seemed so good to be true. And then Mukund had to go. There was national attention on Indhu, Arshea and on Mukund’s parents. But then like most stories, this one too, despite its emotional, human interest appeal, died down. The Ashok Chakra announcement put the spotlight back on Indhu and the family again. This morning’s papers too are full of pictures of her receiving the award. And then again, soon, everyone will go on with their lives. Mukund’s sacrifice will just remain a memory for some, and for most, a general knowledge data point. Dutt asked Indhu on her show last night if she would ever be bitter with this possibility. Indhu responded with amazing maturity that she would not. “I don’t expect anyone to remember Mukund the way the family will. If the nation remembers him as a patriot that’s good. The emotions are for me, for us as a family.” And finally, Dutt asked Indhu how she coped, how she has been able to stay strong: “Is it because of the love you had for Mukund?” And Indhu replied, again with disarming equanimity, “It is because of the love I havefor him. And the regard I have for him. He would have loved me to be happy. And my strength to live happily and give Arshea a happy Life comes from that.”

Almost everyone struggles with death. And there is no one who has not experienced a personal loss, through the death of someone close. Despite the fact that it is the only thing you can be sure of in Life – that everyone among us will die someday, death, when it arrives, stuns you. It numbs you. It is particularly devastating when it is sudden and snuffs away someone that is so full of Life – like Mukund – and renders incomplete a beautiful family such as his. There are no ways to prepare for such a situation. There are no methods to deal with this inscrutable Life. The only lesson we can learn, every time we hear a story such as the Mukunds, is to promise to live our lives – fully and make each day count; to never postpone happiness and, in a very practical, selfish sense, never postpone family time. And should the picture-postcard be disturbed – and it will be some day – learn from Indhu to be happy despite the circumstances. There is no other way to live, no other way to cope and certainly no other way to be happy!

(PS: Let us take a minute to humbly acknowledge the sacrifice of all the soldiers who have laid down their lives for our nation. And let us pray for the well-being of their precious families.)

Finding inner peace in discomfort

Sometimes, you just have to learn to accept whatever – or whoever – you are uncomfortable with!

The last week saw a lot of theatrics by the Indian Prime Minister and his team in the United States. Indian media went gaga over his visit giving the impression that India’s finest hour had arrived on the global stage. For more pragmatic folks, and Modi critics, like me, while the “‘Namo’ste America” show – as billed by the venerable NDTV – had a lot of sound and light, phenomenal follow-up on the ground and actual results to be delivered over the next several months alone can determine whether Prime Minister Modi’s sarkar passes with an honorable distinction or not. Yet, here’s a man, who – despite having been morally accountable for Godhra, despite having left his wife without any ostensible explanation, despite all the charges of right-wing, read non-secular, activism he faces – is still India’s Prime Minister, the first one in 30 years to be a leading a government that has absolute majority in Parliament. Undoubtedly, he’s a fine administrator, a brilliant communicator and a leader who commands respect among his followers. Even so, to me, personally, some of his credentials are hugely worrisome: his not-so-secular stances, his presiding over the Godhra carnage, his abandoning his unsuspecting, submissive wife – these are factors that make me squirm with discomfort that he’s leading my country now.

But do I – or others like me – have a choice?

The truth is he’s here to stay for five years – unless he or his government commits hara-kiri. The truth is that his government has the majority in Parliament to bulldoze whatever plans, policies or projects they may conceive. (Hopefully they won’t bulldoze non-secular ideologies down our throats!) The truth is the opposition, primarily the Congress (Disclosure: I am a forever Congressman at heart), is completely clueless on what it can and must possibly do. So, do we really have a choice?

PM Modi kicking off the Swach Bharat Abhiyan Picture Courtesy: Internet

To be sure, some of the projects Modi has announced – particularly the Swach Bharat/Clean India campaign that he has kicked off today – are meaningful. And they are in sync with my own view as an Indian, that for India to transform, every Indian must transform. To cleanse India – figuratively, metaphorically and physically – we Indians must first clean up India.

So, over the past week, I seriously thought about my two views of Modi. Modi – the man, who I am very, very, very uncomfortable with for all the reasons that I have outlined. And Modi – my Prime Minister, who’s at least saying the right things, and some things, he saying them right too; things that were never expressed with as much clarity ever before. I realized that for my India to win, Modi has to win. My personal discomfort with the man cannot be the reason for me to be dismissive of his role as my country’s elected leader. When this clarity emerged in me, I found it easier to balance my personal discomfort with my view of our country’s much-needed, urgent – repair and rebuild – development agenda. I found myself at peace with this understanding taking root within me.

When we are uncomfortable with someone – or something – we have a choice to walk away from the scene. The other choice we have is to bury or swallow our discomfort and rally around or align with the person or the situation. Suffering though cannot be avoided in such a case. The third option is to accept the situation for what it is or the person for who they are and learn to live with that acceptance – and live in peace.

In the context under discussion, for instance, I realize that continuously criticizing Modi for the next five years for every move of his is only likely to make me more miserable. I also realize that I cannot support him at a personal level – I just can’t accept his value systems. So, I concluded that, while I am always going to be uncomfortable with his having been elected as our Prime Minister, I decided too that I am not going to expend precious personal energy ranting about him. Instead, I believe, choosing to stand with him on projects of national significance would be a more constructive approach. After all, the larger cause here is India’s development and progress and most certainly not who is leading India. Most definitely, I feel this approach will contribute to my inner peace.

Surely this approach will also work in any other context. The principle is very simple: When you are uncomfortable with a person or a situation, and if you can’t do anything to disengage completely, choose to accept whatever – or whoever – is and be at peace with yourself and your environment!