A Promise, Just for Today

Why is it so hard to keep the promises one makes to oneself? 

I think it comes from the way girls are raised in patriarchal cultures: to adjust, to yield, to step back, to give in, to give up, to efface themselves, to set aside their dreams, to minimize their needs, to not be while being. In the most liberal households, we still learn to tiptoe around men. Around others, really. We mould our days around others.

We are not meant to matter. Not to others. Not to ourselves. 

Sensitive to the slightest shift around us, we abandon the promises we may have made to ourselves. That cup of tea after everyone has left the house. The everyday yoga or meditation routine. The promise to write. Something. Anything. Just to know we are still alive. 

As we grow older, we are lost in the debris of the promises we have made to ourselves and broken, the detritus of our abandoned dreams. 

Reiki practice begins with affirmations that repeat the phrase, "Just for today. " This is a promise we can keep--just for today. Not for weeks. Not for years. Not forever. Just for today, at this moment, I will give myself the gift of.... whatever it is I want or need. 

 

And that one instance is so much easier to pull off, start to finish. One promise, one task, one workout, one sketch, one blogpost... fills you with satisfaction, accomplishment and confidence that if you want, you can do this all over again. And again. Just for once, each time. 

The warm-up post and the sabbatical

(This should be sub-titled: What you can write because no one is reading!)

It is far easier to think up a blog project or blogpact than to keep up the writing. Obviously. Writing for one's own blog is like exercising--it only really is for oneself, so how important can it possibly be? If you don't do it, no one cares. A couple of people may care that you don't exercise but that you are not writing--absolutely no one cares.

To me, not writing is like losing sight of a lifeline in a large ocean of infinite responsibility and duty. This is about the only thing I do that is for me. Everything else I do because I am supposed to, because it is an obligation, because it is my responsibility, because it is my duty. If I don't, who will. But with writing, if I don't, who cares? Well, I do. And this is the one thing I really try to keep up in order to remember that I am alive.

But the press of those responsibilities and the growing limitations of my body mean that if I miss a certain window in the day, I simply cannot make the time to write. The demands of the day have consumed me whole.

More frightening is to discover when you do fight your way through the jungle of everyone's needs and sit down to write, only to find you have not a thought in your head. You are so weary that every thought or idea has been sucked out, feels stale... you are not really living but simply putting one foot before the other, minute to minute.

And so yesterday, I dragged my body to an event, praying fervently that my mind would keep up. It managed. But I was struck by how difficult it all felt and started talking about taking a break. It feels do-or-die at this point. But I cannot go away, and unless I do, I cannot detach from all the demands--the one urgent question that becomes a one-hour discussion, the cheques that I must sign--the document that must be read... I am stuck.

But I must find a way to truly detach, especially from the work of the NGO, which is now becoming unbearably overwhelming. My great failure is not to be able to walk away at ten, not because I don't want to but because I have not raised enough money to hire enough full-time staff with a professional leader that can manage everything.

So the challenge this morning is not just to catch up on those SIX blogposts I should have written on schedule, but also to find a way to come unstuck and free myself so I can do the things that will help me reclaim my time and space for work that I love.

What Gandhiji, Dev Anand and Vikram Sarabhai have in common

I have read three biographies in the last twelve months, choosing to do so with great enthusiasm either for the author or the subject or both. Last night, as I made my way through the third, I was struck by the similarity between these remarkable individuals, however unlikely it seems when I list their names: Gandhiji, Dev Anand and Vikram Sarabhai.

Gandhiji


Gandhiji is a fixture of any Indian child's early history lessons, an impossibly moral figure who cannot be real, a sculpture often overlooked in our city-scapes, a road which is often the 'main street' of our urban centres... anything but a person who lived, thought, felt, struggled as we did. This, in spite of the fact that he wrote copiously, candidly and compulsively about his life, thoughts and 'experiments with truth.'


