The importance of being Alamelu Mani

There is no greater state to attain in Life than when you are able to recognize that you are merely an instrument for divinity to work through you, for your spiritual talent to flow through you.

A couple of evenings ago, my soulmate Vaani and I visited Chennai’s famed Ragasudha Hall, an intimate performance space in Mylapore. It hosts music concerts all through the year. And particularly during Chennai’s music and dance season in December, it is abuzz with some great music and performances.

When Vaani and I decided to go to Ragasudha, we were simply hoping to listen to some good music. We did not know who was performing in the prime time concert slot that evening. Before we entered the hall, we paused to look at the board that lists the day’s performances. It read: Grand concert by Alamelu Mani.

Who is Alamelu Mani?

“Who is Alamelu Mani,” we wondered, as we seated ourselves.

A felicitation ceremony was underway on stage just then. The speaker, dancer Nandini Ramani, was paying glowing tributes to her guru. We soon reckoned that the guru was an old lady who was seated on the stage. What was striking was that the old lady was unmoved by all that was being spoken about her. She sat there, looking content; perhaps even a tad uncomfortable with all the attention she was receiving. When the old lady delivered her acceptance speech, she was modest and brief; she graciously thanked her gurus for their guidance and blessings.

We soon gathered that she was Alamelu Mani.

I thought to myself: “Wow! This lady looks very old, very senior. She must be in her late seventies, early eighties. Is she the one who is going to perform?”

Intrigued, I googled her name. I was amazed by what I quickly read up online. Now, there were very few links on her. But the couple of links that I read got me acquainted with this quiet, grand, old lady:

• She’s 87.
• Music has guided, led and shaped her whole Life.
• She’s been performing for over 75 years now.
• She’s been teaching music at the South Indian School Of Music for close to 60 years; she’s the principal of the school.
• She lost her husband, H.A.S.Mani, when she was barely 28. He was the founder of the music school and was the one who had initiated Alamelu into carnatic music.
• She’s the mother of acclaimed singer Hariharan.

I shared the links I had read with Vaani. And urged her to look them up too. As the felicitations continued, Vaani and I hung on to every word about Alamelu. One of the speakers called her a banyan tree that had embraced many, many students and shaped their musical journeys. Another speaker called her a maestro and crowned her the “queen of raga purvikalyani” – saying none can sing the raga like the way she can.

A grand concert, indeed

And then Alamelu performed. Her performance was a quiet celebration of her mastery, her poise and her grace. It was devoid of any frills. It was precise, wholesome and endearing.

I must confess that I don’t know carnatic music at all. I can’t recognize compositions and certainly can’t tell whether a raga or a kriti is rendered well. So, I am not an aficionado. But I truly relish being at concerts. Almost always, I am in admiration of the rigor and precision that singers and performers bring to a concert.

Despite my inability to understand carnatic music, I can tell when the music connects with me. Alamelu Mani’s music connected with me that evening. Instantaneously. Witnessing her performance was like watching a batter on song in cricket. Alamelu was fluent. It was clear to me that her music was flowing through her.

There is no greater state to attain in Life than when you are able to recognize that you are merely an instrument for divinity to work through you, for your spiritual talent to flow through you. Alamelu exemplifies being in that state when she performs. There’s an effortlessness, there’s a joyful flow, which transcends the human form. This happens only when the divine is expressing itself through you.

As Vaani and I soaked in her music, we realized that the hall had filled up. Some of the people in the audience were in a state of rapture. And others were raising occasional toasts to Alamelu’s musical nuances, to her brilliance: They were either nodding feverishly in appreciation or were blissfully, unwittingly, making soft, affectionate, remarks in celebration.

I could discern that this experience was truly precious for anyone who was in the hall. I sat back to reflect on the magic and beauty of the moment: When we had walked in, we had no clue who Alamelu was. And here we were, basking in her aura, mesmerized by her mastery, her story – and her music.

There is a phrase in Urdu, “gustakhi mauf”. It means, “forgive (my/our) insolence.” Vaani and I seek forgiveness from Alamelu Mani, and from all connoisseurs of carnatic music, for us both not knowing of Alamelu earlier.

Alamelu Mani, accompanied by R.K.Shriramkumar on the violin and K.Arun Prakash on the mridangam.

Why Alamelu Mani is important

We now surely know whoAlamelu Mani is. Plus, we also know why she is important. Indeed. Not just to the world of carnatic music, but to all of us.

In today’s hurried, impatient, world, she reflects a tehraav, a rare stillness. While everyone is chest-thumping on social media and crying hoarse saying, “Look at me, look at how great I am”, Alamelu makes no noise. She is unpretentious, humble and, in fact, invisible. She has no internet footprint to speak of. Period. This, despite all her experience, expertise and influence in the world of carnatic music. Now, that’s true greatness.

Someone performing a full-length concert at 87 is rare. In being able to do that, Alamelu showcases the enormous potential that the human form offers us if it is looked after well. It enables us to keep going despite the storms we have to weather in this journey called Life. It enables us to live well, to live happily and to express ourselves creatively. That’s one more context in which Alamelu is inspiring.

When an artiste offers their spiritual talent boundarylessly, limitlessly, without any expectation of any return, it shows. It shows in the way they are – dignified, calm, content and soaked in bliss. They glow with an inner joy. This is how Alamelu shone last evening.

Vaani and I can relate to that inner glow. As the happynesswalas^TM, we believe our Life’s purpose is Inspiring ‘Happyness’™!

The experience of getting to know of Alamelu, and of being touched by her music, is one more important milestone on our journey of distilling lessons on Life and Happiness from human stories.

Clearly, someone like Alamelu Mani is a beacon of light and hope in this broken world. In fact, every once in a way, it takes an Alamelu Mani to make a statement, firmly, strongly, with the sheer power of their spiritual talent. A resounding statement that drowns and silences the cacophony that has rendered most of the world tone-deaf.

Alamelu’s way of Life and her music remind us that to live fully, to thrive, we need to have devotion and discipline. Her Life teaches us that you don’t need acclaim or validation, you don’t need followership and you don’t need fame. You don’t need too much money either – just some money to provide for a few basics will do. What you need though is to follow your bliss: Do only what you love doing and do it diligently. All else always follows. This is intelligent living. It holds the key to contentment and Happiness.

The importance of being Alamelu Mani is more relevant than ever in today’s world. It is not just in her music, not just in her being a great teacher, or a powerful performer, it is in her very being. Even as everyone is rushing to become someone (else) or achieve something, she’s just being who she is, doing what loves doing. And she is doing it so, so well.

That is why she is important.

Additional, relevant, links:

• Rise In Love  – a 2015-documentary, made by a young filmmaker Shalu C. While focusing on the journey of Vaani and AVIS, the film explores how love thrives in the face of adversity. Viewing time: 30.18 minutes.
• Fall Like A Rose Petal  – AVIS’ first book. It is the true story of AVIS’ and Vaani’s Life. It captures learnings from the excruciating, fascinating, Life-changing, experience – a crippling bankruptcy – that they are still going through.
• Click here to know more about the happynesswalas ^TM, Vaani and AVIS.
• If you wish to seek Vaani’s and AVIS’ perspectives on a Life challenge you are faced with, please reach out here – Let’s Talk Happyness ^TM!

Manohar Devadoss’ Life is his message

No matter what the context of your Life is, no matter how challenging the situation is, you always have the choice to be happy despite the circumstances.

4-min read

To my soulmate Vaani and me, Manohar Devadoss personified love, compassion, courage, dignity and a deep, hearty, full-of-Life, laughter!

We will always remember him for those amazing, exceptional, qualities.

As I write this tribute, his funeral is underway. He passed on a couple of days ago. He was 86.

To many, he was a rare artist, who, despite his failing eyesight for decades, and his eventual blindness some years ago, created extraordinary works of art. To others, he was Mahema’s lover and companion, until she passed on in 2008. To many others, he was an exceptional human being and a very dear friend.

Love in action

Mano, to Vaani and me, was always loving. The magnificence of his love shone in his tight hugs. Each time we met him, he would immediately embrace both of us together, his big whiskers brushing against our faces. He literally poured his heart into that embrace every single time.  And he would exclaim heartily: “AVIS, Vaani, how are you both?” That moment always oozed authenticity. It wasn’t just another soulless, matter-of-fact, greeting. It was love in action. It was what being loving truly is.

