Mak's Posts

It’s a beautiful evening, a strong wind as if coming from a huge ‘giant wheel’ in the backdrop, which people call the replica of ‘The London Eye’, coupled with the twilight reflected from one of the distant buildings, creating a virtual sun in the south, Poonam sleeping in the room inside and I sitting on the sofa, watching all this and wondering for the n-th time just how much more can man articulate nature to suit himself.

I had come to Singapore with an aim, a goal and a promise. The aim was to gain an onsite experience; the goal was money in an Indian bank account and a promise to Poonam of a marriage after one year. The pendulum of time swung, left the extreme left, came to middle which was its goal and surpassed, correctly explained by Newton as momentum. It now rests on the extreme right, a momentary pause and then it will begin its journey back to the middle. The bob of time pendulum passed through many places before coming to this pause, a split second interval where you can get off it and give yourself a chance at a fresh start of a new phase, or to swing back and forth once more before facing the dilemma again. The passage of the pendulum was unanimously declared as a long journey by many, where it passes through neatly arranged houses, looking like matchboxes stacked one on top of another, passing through neatly laid out roads, which charge you differently for passing at different times, passing through different kinds of homes and pools, where few even lost their souls, and passing through tall buildings, looking to create artificial walls around the city.

The Singapore journey is coming to an end for me in a week. It has left me with memories – good and bad, friends – old lost and new found, a few strengthened relations, a sneak peek on understanding of the meaning of life and a hope – hope of a bright new life back where I left it all, the way I left it. I know change is the only constant thing in life. I also know that change is inevitable. The feeling I am having today is that of a child going back home in a summer break from his boarding school to see his parents and knowing that some of the things back home would have changed. The little child is ready for the change, ready for the next journey but will definitely miss his school – no matter how much he hates it.

I think the concept of ‘Namesake’ needs to be invoked and made an abstract class here, where all my feelings are taking shape from. At least it would give me a sense of control over the feelings and a sense of recognition as they are all from one known abstraction. It’s like making HDB houses from matchboxes, or making roads out of casts or dressing and making up the same way whatever your age. I guess I had just started living in Singapore.

You might have lost interest in the task at hand, but then you have some responsibilities - to your family, friends and above all to yourself. These responsibilities take the most of your earned assets. These responsibilities make the most of your agenda to earn and to work at something you are not interested in. Taking these factors in mind, working in the area which interests you might not bring you the kind of monetary cushion you seek, but it may bring you the satisfaction. This is very important because when you run after money, it evades you and whenever you kick it out, it comes back with a wagging tail. This is a law of nature. So even though you might be running after money, dont show it. Money should feel it is not being given the due importance and it will come running after you.

Nature has a unique way of dealing with forces. Force that you experience and force that you exert. The force, as you know, is directional in nature and is a vector quantity. Hence, the direction of your force creates a vacuum of forces in other direction. This vacuum generates forces from other people or things to fill up that vacuum, and is in turn the force that you experience. Thinking out of the box, this is nothing but source of the old adage that attack is the best form of defence. It is as if nature wants us to give away those things that we want the most and then those things come to us automatically!!

Deriving our way towards the things that interest us most, we must, hence, evade those paths that want us to exert the most force. The force that we exert is going to work against us and when we have given up the chase, stopped trying is when we realise that things have started moving. It was as if nature is trying to see how much force we can exert before quitting. This might lead you into thinking that you mustn't try at all for the things you want the most! And to do that you need to give up the trying and keep concentrating on the things that donot interest you. Hence, this again leads to the same old page where we are working on the things that dont interest us and are waiting for the things that interest us to come and give us an opportunity!!

What governs interest – interest in doing something and to get involved in a particular task? These are some of the questions that I look for an answer to, but without fail tend to fall back on my own hypothesis.

I believe that if you like doing a thing; you will have a vested interest in finding time to do that thing. The primary requirement for this is that you like the thing. The likes and dislikes of different people are governed by their own senses and perceptions. The like of one man, for example, can be a dislike of another. So it again boils down to a personality attribute, under which we don’t have any control. But it proves a point, that interest and liking go hand in hand – they have a positive linear correlation.