Rajmohan Gandhi's account of Gandhiji's life and times brought home to me a person who was heroic mostly because he was trying and so honestly. I was moved by his transparent uncertainty, his need to be true to oneself and others, and his ability to reconcile life with ideal and do so without compromising the latter. I am awed by his ability to treat small and big things (by my definition) on the same plane: a household/prison/ashram routine, remembering details about individuals around him, projects that reflected his individual predilections (from naturopathy to brahmacharya) and visions that embraced humanity (satyagraha and independence). Not for him what is so easy for me to do: I cannot finish this chore today because I have a paper to write; I cannot exercise because I have to think about conflict resolution.


Dev Anand

Dev Anand. I cannot type this name without smiling; can you read it without smiling?


Dev Anand has epitomized charm for me since long before I thought about 'charm' or knew the word 'epitomize.' As he sashayed through town and country, wearing baggy pants and open smile, a beautiful SD Burman or Jaidev song on his lips, building houses and solving mysteries and facing moral dilemmas, I thought, they don't make real people like this! And even when the orange scarf came to stay and his face and mannerisms aged (it hurts to write this) while his spirit did not, I thought, they still don't make people like this! A few years ago, he was on 'Walk the Talk' and his energy was as infectious as his smile and his charm had been. I discovered another layer of Dev Anand-ness that I could really, really admire.


Dev Anand announced then that he was writing his memoirs and I waited for them like his countless other fans. He said he would launch them on his birthday (September 26) last year, and I ran to the bookstore on the very day. But how ironic! For this is a person who wrote about his past with the impatience of something speedier than Shinkansen (the Japanese bullet-train) and pronounced in his promotional interviews that he never listened to any of his old songs. Excerpts dwelt on his love-life, as does he in the manner of a stock-taking exercise. But this is not what is interesting about him. This is not why I think he is just phenomenal.


Dev Anand's autobiography impresses upon you his optimism, his self-confidence and his need to keep moving. He is sure we love him (of course!); he is sure his creativity is boundless (and it is!) and he has too much to do to conduct post-mortems on anything: movies, relationships, anything at all. I read the tome virtually non-stop, finishing it in two night-sessions. The writing style is unmistakably colonial university and there are stretches that are tedious for even those who do love him, but the compulsion to keep moving is irresistible and finally, that drives the reading process as well.



Vikram Sarabhai

And then, Vikram Sarabhai, as depicted by my contemporary at Elphinstone, Amrita Shah. Sarabhai was not someone I knew much about, but this looked like an interestingly written biography, fluently balancing the individual's story with that of his times. If I had to analyze my motivation for buying this, it would be partly that Amrita wrote this and Amrita writes well, and partly that biographies of this sort are still unusual in India.


Having never given Dr. Sarabhai any thought, I did not expect to find myself reading the story of a visionary, an institution-builder and a team-builder. As I read her account, I found myself thinking, 'Wow! Could I be like that?' I envied him his confidence and hoped there were things about him that I could identify with. The story of small beginnings to major institutions, the chutzpah to just go out and ask for what you need, the ability to take no for an answer and most importantly, the charisma and energy to draw talent to one's vision and the self-confidence to nurture another's genius--are all inspiring to one who is setting up a space of her own, with far fewer resources.

The commonalities


As I read Amrita's book, I found myself reflecting that in one year, I had been drawn to read three life-stories that have certain elements in common. Gandhiji, Dev Anand and Dr. Sarabhai were all raised in comfortable-to-affluent homes, but each in their own sphere of work was starting afresh. They were not without support, but it cannot have been easy to predict the way things would turn out for each of them. All three showed an unusual measure of self-confidence, whether because of temperament, a prediction or because they were to the manner born. However, that kind of confidence can also make a person stagnate and this happened with none of them. They chose their line of work, they followed their conscience/creativity/curiosity and they took chances.

All three individuals are high achievers but because their own success and achievement became by-products rather than their singular objective, they were able to create legacies that will survive them by generations.

In Gandhiji's case, arguably, we are that legacy, each of us Indians. In Dev Anand's case, it is a tremendous body of work, hits or flops, in Indian cinema which we will enjoy and analyze for years. In Dr. Sarabhai's case, that legacy is a network of enterprises and institutions that have been benchmark centres of excellence.