Genuine, deep, compassion

His compassion too was genuine. It was expansive, limitless and deep like the oceans.

When Vaani and I first met him, in September 2015, he was very moved by hearing the story of our enduring bankruptcy. He complimented us for being the happynesswalas^TM and for living a Life of purpose – Inspiring ‘Happyness’ ^TM! He had someone read out my book Fall Like A Rose Petal to him. And in November 2015, in an edition of our conversation series, the happyness conversations^TM, where he was our guest, he empathetically remarked: “I am not sure my pain of not being able to see and of having lost my companion Mahema is bigger, or your pain of continuing to deal with a crippling financial situation is bigger.” This ability to feel another’s pain and place it higher than your own is rare. That is true compassion.

During one of our visits to his home in Santhome, he served us his signature salad, Tulsania. He chose to serve us salad only because he knew we were on a diet. Now, he did not have someone make the salad for us. He went to the grocer’s on the morning of our visit and bought the ingredients for the salad himself. And he tossed up the salad, with lettuce and walnuts, in a fresh homemade mayo dressing. He insisted on serving his preparation to us. And he served us a couple of helpings. There is an Urdu word for hospitality called khatirdari. It defines the act of serving a guest with compassion. In being served by him, and while savoring his preparation, we experienced Mano’s legendary khatirdari.

Remarkable ability to face Life’s upheavals undauntedly

It was his remarkable ability to face Life undauntedly that guided and shaped his journey, even without normal eyesight and, over time, despite total blindness.

His entire Life is evidence of this ability.

Mahema and Mano married in 1963. They lived together for 45 years. She passed away in 2008. Of these 45 years, Mahema lived with quadriplegia for 35 years; a devastating accident had rendered her quadriplegic in December 1972. Around the same time, Mano began to have progressive, degenerative, eyesight; this eventually led to total blindness. Yet, Mano cared for Mahema, diligently, compassionately, for all those 35 years! If Shahjahan built the Taj Mahal for his beloved, Mano ensured – though his love for her, his practical thinking, his toiling – that Mahema lived through those 35 years, unable to use her limbs, without a single bedsore! He also anchored himself to stay strong, alongside Mahema, as they raised their beautiful daughter Sujatha in the midst of their individual, physically debilitating, conditions. And, for over 14 years, since Mahema’s passing, Mano lived alone. He led a dignified, purposeful Life, being immersed in his art, his writing and in his public work. “There is no point in moping and mourning about the challenges that Life throws at you. We must learn to laugh at ourselves, at our situation, and at Life itself,” he told us, when we had a conversation with him in June 2016. Excerpts from this conversation are due to appear in my forthcoming book, The Happyness Road.  

Mano and Mahema – together again!

His laughter had a spiritual quality

All through that conversation, which lasted a couple of hours, Mano laughed full-heartedly. He laughed even when he recalled all the upheavals that he had experienced in Life. Over many interactions with him in these past few years, Mano’s laughter, to us, became a part of his identity. In fact, if you have met him and experienced his laughter, you can hear him laugh even in most pictures of him. Vaani and I have often felt that his laughter had a spiritual quality. It was wholesome, honest and conveyed a deep understanding of what Life really is. It reflected a unique celebration of Life: Of its inscrutability, of its impermanence and of its suchness!

Vaani, Mano and AVIS, June 2016. Picture by Vinodh Velayudhan.

An embodiment of courage

Mano’s true religion, we believe, was courage. He practiced living each moment fully, courageously.

Now, courage is not necessarily evident only in popular acts of physical valor. Courage is certainly not the absence of fear either. The ability to look fear in the eye, to stand up to what scares you, is courage. So, being able to face Life’s upheavals, without giving up, without becoming bitter, is courage. Being able to withstand pain, while choosing to not suffer from it, is courage. Choosing to immerse yourself in what you love doing, when darkness engulfs you – in Mano’s case, there was physical darkness too, given his impaired eyesight – is courage. To let go, and to flow with Life, is courage. Being useful, even when you can’t be successful in a worldly sense, is courage. To live a Life of love, compassion, dignity and cheer, despite constant pain, despite enduring constraints, is courage. To laugh at yourself, at your situation, and at Life, is courage! To be happy, to be non-worrying, non-frustrated and non-suffering, despite the circumstances, is courage.

Surely, being Manohar Devadoss was never easy. Pain has been so integral to his Life’s journey for 50 years. Yet, he just kept flowing with Life, accepting it for what it is, and never once, feeling either self-pity or bitterness. There’s a word in Tamil called thunivu that personifies courage through human action. For Vaani and me, Mano’s Life will always remain an embodiment of thunivu.

Mano’s kind of courage is rare. It is quiet. But it is unputdownable, it is unmissable. It shines bright. And such courage lights up the lives of people who come in contact with those that display it.

This is what happened with Vaani and me too when Mano came into our Life. Our Life illumined with his influence. Which is why we believe his Life is his message – for anyone who wants to pause, reflect and learn how to be happy despite their circumstances.

Additional, relevant, links:

• Manohar Devadoss.
• Rise In Love  – a 2015-documentary, made by a young filmmaker Shalu C. While focusing on the journey of Vaani and AVIS, the film explores how love thrives in the face of adversity. Viewing time: 30.18 minutes.
• Fall Like A Rose Petal  – AVIS’ first book. It is the true story of AVIS’ and Vaani’s Life. It captures learnings from the excruciating, fascinating, Life-changing, experience – a crippling bankruptcy – that they are still going through.
• Click here to know more about the happynesswalas ^TM, Vaani and AVIS.
• If you wish to seek Vaani’s and AVIS’ perspectives on a Life challenge you are faced with, please reach out here – Let’s Talk Happyness ^TM!

35 years on, the romance stays fragrant!

True companionship is about loving someone continuously – no matter what the circumstances are.

7-min read

I make good coffee these days.

This is a new skill that I learnt from my soulmate Vaani just a couple of years ago. The coffee I make does not taste as great as the one Vaani makes though. But on some days, I am pretty close to getting the flavor, the temperature, the aeration and the rich frothy presentation just right!

Interestingly, I met Vaani for the first time on October 27, 1987; that was at the college we both attended. So, later this month, we will complete 35 years of knowing each other.

And beautifully, magically, our romance has stayed fragrant over all these years.

No, it’s not only making good coffee that has helped keep our romance fragrant. Actually, to tell you the truth, for the longest time, I did not quite get into our kitchen at all. I was not even always around to be involved with many things on the home front. I was busy building a career and was later obsessed with growing our business. 

Yet, over the years, as Vaani and I know it, we have stayed loving. Which is, we did not just fall in love in end-1987; we have stayed loving – in the present continuous – ever since.

Now, we have been married for close to 34 years. But it is also not the marriage that keeps us together. It is our companionship. It is our choice to stay loving that has helped us remain soulmates.

In this time, we have faced three major crises. Of these three, we are still enduring two: A crippling bankruptcy, for the last 16 years; and another, a serious situation that we wish to keep private, for a few years now.  

Even so, despite all the upheavals in our Life, our companionship has only grown stronger. And that is because we continue to relate to each other.

Blending as soulmates

In the initial years of our companionship, when Vaani and I were much younger, our physical presence with each other surely mattered. We have kissed on public transport and have waited long spells for the other to join in at meal times. I remember, on my first overseas trip, to Tokyo in 1992, in an era when there was no WhatsApp or Facebook, I wept like a baby while calling Vaani over phone. I was missing her a lot. We have done a lot of interesting stuff together too – from celebrating atop the Eiffel Tower, to exploring New Delhi on foot, to curating memorable vacation experiences for ourselves as a family.

Over the years, we have transcended the physicality of our relationship. Also, for a long time now, we have been out of cash to gift each other things for wedding anniversaries and birthdays. But the intensity of longing and belonging between us has not diminished even a wee bit. We have blended as soulmates.

A celebratory spirit defines our companionship

These days, on some mornings, I wake Vaani up with hot, steaming, filter coffee. I help her with the dishes and with housekeeping chores. I enjoy removing the paint off her nails as much as she loves trimming my hair to give my near-bald pate a refined look. Importantly, we enjoy being with each other. We listen to old Bollywood songs together, exploring each composition and the lyrics, and sharing notes on them. We do the linen and laundry together. We shop for our weekly supply of groceries together too.

