Tag: Sachin Tendulkar

“The winds of grace are always blowing…”

“The winds of grace are always blowing. You must hoist your sails to catch them.” So said Swami Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836 ~ 1886).
Ustaad Anwar Khan Saab, Mansoor Khan and their troupe
I was, yet again, reminded of this beautiful perspective on Life last evening. A friend and his family had organized a concert by the Manganiyars – a community of folk singers from Rajasthan – on their rooftop. It was an unusual evening in Chennai – it was still very warm, but as the sun set, dark clouds gathered and very strong gusts of wind blew over the city. It didn’t rain. But it came menacingly close to raining. In this backdrop of the game of hide and seek that nature played, five Manganiyars performed at their soulful best. There were no additional lights on stage, no mics and no speakers. The artistes just jammed – led by the supremely talented Ustad Anwar Khan Saab on the vocals and the world-renowned Mansoor Khan on the Dholak. The other three artists played the Kartaal and the Sindhi Sarangi between them. As Anwar Khan Saab sang he lost himself to his music. And held all of us in the audience in a trance. His deep voice, the rhythmic beats of the Kartaals, the sublime strains of the Sindhi Sarangi and the unobtrusive yet unputdownable presence of the Dholak made the evening truly magical.  
I picked up a few learnings.
The first was humility. Anwar Khan Saab is one of the most feted Manganiyars. Yet, as he began the concert, he humbly looked at each of the other four artists in the troupe and asked them: “Izzazat ho, toh shuru karein…” Meaning: “May we have your permission to begin…” There’s an Urdu word called ‘tehzeeb’ which actually means ‘culture’ but combines the essence of being ‘humble and dignified in demeanor’. Khan Saab embodied that word ‘tehzeeb’ in the way he spoke, he sang and he conducted himself last evening – he personified humility.
Second, I re-learnt the value of respecting a senior. Mansoor Khan is younger, is more relevant and hugely famous across the world. Yet Mansoor let Khan Saab lead the whole concert last evening and do all the singing. It’s the kind of difference in appeal that would exist in the cricketing world between Sachin Tendulkar and Sunil Gavaskar that is there between Mansoor and Khan Saab. Even so, Mansoor was content with just being the Dholak player yesterday – happy to share stage presence with the Ustad and sing for the joy of singing alongside the maestro.
Third, I felt the grace – yet again – in my Life. Not that it is ever absent in any of our lives. It is always there. But we are so busy earning-a-living, running on our Life-treadmills, that we miss this grace. But I have realized that whenever I have let go, whenever I have just let a higher energy draw me in its direction, hold me in its sway and take me where it wants to, I have felt the grace. Last evening, I almost did not make it to this home concert of the Manganiyars. It had been a tiring Sunday at home. And all I wanted to do was have a drink and watch television. But our hosts are very, very special. And the Manganiyars are our favorites – particularly Mansoor Khan. So, despite my body protesting, I completely let go as Khan Saab began. For the next two hours it was a pure bliss and grace show! My wife Vaani concurs with me. How else do you explain such great weather in Chennai in the middle of June, such great artists jamming in front of you with no commercial trappings, such soulful music and us in the midst of all this – when we can never quite dream of buying tickets to a live performance of this class, given our fragile financial state?

As the concert ended, I took a swig of Kingfisher beer that my host graciously offered. And then I looked up at the sky and smiled in gratitude and joy. I was reminded of what the Buddha has said: “When you realize how perfect your Life is, you will look up at the sky and laugh!” Indeed, I don’t think that we will ever have a perfect Life – the way we want it. It is always what it is. And if you can accept what is, you will have raised your sails, you will then have felt the grace in your Life, you too will then perhaps look up at the sky and laugh….! 

Embrace, welcome and celebrate uncertainty

It is in the Unknown that you will find the true treasures of Life.
We have been sadly conditioned to expect rewards and recognition for every effort we make. These expectations bring agony. The pursuit of any goal by itself does not cause suffering. It is in not seeing outcomes that we desired that we feel defeated and begin to suffer. When what we seek is not what we get, we give up and choose to stay with the predictable. By itself, it is not a bad choice. The problem arises when we start lamenting about Life, whining and feeling depressed or let down.

