What drives us towards success : Our intelligence or vision?

We all must have met many intelligent people till day. These people are branded ''Intelligent'' either by academia or by general public. And, as per general perception these intelligent people are destined to achieve better things than their counterparts. But when they don’t achieve those certain standards then there a room for doubt is created where we feel there is a need to revise our standards of intelligence. I try to discuss this thought in the following discussion.

Recently I was watching this movie ‘’Fight Club”. This snippet forced me to think, four things:

• Should a leader be trusted without an ounce of doubt?
• Does the vision has any correlation with the intelligence?
• What makes a person say that he is a leader or he belongs to a certain group of leaders which makes him command a better sense of achievement and better mental prowess than the follower group?
• What factors are there which makes the reference group better than the counterparts?

Let’s start with the discussion that “What are our basis of our judgment?’’

We generally base our judgments about the person by emphasizing on certain few visible characteristics of him or by using people amongst the subject’s social group as a yardstick. This manner of judgment is suggestive, inconclusive and probabilistic so, let’s try to avoid judge people this way. This kind of judgment does not differentiate between the thought process and the results (whether positive or negative) of these thought processes. So the replication of success is not possible in this scenario, all we are doing is judging someone for the purpose of further incrimination/defamation/several other negative reasons which leads to no value addition in the person’s life. This way of thinking, will leave a person with redundant thoughts which will further act as an anchor and make you sink in a long run rather than advance you in your battle towards success.

Why this kind of differentiation is required at all?

When we build/narrate any success story about an inventor, artist or any successful person in any area or skill, we always emphasize about, what all he achieved in his life (the consequential ends), but we seldom talk about how he achieved the ends. Even when we talk about the ‘How’ part, we talk about the hardships he faced while working towards the consequential objectives. We altogether negate the thought process, the triggers behind the ideas which brought the drive of achievement. The thought process can help a person to emulate the right behaviors and which can further be used as a reference point to guide us to a probable success or at least help us to develop an approach which would propel us towards our goals.

So what is the fundamental problem in our judgmental attitudes?

We continue to base our judgments of goals, aims, success and failures on the materialistic reasons which include the indicators like:

• Wealth accumulated in one’s life
•  Publicity a person enjoys
• The verbosity of the person
• Interest in art and culture
•  Reading habits of an individual
• Spontaneity in the social setups
• Maintaining the public relations
• Resourcefulness of a person in the social and professional setups.

These factors are indicative and visible so we tend to base our judgments on the basis of these factors, but these factors tell us that the person is able to showcase his intelligence. These factors can be faked or emulated for shorter periods of time to portray a point of superiority in certain situations (generally these factors are used to make Marketing pitches and presentations effective) where there is a need to create a WOW!! Factor. For a person who seeks, to enhance the economic and intellectual standards of living, one has to look beyond these mere indicators of success and reach on to the factors which are responsible for these resultant attitudes or behaviors.

So here I raise a question, ‘’What is bigger your intellect or your vision?’’

Let me quote an example here, of one of the most successful businessman Jack Ma, (founder of $ 162.7 billion worth of company, Alibaba.com) who started his career as a lecturer of English and International trade at the University level. In his later years of University career he forayed into an unrelated field, of building websites and gradually by gathering investment and wisdom he formed world’s largest merchant website Alibaba.com. He became a successful entrepreneur and was listed in Fortune’s list of ‘’25 Most Powerful Business people in Asia’’.

Is that just an example of intelligence?  For me Intelligence is just being limited, and doing better than others in a given line of profession and making a bunch of rational choices which his peers would have made had they entered the industry few years earlier than oneself.

This is not an example of sheer intelligence, intelligence could have had been proved just by being a best teacher or by holding a P.hD in Shakesprian/ Immanuel Kant view of thought but, it was a vision of Jack Ma, which made him one of the most successful entrepreneurs of the decade.

Success like Jack Ma needs a little something more than the stereotypical indicators of intelligence. 

He had a little something extra to kick him ahead in the race towards success. He had power to ideate, ability to learn and unlearn, and apply/ exploit the know-how in an effective manner. Another example supporting this argument is from a Harvard trained Economist, ‘’Theodore Levitt’’ who wrote a paper titled ‘’Marketing Myopia’’,(HBR article- On Marketing Myopia) in which he arrives at a similar argument to state this point in market scenario where the conclusion goes like this: ‘’It doesn’t matter how smart, intelligent or well thought your product/ business idea is it will die out one day (Due to competitive environment), unless you don’t have a bigger plan to compete and diversify within an industry as a whole rather than fighting a smaller battle amongst the product leaders of today. That’s nothing but an example proving that vision is bigger than intelligence.

Vision, widens with experience and by keeping your mind open to possibilities. But, intellect is nothing but just a relative complement, like beauty. Definition of Intelligence has changed its meaning through the years but the stress area has always been on, generating matter material results consistently. And all these results should spread across a wide time frame where the sustainability and rigidity of the thought process is tested in diverse scenarios. Under those test conditions only, a thought becomes philosophy and a philosophy then transforms into a decision/judgment.

A last question to ponder upon, “We all are surrounded by intelligent people at our workplaces, but how many of them are the ones which have an idea/opinions which will be worth a dime in near future?” – The ones who have the ability to earn a dime even after stripping off every title and position they have today just with their idea/opinions.These are the people who have started to explore a right thought process.

