‘Learn’ to be content by appreciating what you have

Being content with what you have comes with a sense of gratitude, with a deeper understanding of Life.

We recently met a very successful, young, corporate executive, who, in his late 20s, heads a business division for a large MNC. This is the job he always wanted and loves. Yet, he confessed, that he ‘may not be happy’: “I find something missing in Life. It is nothing material. I have everything money can buy. But I am missing inner peace – is that what you call contentment?”

I don’t find the young man’s feeling alien. I have been there in his place and I have felt like him. In my late 20s I have globetrotted continents and lived out of the finest hotels but I have yearned for being with my family. And when I found the time to spend with my family I have felt insecure that if I am not ‘visibly’ working hard at my job, I may lose it. So, contentment – the sense of fullness, completeness with what you have – may appear elusive. But, over the years, I have learnt that it is important to learn to be content. Contentment is not something that will arrive subject to certain conditions being fulfilled. It will come when you are appreciative of what is, of what you have. It comes from gratitude.

Urdu poet Nida Fazli saab (1938~2016) says it so beautifully:

“Kabhi Kisiko Mukammal Jahaan Nahi Milta,

Kahin Zamin Toh Kahin Asmaan Nahin Milta!”

It basically means you are never going to get a complete, a perfect 10 on 10 in Life at any time. Something, somewhere, sometime is going to be unstuck. And while trying to fix that department in your Life, while trying to mend that situation, you have to find your inner peace by being grateful for what you have. Life is never going to help you here. You have to help yourself. And only you must do it – no one else can do it for you!

In crisis situations, just carry on stepping!

Don't expect your problems or challenges to vanish into thin air. Don't try wishing that they weren't there. It is the nature of Life to have problems. Deal with Life, especially in a crisis, one step at a time.

Life in a crisis is pretty much like the headlights of your vehicle. You know where you want your vehicle to go. You know the destination. But in the darkness of the night, the headlight can't get you to see the destination. But it sure can light up some part of the way, a few feet at a time, and as you make progress you get to see what lies ahead. This goes on, until of course, it is daylight or you reach the destination you were driving to. Life works exactly the same way. The night, the crisis, is not likely to go away immediately. A new dawn awaits you, but it is never dawn until daylight arrives. So, in the darkness of the night, follow the headlight principle. Don't expect the entire road to be lit up. Be content with being able to see just a few feet at a time. In Life, therefore, when in a crisis situation, don't expect clarity and answers to what lies a week down the road, a month, a year or in the distant future. Just believe that you will survive. Know that you will ultimately prevail. Know that you will eventually achieve your goal, reach your destination, realize your dream.

This is as true a statement as it is to say that a day always follows each night! Live each moment and each day completely__keeping your focus on where you want to go, living in the awareness that if you can see a few feet ahead, if you can survive today, you are making good progress. Don't ask why are you in the dark phase or why you are groping with a crisis? Don't wish and pine for the crisis not to have been there. These sentiments will cause you agony and hamper your ability to think clearly. The truth is that the crisis exists. The truth also is that you are caught in the throes of it! Accept it. Tell yourself that if you can last the next few steps of the journey, you will be blessed. Then when you pass each day, when you last that phase of the journey, work on lasting a little longer. And keep going until time relents, the crisis blows away and you are bathed in the warm glow of daylight, or what the world will call, 'your success'! 

An old Chinese proverb reminds us that to get through all journeys, even the hardest ones, we need to take only one step at a time, but what's important is, we must carry on stepping!

Whether hopeful or hopeless, be happy!

If being hopeless makes you peaceful, be hopeless. What’s important is that you be at peace with yourself!

Yesterday a reader wrote to me saying she didn’t want to be hopeful about her Life anymore. She said she had made peace with her miseries. I did not disagree with her. If she is peaceful, even while she’s ostensibly in a lot of pain, that’s what matters the most. It is wrong to assume that people can’t have a truck with their problems. Always, that’s how acceptance comes. But the key is that you must be happy accepting your Life the way it is. If you are not happy, if you are not at peace, then such acceptance is, virtually, no acceptance. An intrinsic effect, an outcome, of acceptance is that it puts an end to all your suffering. The pain continues to be there. But the suffering ceases. If you are still suffering then you have not accepted your situation fully, you are still grudging it.

I have found that being hopeless is not a bad thing to do – as long as you don’t sulk, brood and become depressive. Hopelessness is nothing but acceptance. You reach a state when you decide that things are going to be the way they are and you can’t do anything but endure the Life you have. So, if this is the state in which you find inner peace, then it is completely irrelevant whether you call it hopelessness or acceptance! But there’s a caveat here – don’t complain or grieve about your situation. Just learn to cope with it and live with it. You of course can continue to work on trying to solve your problems, but with acceptance and not with resentment!

Now, whether you accept a situation or not, whether you are hopeful about Life or not, your Life will change over time. Everything changes. And every situation passes on. What comes, goes away. And something new comes in its place, to soon go away. Hope and hopelessness are human inventions. They are mere labels we stick on otherwise listless events and circumstances. Think about it: if you are likely to get what you want, you are hopeful; and if you are unlikely to get what you want, you are hopeless. But neither your wanting something, or resenting something, is going to stop whatever is coming your way. This is how Life works – it has a mind of its own and it keeps on happening to you, irrespective of how you feel. So, why label situations as hopeful or hopeless – and sweat over either? Just go with the flow, living with what is. But if you can’t avoid labeling, live with the label too – like the reader who wrote in yesterday. Whatever you do, be at peace with yourself, with your Life, and, important, be happy!