Understand that Life has a mind of its own. Its benevolence and creativity is shrouded in its eccentricity. (Aren’t all creative folks a wee bit eccentric?) It is unpredictable and moves is bizarre ways. That’s why all of the world’s wealth is with a chosen few. And a large mass of people__like you and me__are hardworking, ethical climbers with no idea of where the top of this ladder we are on will lead us. A larger mass of people, the strugglers, have no desires than just getting past basic stuff (that which we climbers take for granted) like two meals a day, a home, something to cover themselves with and, possibly a steady source of income or education. There are no answers to why a Sachin Tendulkar should be ordained with boundless abundance and glory while Vinod Kambli should have not got there__though both came from similar backgrounds, trained with the same coach and were equally talented.

The point is that Life’s unpredictable. Period. And the way to deal with its eccentricity__often seen as its unfairness__is to simply Let Go and be prepared for the Unknown. Do your bit, joyfully, ethically, sincerely, and Let Go. Every other aspect of Nature’s creation thrives in Let Go mode. The birds, the trees, the insects, the reptiles, the animals, they have all Let Go. We humans are afraid to Let Go because we have a fear of the Unknown. So we suffer. But clinging on and expecting desirable outcomes is a foolish choice. So, in every sense, our suffering is self-inflicted.  When we Let Go and face the Unknown, remember, we will never be let down. There will be no more suffering. The true treasures of Life, which were always there, will now be visible to us: we will feel the air in our lungs, see the beauty of creation all around us, find ourselves drenched in grace and feel happiness in our every pore.

Make your doing, your being

Whatever you do, immerse yourself in it – and your will be one with it. That’s how you make doing, being!
This past Sunday, I read an article by the enfant terrible of Carnatic music, T.M.Krishna, in the Sunday Magazine of The Hindu. No, Krishna was not waxing eloquent on music. Instead he wrote, provoking thought in the bargain, about how “great sportsmen and artists share a transformational quality”. His piece, ‘Beyond the Boundary’ examined if Sachin Tendulkar’s technique is really an art form. Krishna wrote: “I have watched the phenomenal Sachin Tendulkar almost right through his career, especially in his Test innings… there have been phases in his great innings when he seemed to dissolve into cricket itself…. In this state, not just cricket or sport but Life itself seemed to be one uninterrupted flow…. The man and his bat became one; the ball was not an object that needed to be negotiated, caressed or decimated; the bowler, not an enemy; and his wicket, no point of reference…. What actually happened was that everything merged. Sachin became one with that existence and, as a beholder, I saw Life’s beauty in its most natural self, without any burden of names, identities, action or result…To me, at that instant, even the fact that it was Sachin batting was immaterial. This was an artist lost in his moment of Life, living it to its fullest.”
Krishna’s keen observation and perspective there has been simply, beautifully, explained by Osho, the Master, thus: “Forget the dancer, the center of the ego. Become the dance. Dance so deeply that you completely forget that you are dancing and begin to feel that you “are”the dance. Dance so totally…because the dancer-dance division can exist only when you are not total in it. The dancer must go until only the dance remains.”  
In the Sufi tradition, dervishes of the Mevlevi order, perform the ‘sama’, or dancing meditation, where they abandon their ‘nafs’or egos or personal desires, by spinning in repetitive circles, symbolic of the planets in the solar system orbiting the sun. The dancer is merely a metaphor that Osho and the Sufis use. You could be a cook, a gardener, a writer, an orator, a clerk, a traffic policeman, a painter, a singer, a truck driver or a nurse. Who you are is immaterial. How you “are” (being) who you are is important. Of course, choosing to do what you absolutely love doing, is critical for losing yourself – for making your doing, your being! While it may be possible to even immerse yourself while loving what you are doing, your inner joy is always several notches higher when you have chosen to do onlywhat you love!
But your Life may not always pan out that way. As it turned out to be with my father. He is an amazing Carnatic vocalist himself – having been trained for over two decades by an accomplished Guru. But way back in the ‘60s, the pressures of having to raise a family forced him to seek a career in the private sector textile industry, and later with the government. “Financial security and stability” were chosen over “what gave him joy”. I don’t understand the nuances of Carnatic music as much as I should. But over the early years of my growing up, and even now, when he is well past 75, I have found that my dad always lost himself to his singing whenever he was or is having a stressful time. In those times that I have watched him sing to himself at home, I found him immersed in the music. In fact, I believe, he always became the song. On the few occasions when he has performed concerts too, I have found the singer (in him) disappearing and only the song remaining. I cite his example here because you may not often get to make a Life – and living – out of what you love. Yet it is imminently possible that if you still do what you love, even if it is done infrequently, it can help you just be! And that just being is happiness!
As I grew older and my understanding of Life evolved, I have come to realize that when you don’t force yourself to do anything, Life flows through you. The cosmic energy then expresses itself through you. Your doing then becomes your being. That state, when you are in unison with the Universe, is what is also known as bliss! And as you can see, from the expressions of Krishna, Tendulkar, Osho and my dad, that state is imminently attainable!