In the end, I leave you with a thought, "That every inventor and every person who has ever done anything worth to be mentioned in the books of history is not known as an intelligent person but a man with Vision".

Responsibility of thought.

Recently I saw a documentary based on Kabul which was titled as ‘Love crimes’. This documentary majorly focused on propagating the rights of lovers. Let’s dive into this and understand what it was all about. This documentary was about the couples named ‘Yakub’, ‘Sakeena’ and ‘Azhir’, ‘Nauheed’ who were in jail on the charges of moral crimes of doing/making love without a social consent.

Now what are these moral crimes?

The crimes which are related to the breach of the moral standards? In simpler terms, the crime of these couples was that they dared to love in a society where it was prohibited to love on their discretion. One of the couples was imprisoned for 10 years and other one was given a life sentence, but wait it gets worse. At the time when Azhir and Nauheed were caught by authorities, Nauheed was carrying an illegitimate fetus of 3 months.

Lot of questions were raised on this story, many were about the human rights and others were about the freedom of expression and free will to take decisions. But as usual nothing much happened as sharia laws still stood a tall in Afghanistan even after the defeated effort of ‘Uncle Sam’ to liberate her from Taliban. These love crimes are unheard of in our society but really can we say that?

The restriction of having a wed lock in the love marriage kind of an arrangement is no less than these instituted laws. But yes, the difference is that we are not restricted legally, but our societal pressures force us to modify the personal thinking spaces. Which not only modifies the thinking related to love marriage and openness related to it but also modifies the perception of people towards their yet to be life partner. 

This type of *decision making impairs the thinking capacity of a person to choose a person whom they are in love with (or approaching that more logically that the person with whom they are comfortable and can adapt in the natural form rather than manufacturing there behaviors for the sake of getting married into wealthy, and socially upscale families). I don’t comment on this that the whole behavior modification will work for good in the long run but yes certainly the degree of blame transfer will reduce in case of any relationship malfunction or happening of any unforeseen event in the relationship.

*The independence of decision making will keep a person at solace by reassuring the person that the sole reason he is successful/unsuccessful is because of one’s own decision not because of his parents/peers/motivators. This makes him an informed decision maker, but when the right of decision making is taken the person becomes judgment impaired and unhappiness creeps in.

I gave a thought to these moral crimes and moral laws, which were meant to modify the thinking processes of the people and curbing the right to think freely or can say to think in the given nature of stipulated process. The laws in democratic countries like India are not the moral laws, they are in place to modify the actions which are evident and are in tangible nature. They are to increase the justness in the society where the fundamental rights of the citizens needs to be safeguarded. These laws does not take into purview the intangible crimes (Like moral crimes) into consideration, but on lighter note we we have institution of religion and karma in place for intangible crimes.

I am not a fan of moral policing, as it takes away the right to think freely. But just for the sake of an argument let’s think this way. Which situation is better mere action is offensive/criminal or a seed of thought which propagates the offensive/criminal action? And moreover, this can also be a case that the person initiating the action is different than the person who has planted a seed of thought, would your decision change in this situation?

Let’s hold our thought there and continue, with an instance which happened back in 2012 in my native state Punjab.

In Punjab back In 2012 there were series of riots between the workers of ‘Shromani Gurdwara Prabandak Commettie’ (SGPC) and followers of a prominent religious leader ‘Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insaan’ because he offended the former sect by emulating the dressing style of Sikh guru ‘Guru Gobind Singh Ji’ (as in this religion there is strict conduct not to objectify the guru’s and follow only one supreme power i.e. ‘Knowledge of nature and virtue’). 

Back in 2012, there were curfews imposed across Punjab, because of violent happenings which were carried out by the followers.Mostly, it is said that this uprising was guided by the Dera authorities itself. In the period of 10 years this baba has become so popular amongst his followers that this single person is able to polarize the state elections of Punjab and Haryana. People have started to idealize this person, they are ready to sacrifice themselves for upholding this person’s prestige.

So in the fall of 2012, when charge sheets of rioters were submitted in the court, I was surprised to see that there was no charges filed against ‘Baba’. Police couldn’t gather enough evidence to accuse him for the violence. So is this an example of brainwashing people or is a simple criminal intent of a mob mentality? We should keep in mind while taking decision on this that the propagator of all this is the nurturer of the root of this heinous motivation.

Conclusion and Final remarks:

Analyzing this further the majority of the population (target audience) is not well read, and doesn't have a rational mindset and they try to believe and institute there trust on a person who is confident, clear, and conform to the societal truths and practices and survives for the greater good of the society. Firstly, the trust is built up by the well-read and outstanding speakers by using knowledge of surroundings with some splash of imagination and making things new and spicy for people. Slowly people start taking interest and soon after sometime that interest changes into trust where they stop questioning the person’s point of view and adopt the sayings as it is.  Their actions and doings are affected by these teachings and at some level do affect the decision making of these people. It depends on the mentality of the people how seriously they take these things and practice things. But if the people are not matured, to handle the thoughts of ferocity and run out on streets decimating public property whom should be blamed?

It brings back us to the point where we started, what is the responsibility of the thought bearer in this case where the carrier of thought process is much more responsible than the people who are just adopters of the same. Does the onus of implication lies on the person who is imparting this?