Our spirit of companionship, we realize, is celebratory. From the smallest of mundane tasks to the infrequent wins that come our way, everything gets celebrated. And, non-complainingly, we accept – and celebrate – our pain too.

This spirit of companionship has helped us beyond just surviving the enduring, tumultuous, bankruptcy that we continue to deal with. In fact, we are thriving. As the happynesswalas^TM, we are living a Life of purpose: Inspiring ‘Happyness’^TM! As a couple, our relationship transcends the personal space. We complement each other as business partners too. We are dogged in our collective effort to turn around our business and financial fortunes. Our running between the wickets is remarkable; it is the principal reason why, against the odds, we are still in the game! Clearly, our romance is fragrant despite the circumstances.

Because of the bankruptcy, everything material has been taken away from us – work, business, money, cars, gold jewelry, investments…every thing has gone away. We haven’t even been able to buy each other birthday or anniversary gifts during the last 16 years. Yet, despite the excruciating circumstances, between spells of pennilessness and those few times of finding some work and money, we have learnt to count on each other for strength.

Importantly, we accept whatever comes our way. Whatever we can do, to cope with the challenges that we are faced with, is done well, to the best of our abilities. We give everything our 100% – together! We both have learnt the fine art of flowing with Life.

Just a few years ago, when I told Vaani that I was feeling bad that I had never gifted her a ring, she said, playfully: “Okay, gift me a pumpkin!” So I went over to the street market around the Mylapore tank in Chennai and got her a pumpkin. Just where the street hawker sat, there was a small store that sold fancy, fake, ornaments. I bought Vaani a rather cute imitation ring for ₹100. When I got home, I stuck the ring into the pumpkin. I then went down on one knee and presented my “gift” to Vaani! We both laughed, hugged and kissed each other. In another year, again, unable to find money to gift ourselves something for an anniversary, we leveraged an innovative offering, My Stamp, from India Post. We had stamps issued with our pictures on them for a small fee! It was a low-budget idea. But it was a very memorable way to celebrate!

The pumpkin-ring gift!

The AVIS-Vaani ‘My Stamp’ from India Post!

And there have been instances when all we have done is to sit quietly; processing all the pain that has been heaped on us by Life. I have often felt Gulzar’s lyrics from Aandhi (1975) come alive in those moments: “Jee mein aata hai, tere daaman mein, sar chupa ke hum, rotey rahein, rotey rahein…!” (I feel like crying endlessly, burying my head in your bosom!”) Even so, those tender moments have always been a quiet celebration – of our being there for each other!

Disagree, differ; but never say: “I told you so!”

Surely, Vaani and I sometimes disagree with each other. On what we must do with a situation we are dealing with. Or over an opinion we may have. But we have always followed a simple, unstated, principle between us: We never tell each other, “I told you so!” Which is, we may differ on approaches and views, but when we move forward, we are together in it. When a decision that one of us has taken misfires, we don’t display any one-upmanship or indulge in blame games. Now, that is a unique quality that we share as a couple. That’s how we have been able to face what Life has thrown at us. That’s how we have hung on to each other on this incredible roller-coaster ride that we are on.

A marriage often places an unnecessary full stop in a relationship

Vaani and I have both discovered that true companionship is about loving someone continuously. It goes beyond just providing and protecting. It is about being there, no matter what happens. It is about being non-judgmental. Therefore, to build and sustain a great, happy relationship, you don’t actually need a marriage as a social contract, you need companionship.

When people struggle in a relationship or in a marriage, I believe that they are essentially missing the companionship, that once was, between them. They may be in a relationship between them. But are they still relating to each other? When the relating is not there anymore, the relationship too is not relevant. It has perhaps been dead a long time ago!

That’s why people drift apart after falling in love and getting married because they have subconsciously compartmentalized their lives – one part that was before the marriage and the other part that is after the marriage. So, in essence, the event of a marriage places a full stop in a relationship. It pronounces the end of one phase of the relationship and begins another. This full stop is totally unnecessary.

Being happy being with each other

The truth about Life is that everything new, over time, will start seeming and feeling old. Also, how people look and how they – and others – feel about their physical appearance surely changes with age. With the passage of time, and thanks to the upheavals of everyday Life, romance does end up receiving lower priority. Every couple has to face this brutal reality. You see, the courtship is now over, and the marriage is done and dusted. That’s why people who fall in love, fall out of love too.

But what if you were to imagine that the marriage never took place? Won’t the loving be continuous then?

Life’s beauty lies in staying loving…in the present continuous, irrespective of the circumstances.

That’s the way Vaani and I treat our Life. We married to fulfil societal norms that were more pronounced back then. Period. But we haven’t settled for having fallen in love and married. In fact, we never see our marriage as a defining, epochal, event. Instead, we have let our companionship thrive. Our loving remains ongoing. And we both continue to rise in love. This is why we are happy being with each other!

Vaani and AVIS, December 2018.

The key to Happiness is to never let marriage place a full stop in your relating, your loving. Treat marriage as just another date in your courtship calendar. Then the journey together, no matter what the circumstances you both are faced with, will be a continuous, never-ending, celebration!

And the romance, well, will always remain fragrant!

Additional, relevant, links:

• Rise In Love  – a 2015-documentary, made by a young filmmaker Shalu C. While focusing on the journey of Vaani and AVIS, the film explores how love thrives in the face of adversity. Viewing time: 30.18 minutes.
• Fall Like A Rose Petal  – AVIS’ first book. It is the true story of AVIS’ and Vaani’s Life. It captures learnings from the excruciating, fascinating, Life-changing, experience – a crippling bankruptcy – that they are still going through.
• Click here to know more about the happynesswalas^TM, Vaani and AVIS.
• If you wish to seek Vaani’s and AVIS’ perspectives on a Life challenge you are faced with, please reach out here – Let’s Talk Happyness^TM!

COVID-19’s forcing the whole world to jump off the ‘becoming’ treadmill, to being home, ‘just being’!

In over 33 years of loving each other and 31 years of living together, Vaani and I have never cooked together. Which is, I have never attempted learning cooking. 😊

Now, with the COVID-19 lockdown situation, for the first time, I found myself hovering around the kitchen and asking Vaani if I could learn to cook from her. It sure was a bit unusual as I asked her that; I couldn’t believe that I was ready and willing, finally, to learn cooking!

But there has to be a first time for everything, right? Plus, apart from being my BFF, my soulmate, Vaani is also a great teacher! So, I told myself, “let’s go do this”!

AVIS’ adai

I made half an adai last evening for dinner – spreading out the maavu on the tawa. And this morning I “understood” how a vegetable korma is made – I chopped the veggies, stirred up the gravy and basically soaked in the entire process. I even ran my understanding through our daughter Aanchal (who herself loves to cook) in Singapore and she signed off in approval!

Vegetable Korma – the first dish AVIS learnt!

I am very amused that I am doing this. I have always been the housekeeper at home. I find cleaning a deeply meditative practice where I engage wholesomely with the process of cleaning up, dusting and polishing surfaces, often doing the dishes too. Even so, somehow, I have always postponed the idea of learning cooking. I have learnt to make filter coffee some months ago. But being with Vaani in the kitchen and watching her cook, assisting her and learning from her – well, that happened for the first time today!

And I am lovin’ it!

On a spiritual plane, this “event” reiterates to me that everything happens in its own time and at its own pace.

There’s one more learning on offer here – from the overall COVID-19 situation. If you think about it deeply, it is forcing the whole world to sit down in one place and just be. You see, everyone has been so conditioned to running amok, imagining that if they don’t hurry, if they don’t rush and grab whatever they think they deserve, they are going to miss the bus or that something grave is going to befall them or that they will lose some thing. So, everyone has been on this spree, this crazy race to become. Become more visible, become richer, become more recognized, become more successful…which is everyone has been trying desperately to become someone else, to become better than the other…everyone, in some way or the other, has been on this becoming trip. In the past decade, social media has only fueled and grown this frenzy, this becoming angst. And then COVID-19 comes along and, in less than a quarter, shuts down the whole world and is forcing everyone to be.

Just be.

Isn’t it amazing? Don’t you see what’s happening? The whole world has surrendered; it has been forced, in fact, to capitulate – to jump off the becoming treadmill, to being home, just being!