Life always gives you what you need

Life’s pretty amazing! It may not always give you what you want, but none of what you need is ever denied!  

This is true for each one of us. Irrespective of who we are and what we are going through.
A lot has been talked, in the past week, about Prithvi Shaw, the 15-year-old batting prodigy from Mumbai. There have been comparisons to Sachin Tendulkar’s brilliance and origins as Shaw amassed a mind-boggling 546 runs off 330 balls in the Harris Shield tournament. The media has gone ga-ga over this boy wonder. But one story in The New Indian Express yesterday, by sports writer Sandip G, caught my attention. It talked about Shaw’s background.

Sandip wrote about Prithvi Shaw: “His mother died when he was four. Soon, his father, Pankaj, a small-time readymade garment retailer, fell on hard times. By this time though, Prithvi was already regaling his neighbors with his batting. ‘Even when he was only six, he used to play better than bigger boys. Whenever he used to bat, neighbors used to flock to the maidan,’ recollected his father Pankaj, who still escorts him to and from Bandra. But the more Prithvi’s talent manifested, the tougher his father found it to sustain his son’s ambitions. ‘I was about to close down my business and I didn’t even have money to buy him a bat. I didn’t know what to do,’ Prithvi’s father said. Luckily though, former English county cricketer Julian Wood chanced upon him and convinced the (local) MIG Club to induct him. Three years later, former Indian spinner Nilesh Kulkarni spotted him and signed him up for his sports management firm for Rs 3 lakh a year. Another well-wisher gifted him an apartment in Santa Cruz.”

Shaw’s story reinforces a truism about Life. Not knowing what to do in Life, as Pankaj Shaw has confessed, is a great state to be in! That let-go is what Life requires from you in order for it to give you what you need. I have found this particularly true in my Life. Whenever I have reached a state of being clueless, and helpless, I have always found people walking into my Life, on their own at most times, and offering to support me and my family. One moment I would see no way ahead in a Life-and-death situation. My Life would be surrounded by total darkness. And in the next moment, I have found myself soaked in abundance and the milk of human kindness. This has happened again and again and again. When I connect the dots backward, as Steve Jobs famously said, I have found that Life gives you all that you need, when you let go! I have realized that miracles happen to you not because you pray hard or your faith is stronger but they happen because at one level you are a miracle yourself and, at another level, you need a miracle to move forward in Life!

It’s a beautiful Life really. You and I make it miserable by wanting it to be different from what it is. Drop all your wanting. It’s perfectly alright to not know what to do with your Life or in it! Let go! And, magically, you will find that Life manifests the right people, the right connections, the right situations, which will take you onward, giving you all that you need! You cannot live your entire lifetime in one nanosecond or moment. Life’s moves from moment to moment. Living Life, one moment at a time, savoring what you have, without question, without resistance, will always lead you to whatever you need.