But this give rise to the situation where the orator shall be aware of the audience’s mental capabilities which is let alone difficult but impossible. But we believe in the maxim that the individual is responsible for his doings but what is the validity of the free consent in this case, where there is measurable difference in the mental capabilities and exposure (in terms of experiences) of audiences as compared to the orators who is responsible for the entire aftermath actions of the audience pool.

The Great Indian Class Struggle.

I am writing this blog after pondering over an issue which has consumed a lot of thinking space of mine from past few days. This post is about the people who are working for back-end processes and feel that there is something missing in their day to day jobs. I am very new to the private sector just shy of completing 1.5 year in this sector. It’s not been enough time for me to become confidently judgmental, but the following is an estimations made by simple observations. 

I would expand on my observations which can be biased, baseless or painted with my own perceptions, but would try my best to keep out the unaltered versions of truth and talks which I had across dinner tables, on drunk cold nights and in those corporate parties where after people after getting drunk are either dancing or talking about their bosses being bitches.

Let’s start this time by categorizing the kind of people we all have around ourselves in our organizations. I am categorizing them here into four categories:

1.  The Indifferent Tyagi's:  These are the people who are generally the neutral ones on the face of every situation. They don't really have much complaint nor do they talk much about the organizational procedures. 

These people are generally the people who are either working for a bigger cause i.e. self-development, and have an achievement oriented attitude or these are those who don't feel that the organization plays any role in building their career up they themselves are the ones who are building it.

These are people who always are good to go with and continue strive for the performing better. Generally people of this lot are 'Silent Achievers'.

2. The Rampal Yadav's (strugglers): These are the ones which are always toiling with work they are doing they may be doing a menial task but they would continue to wail in the   agony of work and performance pressure. these are generally the people who have either achieved the level/position at which they are earlier than they would have had acquired it (in short they are not able to handle the pressure) or they want believe in that school of thought (not even a thought but a 'Mis-Thought') of 'Third World County's Back-end Processes (TWCBP)' where according to the them a person who is wailing more is the one who is working hard. 

These are probably the most tricky ones to manage, they are the ones who are difficult to trust by the managers as their true capabilities are not known as they try to abstain themselves from the full utilization.

3. The Gyani's: These people are my favorite category, rather than a category these are the off shoots/ are an advanced stage of people of 'The indifferent Tyagi's'. These are those enlightened ones (who are actually better than their manager pool) these are the ones who form the basis of the teams and act as a value enhancers they are given recognition by the juniors but seldom appreciated by the top management because:

3.1.   These are the ones who openly challenge the systems and conventions of conduct.

3.2.   These are the ones who have polarized the similar potential equivalent of themselves in the teams.

To avoid getting overpowered these Gyani's with technically stronger acumen are not easily promoted. One other reason also came out while discussing this category with one of my friends (Having 12 years of Experience in IT consulting) is that these are the people who over perform and their productivity is high these persons if promoted are hard to replace and probably the replacement can't be met in the quality of the resource so, it would be compensated by the number of resources and that will directly impact the profitability. And, moreover what the guarantees are that this resource will be loyal to organization for long enough to serve his promotional purpose. So, these employees work hard to get the promotions but being outspoken they have only one choice either to switch the organization or change the line of thought. The latter one is hardest so generally they go for a switch.

4. The Middle Class of TWCBP: These are the employees who are generally moderate performers and their managerial skills are not very efficient. This lot, needs guidance at times and seeks for approvals. These are the ones who adhere the strict hierarchical culture of the organizations and do not cross their lines of authority. They try to prove their knowledge and skill in every seldom chance they get (but only at times when they are asked for it). 

These ones are proud in nature and admire the Gyani's but silently abhor them for their views.This lot is the one which is best suited for mid-managerial level promotions. They are often given promotions up to the middle level managerial positions as they are good Goofies to be kept and will stick to the decisions of the managerial strata without questions. 

This lot takes the vision and values of company more seriously than the client relationships. As a result in the Capitalist setup of corporate these Socialist's win sympathy votes. I don't want to demean this lot, but this lot is the one, for whom I am not able to foresee a position in the real world, outside corporate offices. They are characterized by their hoity-toity attitudes which can hardly be substantiated in any kind of fulfilling experience, other than slogging at work.  Many of these after 7-8 years in their job profiles, when asked about the nature and quality of their jobs they do? The typical replies are like this "I know my job is not a good one and I don't really feel like that I know anything other than what I have learnt in past few years" this is a typical attitude which will make your careers stagnant long run.Because of this the acceptability in the market becomes low and the person is restricted to a small area of specialization.

                                   

                   (Why you will fail to have a great career | Larry Smith | TEDxUW)

Conclusions and questions yet to be answered:

So these were the types of people whom I have come across. This is an entire picture which I was able to build up of TWCBP's basically everyone in the midst of chaotic curry of client satisfaction is struggling hard to break the shackles of the social class in which one was born. Yes, undoubtedly people do had been successful in attaining the better social status and improved their standard of living but at what cost? I fail to answer this question.