Asking ‘Why’ of Life never helps!

Everything has its place and everything has a reason. So just accept what is and keep moving on…

When we ask why, we become restless, anxious, fearful and lose the game of Life. Instead when we accept things, people, events, as they are, as they happen, we find peace and bliss irrespective of the circumstance we find ourselves in.

Of course, it is normal for you to want to know why something is happening to you. But know also that Life is unlikely to give you an answer – at least immediately. As Steve Jobs famously said, “You can only connect the dots backwards.” That connection of dots too is, at best, an inference, a derived pattern. Yet, if you can accept the lack of reason in the moment, you can always find your own way to be happy with whatever is, the way it is. But if you keep asking why this and why that, you will find yourself wallowing in grief and agony and you will never be at peace. Life’s ways are at best magical and at worst mystical. Jobs further said, “…so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” Simply, never when something is happening, in the present, can you know the why of it. So, trust Life and let things be as they are.

An old Kashmiri story illustrates this best. Once upon a time, a man was resting under the shade of a walnut tree on a hot, sultry afternoon. Just nearby was a pumpkin creeper. The man thought to himself, “Why would God grow pumpkins on a creeper and walnuts on a tree when it should have been the other way round? Pumpkins need stronger support while walnuts do not- how did it not occur to God? Pretty silly!” Just when he was about to leave the shade of the tree and walk away, a walnut fell from above and hit his head. He then realized that had it been pumpkins that grew on such trees instead of walnuts, he’d be dead and that being in the shade of trees would not be safe for tired travelers, like him, at all! He then realized that there’s a lot that God knows that he did not. He concluded that God has planned everything beforehand.

To me, God is Life itself. I see Life as a thinking, intelligent teacher, who gives you each experience with a reason. Every aspect of creation is available to teach you something. Every crisis is a training ground to make you stronger and wiser. Yes, I too do feel lost sometimes. Stumped by Life’s surprises, the trials, the twists and the irrationality of it all! Even so, over the years, I have learnt not to ask why! I have learnt to accept my Life for what it is, the way it is and I keep moving on…

Every ordeal is an opportunity to evolve and awaken

How do you survive the onslaught of Life when everything that you thought was yours is taken away from you?

Where do you re-start Life from when you are left in the cold - helpless, hapless, battered, and bruised by Life’s blows? What do you do when you have nothing material left anymore with you other than perhaps the clothes you are wearing?

Some people have the support of their families and some don’t at such times. Either way, sometimes Life’s situations may be so numbing that there as only questions and no answers!

You may at various times in your Life have braved many a storm or perhaps may be going through one just now. When you sit back and think about the Life you have, you will realize that there is no other way to live Life than to accept what is, no matter what it is.

Here are simple tips based on lessons (also chronicled in ‘Fall Like A Rose Petal’; Westland, 2014) I have learned in my rather eventful Life so far:

1.     Accept the reality that you are in the throes of a crisis. Don’t resist the situation. Don’t wish that it didn’t exist. Simply accept it. Acceptance always delivers inner peace.

2.     Focus not on the strength of the storm but on your true self. Know that the storm will always be strong. It will be menacing. It will threaten to destroy you. By even thinking of its ferocity, you are only going to feel debilitated. So, focus on your inner self. Just mindfully watching your breathing can help. When you are mindful, always, you will find calm and inner peace. From that calm, you will gain strength.

3.     Always ask this simple question which can often lead you to profound answers: “Given the situation I am faced with, what is the best thing I can do to make things better for everyone concerned?” Employ key criteria for choosing what action you can take out of many possible options that may follow the question: your action must always be positive, constructive and ethical.

4.     In particularly complex Life situations which can often dog you for months and years, it is worthwhile to revisit Tip # 3 on a daily basis and choose your daily actions only basis those criteria.

5.     No matter how intense it is, no storm lasts forever. All storms have to pass. So, this one too shall pass. Just remember that.

This may seem too simplistic for you to even believe it works. But this is the only way it works __ no matter what you are faced with! Life’s challenges come in different shapes and sizes, in the form of storms of varying intensities. We cannot stop the storms because we don’t have the controls to Life’s mechanisms in our hand. But our facing each of them with humility, with faith and patience, can convert any ordeal into an opportunity to evolve and awaken!

A chef whips up a recipe for ‘non-suffering’!

Sometimes Life’s problems will confound you. It could be a relationship tangle, a financial situation, a health crisis or a professional challenge. You will find, to your dismay, that whatever solution you attempt will just not work. Because some things are simply not meant to be.

I recently met a man who is a master of his craft. He’s an extremely successful chef at a leading hospitality chain. We got talking. And I politely enquired about his family. He laughed heartily.

Taking a deep breath, he replied: “I have been married thrice. I got divorced twice. And widowed once. I have a 20-year-old autistic son who lives me. So, that’s my family!”

I felt sorry I had asked him that question. But he showed no signs of discomfort. Just so that we made the conversation easier, I remarked: “Oh! I am sorry. Must be tough on you. But you seem to be very enthusiastic about Life!”