What’s the basic difference between a hobby, a pastime and passion? Hobby is defined as an activity or interest pursued for pleasure or relaxation and not as a main occupation, a Pastime is defined as something that serves to make time pass agreeably, a pleasant means of amusement, recreation, or sport and Passion is something for which you feel a compelling emotion or desire.

Going by the above definitions, an individual’s interest may vary in doing a certain thing, and according to the variation in the individual’s interest, the activity may be classified as a hobby, a pastime or a passion. We may attribute an assumed interest of 30% as a pastime, a significantly more say 60% as a hobby and 90% as a passion. These percentages can be interpreted as number of times the activity in the group is chosen because of liking out of every 100 opportunities given. The numbers do not add up to 100 because more often than not, a person will feel dual-minded about what to choose.

Now comes the big question – what is occupation and what is a goal? Occupation is defined as the person’s usual or principal work or business, esp. as a means of earning a living. No where in the definition of occupation is interest mentioned. This is, I think, the reason why many of the IT professionals (they are the 95% of people I know) are dissatisfied with the work that they do, because being in IT is their vocation/occupation, not their hobby, pastime or passion. Even a pastime involves the person’s interest 30% of the time. Moreover, a goal is defined as the result or achievement toward which effort is directed.

Another factor – time should be considered when analysing interest. It is a known fact that the interest varies inversely with time in a non-linear fashion. So, the bottom line is that the goal will be achieved when maximum efforts are directed towards it, rather than at other things and hence small but multiple passionate efforts towards your goal will definitely yield desired results in the best way.

When I wrote about the 10 things I hate about India, I did not at all realise that my article would trigger such an avalanche of comments. In fact, as I mentioned, it was for me a psychological exercise to express some of the frustrations one faces in daily material life in India.
First, let me be clear, it is because I love this country that I wrote about the 10 things I hate. But as this was misinterpreted by some, I would like to give 10 good reasons why 32 years ago I took the never regretted decision to settle in India.

In the 1970s, the desire for a foreigner to settle in India appeared strange: the general trend was opposite. Whoever had a chance to get a plane ticket to the West, was prompt to try his/her luck and dreamt of a green card or the equivalent.

I must mention a strange reasoning: How one can be accused of being an 'India hater' when one is simply pointing out certain flaws which are obviously wrong. Why should criticism of the Indian government's functioning signify that one is against India?

1. Why I came to India: 'What is India?' Sri Aurobindo the great Indian rishi wrote in 1905: 'For what is a nation? What is our mother-country? It is not a piece of earth, nor a figure of speech, nor a fiction of the mind. It is a mighty shakti, composed of the shaktis of all the millions of units that make up the nation.'

This India: 'that is Bharat,' was what I wanted to discover when I settled in the south in 1974. It was my first and main reason to leave my family, my career (I was a dentist) and my country (I was not so attached!).

Before departing from France on a long overland journey through Europe, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, I had seen touching movies shot by a French television director Arnaud Desjardins who in the 1960s spent several months on Indian roads to encounter sages, yogis and saints.

The images of Ma Anandamayi in her Varanasi ashram or of Swami Ramdas had deeply marked me. Desjardins also spent months in the Himalayas guided by the Dalai Lama's interpreter. He recorded images of Tibet's last great Lamas, many of whom had meditated for decades in remote caves of the Land of Snows and had acquired some very special powers.

My decision was taken, I would come and live in India.

Then I read Sri Aurobindo's books and came to Pondicherry (instead of a monastery in Dharamsala). The Bengali sage who had been the first to advocate Purna Swaraj in the early years of the 20th century, did not reject life. According to him, everything had to be transformed by the power of the spirit.

This Indian philosophy of life, whether it is called Sanatan Dharma or by any other name is my first love. Other reasons ensue from it.

2. The mountains: I love the beautiful mountains of India. But are they really mountains? Many believe they are the abode of the gods. And India has so many gods! A friend recently told me there are 330 million gods. I am not sure how the inventory was made, but it must be true.

Is it not better to have such a rich choice? Personally, I always found the single god religions less 'creative.' Even Buddhism, if it had not incorporated thousands of deities in its Mahayanic form, would be rather dry.

It is this divine presence which makes the Himalayas so majestic and imposing. One of the best moments in my life is undoubtedly my trek to Gaumukh, the source of the mighty Ganga. My visit (and bath) to Hemkund Sahib in Uttaranchal will also remain a cherished souvenir.