 People here in BP's do have skill but they are trained like an assembly line worker who only knows a bit of his job and doesn't know a whole process from start to end. This is a sole reason because of which these services have a high attrition rate, low employee satisfaction. These employees are well trained but not skilled in their craft because purview of their work is very narrow. So for you out there in the TWCBP the career sustainability is a big question. This sector hasn't yet seen the first generation of retirees and moreover this class is like a footloose labor (Footloose or fractured work identity) who is seldom able to make their own piece of real estate in tier-1 cities these questions again raise a mark on the sustainability of the idea.  

 Will this person be able to sustain his class where he has settled in for now, after 30 years of service as the rate at which this sector is growing and the rate at which the facilities for the non-working population is growing is not in line with each other? Questions have not been resolved for me till now but each day I am talking to people and knowing things but still it is a start of an exploration but wouldn't comment on it how it is going but it is somewhat a hilarious experience. Let’s keep that aside for another blog.

This was a summary of thought process of mine till date. I invite further views and thoughts on this please feel free to write them in comments section.

Tiger's Lunch.

“D.Rajkumar” was the first thing I noticed on the waiter’s breastplate when I called him to my table for ordering the desert. And don’t forget this is five star dining hall of one of the leading clubs of India. Rajkumar coming to my table with the menu, when somebody called out his name in a harsh, authoritative tone. The sombre expressions of Rajkumar changed from a formal smile to a serious frown he turns towards the voice mustering every inch of courage in him and walked towards the table from where the tiger had growled. I was sitting there at my table and eyeing my menu while keeping an eye on the events happening on the table next to mine. There was an actual tiger there it’s not a metaphor he was the Colonel Sachdeva a stern tough and disciplined man of the Indian Army decorated with bravery awards and several regiment based honors standing tall on the side of his table and goggling him with an eye of contempt and as soon as “D” reached there. Sachdeva told him very calmly with a serious tone “CALL YOUR MANAGER” he gave little hunch and a brief bow and turned gracefully and walked hurriedly to call his manager. And shortly, a man clad in a suit and bow tie was standing there at the table, giving a wry smile and asked in a very soft tone “Yes sir”. Everybody on Tiger’s table turned their eyes towards tiger and then towards the manager. The next dialogue between was the most awaited one for everyone but on the contrary no dialogue was exchanged, there was a simple gesture of the graying Tiger towards his table and pointed towards the plates and asked manager is IS THIS THE SERVICE I GET FROM THE BEST?

I am sorry sir but I don’t get the point.

I don’t have cutlery on my table and when I gave my order to the waiter and asked him what is Masala Vanakya he told me sir, "It’s the same mentioned in the menu" and I had to call him each time I have to order, where is the discipline and decorum of the place shall I have to report to “Kedhar Manglam” I later came to know after asking “D” was the president of the club and was one of the fast friends of Tiger. There was a long bout of talks and accusations by tiger and finally matter was settled by an apology from "D". After this episode everyone got back to their places and occupied there places and a waiter was appointed on the side of Sachdeva’s table to take down the orders and the second one was given task to complete the orders and the third one was entrusted with the responsibility of the supervision of the other two.

Later the “D” came to my table where I was waiting eagerly to see “D” and his complicated reactions reflecting the conflicts of his job's tradition of smiling and personal dilemma of sorrow that will he be able to keep his job or not. But against all odds, he came back to my table smiling and asking in a same emollient tone and apologized for being caught up and got late for fulfilling my order I told him its okay and sent him away with my order of Mud Apple Soufflé he greeted me with smile and completed the order under a minute’s time and asked me to put a good word for him with a manager. The army decorum of mine didn't allowed me to smile at him because of his inefficiency in following commands. I just gave a nod of head to him and thanked for his service for today and told him to bring my bill. Shortly he brought the bill and adjusted my charged amount to my membership card and brought me the card back. In the meantime tiger’s family was having lunch peacefully and enjoying their royal bites of soufflé’s. My lunch ended this time with a story to tell and this story wasn't very pleasant to tell from a civilian point of view but here in army you are told to go by the rules otherwise you take down many things down along with oneself.

Lilah's Virtual Graffiti.

"Eh Lilah, eh....eh Lilah" someone on the bar counter said in loud voice, which was near to a scream. Bright lights of yellow, blue and red color were bouncing off and on the surfaces. People were standing on the bar counter Lilah herself couldn't see clearly who was calling out her name. Suddenly a hand from the crowd grabs her wrist tightly and yanked her towards a bald person; he pulled her towards his mouth. Lilah's expression dramatically changed from a smile to disgust, she could smell heavy stench of Country made liquor on him, and the camera was placed in such a way that I could observe each and every movement and expression of Lilah. She tried to free herself from the bald eagle's hold but her bony stature didn't gave her strength to make herself free from the bald man.

