It is easy to pass judgment on
people or their Life journeys. But we can never value their journeys unless we
have walked the path ourselves.
I read Bishwanath Ghosh’s weekly column, ‘Writer’s Block’, in The Hindu’s Melange section regularly.
This past Saturday Bishwanath had written about how he has learnt to appreciate
Amitav Ghosh’s writing much better now that he (Bishwanath) too is a writer. He
reflects on owning Amitav Ghosh’s Dancing
in Cambodia and other Essays for 16 years now but tells us how he ended up reading
it only last week after meeting the author at the launch of the final book in
his Ibis trilogy. Bishwanath concluded his column thus: “You begin to value a journey only after you have walked the path
yourself.”
I can’t agree more with Bishwanath’s view.
I have confessed to learning this lesson and respecting this perspective in my
Book “Fall Like A Rose Petal – A father’s lessons on how to be
happy and content while living without money” (Westland, August 2014) too.
|
The lead page of my Businessworld story in 1993 |
Way back in 1993, while working for Businessworld magazine as their
Principal Correspondent in Bengaluru, I had written an elaborate story on how
Vijay Mallya’s business empire was debt-ridden and that he was broke and
cash-strapped. (Interestingly, even at this time, media reports suggest that
Mallya’s business group’s present condition appears to be the same!) I remember
waiting in Mallya’s UB Group headquarters (where the present day UB City is
located) for 15 hours at a stretch because he was trying to avoid the
interview. I even slept on the couch in his private lounge refusing to leave
despite his EA’s insistence. This was to be the interview of my journalistic
career and I was not going to give up! Finally, I managed to get Mallya’s time
and his version of why his businesses were struggling. We ran the story,
titling it ‘An Acquired Hangover’ and
showing a completely sloshed Mallya at his Kunigal stud farm. Our photographer
Deepak Pawar had counted the number of mugs of beer that Mallya had drunk in
the three hours we spent interviewing him: 16! He had waited for the very end
of the interview to get his shot to ‘fit’ the story’s central theme: that it
was a series of reckless acquisitions that had landed Mallya in this mess.
I have nothing to say about Mallya’s
business decisions then or now, about his cash problems then or now. Not
anymore. All I feel is, irrespective of what caused his crisis, or mine, the
pain is the same. Every single day through my Firm’s bankruptcy, and even now,
I have regretted the way we led that story asking, critically, sarcastically,
logically, pointedly, argumentatively, “Why
is Vijay Mallya at a loss for cash?” I am not even saying the story was
good or bad. All I am saying is I now know what it means to be strapped for
cash. And I now know what it means when every aspect of your Life is
scrutinized, dissected, opined upon and judged – only because you don’t have
money and you have to repay people that you have borrowed from.
The last few years, that have been acutely financially-challenged
for us, have taught me that we must respect everyone for who they are, the way
they are. Their lives may not conform to ours, their stories may not be
something we can relate to, their choices and decisions may not be what we can
agree on, but we can at least not judge them. Even if we do so unwittingly, subconsciously.
If you have been there, done that, offer a perspective – when
asked for it. Else, don’t advice, don’t opine, don’t assume and surely, don’t
judge!
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