It is possible that many find the transition from “becoming to being” a very difficult one to make. But let me tell you this, from our own lived experience, just being is not complex. It is simply being present. It is all about bringing your full attention to whatever you are doing. It is only when you are present, in the moment, in whatever you are doing, that you are non-worrying, non-frustrated and non-suffering. It is only then that you are happy despite your circumstances. Now, just being is an art – you have to train your mind to be that way; this is what Vaani and I have learnt through living with our bankruptcy for 13 years now. This is the quality that has helped us to live fully with what is – not complaining about what we don’t have, but celebrating whatever we have!

And it is this choice to just be, in this COVID-19 lockdown scenario that is expected to last for a long while, that led me to embrace cooking – a space that I have consciously avoided getting into for over three decades now. This gives me one more beautiful reason to be with Vaani and to learn from her. I hope to learn quickly. And I also hope to soon raise a toast to Life and to COVID-19 for giving me a new, immersive experience to thrive on!

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!! If you would like to invite them to inspire your team(s) or explore other opportunities, please look up: www.avisviswanathan.in and www.avinitiatives.co.in.

 

Why COVID-19 is a mandatory Masterclass by Life on living with uncertainty

This extraordinary situation, apart from shutting down the whole world, is teaching everyone unputdownable Life lessons.

My young friend Kalyan sent me a voice note over WhatsApp yesterday. The COVID-19 situation had made him all angsty. He’s doing his Master’s in Geology at a grad school in Miami, Florida. And, like everywhere else in the US and the world over, his school too is shuttering down, encouraging students to either defer their programs by a quarter or take their courses online; plus, of course, asking them to vacate dorms and informing them of layoffs from student employment. “Should I come back home to Chennai or should I luck it out here? What if I contract the virus? Will I survive quarantine? The uncertainty is suffocating, everything is suddenly so dark, so hopeless. What do you think I must be doing, AVIS,” he asked.

Surely, everyone, in some form and measure, is dealing with that gnawing feeling from within: of uncertainty, of cluelessness over how Life will be in the aftermath of this COVID-19 pandemic. And this is not just about how the world itself is likely to be affected, but how our own, individual, worlds will change in the next few weeks and over the next several months. From lockdowns and work-from-home advisories to healthcare systems breaking down to tens of thousands of people dying to a global economic recession to entire segments of small businesses being wiped out to bankruptcies to job losses to families crumbling emotionally – everyone, everywhere, has a view on COVID-19’s impact. And all of it is ominous; it portends gloom, is depressive and is fueling uncertainty – naturally, everyone’s worried and very, very fearful.

Interestingly, as I told Kalyan over a call that we subsequently did, there’s only one way to deal with uncertainty. And that is to not fear it. So, don’t resist uncertainty, don’t run away from it, but instead embrace it wholeheartedly!

For my soulmate Vaani and me, this unputdownable learning comes from our own lived experience. Over the last 13 years, we have been living through an excruciating yet fascinating, Life-changing, phase; we are enduring a crippling bankruptcy. To be sure, ever since our small Chennai-based consulting firm went bankrupt in end-2007, we have been repeatedly dealing with prolonged spells of worklessness and, often, pennilessness! Our debt of over a million dollars, owed to 170+ creditors, remains unpaid as we have never quite had enough money in this time to even cover our living expenses month on month. Incredible as it may sound, but despite our best efforts, we have not been able to put our business back on track; so, we have not had a steady, predictable, revenue stream in a long, long time. And when we do get work, and some income, we stretch the penny so we can survive, so we can last longer at the edge of the metaphorical precipice that we find ourselves clinging from. Simply, Vaani and I have been living through uncertainty for over 150 months now. We often survive on grace and grants, dealing incessantly with imponderables, with the financial, legal, social, professional, physical and emotional implications of living with a mountain of debt – and without work and money. In a way, it appears that we have been in quarantine forever!

Yet, these past several years of our Life have been very, very transformational. Undoubtedly, we remain pinned down by material scarcity, but we are soaked in a rare abundance. Even as we continue to grope through the darkness and uncertainty, we are no longer in the throes of fear and anxiety. Because, we have learnt to be non-worrying, non-frustrated and non-suffering. Which is why, while we may well be failed entrepreneurs from how the world sees us, we believe we are the happynesswalas. We are truly happy despite our debilitating circumstances. Our Life’s Purpose now is Inspiring ‘Happyness’ among all those who care to pause and reflect – that’s why I wrote my book Fall Like A Rose Petal and that’s why we curate and host live, thought-provoking, non-commercial Conversations on Happiness in Chennai.

Important, Vaani and I are not just living with uncertainty; we thrive in it, we celebrate it!

Our lived experiences, and the simple Life lessons we have gleaned from them, have shaped us to be this way. I share here some reflections on how it is possible to live fully, being fearless and happy, with what is – no matter what you are dealing with! I hope you find them relevant, relatable and useful to cope with the uncertainty that you may currently be experiencing over COVID-19, in the specific context of your own Life.

Uncertainty is intrinsic to Life

Uncertainty is not a product of any crisis or, in specific, of the COVID-19 scenario. The very nature of Life is that it is impermanent, so it is uncertain. From the time you are born, to when you die, there’s risk, disease, crisis, tragedy – and of course death – lurking around the corner, every step of the way. In fact, every moment is steeped in uncertainty. Anything, absolutely anything, can happen to you, around you. When you think about it deeply, you will realize that you always knew this truism about Life. But you did not consider it as immediately relevant because social conditioning, education and the idea of using both these to earn money to pay bills have made Life appear predictable. Which is, because you have a home to go back to, you have a family, you are educated and you are earning an income, you have always believed that you are in control of your Life. Besides, human advancements in science and technology, in enterprise and economics, have led us to naively imagine that much of the Universe functions because of us humans. It is only when the inscrutable arrives, challenging logic or defying reason, that you pause to consider how powerful Life is. And that’s when you realize how powerless you – and all humans – really are. For instance, what do you do, what can you do, when you are informed that you are dying of a rare cancer or when you lose a dear one suddenly in a bizarre circumstance or when an MH 370 disappears without trace and cannot be found by all the world’s inventions and intelligence or when a COVID-19 comes along and turns the world, your world, upside down? Well, almost always, that’s when you wake up to the realization that there are some things that you don’t – and can’t – control. The truth, however, is that you were never in control. The truth is, Life happens in spite of us humans, and certainly not because of us! In fact, Life has all along been happening with a mind of its own, at its own pace, in its own time, consistently shocking, surprising, amazing and awing you. Simply, when you have put in the efforts and have got what you wanted, you have thought that you have caused your Life to happen your way. That there was a plan, your plan. And so, you imagined that there was a predictability to your Life. But when Life socks you with an inscrutable situation, then you are numbed by, well, the uncertainty – of not knowing why something’s happening, what you must do and where Life is taking you! What do you do when you don’t know what to do?

Face Life, be fearless

The immediate, natural, human response to uncertainty is fear. Understanding what fear is, and how it works, helps immensely in dealing with it. Fear arises in you only when you are confronted with what you don’t know or when you lack previous experience of handling a given situation. Now, obviously, fear serves no constructive purpose. When you are fearful it certainly does not mitigate any risk or make uncertainty go away. In fact, it makes the unknown assume monstrous proportions, it clouds your thinking and makes the darkness that engulfs you unbearable. Fear debilitates you. Period. But, interestingly, what you fear most will always torment you only as long as you continue to fear it. So, instead of running away in fear, turn around and face the situation. Embrace the uncertainty. Know that fearlessness is not a difficult-to-attain, lofty, abstract, state. It is also not the absence of fear. Fearlessness comes from a choice you exercise to look your fears in the eye, it is what fear delivers to you when you turn around and face whatever is scaring you. It is when you accept your vulnerability, and employ your understanding that uncertainty is in the very fabric of Life, it is when you face a situation, that you turn fearless. Now, when you are fearless, your problems certainly don’t disappear, but your ability to deal with them are enhanced dramatically, exponentially.

Train your mind to learn three key skills

Even so, merely being fearless momentarily is not enough. To sustain fearlessness, you must train your mind to avoid worry, frustration and suffering. These three aspects of Life, given the pulls and pressures of everyday living, are erroneously believed to be unavoidable. And they make uncertainty look menacing. They exasperate you, suffocate you, make you feel miserable and, most often, hopeless. But with a little effort these aspects can be understood and, with some practice, they can be overcome.