Seeing herself helpless she asked the guy "What do ya want?" to which he didn’t replied at once, he waited for few seconds and kept her leaned on the bar counter suddenly he pulled her closer and kissed on her lips, she again gave a defeated effort to free herself and tried to yank his hand away but all seemed to be futile now. In all this commotion, bottle of Country was knocked off from the counter. Every movement between the two of them stopped for a minuscule second and he let her go off the grip. She retracted back to a safe distance and tried to gauge what will happen now? In the meantime the guy picked up a salt cellar from the counter and threw towards, Lilah but his condition didn't allowed him to be precise like an eagle, the bottle flew in the mirrors behind the counter and there was loud tinkering of glass slabs on which once liquor bottles were resting. Everything went silent the music stopped but...the lights continued to bounce off the surfaces but they were now more murkier and obscure on the counter. I was not able to see the guy for few seconds there were many people crowding in front of the counter and all the commotion made me rise up from my chair and i tried to see by getting close to my screen but nothing was clear. I activated a different camera which I had on the roof of counter which gave me the view of the bottle rack which was directly behind the place where Lilah was standing and where all the commotion was happening. I checked my camera what all I could see was bald man, being dragged to the back door and was shouting Lilah, Lilah.....How much do you charge??? Just for once Lilah.....Lilah....don't let them take me away...!! the back door opened and closed with the silent thud and in an instant bouncers were back to their place near the dark corners of the bar and stood with their back against the red walls of the bar.....the music started again and lazily the lights started bouncing again from the pale red and yellow walls of the esoteric darkness mixed with smoke. Again people lazily started to move to the tunes of Bollywood songs on strong and shrill sounds of music. Everything resumed to normal as if nothing has happened Lilah was standing there on the bar counter observing the psychedelic chaos, she usually used to work late night but that night was different there was someone to cover her shift today-Manoj, Manoj was there today to cover up for her. He used to live near the bar in the slums. He was doing double shift today for Lilah and it was not for the first time he had been doing a favor to her.

The camera is focused on the bar counter, where Lilah was getting rid of her dirty apron and greeting Manoj with a smile, directly looking him in his eyes but they were bland of any kind of expressions, but Manoj had a glint of joy in his ones when he saw Lilah greeting her. Upon seeing him she immediately dropped her graze and made herself busy in untying her apron and again looked up again to see Manoj across the counter giving a familiar smile with his crooked lips. She saw him again and thanked him for the favor he was giving her. He budged in between and told her to stop thanking him and made her leave early by waving a goodbye, he started tying his apron and was still staring the door after she had gone out of it as if he's still picturing her somewhere near the door. He started working on the orders and still smiling at the last fresh memories of Lilah. In the meantime he was busy gathering the shards of glass from bar counter in short while he resumed his work and started taking the orders.

Back at chawl Lilah entered her room which is scarcely decorated in a modest fashion, she went in bathroom and splashed water on her face. Her eyes were red and hands were trembling, she tried to rub soap on her face and rubbed the lather vigorously, she tried her best to get rid of any left smear of smudged lipstick and residues of the past night. I picture her in the bed then, she had a single bed in the corner of the room and which was aligned to the wall she had her face towards the wall and staring in the void of darkness. She was curled up in a ball silently with the wall. The camera's focus goes off and the lights dim and darkness is all around. There are just low muffling glutted sounds of the Lilah from corner of the room. she was thinking about the last the similar incidents of firsts of the first times she had a thrashing from her father at the age of 18 for coming home late from school and for the first time she came to "The City of Dreams" and she had to sleep on railway platform when her uncle didn't picked her up from the station, while he was drenched in the salt water lying there on the beach and brain drenched in brownish liquid of eternity, her first day on work when she saw girls being objectified on the dance floors of the bar. Everything was still fresh in her mind as if it have had happened in the recent past it’s been a year now that she was in this city but every day was still anew to her. With every past day, her dilemma grew where, She still didn't knew whether to be intrigued or reject the thought of hers to be present there. She turned in her bed and started staring in to void of darkness. She ruffled her pillow and made her fluffy and tried lay her head on it and gave another futile effort to sleep but soon after these bouts with sleep she gave in tried to put a flank with the Avil pills. She took the pills from the drawer of the dressing table and  pulled out 4 tablets, popped in her mouth and swallowed them through her dry throat but she was unable to that and immediately the gag reflex kicked in and they out there again on her tongue making a sour gooey paste she immediately ran to the kitchen and drank water directly from the tap. She kept her head on the slab and tried to rest a bit, her heart beat normalized and she started to relax. Soon things turned dingy and memories turned into soggy images. At last things ended for that night there and then with those four pills on the kitchen floor of chawl.

Next day camera turns on again detecting some movement in the kitchen, she wakes up with a head ache in the wee hours of noon and tries to think what all happened yester night the memories were hazy and confusing but she came to senses and slowly memories starts receding like released water from a floodgate. The first person came to her mind in these scrambled chain of thoughts was the guy in a blue Larsen and Tubro uniform shirt who was one of the regulars of Lilah's customers. Something was odd, this guy, he was one like regular customers who tried to hit on Lilah once or twice or at least tried to touch her in one way or other but, this guy never really did anything with her. He hardly ever talked to her other than giving order for drinks and a smile to greet her and intermittent thank you's for his orders he was nice to her always and never took any step make her uncomfortable. She used to sit with this guy whenever he requested her to share drinks with her and all those time when he used to sit with her there was silence between them. They used to just sit there and see the colorful lights dancing on the tattered walls of the bar. Except the times when he had bout of fights with his wife when he used to tell Lilah each and everything what happened and why she lashed up on him. Lilah was like a shadow of him to who, he could talk everything without having a fear of getting judged. She also was mesmerized by the words he used to choose to tell her things which were too refined for her and sounded as if someone is reading poetry to her. She sits there silently and listens to him and gave responses at intermittent intervals. There was sorrow in his eyes, unfulfilled desire of acceptability was kindling somewhere in him which made his eyes go wander at people in the bar as if he's trying to find some object of satisfaction. The only times he had smile on his face and sounded soulful was when he talked about his kids who were still young, and studying in school. He used to tell her proudly there latest achievements at school and told her about how they used to play together when they were younger but soon the his thoughts turn gloomy and he stops speaking about kids she used to wonder why?But she never dared to ask him, she thought it was better leave him there on the good thoughts to make him drink less, so she could spend some more minutes with him. She too had a dream someday that she would have some of her own but now in her midlife crisis she was still holding time and her dreams in different hands and they both were evaporating like a spirit and leaving things cold on the surface. With this guy’s narrations she was living an illusory life of her own. It was not that she had fallen for this guy it was just the aspiration of hers to acquire the life which he had. 