He said: “Sorry? Don’t be. I have realized that I cannot have a regular, normal family that many others have. I have accepted that companionship is not part of my Life’s scene! Raising my son as a single parent has been difficult but I don’t complain anymore. My problems go through me! I don’t go through any problems. Not anymore!”

His simple, matter-of-fact attitude is very inspiring. Indeed. Isn’t that a practical way to look at Life? We normally respond to Life’s challenges with a sense of shock and dismay. We always lament about Life and wonder how difficult it is to go through the problems we are faced with. But here my chef friend has flipped the paradigm. His sense of acceptance has made him unflappable! There’s a learning here for us too. When you grieve over the Life you have you suffer. But when you accept it, while there may be pain, there will be no suffering. Perhaps, you may want to try this chef’s recipe for ‘non-suffering’: “let your problems go through you; you simply accept what is.”

Forgiving someone is the best gift you can give yourself

Forgiveness means to accept people for who they are. Irrespective of their irrationality, of their attitude towards you and of their actions.

I recently met a business associate who had failed to fulfil his contractual obligation to my erstwhile (and now defunct) Firm.

It had been a messy relationship. He was paid a sum of money in lieu of his services that he never delivered. When my Firm demanded the money back, he stonewalled us and refused to even take my calls. I sent him a strongly worded email to which he never replied. So, it was in these circumstances that this person and I met at social event. He was courteous but he was both uncomfortable in my presence and, most certainly, unapologetic. Sensing his discomfort, I clasped his hands, and looking him in the eye said, “Let bygones be bygones. I know we have an issue pending. But I am not carrying any grudges any more. I am sorry if I have hurt you in any way over the episode we both wished had never happened.” That kind of lightened the atmosphere and we spent the rest of the evening drinking and chatting up! 

I am not even sitting in judgment of what I did as right or wrong. I simply forgave the person. Period.

I have learned from Life that nobody is bad. Nobody is out to fix anyone! People do what they do because they believe they are right in doing so. Or they think if they didn’t do so, something grave is going to happen to them. Or if they didn’t do what they are doing, they may not get what they expect from you. All irrational behavior by someone then is a manifestation of what they are thinking, their belief systems at that moment, which again is a reflection of the time that they are going through. Such behavior needs to be responded with compassion not hatred. These people need your understanding. They need your forgiveness, not your anger. Besides, if you think deeply about it, what purpose does anger serve? You burn in it, while the person at whom you are directing your rage is often totally nonplussed about how you are feeling.

To truly forgive means to give someone your deepest understanding. It means to let go of the need to judge, opine, analyze or justify and to simply accept the diversity in human Life. It also means to appreciate that people will think different, behave different from you, because they are different from you!  Besides, forgiving someone unburdens you of all the excess baggage of anger, hatred, grief and suffering that you will otherwise carry around. Forgiving someone who has hurt you is the best gift you can give yourself. Think about it. This awareness can make your Life beautiful!

Denial delays – and often denies – happiness

The more we deny, the farther we are moving away from happiness.

Life’s problems don’t always happen all of a sudden. They often build up over a period of time. We don’t see the problem as it is because of the state of denial we are often in.

A smoker knows smoking will lead to cancer. But he or she keeps denying that this reality will affect his or her Life; and so goes on smoking.

Many, many months before my Firm went bankrupt, a wise client (and a close friend) of mine had told me that “if you continue running your business this way, pretty soon you will go bankrupt”. I denied his sage counsel. I thought since he was older to me, he was conservative and hence not a risk-taker. So, I did not heed his advice. Eventually, when my Firm’s fortunes came crashing, I awakened to the realization that I should have never denied the problem we were in all that while.

Someone we know, who is very creative, is struggling to get one of his events off the ground. He just can’t find sponsors. He already owes money to people for an event he staged some months ago. So prudence demands that he does not launch a new event without settling his previous dues and without tying up sponsors. But he simply wants to plough on and is getting all stressed out as the event date approaches. He’s often breaking down and cries aloud that the Universe is not compassionate to him. Indulging in self-pity is a sure sign of denial. What this person must recognize is that the business model he is following is not taking off. So, something new must we worked on. Pushing forward without sponsors will only mean that he is digging himself a bigger grave – of debt!

Denying something even though you know it exists__a financial, relationship, health or self-belief problem__doesn’t make the problem go away. Or simply, denial does not help you avoid experiencing pain in a problem situation. It, in fact, increases your suffering. Because, since the problem doesn’t cease to exist, and continues to nag you, you are forever consumed by your fears. Wherever there is fear, suffering will be there too. To be sure, on the other hand, accepting__and not denying__a problem too does not make the problem go away. But because you accept it, and therefore you attempt to work on solutions__however long they may take__despite the pain, despite the circumstances, you do find inner peace and happiness.

There are no two ways to live Life. There is just one way __ live in total acceptance. The moment you deny whatever is happening, whatever you are going through, you are not saying yes to Life. You are not saying yes to whatever is. Know that saying yes to what is always leads to happiness – whatever be the circumstances!

Fight the good fight but don't fight Life!

Where there is acceptance, there is no suffering!

You suffer only because you are resisting what is and are refusing to accept a situation or a person!

Yesterday, I delivered my “Fall Like A Rose Petal” Talk to over 300 employees of Tata Consultancy Services. A young lady manager, who appeared to be going through a lot of emotional distress, wanted to know whether it was possible at all to live “without suffering when people close to you don’t understand you”. She broke down as she asked me this question – she was seeking perspective because I have talked about my poor chemistry with my own mother in my Book.