Take worrying first. The problems we face always fall into two buckets. Problems we can solve – so, why worry about them; and problems we can’t solve – so, again, what’s the point in worrying about them? Bottomline: worrying about problems doesn’t solve them; so, it is a wasteful, incapacitating, activity. Once you understand the futility of worrying, you will choose to be non-worrying. This doesn’t mean that you will be free from worries. Of course, worries are thoughts; they will keep rising in your mind. But being non-worrying means you will choose not to pick up a worry – thus making it powerless – when it comes along.

Next, consider frustration. To be non-frustrated, understand why frustration arises in the first place. It is only when you don’t get what you want, or when you get what you don’t want, that you feel frustrated. So, your frustrations stem from your desires. The very idea that Life must give you what you want is a figment of human imagination. Because, think about it, you are born without your even asking to be born, so this Life is a gift; besides, it promises you nothing, it gives you no guarantees. Which is why being frustrated with the outcomes, when your efforts don’t bring the results you want, is surely avoidable. Just look around you. There are so many, many stories – including your own – of those who have not got what they perhaps truly deserved although they have talent, integrity and have invested hard work. Clearly, sometimes in Life, no matter how hard you try, or however much you wish, or pray, the results simply don’t add up. So, being non-frustrated is an intelligent response in situations when you can’t make sense of the way Life’s treating you. It is a choice you make to focus only on what you can do in a given context, to make that sincere effort and to drop all expectations of reward, recognition and profit.

And the third quality that you must imbue in you is being non-suffering. Please understand that you can’t negotiate with pain; it is integral to the process of Life. It always arrives uninvited and without notice. But suffering is optional. You suffer only when you ask why the pain exists in the first place or why you are being made to experience pain. You suffer only when you want your Life to be different from what it is now. So, whether it is the death of someone you love, a pink slip, a terminal illness or a relationship challenge, any painful episode by itself is non-negotiable – you don’t get to choose it, you don’t get to postpone it. Quite simply, it is just another event in your Life! But you suffer from that painful episode only when you ask “Why?” or “Why me?” So, being non-suffering simply means you drop the “Why?” and “Why me?” questions. When you stop asking those questions, you may still be in the throes of severe pain, but you clearly will not suffer. Or, in essence, when you accept your current reality for what it is, the way it is, you are choosing to be non-suffering.

Being non-worrying, non-frustrated and non-suffering are not just choices, they are important Life skills that you can train your mind to learn, usually through a meditative practice. Now, when you are non-worrying, non-frustrated and non-suffering in any enduring, painful, situation, particularly in a crisis, you can only be happy despite your circumstances. Happiness then is the perfect antidote to uncertainty. It helps you drop anchor; it drenches you in equanimity and makes you live your Life, fully, fearlessly, one precious moment at a time. This is how you don’t just survive uncertainty, but how you thrive in it!

Trust the process of Life

A crisis is not necessarily a grand conspiracy by Life to vanquish you. On the other hand, it is essentially Life’s way of slowing you down. You emerge resilient, reflective and resourceful from a crisis every single time; only because, unwittingly, you have begun to appreciate how Life works, you have discovered what matters to you and why. And you have chosen to focus only on those aspects of your Life. Look back at your own journey. Hasn’t every crisis you have been through only made you stronger, wiser and, interestingly, happy?

Similarly, the COVID-19 crisis, and this spell of uncertainty, is likely to be no different. In fact, it is a global, mandatory-for-everyone, Masterclass by Life on ‘How to embrace uncertainty and go with the flow’! So, be sure to glean your own learnings from this phase as the scenario unfolds. Begin by welcoming the lockdown as a slowdown enforced by Life, enjoy quality time with your precious family or discover the magic and beauty of solitude when in isolation.

Simply, instead of fighting Life, flow with it. Know that, no matter what happens, Life will always bring you to where you must arrive. Such is the process of Life. Trust the process. Celebrate its suchness. And the way to do that is to make important choices – to be fearless, to be non-worrying, non-frustrated and non-suffering, to be happy despite the circumstances, to embrace uncertainty and to go with the flow.

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!! If you would like to invite them to inspire your team(s) or explore other opportunities, please look up: http://www.thehappynesswalas.com

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.

Why Shirdi Sai Baba’s twin philosophies of Faith and Patience are key to making Life magical, beautiful!

“…yeh gham ki ratein, ratein yeh kaali, inko bana de id aur diwali…”

This line is from the iconic Shirdi Wale Sai Baba song, from Manmohan Desai’s 1977 classic, “Amar Akbar Anthony” (AAA). The other night I heard this song, perhaps for the nth time, on TV. A young contestant on this Season’s Indian Idol, Azmat Hussain, sang this song beautifully; incredibly, he sang it in the presence of its composer Pyarelal (of the legendary Laxmikant-Pyarelal duo). Anand Bakshi’s powerful lyrics and Mohd. Rafi’s evocative rendering make this song one of my favorites.

There was a time, however, when I hated this song.

I was 10 years old when AAA released. In the last 42 years, I have watched this movie several hundred times; I never tire of watching it! Yet, for the longest time, I used to think that this devotional song interrupted the fast-paced narrative of the movie. So, I loathed this song – picturized on Rishi Kapoor and his on-screen mother Nirupa Roy, it showcased the miracle of Roy’s eyesight being restored through Shirdi Baba’s grace – in AAA. I have even wondered why Manmohan Desai, who to me is a master filmmaker, resorted to “cheap gimmickry”, often sprinkling liberal doses of Faith, religion, God and miracles in the storylines of his films! In fact, one night, several years ago, I recall telling this to a friend: “It is stupid to rely on miracles when you can write your own destiny”!  We both were at the famous Trishna Restaurant & Bar in Mumbai’s Fort area and had downed a few pegs of whisky. Our conversation was about Manmohan Desai’s impressive body of work and I remember vociferously highlighting how this song singularly devalued AAA’s brilliance.

Rishi Kapoor in AAA; Image Copyright with Original Creator – Source: Internet

I was in my 20s then. And I was ambitious. I was in a hurry to prove to the world that “I” too could be successful, wealthy and famous.

To be sure, through my 20s and right up to my mid-30s, I did hit several performance targets that I had set for myself. This certainly reiterated my belief then that hard work and integrity always delivered results – which is, they always gave you whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted them! And so, for all that while, I never had any reason to either revisit my views on Life, miracles and destiny or consider the import and relevance of Shirdi Sai Baba’s teachings!

And then the bankruptcy happened to us in end-2007 (Read more here: Fall Like A Rose Petal). Groping through it – through worklessness, pennilessness, darkness, insecurity, worry and fear – Vaani and I tried religion, rituals and explored the idea of God in the hope of finding solutions to fix our problems. We also leaned on the sciences of Astrology, Vaastu and Feng Shui. Finally, battered and bruised, realizing that there are no quick fixes in Life, we learnt to let go. We chose to surrender and to go with the flow of Life. We immersed ourselves in prayer. Recognizing that there was indeed a nameless, formless, inscrutable, Higher Energy that governed all Life, we implicitly placed our trust in it. We told each other that we will take each day as it comes, one day at a time, and keep walking, however long it takes us or however far we had to walk. After all, we reasoned, the same Energy that had created us will care for us, will provide for us.

This is how – and when – we discovered Shirdi Baba’s twin philosophies of Faith and Patience. When you pause and reflect, you will agree that Shirdi Baba’s Life’s message is contained in these two simple, magical, words. In fact, at all the shrines dedicated to him, and all through the “Saisatcharita”, you will find these two words staring back at you – “shraddha” and “saburi”, Faith and Patience! Through our cathartic, awakening experience, we understood that Faith is simply the ability to trust the process of Life. And we realized that while we anchor in Faith, we must employ Patience until we get what we want.

Shirdi Sai Baba; Image Copyright with Original Creator; Source – Internet

To be sure, there is no method, no single way, to anchor in Faith and employ Patience. Letting go, trusting the process of Life and living with Faith and Patience, is the way. Living through our crippling bankruptcy for over 12 years now, Vaani and I have realized that Faith does not always solve our problems immediately. But having Faith in the process of Life – that what goes around, comes around; that what goes up will come down some day, only to go back up another day – certainly helps us to cope with our problems better. Keeping the Faith also teaches us Patience. Unless you embrace these twin philosophies, and live practicing them together, you will not see the miracles in your everyday Life.