3. A quality of being: A French journalist recently asked me: 'What was your first impression of India when you reached Pondicherry in 1974?'

I told him that it was probably the kindness and the smile of the villagers around. They were poor but they had such dignity; a quality of being which made them a hundred times richer than wealthy Europeans or Americans.

Countless times, I was told 'India is a poor country,' each time I answered: 'No, India is rich because her people have this special quality. Hefty bank accounts do not make people rich.'

In recent years, Indians have become wealthier (A PIO [Lakshmi Mittal] has even purchased the flagship of French industry), it is good but I hope that people will not lose their inner qualities in the process.

4. Hospitality: The first thing a tourist or a visitor in India discovers is the warmth and hospitality of the Indian people. Just board a train, you will hardly be seated, that the family on the next berth will open their tiffin, with rotis, sabzi and pickles and generously offer to share their food with you. (The biscuit gangs operate on this principle: food has to be offered and can't be refused.)

I was told by a friend teaching in IIT, Mumbai, the story of an American professor. He was on a one-year sabbatical and had found a teaching assignment at the IIT. From the airport, he took a taxi to the campus.

Unfortunately for him, it was the day of the July 26, 2005 floods in the city. Soon his taxi was stuck in the traffic and the water level began mounting. Seeing his gloomy situation, an Indian family passing by, offered to take him and his luggage to their nearby home.

They eventually offered him their bed while they slept on the floor. The American professor was so deeply moved. He had touched one of the core qualities of the Indian people. Everyone in India knows hundreds of such incidents.

5. The economic renaissance: Sri Aurobindo, in the article already cited, had written that at the beginning of the 20th century, Mother India, the Great Shakti was 'inactive, imprisoned in the magic circle of Tamas, the self-indulgent inertia and ignorance of her sons...'

Nothing pleases more that to see that since the beginning of the 1990s, India had taken an upbeat turn in the economic field. Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and his Finance Minister Manmohan Singh will be remembered in history as those who dared to abandon the old Soviet path of a planned economy.

It is significant that these changes came after the Non Resident Indians began doing extremely well in the West. One could ask, why were Indians doing so well outside India and not in India?

It is probably because in India, creativity, an engrained Indian quality has been too stifled by bureaucratic rules and babus of all types. The Indian government is unfortunately a serial killer of creativity.

6. Creativity: In India, I have always found remarkable the individuals' creative genius.

To quote Sri Aurobindo (1905) again: 'For three thousand years at least -- it is indeed much longer -- she (India) has been creating abundantly and incessantly, lavishly, with an inexhaustible many sidedness, republics and kingdoms and empires, philosophies and cosmogonies and sciences and creeds and arts and poems and all kinds of monuments, palaces and temples and public works, communities and societies and religious orders, laws and codes and rituals, physical sciences, psychic sciences, systems of Yoga, systems of politics and administration, arts spiritual, arts worldly, trades, industries, fine crafts, -- the list is endless.'

It is only now, nearly 60 years after Independence that this Indian creativity starts expressing itself whether it is in India or abroad.

7. Political hospitality: I have often criticised Jawaharlal Nehru for his numerous blunders in foreign policy, but I must acknowledge that he had the courage and the wisdom to give asylum to the Dalai Lama and his followers in 1959 and this despite his friendship with Zhou Enlai and the Chinese leadership.

The Dalai Lama told me once that during his first meeting with Nehru in September 1959, the Indian prime minister told him, 'I will not support you politically, but I will educate your children.'

Thanks to the political kindness of the Indian people, Tibetan Buddhism and its rich tradition have been able to survive, when they were erased in their own land. This personally touches me deeply.

8. Human babus: I often criticise the babus, 'a native clerk who knows English', according to the Hobson Jobson dictionary, but I must admit that despite all his failings, the Indian babu is a human being with whom one can always discuss and who is susceptible to understand the human side of personal predicaments.

This is not the case with 'the Administration' in the West.

9. The Indian Army: Something has always amazed me: the untamable courage and abnegation of Indian jawans and officers. During the Kargil conflict for example, is it not incredible that despite a terrain entirely in their disfavour, the Indian troops managed to recapture all the peaks occupied by Pakistan?