This was my response: All our suffering comes from our wanting people, things and events to be different from who or what they are. If someone is not understanding you, and is causing you emotional trauma, they are obviously having their own reasons for their opinions. Now, the misunderstanding or absence of understanding occurs only because the opinions between the two of you are divergent. So, accept this fact and move on. You can only repair a situation – or a relationship – if the people connected with it allow you to. You can sit down and talk only with someone who is willing to listen. You can mend fences with someone only if they are willing. You can make new beginnings only when there is willingness from either side. When the other party is not willing, when there is an urge to interpret you than understand you, what is the point in you laboring over the relationship and suffering, expecting that person to behave differently? My advice is always to try and fix any relationship by having honest conversations. The key operative word is ‘honest’ here – be in the face and speak your mind while according the other party complete dignity. If these conversations fail to improve the chemistry between you both, after at least three attempts, accept that this is how things are meant to be between you two people and move on.

Suffering itself is a completely wasted emotion. How can anything – or anyone – be different from what is – from the way they are – by your pining for it or them? Suffering, wondering why people do what they do, is therefore totally, totally avoidable – in fact, as the Buddha says, it is optional!

Later in the evening yesterday, I ended up at a party where a member of my immediate family, who has chosen to not understand me, too was present. We behaved like strangers. No hostility. No avoiding each other. Just complete strangerhood. The party was a nice one – I enjoyed it! And that’s all there is to Life. If you can relate to someone, great! If you can’t relate to someone, great again; accept that there is no relationship and move on. Where there is acceptance, there is no suffering! 

Go with the flow of Life – resisting it is pointless!

The most evident truth about Life is that it simply goes on! And you and I are like the ‘musafir’ (voyager) in the opening song of Parichay (1972, Gulzar)…we have to just keep walking…‘bas chalte jaana’…!

This is the big message I picked up watching Masaan (2015, Neeraj Ghaywan) the other day. It is the most thought-provoking, poignant film I have seen in a long, long time. It deals with a young lady coming to terms with the death of her boyfriend when the police raids their room in which they are making love. A parallel story deals with a young boy, from a lower caste (his family burns corpses at the riverside crematorium), aspiring to woo, court and marry an upper caste girl. The girl is willing but soon dies in a bus tragedy along with her entire family. The boy struggles initially to reconcile with his loss – he ends up having to cremate her body! But eventually he manages to move on. Both story arcs converge as the film ends, with the young lady meeting the young boy on a boat and together they ride onward…

Set in Benares, Masaan has been winning acclaim on the international film festival circuit. And has earned praise from critics and viewers alike.

Vicky Kaushal as Deepak in 'Masaan'
Picture Courtesy: Internet

To me, however, Masaan portrays the ever-flowing nature of Life. The young lady has to handle her guilt, her grief, over a choice she and her boyfriend made. Her father has to live with the ignominy of her choice. Together they have to face a corrupt cop and raise a ransom amount for the charges against the lady to be dropped. She tries to seek closure by going over to apologize to her boyfriend’s family, but they don’t want her apology; they ask her to get out! In the parallel story, the young boy has his father’s support to quit the corpse-burner tradition and profession. He has his girlfriend’s assurance that she is willing to even run away – should the families disapprove – with him provided he gets himself a job. He’s almost certain of getting that job when she dies. He has to deal with his demons. His depression almost ruins his career prospects and he’s on the verge of being a corpse-burner all his Life. But he realizes that unless he moves on, he will only be trapped ‘where he is’ and remain depressed. A state that will serve no purpose, he reasons. So, with great difficulty, he picks up the threads of his Life and lands himself a job. As both the young lady and the boy move on, they meet each other…

Indeed, there are no pauses in Life. It simply goes on. As long as you are alive, you have to keep walking, you have to keep going with the flow. You may not like whatever is happening to you. But you have to face it, you have to live through it. When you hate whatever is, you will suffer. Here’s the nub: you can’t prevent Life from happening to you. But you have the choice not to resist Life. And nothing, nothing really, is the end of the road, until you are alive, until you die. Period.

I talk from experience. On December 31^st 2007, when I sat with Vaani in our bedroom and surveyed our Life, it seemed impossible to go on. We had just Rs.2000/- left with us in Life. And we had over a million dollars in debt. And no work. Yet, almost 8 years on, we have survived and lasted to tell our story. We still don’t have enough work – not even enough to cover our living expenses – and our debt remains unpaid. But we move on…living each day, working hard, facing our realities – court cases, police complaints, cashlessness at some times and very frustrating material scarcity at others – and believing that all this too shall pass.

There is no other way to live Life. It is what it is. You have to accept what is, keep working on what you want it to be and, in the process, exercise your choice to simply be, well, happy with whatever is. It is when you don’t live Life with this clarity and understanding that Life is miserable. Go on, go with the flow of Life. After all, there’s isn’t any point in refusing to flow it! 

Accept your Life for what it is – and simply go on living

Does it really matter if there is such a thing as fate or destiny? If whatever will happen, will happen, then why analyze it, why agonize over it?  

In a conversation we had with a friend yesterday, we ended up discussing destiny and free will. My friend held the view that trying to understand how destiny works or blaming it for everything is simply futile. “Can your belief in or knowledge of fate, destiny, karma – whatever name you give it – really help in undoing, or changing, your Life’s course,” he asked.