The truth is that this Life is a miracle, every moment you are alive is a miracle…the sunrise, the sunset, the dew drop, the moon, the stars, the birds chirping…every thing, and everyone, around you is a miracle. But you miss these everyday miracles because you are steeped in grief, in pining for what is over, what is dead and isn’t there or you are gripped by anxiety and fear, worrying about the unborn future, about what is still to arrive. You are so consumed by imagining that your Life is one endless saga of problems that you don’t see the magic and beauty of your Life, of your miracles. In fact, this human form you have is a miracle; despite your frailties, your circumstances and your vulnerabilities, “you are the miracle you seek”! And, be sure, that you are reading this blogpost now is a miracle. What Vaani and I have learnt is that miracles don’t happen to you because you prayed harder or because you deserve them. Miracles are happening for you, and will continue to happen for you, because you need them. But you can see these miracles only when you are soaked in Faith and Patience, only when you learn to let go and flow with Life!

Anand Bakshi’s lyrics from the song in AAA are pointing to precisely this awakening: “…yeh gham ki ratein, ratein yeh kaali, inko bana de id aur diwali…”…Bakshi’s plea is that of the beleaguered devotee, of the seeker, asking Baba to show the way, to making these dark, sorrowful, nights a celebration, like an Id or Diwali…How can a dark phase in Life ever be a celebration, you may well wonder. Turn to Baba, as we did, and you will find him simply inviting you to keep the Faith and employ Patience.

Vaani and I can relate totally to Bakshi’s song – and particularly to that line – now and to the import of Baba’s twin philosophies. For the record, I no longer think it is stupid to rely on miracles or believe that you can write your own destiny. I actually am in a constant ready-to-celebrate-miracles mode and I totally, unquestioningly, trust the process of Life. And I must report that even though we are still in the throes of our financial crisis, we have seen, at every stage, Life taking care of us, providing us what we need, in the nick of time. While, on the material, evidential, side it is common knowledge now that our children have graduated from universities abroad through “miraculous acts of the Universe”, on the spiritual side, we both have not just survived thus far, we are living a Life of meaning and Purpose. As “the happynesswalas”, we are spending our every waking minute Inspiring ‘Happyness’! In fact, to us both, given our excruciating circumstances, being in this state is a miracle. We are thriving, making each moment – however dark or gruesome it may be – count, celebrating it like an Id, like a Diwali! 

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: https://www.thehappynesswalas.com/  

Invest in your “Me Time” and, like Nandini, fly!

“I am a bird. And I want to fly.”

When she was barely six, Nandini Nair recalls writing down this aspiration for herself in a school assignment that invited each student in her class to share what or who they wanted to be when they grew up.

Over 25 years later, Nandini recounted this memory, in a Conversation that she had with me in the second Edition of our Happyness Reboot Series on Wednesday, 4^th December. Happyness Reboot is a live, reflective, non-commercial Conversation Series curated by Vaani and me that explores human stories and discusses the opportunities, issues, challenges and emotions that truly impact Happiness at the Workplace.

In this Edition of the Series, we explored “Me Time” – a basic necessity and primary responsibility that everyone consistently ignores!

The truth is that almost everyone, at some point in time, feels like they are running on a treadmill, chasing meetings, chores and deadlines endlessly. They often feel they are sleep-deprived.  And even as a sense of feeling incomplete and unfulfilled is gnawing at them, they are searching for a quiet place and time. Some people even feel they are heading for a breakdown!

These are a few reasons why we believe you must create time – your own “Me Time”, for your Happiness, to be you, to lose yourself in whatever you love doing!

Nandini is a fine example of someone who has managed to pull off this amazing feat of creating and sustaining her “Me Time” consistently over the past decade. Here’s why I say this. Nandini is a young, dynamic, Indian Revenue Service (IRS) Officer, who is currently a Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax. But despite her high-energy, high-pressure work routine, Nandini finds the time to immerse herself in art and dance. She’s no amateur; she holds shows and performances as any consummate artist would!

Nandini in conversation with AVIS. Picture by Raam Frames

How does she do it, I asked Nandini, pointing out that several people in her position may have well discontinued doing what they love doing citing work and family pressures.

Nandini’s reply showcases the understanding she has about what Life is and what she wants out of it:

• “To me, my art, whether it is theatre or dance or painting, is not just another hobby. It offers me a ‘great escape’ from the stresses of everyday Life. While theatre helps me meet new people from diverse backgrounds and enhances my awareness of the power of community, dance – even as a daily practice – is an opportunity to be physically and spiritually expressive. And painting for me is a private, intensely personal, experience; each of my paintings is a ‘rescuer’ that has helped me during my troubled, anguished times…each work of mine has me, my feelings, deeply embedded in them.”
• “Without my art, I would have gone mad!”
• “I don’t have all the time that people imagine I have to do many things. I am not a very systematic person either. I simply create the time when I have to do what I have to do – whether it is my art or whether I am fulfilling my professional responsibilities.”
• “I don’t like stereotypes. I don’t believe that long hours mean greater productivity. As long as you are completing what you are setting out to do, you are doing great.”
• “Which is why I am not just an artist or an IRS officer…I am clear that I am a bird and I want to fly…if this means I will keep trying new experiences that enrich me and allow me to express myself…I surely will find the time, I will find the means, to do all of them.”

Nandini Nair. Picture by Vinodh Velayudhan

This clarity is indeed remarkable. Nandini refuses to allow herself to be boxed in by society’s views of how people must lead their lives. Society imagines that a working woman will not necessarily be able to do multiple things beyond fulfilling her professional and family roles or that everyday living pressures will suck your Life out so much that you won’t have the energy or time to indulge in immersive experiences like art or music or whatever it is that you are deeply passionate about. But Nandini’s I-am-a-bird-and-I-want-to-fly outlook throws social stereotypes out of the window. So she always finds the time, her “Me Time”, to be who she truly is – and to, well, fly!!!

Vaani and I totally relate to Nandini’s outlook. We too have evidently busted stereotypes by being the happynesswalas even though, in a worldly sense, we are failed entrepreneurs! On Wednesday evening, I also shared why we both completely understand and champion the value of “Me Time”.

To be sure, in 2004, when I was 36, my diabetologist had served me a wake-up call – my sugar levels were horribly high, my cholesterol was showing a worrisome spike too, I had a tobacco habit, I was drinking daily and, at 95 kilos, I certainly was over-weight. Shaken up from my stupor, I embraced a meditative practice called mouna – observing silence for an hour daily – which helped me drop anchor in a time of great stress and strife. Mouna transformed me. Physically, it helped me focus on my health; I lost 22 kilos in six months back then! It was mouna too that helped me and Vaani understand the transient nature of Life and helped us learn the art of being non-worrying, non-frustrated and non-suffering. It is through learning this art that we discovered the ability to be happy despite our circumstances.

And it was mouna that brought me back to writing. You see, I am first a writer; I have spent most of the years in the first decade of my career as a journalist. But the lure of worldly success, the challenges of entrepreneurship, the tribulations of trying to save a sinking business – all these had weaned me away from writing for almost 15+ years. But as we descended into our bankruptcy in 2007, when fear and darkness engulfed us, mouna reminded me of what I was missing – writing! I found writing therapeutic and a deeply immersive daily practice. I started with writing this Blog, which I sustained daily for 10 years on the trot, without missing a single day! I still maintain much of that prolificity though I do take reflective pauses. My return to writing led me to publishing my book, Fall Like A Rose Petal, in 2014. And through doing all of this, Vaani and I awoke to our Life’s Purpose – Inspiring ‘Happyness’!

So, simply, “Me Time” has changed the game for us. It introduced mouna to us, it is our anchor, it inspires us to Happiness, it sustains my daily writing and it has truly aided and abetted our survival through this enduring, tumultuous, 12-year phase of our bankruptcy. It has helped us stand in the midst of the everyday battle of Life, in the whirl and madness of the chaos that surrounds us, and has taught us the ability to be unmoved.

Which is why, I concluded Wednesday’s Conversation by sharing a key learning from our own lived experience. I said that intelligent living simply means recognizing the perishable nature of Life and choosing not to postpone Happiness. It means focusing only on what matters most to you, on what you love doing. A simple beginning can be made by investing in your “Me Time”, in one hour on yourself daily – start with your health and with what you are deeply passionate about, what makes you come alive! When you do create that one hour for yourself, you will, magically, see how you gain control of the remaining 23 hours of the day!