For Lilah, it was hard to think of that she will be having any dreams after what had happened to her a year back. The gusts of sand were settling down now each day things were getting clearer, goals were becoming decipherable. In midst of all the turmoil Manoj was lost somewhere in the folds of imaginative corners of gloomy thoughts, he was just an ordinary being existing in her world sustaining on the discretion of “The Bar” away from the transient lights behind the counter.

My Veiled Shack.

Lost in the transitions of life and chaos of the saw dust and concrete powder, sludge, sweat and iron bars I sit here in amidst of all this in the corner of this dingy dark room with hole in its roof which is shared by light and air to come in but I am still not sure after spending one year here in this room whether the things which come in here goes out or not because everything becomes still and numb when I come here.

I am Kristine Sharma, you may be thinking about my name…that’s a question I get usually from people as I come from a Brahman family and this name is an unusual one and as my name is unusual the story behind is as usual as it can be. My mother used to work as a maid for a college professor back when we used to live in Bihar and I was a young kid when he suggested a name for me “Kristen” which was a name of a star in a sitcom popular in those days which he used to like. So out of gratitude to the doctor she kept my name Kristen and I was left with a catchy name for my life. Me and my classmates could not even pronounce my name correctly they used call me “Cirstan”. It was after my fifth birthday when I came to know the correct pronunciation of my name from another employer of my mother who was a person who used to build buildings and he frequently corrected my speech and taught me the phonetics of English words.  I was happy to learn something new but it didn't lasted long soon she left her job to relocate to new city which she was attracted to for a long time- the city was Mumbai. It was my father’s new job which took us there it was a role of a construction worker which took us from Bihar to Mumbai. At the age of 7, I was in this vast city of dreams and chaos; it was entirely a different universe for me where I was just minuscule part of it.

I lost the sense of size and magnanimity of inanimate feelings as the things happening around me were pretty big and magnanimous. The change was too radical for a person coming from a small town of Bihar. Everything in this city was in excess; cars, motors, people and buildings everything. I had instantaneously fallen in love with the tall buildings of Mumbai I could see them for hours and hours together and smile at them admiring the gigantic builds. And moreover the building on which my father was working on was one of those big and high rise buildings. My evenings after school used to spent on the unfinished floors of the buildings playing around and sometimes swinging my legs in air from the 25^th floor. I loved the air in my hairs and on my face it used to take me in an alternate reality away from my dingy room and gloomy thoughts in it. 

I used to sit there for hours together and try practicing the phonetic lessons of builder guy. I couldn't practice it down in my room as I was already famous and teased for my foreign name an over the top if I would pronounce words like a foreigner , people around me would have laughed at me. I already had stopped going for playing as children of my age used to tease me by twisting my name around and making fun of me. I used to stay back at dungy room and help mother out to prepare porridge and keep home-based liquor drinking place up and running. Yes I forgot to tell you we had a small side-business of ours own which my father and mother used to run which was a small drinking place inside our shack, in the morning it used to serve as a kitchen with a removable stove and utensils and at night it used to serve as a sitting area for fellow laborers, bright colored curtains would go up and decorate the aluminum walls and television used to tuned at Chitrahar (an Indian music program). I could listen clearly from the thin curtains as I was not allowed to cross the curtain in the evening time, I would listen people talking about their sex lives and talking about their accomplishments of fucking whores from different states across India the person having highest number of count would be the one talking the most for that group, sometimes I used to listen some of the men speaking some of the poems and songs which were the ones they heard in some movie or they heard while travelling in buses. Sometimes I would listen loud quarrels which were very common, people used to beat each other up on petty issues but next day again they would bond with each other as if nothing would have had happened the previous night.  Usually when these quarrels would happen , my father used to escort me and my pregnant mom outside the shack and stop inside to stop the fight, sometimes he used to succeed sometimes he used to get thrashing for getting in the middle of a fight. And for those times our drinking place remained shut down and it would open again after a week or so, again things would start functioning smoothly. We were under constant threat of police raids of unauthorized drinking place but we used to have an arrangement with the people living in the outer lane near the boundary wall to raise an alarm if any cops tried to approach our shack which was unlikely to happen till last month,until one of our neighbors reported our side business. And as a result father had to be in lock up for two days and we had to pay three grands to the cops to get him out. Things proceeded on and after a brief stay and on persistent requests of fellow laborers father opened the shack for people  to come in and have last drink of the day which was roughly after about a month when all that happened.