And I agree with him.

What are we going to do by knowing that our lives are preordained? That really doesn’t change anything. Instead, the simpler way to look at Life – and respond to it – is to know that while you can’t do anything about what’s happening to you, you can at least act in a given situation diligently, with full commitment to living! People call this opportunity free will. I call it living. Just be, just live. Or, to further simplify, while you can’t do anything about what happens to you, do whatever you can in any given situation to make it better. And the best way to live through, endure, any painful situation, is to immerse yourself in the moment and to live it fully.

So, don’t dwell on whether your Life is preordained or not. It’s meaningless, it’s futile to do so. The fact is that you have this Life, a gift called this lifetime. You have no control over what happens to you. But you can and must do whatever is possible by you to live your every moment fully. You have that option, and no one can deny it to you, so use it fully.  

Osho, the Master, calls the fate-destiny-karma logic defeatist and escapist. He says when we try something and don’t get what we want, we conveniently blame fate. “What can I do, I am trying but my fate is such” is a common refrain we all hear or even use at times. Osho urges us to stop this blame game! He says don’t dump the responsibility of your Life on fate. Some people also dub fate as “God’s will”. So they dump the cause of their Life’s course – and their attendant miseries – on this, unknown, unseen, God. Osho asks, “You know why you blame God for all the things that happen to you that you don’t want happening? You do it because it is so convenient. God doesn’t talk back, you see. God doesn’t ask you how dare you blame me for your Life? So, you go on dumping your Life on God and you wallow in the comfortable cesspool of ‘my-fate-is-such’ thinking.”

Osho makes a powerful, unputdownable, point. Blaming Life or karma or God is of no use. Your Life – and mine – will unfold, go on, happen, in spite of you - or me. No matter what. This is the nature of Life. The only way to live this Life therefore is to accept it for what it is, the way it is, and simply go on living…!  

“I see pain as the source of my happiness; it is a sign that I am alive!”

‘The Happiness Road’ is a weekly Series on this Blog that appears on Sundays where I share my conversations with people while exploring their idea of happiness!

This Sunday, I am pleased to introduce to you Malathi Holla – international para athlete, Life enthusiast and perhaps the most resilient person on the planet!

When Vaani and I finish meeting with Malathi Holla, the following lines from Balu Mahendra’s Sadma (1983, sung by Suresh Wadkar; picturized on Kamal Hassan and Sri Devi – listen to original song here) hum in my head:

Aye Zindagi Gale Laga Le…

Aye Zindagi Gale Laga Le…

Humne Bhi, Tere Har Ek Gham Ko, Gale Se Lagaya Hai, Hai Na?

Translated, these lines mean:

Hey Life, embrace me!

Haven’t I embraced all the pain that you have sent my way?

At 57, Malathi Holla epitomizes the spirit of Gulzar’s unputdownable lyrics and her Life itself, despite all the upheavals she has seen, is beautiful, harmonious and soulful – quite like the maestro Ilayaraja’s music for this song is, making his Bollywood debut memorable!  

Malathi was afflicted with polio when she was 14 months old. Additionally, she has a condition called contracture –where the nerves in her body get bunched up in a ball and have to be unknotted surgically. The effect of contracture, especially in the pelvic region, is very painful – the whole body curves up, like an arch, with the legs getting bent backward and the back moving forward. She has had 33 surgeries in all so far but she hardly displays any angst or bitterness. On the other hand, she oozes positivity and radiates happiness. This, despite the fact that she has had a forgettable childhood – her own mother, not knowing how to cope with the rigor of raising a special child, treated Malathi like an outsider. But Malathi ploughed on, burying her grief and choosing to be without resentment or malice. She trained, on her own steam, to become a champion athlete representing India in various international sporting events including the Paralympics – in 100 metres and 200 metres wheelchair racing and in discus, shot put and javelin throws – and winning 421 medals in all; 389 golds, 27 silvers and 5 bronzes! She was a senior manager with Syndicate Bank until recently and currently runs the Mathru Foundation, an NGO, that supports 13 children with special needs to get basic education and take up mainstream careers. In 2009 a biography of Malathi – A Different Spirit, written by Dr.Anantha Krishnan – was released.

I ask Malathi how is she able to stay anchored, positive and so outrageously happy – despite all that she is still going through?

“I simply enjoy the pain, AVIS. This is my idea of happiness.” – that’s Malathi’s short answer. But I press on. And she gives me this long answer: “I can’t walk. I have been confined to a wheelchair. I have a perpetual physically painful condition. I have not experienced parental love. Now what can I do about all these things – there is physical pain and there is emotional pain? Can I get rid of the pain by going on grieving about it? So I simply accept my Life for what it is. Pain is painful when you see it as pain. I keep reminding myself that I can at least feel the pain. There are so many people out there, who are in conditions that are far worse than mine. They can’t even feel the pain. That’s why I count my blessings and enjoy my pain. I see my pain as the source of my happiness; it is a sign that I am alive. So I am happy!”

But isn’t she tired of pushing her way through Life? She has had to fight for everything – apart from competing in sports, she has had to fight the Indian government’s myopic view that sportspeople with special needs don’t need to get mainstream recognition. It took her 18 years, but she eventually convinced the government and was awarded the Arjuna award in 1996. She was also awarded the Padma Sri in 2001. So, at her age, isn’t she wondering how she will cope with the future? Malathi is nonplussed: “I am not one who ever thinks of the future. I want to live in the moment. And I live in the moment.”