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.

When authenticity and a quiet, rare, courage shone!

You are unlikely to find the perfect Life that you want. Even so, you can live fully with what you have, with what you have been given. And you do that by looking Life squarely in the eye, by facing it and by accepting what is, by learning to be happy despite the circumstances.

Young model and designer in the AR/VR space, Ranjani Ramakrishnan, who is just 21, has learnt this precious Life lesson early on in Life.

Ranjani was diagnosed with vitiligo – a Life-long condition where the skin loses color in blotches – when she was barely 11. She grappled with shame, the “why me” question and a lot of insecurity for several years. Then, when in college, she “made peace with her imperfections” and modelled for a Visual Communications assignment! That decision changed her Life! Today she “embraces Life’s adventures fearlessly”, even as she champions “acceptance” and “living fully with what is”!

Last evening, she was our guest on the happyness conversations – a live, reflective, non-commercial Conversation Series that Vaani and I curate and anchor. This Series explores the lived experiences of invited guests, it inspires people to be happy despite their circumstances! While celebrating imperfection and impermanence, it invites people to embrace their Life for the way it is and implores them to never postpone Happiness!  The underlying theme of the Series is that Life can, and must be, faced stoically – no matter what you are going through!  This Series is sponsored and hosted by the Odyssey Bookstore in Chennai.

It was a full house in yesterday’s Edition of this Series despite the rains and more inclement weather forecast for the night. And all those who attended the Event loved the way Ranjani’s lived experience helped them glean key Life lessons.

Her authenticity and her quiet, rare, courage shone. Here are some profound perspectives she shared:

• “It is very liberating when you let go of your fears,” she said, referring to her first photoshoot as a model, when she was in her first year in college. This photoshoot was significant – the decision to do it had come after several years of trying to cover up her patches, of crying herself to sleep, of asking her mom, “why me?”.
• “I have made peace with looking at myself in the mirror,” she told us stocially in the context of acceptance and moving on.
• “But I am still tired of answering random people who come up to me wanting to know why my skin looks different or when they have unsolicited advice to give me. So, I am a bit wary of going into unknown environments and meeting people.” she confessed, adding, “I have, however, for the most part, learnt to take Life as it comes and find Happiness in the company of family and friends who love me, who value me.”

This ability to take “Life as it comes” is a blessing. This wisdom can only come from having experienced pain and from understanding the power of acceptance. This is what makes Ranjani special. As Vaani pointed out, Ranjani, literally, does wear her vulnerability on her sleeve. This is also why her outlook to Life is invaluable, unputdownable and inspiring.

Vaani & AVIS in conversation with Ranjani; Pic: Vinodh Velayudhan

Consider this: How many people can gracefully accept their unique condition, particularly one that affects how they look? How many of them can actually come out and talk about it? How many will be able to expunge all the bitterness, grief, frustration and anger – at having been dealt an unfair hand by Life – and truly move on?

To me, and Vaani, Ranjani embodies the spirit of being happy despite the circumstances in the way she carries herself and expresses herself. This was evident in the Conversation last evening – she showcased with her simple, genuine, replies to our questions, by sharing her feelings authentically, that she is not the vitiligo that she has. “Vitiligo is only the condition that she has.” She is Ranjani – she is beautiful, confident, forthright and authentic!

Rajani Ramakrishnan: beautiful, confident, forthright & authentic! Pic: Vinodh Velayudhan

Sample her take on what kind of modeling assignments she is looking for: “I love modeling. But I want people to invite me to shoots where I am a model who incidentally has vitiligo and not because I am good to be used as a vitiligo model.”

That’s amazing clarity and an awakening profundity from a 21-year-old!

Which is why, in closing, I leaned on my favorite, the 13^th Century Persian poet Rumi: “What hurts you blesses you; your darkness is your candle!…Don’t run away from your grief, o’ soul, look for the remedy in the pain!…”

Pain is not a monster out to annihilate you as is popularly believed. Pain is a great teacher. While you can’t avoid pain, it teaches you, through your acceptance of any Life situation, that suffering is optional; that there is a lot of Life during and after a crisis. Indeed, acceptance of a painful situation is its only remedy.

Which is what Ranjani has done. She has accepted who she is, the way she is. Which is why she has been able to understand the art of living. She knows that living is always in the “present continuous” – not in the past, not in the future, but in the here, in the now, with “what is”; she knows that living is in thriving, in being happy despite the circumstances!

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.

What Amitabh Bachchan means to me…

As he completes 50 years in cinema on Nov 7^th 2019, I share here why I am Amitabh Bachchan’s devotee!!!

My dentist, whose name I don’t recollect, unwittingly, introduced me to Amitabh Bachchan.

We lived in Jaipur then. The year was 1973. I was around 6 years old. My dad had taken me for a dental procedure after which I was advised not to eat anything for at least a couple of hours. As we stepped out of the dentist’s clinic, my dad, looking at the cut-out of a tall man in the theatre across the road, suggested that we go for that movie. The idea was to keep me away from craving for food. The movie we went to was playing at Jaipur’s iconic Prem Prakash theatre (now it is, I understand, called Golcha and has three screens). The movie was Zanjeer and the tall man was Amitabh Bachchan. This was my first time in a cinema hall, it was my first movie experience. I had perhaps not heard the name Amitabh Bachchan until then, nor did I recall the name of that movie until when I watched it again in my teens, many years later! Yet that day at the theatre, that man’s screen presence and that scene are still etched in my memory. That scene – which Bollywood researcher and author Diptakirti Chaudhuri, in his book Written by Salim-Javed, describes as the precise moment that marks the arrival of the Angry Young Man in Indian cinema – where Amitabh Bachchan, as Inspector Vijay, thunders at Sher Khan (Pran): “…jab tak baitheney ko na kaha jaaye, sharafat se khade raho! yeh police station hai, tumhare baap ka ghar nahi!…”

I still recall being mesmerized by the intensity of that moment. I was just a kid. He was 31. A struggling actor, who, after a string of flops, had miraculously landed this role in Zanjeer because a. the film’s director Prakash Mehra’s preferred hero Raaj Kumar had turned down the role – apparently he didn’t like the smell of Mehra’s hair oil; casting Dilip Kumar, Dharmendra and Dev Anand too had not worked out for various reasons and b. Salim-Javed had strongly recommended to Mehra that Amitabh best suited the character of Vijay Khanna that they had written so passionately. So, as I was to realize much later, Amitabh gave it his all, more than his best! Perhaps it was that intensity in him, or perhaps because I had never been to a movie before, or perhaps I was an innocent kid who had still not been distracted by other influences and opportunities in Life yet, I am not sure what it exactly was, I just felt I wanted to be like that man, like Amitabh Bachchan!

Yes. It is weird. I don’t remember the name of the dentist who we visited. I don’t remember the name of my class teacher at St. Xavier’s, Jaipur, where I studied in those few years we lived there. But I remember me watching that scene in the dark in Prem Prakash. I remember wanting to grow up and be like Amitabh Bachchan.

As Vijay Khanna in Zanjeer – 1973; Image Copyright with original creator

Was that my original fanboy moment? It surely was. But as I was to realize later on in Life, that moment was much, much more.

Over the next several years, Roti Kapda Aur Makaan, Sholay, Faraar, Kabhie Kabhie, Amar Akbar Anthony, Trishul, Don, Muqqadar Ka Sikandar, Suhaag, Shaan, Naseeb, Silsila and so many more of his movies, classics most of them, were seen by me in theatres. Each one left me more starstruck than before.

I remember, after watching Naseeb, at Santosh theatre in Gulbarga (Karnataka), I resolved to be an actor drawing inspiration from Anand Bakshi’s line in the song, John Jaani Janardhan (Mohd. Rafi, Laxmikant-Pyarelal): “…har picture dekh ke socha, main bhi actor ban jaaun…”! Although I am very driven and ambitious, I still can’t explain though why I never followed through with that resolution. Maybe just the resolution of wanting to be like him, was fulfilling enough? Much later, thanks to Dubsmash, I did dub a couple of my favorite Amitabh scenes much to the dismay of my family (who implored me to stop forthwith)!!!