American Marines would never have succeeded in doing what the Gorkha regiments or the Ladakh Scouts achieved. Hundreds of similar examples could be given. One still remembers how Major Somnath Sharma (the first Param Vir Chakra awardee) saved Srinagar airport (and Kashmir) from the raiders in November 1947 at the cost of his life and his men's lives.

10. The grace: One day an Indian friend of mine was visiting Israel. His guest asked him: 'How does India work?' My friend was a bit surprised by the question, but before he could answer, his Israeli colleague told him: 'Here we work with our guts.'

My friend's answer came at once: 'In India, it is the Grace which sustains us.' This exchange has come back to my mind in innumerable circumstances. I think it is very true.

One more reason to love India!

If one balances the 'hate-able' and 'lovable', the irritating aspects are just superficial prickly heat; the deeper one goes, the more one sees the inner qualities of Bharat. No doubt, this will make India a truly great nation in the years to come.

Courtesy: Claude Arpi @ http://ia.rediff.com/news/2006/aug/14claude.htm

Winter of 2002 – Indore – Bhutani and I were sitting in a café. Those were the times when Amrita was in Indore, and Bhutani used to come down to Indore almost every month to meet her. We were waiting for her to come, Bhutani more anxiously than me. Although, it was only fifteen minutes that she made us wait, Bhutani had already called twice, although we might have reached there ten minutes before time.
Amrita came there – beamed and waved for Bhutani to see her. Bhutani introduced us to each other – although we all knew that we were the only three people who were supposed to be meeting there and that we knew each other by name. She smiled and said hi – looking towards me, and in a little formal way. Bhutani went to the counter to order a few things we would while we talk.

I asked Amrita about her college, about her plans on marriage and life in general. This lasted for around five minutes. Then she did the same thing – asked me all sorts of questions, and it lasted for another five minutes. The conversation was over. We had run out of ammunition. I started to look around at the other tables and she started to play and fiddle with the mobile. The moments were just speechless, both of us feeling the same shyness and the anxiousness of meeting a semi-stranger and being forced to talk. The next five minutes we spent there were somewhat different, each of us trying to look in different directions, not being able to put forth a new topic. The new topic could have been anything – weather being the most common one people generally start with. The things were all standstill on our table, a lasting silence engulfed the air we were sharing. Breaking knuckles was the only thing, which was killing time. Bhutani was busy at the cashier. He was waiting for the coffee. Two years later, I happened to meet Amrita again in Pune. This time it was very different. The uneasy air had evaporated.

The incident doesn’t hold anything special for both of us; we had made a new friend each. What happened at the café was no different than what it is when a boy goes to a girl’s house to propose her – the same speechlessness, the same anxiety, the same awkwardness to a certain extent, and the same feeling of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We might have felt the first one many a times and seen the second one in the movies ‘n’ number of times. The scenes are same; both the places the people are just trying to cross the other person’s circle of influence – the circle where people can influence your thought process.

The outermost circle can be the circle of acquaintance, the circle when you know the person by face and fact. The circle consists of those people whom you see everyday in the elevator, on the road and say hi and hello and keep moving. Anybody lying beyond this circle is a stranger. The people lying inside this circle are just those who would be called friends, the friendship circle. I need not explain this one. When the friends start sharing the emotions, the thoughts and the problems, they come into our circle of most influential people. We can keep the family out of this because family is what we get when we come into this world, but friends are made by us.

When you come to know that you are one person who lies inside a certain person’s innermost circle, then you are taking a big responsibility and your actions, words and thoughts might have the power to change that person’s life. So just think before you speak, and when you do so, you come back to the state when you first began – the uneasy silence of words surrounding you.

I was sitting in the passenger seat of the car, looking at the passing trees out of the closed glass window. The watch was showing 6:45 AM. Lokesh and Rajat were seated in the backseat. The car sped eagerly on the gray road towards the predetermined destination - Changi Airport Terminal 2. The speedometer was hovering around 100 kmph. I looked out of the front screen - towards the overhead signboard – Changi Airport, written in white on a green background. Just below the note were three down arrows - side by side, telling the drivers where to drive. The driver knew exactly where we wanted to reach. The trees around the way were lush, green and typical rain forest type. The wind was making a hush sound against the car. I was lost in thoughts. She was finally, really coming.

