In which I relearn detachment from Charuhasan

Detachment is not a choice. It is a necessity.

The other day Vaani and I watched a play titled ‘I Am An Actor, Your Honor’. It is produced by renowned actor Suhasini Maniratnam, and directed by three directors – KK, Priya and Suhasini. The play is a tribute by Suhasini to her father Charuhasan and features popular theatre actor Y Gee Mahendra in Charuhasan’s role and YGM’s daughter Madhuvanthi Arun in Suhasini’s role. Scripted as a series of candid conversations, between father and daughter, on all matters relating to Life and death, the play, though a trifle long and winding in parts, is thought-provoking. It certainly made me pause and reflect.

It portrayed Charuhasan honestly – as the atheist, secular, rational, non-materialistic, free thinker that he really is. I particularly liked the part where he asks Suhasini to read out his will. It declares that he owns no material assets like property or cars or gold; and directs that after his demise his body should be given for medical research and his personal belongings are to be given away to the needy. His will also stipulates that no religious ceremonies or rituals need to follow his demise and that if his body is not found to be fit for medical research, it may be unceremoniously cremated at an electric crematorium. This is rational thought, practicality, secularism, spirituality and detachment in action. The only other man I know who has thought through his Life – and death – with as much clarity is my good friend Ejji – read the announcement on his proposed obituary here.

I have often wondered about the futility of wanting to accumulate, amass and cling on to material assets. I have often though about the futility of being attached to people and relationships. Yes, we need material stuff to get past our lifetime – a roof over our head, some basic furniture, a mode of transport (Uber has obviated that requirement too), food for sustaining us biologically, a couple of devices – like a mobile phone and computer – to make Life simpler. Yes, we need some source of income or a means of paying our utility bills month on month. Yes, we need to have a companion, a family that we can love and that can, and will, hopefully, love us back. But although this is a list of bare necessities, I don’t think we cannot survive without any or some of them. The truth is we sure can. But sadly we kid ourselves to imagine that we can’t. It is this imagination that brings suffering in our lives.

Even I used to think this way – that we can’t live without clinging on to material assets and that we can’t be unemotional about our relationships – until I realized that when my number is called, and I have to go, I can take nothing, and no one, with me. That’s when I began to see the value in practicing detachment. That’s when I saw how much time we are wasting in this temporary human experience by being attached to all that is one day not going to be ours or be with us anyway.

To be sure, I am still learning to be detached. And I guess no one ever gets to the stage of being totally detached – for it is a continuous, evolutionary, process. But from being on this journey of learning to be detached for some years now, I have understood that it is not at all difficult. I employ a two-step test with anything that makes me feel as if I am clinging on to it – be it a relationship or be it a material object. I simply ask: Is this person or thing going to matter to me after I am gone? Can/will I matter to this person or thing after I am gone? Whenever the answer is ‘no’ to both questions, I simply stop clinging on – I let go! And instantaneously I experience freedom, bliss! Occasionally, I may get ‘yes’ as an answer to the second question, and in such cases, I go back to asking myself the first question and, lo and behold, I am all fired up now to let go. I seize that momentum and I let go – and I become free! So, my little secret is not that I am detached all the time. But that my awareness of the futility of attachment prevails on me and reasons with me. It helps me to restore my detachment equilibrium every time attachment surfaces to torment me or hold me to ransom.

Being detached is not at all difficult. Ah, yes, it is a lot of work though! But you won’t mind the workload when you realize that detachment holds the key to your inner peace. Which is, when you understand that this entire human experience is ephemeral, you too will un-cling both at a material and at an emotional level, and live fully, freely and happily!

A Life lesson from ‘Waiting’: start living, while waiting!

It is always what it is. And you have to go through whatever you have to go through.

A friend had booked for us to watch Anu Menon’s beautiful, beautiful film Waiting last evening. Everything about the movie is so endearing and uplifting – the story, the script, the screenplay, the dialogues, the music and, above all, the brilliant performances by Naseerudin Shah and Kalki Koechlin. I don’t want to talk about the film’s plot so as not to spoil the viewing experience for readers who have not yet watched the film. But instead I want to share what we can learn about Life from Waiting, the movie, and how we can live our Life better while waiting…!

Actually, if you pause to reflect on Life, isn’t it all about waiting; from the time you are born, for your impending, inevitable death? As you wait, you are so consumed by the material pursuits that you indulge in – driven by your wants and social conditioning – that you have missed this point that Life – and living – is nothing but waiting for death. So, when Life gives you a zor ka jhatka that brings a twist to your fairy tale – a relationship issue, a career or business challenge, an irreparable health condition, someone’s death – you begin to want to understand the most inscrutable – Life itself! But because you are so used to having lived Life your way, and are so accustomed to everything being reasoned so logically, you begin with denial, resisting any disruptive – often irrational, illogical – change that comes your way. Your denying the existence of a problem doesn’t make it go away though. The problem persists. So, you ask, partly in anger, partly in grief, partly in helplessness, why, why me? But the problem still persists. You rage on angrily, thinking your aggression can drive your problem away. When this approach doesn’t work, insecurity and fear creep in. Because that which you can’t make sense of always scares you. But fear only cripples you and holds you hostage – and if you are not aware, it can push you into a dark abyss called depression. When after repeatedly banging your head against a wall, when after desperately seeking answers, after trying to rationally, logically analyze your situation, when you find yourself in a no-go, you grudgingly begin to appreciate that between you and Life, you are less powerful. That’s when acceptance comes in. While accepting a problem – your Life for what it is – does not either solve the problem or get rid of it, it sure does help you deal with it better. It is only through facing Life can you live it more meaningfully. So, Waiting, the movie, really helps you understand that you too can be Zen – attaining that seemingly elusive state of equanimity – by accepting your Life for what it is. It teaches you that, while Life is a wait, from birth, for death, there are two possible dimensions to that wait – waiting for you to awaken to your Zen and waiting for death in that awakened, transcendental, Zen state!

Yet, as Ankur Tewari’s lyrics in Waiting’s ‘Zara Zara’ song, sung so soulfully by Kavita Seth and Vishal Dadlani to Mikey McCleary’s music, remind us, it is a slow process. This awakening. This evolution, this arriving at your state of Zen. It happens with the passage of time. It happens slowly through each experience that you encounter, endure and overcome in Life. It happens as an integral process of the journey of Life. But it happens for sure – for each of us, in our own unique ways. In this time you do realize, one way or the other, that only you have to bear your cross in Life, going through what you have to go through, for no one else can or will do it for you! Finally, when you arrive at your personal, individual state of Zen, you realize that the waiting is what makes Life beautiful and meaningful. That’s when you stop waiting for the inevitable end. Instead, you start living, than merely existing, while waiting!