I was 14 when Silsila released. And although Kabhie Kabhie had already seeded romance in me with its immortal gems, Main Pal Do Pal Ka Shaayar Hoon and Kabhie Kabhie Mere Dil Mein Khayaal Aata Hai, I felt the incurable romantic in me stir awake with Amitabh’s deep, soulful, rendering of Javed Akhtar’s (his first film as lyricist) classic Main Aur Meri Tanhayee…!!!

Over the next six years, through my teens, I dreamt of meeting that lover who would be my soulmate, often imagining the romance I would have with her – and almost every time, the feeling, that imagination would be complete only when I would recite this poem to myself:

Main aur meri tanhayee, aksar yeh baate karte hain

Tum hoti to kaisa hota

Tum yeh kehti, tum woh kehti

Tum is baat pe hairaan hoti

Tum us baat pe kitna hansti

Tum hoti to aisa hota, tum hoti to waisa hota

And, of course, she arrived. As Vaani. And, hold your breath, she arrived in my Life, singing the Amitabh-Jaya classic Tere Mere Milan Ki Yeh Raina (Kishore Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar, S.D.Burman, Majrooh Sultanpuri) from Abhimaan at a college cultural event in Madras (Chennai) in November 1987 – I was barely 20, and she was 21!! Read the full story in my book Fall Like A Rose Petal or watch me tell it here, in this documentary Rise In Love.

The coaster on our front door!

So, in a very serendipitous way, Amitabh and Jaya, have inspired the companionship, the loving (in the present continuous) and the resilience (to face Life) in Vaani and me. But it all began with Vaani singing that song on stage – even today, the front door to the apartment we live in sports a coaster with the line Tere Mere Milan Ki Yeh Raina celebrating that magical moment when I fell in love with Vaani! And we have named our daughter Aanchal, inspired by a beautiful line from the same song – “…jaise kheley chanda baadal mein, khelega woh tere aanchal mein…”!

Strangely, I have no recollection of praying for him when the Coolie accident happened on 26^th July 1982. I was around 15 then and I had too many questions on God, religion, prayer and such. Maybe that’s why there’s no memory of any prayer for him then! But I do remember reading The Hindu daily at home in Quilon (Kerala), tracking its coverage of the accident, and his miraculous progress and recovery over the next several weeks. I must also confess that the fanboy in me died in the late 80s and in the decade of the 90s when he made some very forgettable movie choices.

During the turbulent weeks of the furore over the Miss World Pageant in 1996, which Amitabh’s company ABCL had brought to India, I reached out to him. Vaani and I ran a Reputation Management Firm then. And we offered to manage the crisis for his company. His secretary Rosy Singh got back to us saying that “Mr.Bachchan isn’t interested in the strategy or the service” which we were offering.

ABCL eventually went bankrupt and for the next few years it was so heart-rending to see the media trash him and Jaya for their financial mess. I recall being traumatized reading reports of his house being attached by his bankers to recover their dues. Little did I know then that this experience of the Bachchans would be pivotal to Vaani and me dealing with our own Life-changing upheaval in some years.

Sometime in 2001, I remember watching an interview that Amitabh gave Vir Sanghvi on Star World. And intuitively I had it recorded and saved on a CD when a re-telecast of the interview was announced. I can’t stop thanking myself for that decision. A segment of this interview, available here on my YouTube channel, has been the reason why I am even around today sharing a part of my Life’s journey and celebrating a man who now means so much more than just an actor to me.

Let me quickly explain. It is common knowledge now that the Firm that Vaani and I ran went bankrupt in end-2007. It is a phase in Life that we still endure, 12 years on. This phase has been peppered consistently with several long spells of worklessness and pennilessness. In the initial months of knowing that we were dealing with a bankruptcy, through all of 2008, we grappled with the darkness that engulfed us, cowering in fear. We did not know what to do. What do you do when you don’t know what to do? That’s when, fortuitously, while searching for a particular document in my office, I stumbled on the CD containing the Amitabh Bachchan-Vir Sanghvi Star World interview recording. The CD was not even labeled. So I played it on my laptop to check what it contained. I watched the interview. Then I invited Vaani to watch it with me.

We watched it again. And again. And again. We watched it several times that evening.

Here was a bankrupt superstar who was telling Vaani and me how he and Jaya dealt with their darkness, their loss – of money, of reputation – and their crisis and how they clawed their way back. He was brutally honest, authentic and profound, all at the same time. His debt was Rs.90 crore. Our is Rs.5 crore. In the last 12 years, we have watched this video so many, many, many times. Every time we feel low, we feel like we can’t go on any further, we have watched this interview. Through sharing his experience, Amitabh has inspired us both to be resilient, to hang in there, to last one more day. “If he and Jaya could do it, we too can do it,” we have told ourselves, every single time that we watched the video.

Besides resilience, we have learnt the art of reinvention and relevance from him.

His choice to do TV – through Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) – 19 years ago was virtually the first move ever by a movie superstar to embrace the small screen. That is the truest, most visible, practical and inspiring example of going with the flow that you can ever get. As he shares with Vir Sanghvi in the interview, he was out of work. But he had the humility to not just go ask Yash Chopra for work (which led to his role in Mohabbatein), he was willing to “climb down” and embrace the opportunity to host KBC, which has now become synonymous with him. Though he believes otherwise, I guess everyone knows that the show continues to thrive, – it is now in its 11^th Season – only because of him. Now, this was no upstart, struggling actor asking Yash Chopra for work. This was no also-ran movie actor agreeing to do TV because he needed the money. This was the Shahenshah of Bollywood, out of work, out of money, deep in debt, who decided to do what he loved doing and what he was best at – acting – choosing to reinvent himself at 58, an age when most people retire. Not just reinvention, he has taught the world how to stay relevant. If you watch KBC, you will see how compassionately he engages with people and their stories. He’s no ordinary game show host. He makes an extraordinary effort to be ordinary as he explores the Life journeys of his ordinary guests, the contestants. His choosing to do remarkably different character roles over the last several years – Ekalavya, Nishabd, Black, Cheeni Kum, Paa, Piku, Teen, Pink, Badla – is also a pointer to the consummate actor in him, who is willing to experiment, willing to break free from the trappings of the image of the hero, the superstar. Yet scripts continue to be written with him in mind and brands believe he can still sell them better than other ambassadors can – clear signs of his continued relevance not just to my generation, or to my father’s, but to at least three generations that follow mine!

Life is not only about going after name, money, success, fame and fortune and getting all of them. It is also about how you live with humility, dignity and discipline when all of what you have achieved and acquired are taken away from you. Resilience and equanimity cannot be developed and deployed in simulated environments. They are always discovered within you, when you stand in the middle of the battle of Life, in the chaos, in the eye of the storm. It is by facing Life and learning to be happy, to be useful, despite your circumstances, that you become stronger. That’s how you repair, rebuild and revive – after a crisis. This is the message of Amitabh Bachchan’s Life – whether it was his choice to do Silsila with Jaya and Rekha when he was rumored to be having an affair with Rekha or his coming back from the jaws of death after the Coolie accident or his decision to fight and win a protracted court battle to clear his name in the Bofors scandal or face and overcome the bankruptcy that he and Jaya encountered.

Clearly, I am no longer the fanboy who saw him first on screen at Prem Prakash theatre in 1973. In fact, I am not even his most ardent fan – I don’t claim to know every little trivia about every film, every role, of his. As I confessed earlier, I even exercised the choice to stop following him as a fan when the films he chose failed to interest me. I still disagree with his choice of wardrobe and style sense on KBC and I believe his ‘wife jokes’ are sexist – I definitely intend sharing these views with him when I do get a chance.

Even so, I am comfortable in my skin as his devotee. His presence and influence in my Life cannot be measured – it was through him that I was introduced to cinema, it was from him that I learnt romance, it was again through something that he and Jaya were part of that I found Vaani and found love, it was through him sharing his learnings from Life that we found the ability to survive and endure this prolonged bankruptcy that we are still dealing with. It is again through him that I realize that being world-class with your craft and being celebrated by the world is not as great as it is to be human, be humble and make the other person feel comfortable in your presence. This is what he does repeatedly, episode after episode on KBC.

It will be 50 years on November 7, 2019, since he appeared on screen in Saat Hindustani. I wish I could do a lot more than write a blogpost in celebration of this rare milestone. But, given our bankruptcy, this is all I can do presently. As a devotee, I will, however, use two simple words, which the wise say is the best prayer: Thank You!

Thank you Amitabh Bachchan, for being who you are. Your Life, clearly, is your message!