It seemed like an era had passed since I had last seen her at the Mumbai airport. She was leaning against Shweta, waving her hand slowly in the air, looking towards me. The look reminded me of a little kid looking towards its mother – waiting to get into her arms. My memory was taking me through the journey I had made in the last five months after coming to Singapore – one by one through all the moments when I missed her the most, all those moments when I had wished her to be by my side – to give me strength, all those places where I had seen her standing and looking at me.
Her trip had been planned and cancelled and re-planned – for reasons varying from her transfer to Hyderabad, a client interview and the date of joining in Singapore conflicting with the planned dates. Kanbay was not responding to the transfer request she had put. “The CV is with the client”, Ashish Kanungo, the manager, would always reply. We had made our decision – she would come and stay with me in Singapore once we get married – with or without a job. Sometimes, nature has a peculiar way of testing one’s patience. And after we had given up all our hopes – things had fallen in place at a moment’s notice – something like a murder mystery novel where the last ten percent of text is more happening than all the rest of ninety put together.

The sudden stop of the car brought me back to the present. We had reached the destination – ‘Terminal 2’. The driver announced the bill “Tain dolla thitty cent”. I reached for my wallet and pulled out a ten-dollar plastic, and Lokesh paid the rest. I looked at my watch – 7:04 AM. The flight had landed at 6:40 AM, and we had assumed a gap of half an hour for her to come out and do the necessary immigration formalities. I was glad to be on time. We got inside the huge building and looked around. This was the departure area. The arrivals were on Level 1. We took the stairs and went downstairs. We needed the belt number 23.

We reached downstairs and we could see the belt number 39. I looked for the pattern. I started walking towards the side where the number was 38. I was imagining the way I would see her first, maybe coming out of one of the doors towards the left with 23 written besides it. Maybe she was already out and I would see her sitting on the red sofa in the front waiting area. The meeting would definitely be a moment of remembrance.

I passed 37, 36, 35 and more until I reached 31. I turned around, Lokesh and Rajat were following me. We had reached an end. “No more numbers?” I cried. There was a wary look on Lokesh’s face and Rajat looked anxious. All of us had slept at 2:30 AM last night and were up by 6 in the morning. I was not sure what to do. Lokesh suggested we look towards the other side. We started back towards belt 39, only this time we passed ahead of it. The other side had some fast food stalls and restrooms – no belts. I turned.

The walk had become faster and faster with each passing step. The faint drops of perspiration appearing on the forehead. “Oh Lord! Please get us to belt 23” I prayed silently and desperately. We decided to part ways and look in all possible directions. Lokesh towards right, Rajat left and I would go and ask someone – someone who was capable enough of telling us the way.

I turned and looked towards the exit gate. There was a lady in formal attire across the counter at the travel helpdesk near the exit. I walked to her, wiping the drops on the forehead with my sleeves. I looked at my watch – it was 7:15.
“Which terminal is belt 23?” I asked her.
“Terminal 1”, she said – without looking at me.
“Terminal 1?” I wanted be absolutely sure. I looked at her with anticipation – she might just say its Terminal 2 and we would be saved of the long walk in unknown areas.
“Yes, Belt number 23 is at Terminal 1” she pronounced our punishment for the carelessness with a stern look on her face.
The watch was still showing 7:15 when I looked at it again.
“She must have come out of the immigration area towards the receiver’s zone by now” I told Lokesh.
“How could we miss it?” Rajat exclaimed.
“Leave that now, lets run to Terminal 1”.
It was a long walk back to the departure area. We climbed stairs where we could have just stood and the escalator would have done the job automatically, sometimes even skipping a step or two to save those seconds. We were almost running and panting. The board at the corner glowed and gave us the next clue – take the sky-train to Terminal 1. We started running towards it. The train boarding area was a carpeted neat room with a square door in the front. The train was missing.

When the train arrived, it was already 7:23 and I was sure she would be furious. We boarded the train and waited. The train took a serpentine route – going left and right and left again and stopped after 5 minutes. A voice announced “Terminal 1, Please mind the gap”. The doors opened and we started running out. The people around us were looking at us – who on earth are these guys.