I used to miss all the chaos in the shack for a month when our shack was closed to people, I used to miss Rathore uncle’s poetry, Prasad uncle’s travel stories, and nonetheless Pratham uncle’s adventure stories which all knew were incidents from Hindi movies where he used to replace actors with himself, but then also people used to love his stories and so did I. Once again our shack got lightened up with jovial tranquil moods of fellowmen I again started to enjoy the conversations and moods of all the ones there behind the curtain. I used to imagine myself time and again on the other side of curtain where I could have shared the stories of my life, but the matter of question  was that I didn't had any of those stories of my own neither do I used to watch movies like Pratham uncle . I just used to sit there beside the curtain staring at the wall and listening intently to what everyone was talking about and responding to them with laughter or raising eyebrows to respond to the fascination. Still people couldn't speak my name correctly but I had got accustomed to be called “Cirstan”, I have stopped correcting people but I have kept my self-training on, and these days I am also learning how to write in English I do miss my village back in Bihar but memories of the dusty lanes are fading away in the smoke of my shack, they have taken refuge in a corner of the shack somewhere behind the curtain where I can only feel them for momentary periods but can’t experience them.

 I don’t know whether losing me in the shack is a right thing or not but the shack, the 25^th floor’s breeze and this magnanimous city is giving me enough space to grow. I will keep on staring on the bright curtains for a long time and try to build some stories of my own with what all I have in my life.

My 78th Year of Maturity.

I am 78 years old retired north Indian , to be specific a Punjabi if you are interested in knowing my ethnicity may be that will help you better understand about me and my family. I am proud matured boy, proud of my achievements in my life proud of the kind of kids I have made them and proud too about my grandkids what they are in this mortal world. And yes to make a note I like to call myself a matured boy as I believe that immortal objects grow old and worn out people become experienced biased and irrational when they grow matured. Huh….and yet we call everything a part of that process as maturity……..one of the reason of these terms coined for people in age group like Buddha, Dokra, Budaa, Bujurag (all Hindi terms for denoting an elderly person though not very respectful) are to make elderly people an epitome of faith respect or to make them feel belittle, brittle and weak I still try to struggle with the real intrinsic meaning of these words.

I have a happy family of mine which is kind of a half joint family because one of my son lives in another part of the state as he is working there and living there with family. And the younger one lives with me here in our 1000 sq. ft. house along with the family. Yes, it was important to mention the size of the house in which I live, because it is one of the things amongst others for which I am proud of. I come from not a very financially privileged family .My father played a small part of Subedar in the Burma war while being in the British Army. He seldom use to come home may be once every 3 or 4 years. And we use to sit around and hear the stories of war which he use to share with everyone he used to meet in village while he stayed with us. I don’t remember having any father figure in my life for first 14 years in my life all I had in name of father was a person dressed in loose and tattered suits doing all the household chores, milking cows and selling milk to the neighbours, was my mother which I used to call BIBI (a respectful word used for women which I learnt in my Arabic class). I was taught in government schools where I felt in love with the calligraphically attractive Urdu and Persian in the very formative years for this love I sacrificed a lot on the personal front let go off my needs to acquire more of the former. Later this love with words would become my trade, but that part comes later before that I complete my school which in those days meant to clear standard 10th exams. After which one either has to go to city or Lahore if by chance you are lucky enough to get admission in the Lahore College of Arts. But I was not prepared yet to do that as I told you earlier about my father’s participation in the family affairs was near to negligible, I wouldn’t completely give all the credit to my father there were other contributors to this delay which I forgot to tell you that I also had 3 younger siblings in my house out whom one was girl, the youngest one. And on top of all the major reason of discontinued studies was the money orders from Burma had started thinning and becoming erratic. The reason of which I would come to know later when Bapu returned after getting discharged from the Royal service that he had started taking opium for his spinal pains form the time when he got a bullet wound in his lower spinal region while being on front. But one thing I notice years later while giving him a back massage with a special oil from Hakim’s that he never had any wound on his back ,his back was as smooth as a newly mud plastered pot. Which started as an excuse for medicine later on continued till he died in his bed at night which was around 55 years after I called him Bapu (father or dad). I still think that there were some unsaid things between me and Bapu I used to see despair and disappointment in his eyes when he used to see me working with my mother for earning money. And he used to be there on the bed lying on his back thinking of something I don’t know what? May be he thinks what I should do with my life what I should do with my children’s life to make it better or may be these are thoughts of head my head, which were resonating in my mind to make my family’s life better. A year later everything would come clear when my father called and asked me that would like to run a business with me? I thought for a while I was in dilemma whether he is giving me a business idea so that I would work on it or he is trying to seek my approval, the power of giving my approval would must have attributed to my current role in the family. But whatever the thoughts at that time were doesn’t matter because saying yes to that was only option I had got at that time. So later on till the following year I was proud of first thing that was me and my dad’s thriving business of small retail general store which was the only one in the entire area. The same year my father called me once again asked me by taking my name, what do you want to become in your life son?

To which I didn’t replied at first but the patience of this man was like a sheep…….so after a long pause there was no option I had to speak…..

I wanted to pursue studies further by going out of the village to some city or to Lahore. I wanted to become a writer and write about things.