She tells us that anyone can be resilient. It is not a capability that only a chosen few can acquire. It is in you. You are resilient the moment you choose not be a slave of the circumstances. If you can be unmoved by what is happening to you, you can be strong in any situation. “Every problem has a solution. There are no problems without solutions. There is a way – you must look for it, that’s all. And in situations when I can’t find a solution, I simply accept whatever is the situation, condition or problem. This way I am perennially peaceful with myself and my world,” she explains.

She then makes a phenomenal point: “You must ensure that you don’t mix up your situation with your idea of who you are. I am not my physical condition. I have a post polio residual paralysis condition, that’s it. When you see your Life this way, you will realize that we are all legends. Each of us has the right and the opportunity to be a legend – provided we are willing to walk on the path of acceptance, letting go and keeping faith in the larger cosmic design. I know this – I am the legend of happiness.”

Malathi Holla
Photo by Vaani Anand

Vaani and I met Malathi at the Taj Vivanta coffee shop in Bangalore – we chose that venue because it was wheelchair friendly. When we finished, we were keen to know how we could help Malathi get back home. That’s when we saw a live expression of her ‘different spirit’. Her eyes lit up even as she politely turned down our offer to drop her back: “Come with me. Let me show you how I get around this city.” She wheeled herself down the ramp in the hotel’s porch. And proceeded to her car – a specially designed Maruti Zen. She opened the car’s door and before we knew it, she had hoisted herself on to the driver’s seat and worn the seat belt. She flicked open the boot and request the hotel staff to put her wheelchair back in there. She beamed her million-watt smile at us, gestured a ‘thumbs up’ and, before driving away, said, “Send me the pictures on WhatsApp! What a beautiful technology isn’t it? What a beautiful world we live in, what a beautiful Life this is. We are all blessed, aren’t we?”

As I finish writing this piece, that number from Sadma is still humming in my head. Malathi’s is indeed a different spirit – a spirit that we must all invite into our lives; to guide us too, to being happy despite our circumstances!

  

“You are happy the moment you count your blessings”

‘The Happiness Road’ is a weekly Series on this Blog that appears on Sundays where I share my conversations with people while exploring their idea of happiness!

This Sunday I am in conversation with eminent Bharatanatyam dancer Chitra Visweswaran!

Chitra Visweswaran
Photo by Vaani Anand

The way Chitra Visweswaran communicates, both with her eyes and with the words she chooses, elevates your understanding of whatever she is saying to a higher level, almost instantaneously. Yet, for someone who is among India’s most acclaimed Bharatanatyam dancers, and a Padma Sri awardee too, Chitra is so simple, so grounded, very down-to-earth and evolved. “Life is an eternal journey of learning, a sadhana. We must learn to enjoy the journey more than getting worked up about the end. That, to me, is happiness,” she says as we sit down one afternoon to have a conversation over green tea in her tastefully decorated living room. 

Chitra Visweswaran
Photo by Vaani Anand

That journey, to Chitra, has been eventful. The world sees only a great artist in her, but beyond her dance, she’s among the most compassionate human beings you will ever meet and a doting sister. Her brother, Arun, is two years younger than she is. He was born normal. But when he was just three, he was struck by an ailment that impaired the development of his brain. Chitra herself was young and did not then comprehend the import of how Arun – and her family – will have to cope with this lifelong situation. But when they were both adolescents, Chitra came to the realization that Arun will never be normal again. She was overwhelmed and grief-stricken. Arun’s condition often made him turn violent. And Chitra had to face the brunt of his uninformed rage on many occasions. Their mother, Rukmini, helped Chitra cope. “She ensured I didn’t wilt under sorrow. I was, at that time, unsure of what I wanted to do in Life. My father wanted me to be an engineer. I was good at singing. I also loved dancing. But my mother helped me find focus. She said to me, ‘You are an okay singer. But you are a brilliant dancer.’ And that got me started. My rigorous training as a dancer helped me come to terms with Arun’s condition and our Life,” recalls Chitra.

Rukmini also taught Chitra something that has remained at the core of all her Life’s work. “She told me never to dance for fame or name, but to dance, offering myself to the Universe, offering my dance as a prayer,” says Chitra.

As she evolved in Life, and as she rose in her career, Chitra began to value her mother’s perspective greatly. “I don’t think we must limit this ‘your work is prayer’ philosophy to dance alone. I have learnt from Life that whatever you do, if you do it as an offering to a higher energy, immersing yourself in it, it will be your prayer. ‘Doing’ this prayer consistently is what happiness is all about. You could be cleaning cobwebs, or cooking, or gardening or you could be a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer or…a dancer, whoever you are, whatever you do, immerse yourself in what you are doing, and you will be happy,” explains Chitra.

How does she cope with her lows – especially with her soul-mate R.Visweswaran’s passing in 2007? “Viswesh was my best friend and my partner at work. I surely experienced a great vacuum. My guru, Mathaji Vithamma, took me away to her ashram, where she encouraged me to just dance to myself at the altar of the Maha Meru. I simply surrendered there, through my dance. It took several weeks. But I healed,” shares Chitra, adding, “The key to being happy is to stay anchored, stay detached and to love what you do.”