The long corridor in the front led us to another staircase going down. We followed directions, not taking any chances. A final descent of stairs opened into a large hall. Belt number 23 was right in the front. I gave a sigh of relief. We went to it and looked at the board. Three flights had already been serviced at this belt since the flight she was coming in. The information about Jet Airways 9W12 flight was obsolete.

We decided to split up again. Lokesh stayed there, Rajat went to look at the other belts and I went towards the taxi stand.
“Rajat Calling…” was the display on my cell when I reached the stand. I picked up the phone. “Come to the place where I went to look for her, she is here” he said. I called Lokesh and told him to stay where he is and started running towards the place where Rajat had gone. I turned and all of a sudden Rajat and Poonam had appeared. By the time I could make out what was happening, Rajat was pushing the trolley and there she was - with me...

It is a wonderful day, I thought. My hands were engaged in tying the shoelace with a practiced perfection, my face looking up - in the full size mirror fitted in the wall. I was gathering and memorizing which part of my hair was not looking as good and needed attention once more finally before leaving. I tied up the laces and combed my hair, whistling a tune from one of the popular songs. The movie last night was hilarious to say the least and I had a good sleep also for a change. The unshaven face was two days old and needed some more time. I didn’t have time.

I picked up my bag and rushed out, leaving the door to shut by its own. I went a few steps ahead and turned. I had to rush to save the door from banging hard into the frame. The wind was strong and I was able to stop it just a moment before it crashed, waking up the inhabitants, all of who were fast asleep and some of them may be snoring. I looked at the watch – 8:27. “Nordic Production Adhoc Job on 25/04/06 Batch – MUST READ!” was the title of the mail my manager Wei Chi Sou had sent yesterday at 12:15 pm. It was a long mail in the Tahoma font, size 10, with multiple colors – black for the general text, bold blue for the important numbers and a flashy signature at the bottom mentioning the name of the sender along with all the possible contact details modern technology can provide. Point number three had caught my attention – “Please come to office on time at 8:30am or latest 9am on Wed. If you are late please inform the support team”. The mail was also copied to one of the senior managers so that all the team members comply.

No way was I going to reach the office on time. I took the stairs down and reached the twelfth floor. The elevator in our block does not go to all the floors. I pushed the round button besides the door, which lighted a red colored LED. The wait was ON. The lift went right down to the first floor from the ninth and then came back to the twelfth – boring work this lift does – I thought. Boring enough to compare it with the work I did in the office these days – attending meetings and filling excel sheets with irrelevant data and dates. Finally, the LED went OFF telling me that it was about time. The journey towards another long day is going to begin.

I was whistling a tune in the lift, when I felt my legs go heavy. The lift was stopping. The display on the top of the lift door was stuck on nine. The lift finally came to a halt and the door slid from right to left, revealing an old woman. The woman might be in her late sixties, I gathered. The skin on her face was like a stretched nylon put on a bony structure. The nylon was slit at two places just besides the nose – the place commonly known to house human eyes. The lady looked at me. I looked at her.

I was on the road to the Metro, thinking about what had just happened. The lady had looked at me. She was not deaf and dumb. She had a made a gesture with her hands – which signaled to me that she wanted to go to the fifth or the first floor – somewhere downstairs. I put my index finger on one of the buttons – to stop the door from closing and help the old lady get inside the elevator comfortably. Then suddenly she stepped back and made another hand signal – NO. I was not able to understand what had happened suddenly. “Do you want to go down?” I asked out of courtesy. I was already getting late, and here the old lady was not ready to come inside the lift to go downstairs. I asked again “I am going down. Do you want to come?” She turned away from the lift and looked towards the other side. The moment was embarrassing for me. I didn’t understand the old lady’s logic for not joining me in the lift.

She had refused to come with in the lift. I had faced and felt it before in the buses and Metros where the natives avoided any kind of neighborhood – with me at least. I had become used to it, and had never cared about it. But I had least expected such a thing to happen in a lift – that too from an old lady. I looked up to avoid myself from bumping into a wall, turned right and started again. I saw another lift. The lift was getting crowded and I saw that at least seven people had gone inside in a lift, which could hardly support four. The scene was like a moment when your mother rubs an antiseptic on your cut or bruise. There was a notice board on the left of the lift, which had taken seven people upstairs. The board had a large picture of a mosquito and the words were written on it – “Singaporeans: Beware of the dirt around you”.