So why don’t you?

Because Bapu we have got a business to handle house to take care off, there are 3 other who need much more than I.

You don’t worry son now I am here I will take care of all this you go and fulfil your dreams.

I was afraid to look up on his face, I didn’t knew what his expression of responsibility would look like.

So I didn’t looked up sat there for a while silently and stared the ant on the mud floor trying to infer where that ant was going and why it is moving so fast what’s it trying to find?

Later on several days will pass since we talked I have lost the time frame, please forgive me of my matureness. But the day came soon when I applied for the Lahore College of Arts and got admission due to my credentials. Later on 6 years will pass until I return home after finishing Master of Arts in Persian and Urdu language. After 4 years of returning home I started feeling discontentment form my teaching life, I felt my dreams are bigger, my stories were longer, and my words were refined for the government school students. I needed to breath for a while, I wanted to explore for a while so I planned to go to city to hunt for a better job in a newly opened university. But there was condition form Bibi that I will only let you go if you marry a girl who according to her keep me accompanied and would take care of me in the big life of city. So as the custom demanded I couldn’t say no to elders. So I was wedded, on 20 Jan of 1948 to a much younger girl who I knew from Bibi was named ‘Satoo’. I didn’t even had a look of her face before getting married everything was fixed by Satoo’s elder brother and Bibi’s elder brother. I was sitting in my wedding clueless, as in those days we used not to have so many options of interaction with opposite sex or a luxury of Court ship period. So I and Satoo came to the City where we stayed at Gurudwara’s inn for two days. During which I had to walk to the university campus to enquire about my application of candidature. On third day I finally got my letter of recruitment which was not much of a surprise because other people for the post of Lecturer were not aptly qualified for the post, whereas I was being considered as an overqualified candidate for the job……



My family has multiplied like amoeba from the time we have shifted to city, we have shown a year on year growth of 100%. In three years I had three kids. And they were growing at a rapid rate away from the village’s life of hard work here, they were in city enjoying what I didn’t the prime of life: Youth. I didn’t looked back for few years though tried keeping contact to parents via letters and for special times in last three years I used Telegrams which they told me that they flaunted in the village I think they were more happy receiving the telegram than the subject matter of it. I used to tell them frequently to come and stay here in city with me and Satoo but every time I received a reply “not now”. Later on after around 10 years I asked Bibi and Bapu to come again and they agreed too. It was big change in our life we thought so but one thing we didn’t knew why the sudden change of mind happened ,which on their arrival I got to know. My mother was suffering from a rare neural problem which at that time I didn’t knew what is called? But 8 years from then I would found out from a doctor at the newly opened dispensary at campus that the problem is called Parkinson’s syndrome but I didn’t felt regret of losing my mother to some unknown disease because he also told me that this syndrome is irreversible. University quarters were small and large enough to house three adults, now where 4 adults and three children were getting older in an exponential manner. Soon after parents came to the city I started looking for a bigger place to stay after a month or so we shifted to a rented accommodation which was little away from campus I had to travel by local bus to reach campus but new place was much more airy and had enough room all 7 of us. Few years would now pass I don’t know exactly how much but a significant period of time when I got a loan sanctioned Rs. 8,000 from university to acquire land and build house on 1000 sq. ft. area. By that time my eldest son would be studying Masters of Arts and younger would be completing his graduation in a regional college and after sometime would have gone by and then my youngest kid (Daughter), would have been married to the business man of another city much bigger than ours.

My family was living a happy life in our new house which took around three and a half years to complete, by that time my elder son would be married and shifted to another part of the state as he will be working there and living with his family till he retires from the present job. In the meantime the year is 1970 when my younger son married off to the love of his life. I and Satoo were a little sceptical of the idea of love marriage at first but then one of my friend while discussing my dilemma brought my degrees and prestigious job in between my decision so I had to take less taken road of those times. Within 6 years of both my son’s marriage we had a typical thriving Indian family with two children each and their fathers holding good paying jobs which ensured the best life for their off-springs. My third source of proud: my well settled sons.

Soon after my retirement I started feeling aged and wrinkly. Now when I see myself in mirror I touch my skin near to the eyes there I could see pockets of fat and wrinkles……….I think I am turning Budha now and soon younger people would start calling me by all those different names which were meant for the frail old people. I tried to delay those days by working endlessly in my personal library on writing novels, stories, and poems. I also used to attend some conferences on linguistics, which helped me to be in touch of younger people.

As I told earlier about my third proud, they are my proud because of the care and reverence they give to me and Satoo. They are worried of any minor health issue or some minor fever which we knew is not going to turn into pneumonia or typhoid. I have everything one would ask for in his life.

Living in a country like India it’s surprising that people of relatively younger ages know so less about matured people. There is stereotype that all elderly people have a hearing problem, they have problem in communication as they think we can’t put what all we feel, in a line or expressible sentence even if one would have spent an entire lifetime putting feelings, characters and rhymes in formations. You have to spell out your last held position at doctor’s office if you have gone for general check-up because he is extremely polite or putting it this that he is way more polite than he would be to his own father just because you are treated as a patient even if you are just a matured person. I don’t know what all I would be learning form my years of maturity, may be this age will be able to give me another source of proud or my days pride will come to an end at count of three?