Arun joins us for a while. As he sips his coffee, Chitra tells me: “He can’t speak. He can’t express himself. Surely he has questions. He must be having so many opinions on what’s going on around him and so much to say about himself. Yet, he understands his limitations. He is accepting of them. He’s also very clear about what he wants and what he doesn’t want. And he is content with what he has, the way he is. He is happy.”

That perspective which Chitra has to offer, as a learning from Arun’s Life, sums up why some of us are unhappy or are still ‘searching’ for happiness. Chitra distils that learning further: “The key is to realize that until you learn to count your blessings, you will be unhappy. I am happy the way my Life is. In the time that I have left here, I want to continue to share of myself and of my art, to the best of my ability.”

Few can share Life’s lessons more humbly and gracefully than the way Chitra has. Perhaps such humility and grace comes from choosing to see Life the way it truly is – as an eternal blessing!  

Tell Life: “Aan De – Bring it on!”

The best way to deal with Life is to have the “bring-it-on-I-guess-we-can-handle-this” attitude!

Sometimes, Life can be very unsettling. Just when you have been dealt one blow, a few more punches will be hurled at you. Roll with the punches. There is no other way. If you start asking why, why me or cry foul or scream “hey, gimme me a break!”, you will end up suffering – in addition to having to deal with the pain.

Last evening I was sitting with a friend who knows me and Vaani very well. He was keen to know how things are with us given that our bankruptcy endures and we continue to soldier on. I gave him an update which was really a list of problems, some of them inscrutably complicated and defying any immediate resolution. From the time my friend and I had met last, a few new issues had arrived in our fold. So I said, “I have no complaints. Not anymore. I have learnt to tell Life, ‘bring it on, I guess we can handle it’.” My friend looked at me and said, “Man, things are so tough. Yet you guys make it look so easy!”

I replied, asking, with dead pan seriousness: “Vera Vazhi? Is there any other way to respond to and deal with Life?”

Indeed this is so true – for each of us, in our given Life contexts and situations. You can rave and rant. You can kick and stomp. But Life is not going to get any easier or better just because you are upset with what you have been dealt with. I have come to conclude that the magnitude of the problems you are faced with is directly proportional to Life’s assessment of your ability to face them and endure them. Life is like a gym trainer who is intent on increasing your ability to lift weights on a weekly or monthly basis. Yes, lifting those weights can be tough, painful and impossible at times. But ultimately they build your strength. Once you have endured a quantum of weights you can handle those weights easily. And the more you lift, the better, and stronger, you get.

Your suffering is an outcome of your wishing that your Life is different from what it is. So, instead of simply wishing, tell Life, to use Punjabi slang, “Aan De – Bring it on!” And you will soon realize, like I have, that you can always handle everything that comes your way – no matter how impossible it seems at first! 

Denying the problem does not make it go away

Refusing to look at a problem, or denying its existence, cannot make your Life any simpler.

All what you suffer from comes from what you deny. Facing Life and taking a problem head on is what can make you solve it and live in peace.

But we invariably don’t like to exorcise our demons. We somehow have become comfortable suffering, feeling tormented, preferring to stay debilitated than feeling liberated. Because continuing to be miserable seems far easier than having to work hard to rid ourselves of what makes us miserable!

I met someone recently after a couple of years. He, in his own opinion, was financially ‘very well off’. Yet he found his Life ‘incomplete’. He spent entire days, daily, in a prominent five-star hotel’s bar, literally being there from the time it opened to when it closed! He lamented to me that his wife no longer loved him and all she wanted was ‘his credit card and a certain sum of cash monthly for her shopping sprees’. His 24-year-old son, though married, was not exactly doing anything significant and ‘lived off’ his dad. His daughter was the only one who understood him but their relationship too in recent years had come under stress. She wanted to go overseas for higher studies but he was insistent that she marry now because that was the norm in his ‘community’. He said to me, in a tone reflective of a defeated man, “I have lost it in Life. I have done no wrong. Yet everyone around me has let me down. I am suffering. I wish I could die.”

I laughed at him and looked him in the eye. I told him: “My friend, you are the problem. For, as far as I know you, you have been drinking entire days for years now. You have a drinking problem – spurred by a lack of Purpose in your Life. You have enough and more money. So, because you don’t know how to be useful and productive, you are indulging in something that has already ruined your family Life and is on the verge of consuming you.”

My friend suddenly turned hostile. He ended our meeting and drove away drunk in his car, despite my request and protests to engage a taxi leaving his car behind.

I wish he understood that unless he faced the brutal reality of his Life, he may really be unable to make it any better.

Just as my friend has a problem, each of us has a problem too. All of us like to deny whatever is our problem__ranging from a relationship to a lousy job to a ruinous habit__hoping that time will take care of it! This is one area where no one can help you than you, yourself! 

But facing the truth is scary. How does one see the reality?

Good question. And so, it is with all situations, with all of humanity, with all aspects of Life! Fundamentally, if you know what you want out of your Life, you can go find that Life and recreate, reinvent yourself. But if you don’t know what you want, how can anyone help you? This question is not as profound as many people make it out to be. It is a dumb question. Even a person with low IQ can answer it __ by approaching Life the other way, by knowing, for starters, what you don’t want in your Life! Because the truth is that nobody wants to suffer. Since you don’t want to suffer or be miserable why do anything, or accept any situation that accentuates your suffering?

Remember: There are no two ways in which you can change your current realities or end your suffering! So, if you are feeling miserable about anything__or anyone__in Life, sit down and introspect. Diligently make a list of actions that you must take to end your misery. Resolve to do it. And just get down to doing it. Don’t give yourself the license to make excuses. My good friend Andy Law, maverick creative thinker and head of The Law Firm, says, “Unless you are prepared to give up something valuable you will never be able to truly change at all, because you’ll be forever in the control of things you can’t give up.” What he is reiterating is this: the only way to solve a problem is to first accept that it exists. 

Junk the curse and conspiracy theory – celebrate Life’s magic and beauty!

None of us is cursed. If we count our blessings, no matter what we are facing, Life will be magical and beautiful.

        

A friend wrote to me, in a bout of depression perhaps, that he felt his Life was cursed – he was faced with a lot of hurdles in his business and career. He was hopeful though that eventually things will work out for him. “But it is the waiting that chews you up! That’s when I feel cursed and let down by Life,” he lamented.

I have felt like him before. But over years of waiting, like him, and quite like many of us do, for Life to deliver what I have envisioned, I have learnt that being impatient with Life is of no use. Life is not conspiring to fix you or me. None of us is cursed. Things just happen. Things just are the way they ought to be. It is our wanting our Life to be different from what it is that causes us to imagine that there’s a conspiracy, that we are cursed – this wanting is the root cause of all our suffering too. The best way to respond to Life is to just go with the flow. Drop all expectations. Don’t react to Life. Respond to it with acceptance. This does not mean inaction. This means learning to act with what is than demanding that the situation, the circumstance, the context be different.

Osho, the Master, explains this so beautifully: “Life is a curse if you are not aware.” The awareness he is referring to is about the true nature of Life. Which is that there is no Life any of us has other than what is happening to us in the now, in the moment. It is because we are imprisoned by the past – by guilt, grief and anger over what has happened – or by the future – by worry, anxiety and fear over what we imagine may happen to us – that we miss living in the present moment. When we are living this way we are physically present but we are not aware of nor are we in the moment.

A man was sitting on the beach brooding over his Life – his wife had deserted him and he had lost his job. It was about 4 am in the morning. Morning joggers filled the beach. Soon children, who were vacationing in summer, started to arrive. By 5.30 am, there was lot of activity. Laughter and joyful screams rent the air. But the man was nonplussed – he kept staring blankly at the horizon. He looked lost, sad and beaten. A jogger paused by him to admire the sunrise – it was a magnificent sunrise, a spectacle to behold. The jogger took a deep breath and, to share the moment with the brooding man, more out of courtesy, than with an intention to intrude, exclaimed: “Amazing sunrise, eh?” The man was shaken out of his stupor. He sounded irritable as he barked at the jogger: “What sunrise? Just leave me alone, will you?” Most of us are like that brooding man. And because we constantly keep finding reasons to bark at Life (the jogger’s but a metaphor), we miss its magic and beauty.

To deal with and overcome this mind-made theory of curse and conspiracy, just follow Osho’s prescription – be more aware. Stop and smell the roses, pause and cherish each sunrise and sunset, celebrate the waxing and waning of the moon, and feel the raindrops on your face. Each dinner that you miss with the family, remember, is an opportunity of a lifetime lost. There’s so much that Life’s offering on its menu for you. You will see and experience all of it, only if you are there. Hello, where are you?

Don’t expect fair-play in Life – it was never promised

Life never promised to be fair. So, don’t complain. Just go with what is.

Neelam Krishnamoorthy: Picture Courtesy - Internet

Last week a major news story, which had been engaging much of India for 18 years, made headlines yet again. But like most other stories in today’s hyper-reactive, and insensitive, televised media world, it too appears to have died a sad death. This was the story of the Supreme Court “letting off” the two prime accused for the Uphaar cinema fire tragedy (of 1997 in which 59 people had died in New Delhi), famous builders Sushil and Gopal Ansal (who owned the cinema), with a fine of Rs.60 crore, but without a jail term. Neelam Krishnamoorthy, who lost her two young children in the fire, has been spearheading the legal battle on behalf of all the victims’ families for 18 years now. She broke down on hearing the verdict and said: “I am angry and disappointed. I’ve been let down very badly.” She later told NDTV in a late evening show, “I have not been able to go into my kids’ room. I can’t face them. This is just not fair…” She choked as she spoke and buried her face in her hands.

The pain of Neelam and Shekar Krishnamoorthy, and that of the other families who lost their loved ones in the gruesome tragedy, which was caused by the sheer negligence of the owners of the cinema, is palpable. Most people in India believe that the verdict has not been a fair one. Yet, a verdict is a verdict. And that too it is from the highest court in the land. At best, a review petition may be filed – with no guarantees that the verdict will be revisited, let alone revoked.

So, all that anyone affected by such a consequence can do is to accept what is, live with it and move on. This is not just true and valid for a legal situation where there isn’t an opportunity to appeal any higher. This applies to all contexts in Life too. The simple truth is that Life did not and does not promise any fair-play. To expect Life to be fair, therefore, is sure to cause agony. All that Life does is that it keeps on happening. There are no explanations, no justifications, to what happens in Life. All that we can do is take it as it comes. If we fight Life we will suffer. If we accept Life for what it is, we can’t change what happens to us, we can’t ever avoid pain, but we can certainly do away with the suffering.