All three individuals began right where they stood. They did not wait for another life, another stage, another moment. Gandhiji's political career began when he found himself in a situation that needed a neutral arbiter soon after he arrived in South Africa. He did not ask: is this the moment, am I the right person? He just did what was needed to be done. Dev Anand did the rounds of studios and auditions, working as a postal censor during the Second World War. He took risks and capitalized on whatever opportunities came his way. Vikram Sarabhai put his fine education and his family resources to work in ways that remain visionary today. His biographer tells us that his scientific work pales in comparison to his institution-building, without prejudice to the former. To envisage the need for research laboratories, for cultural centres and for institutions for management education is not unusual, but to start them confidently in sheds, in available houses, with what one has, confident that other things will follow... to do this without waiting for the perfect moment. To me that is what he has in common with the two Librans in this discussion.


Those who spread dread are countless, especially, I am sorry to say, in India. Those who dream are fewer, but still not impossible to find. Those who make their dreams come true, a rare breed.


But rarest of all is a quality that these three gentlemen had/have in common: the ability to make their dream the dream of many, many others. Gandhiji told us we could win freedom through non-violence, and most Indians came to believe it with all their hearts. Dev Anand's portrayals of urban sophistication and charm are iconic, and his choice of themes and stories always surprising and new. Navketan's oeuvre will outlive his own story. Sarabhai, we are told, made everyone around him eager to make his dream come true and be the best they could be.


In all these life-stories, I saw glimpses of what every spiritual teacher advocates: mindfulness, being in the present moment, integrity, creativity and the courage to be creative. Ego, too, does not seem all bad; it is where confidence and conviction can receive reinforcements and it is what allows you to bounce back from failures. The ability to build partnerships and coalitions is also a common factor in all three stories, with Gandhiji being the best communicator by far of the three.


I don't really have a conclusion for these reflections are works-in-progress. I do know that this year, I will need a lot of these lessons as we work on creating our own non-profit research space in Chennai. The examples of these fine people will have to take me through the challenges of fund-raising, coalition-building, team-building and an endless procession of drafts and revisions for every single thing we write. I am sure this is not the last you will hear on this subject in this blog!

Gandhi and me (and you, if you like)

Everyone is writing about Gandhiji, why not me?

Earlier this year, I read Rajmohan Gandhi's 'Mohandas' and found it utterly absorbing. Having grown up on a mind-numbing diet of Gandhian hagiographical texts that caricatured and rendered him boring, I was captivated to discover him as a person, and a person I could have related to, in this account.

Six months after that reading, the image that stands out the most in my mind is that of a person all alone in spite of the crowd around. There is actually a paragraph in which the author signals this, but as the story of Gandhi's life moves towards its conclusion, it is hard to miss. When everyone called him Mahatma, placed him on a pedestal, asked him for advice, to whom could he have said: I am not sure or I don't know why but I just feel low today? To his credit, he did not hesitate to voice doubt. He was not encumbered by the need to keep up appearances. If he was not sure or if he found himself inconsistent, we know it now. 'Satyameva jayate,' but the point of departure with Gandhi was that he was as honest with himself and about himself with others as he could muster. This is greater heroism than camping in strife-torn Noakhali, in my view. Harder to overcome the impulse to construct a heroic meta-narrative for one's own life than anything else.

Also difficult, the need to align one's life and ideology, one's personal habits and one's rhetoric, and Gandhi tried to do this admirably and annoyingly; he was evangelical about some of these things. But as I write this, I think that for all my blogging about the lack of public sanitation, if I were Gandhi, I would probably go out there and start cleaning up after people. Now the moment I say that, this Gandhian streak seems less annoying and more admirable.

In fact, the alignment of personal and political in Gandhi's life is remarkable because of the way it manifests. In our day, it is more common to see it in the form of friendships at best and patronage or nepotism at worst. For Gandhiji, it took two forms. The first is this need to walk the talk, to do what you say should be done. The second is closely aligned: a cultivation of personal qualities that have been valued by this civilization at all times.

These qualities begin with the ability to be true to yourself and to be honest. Gandhi's language reflects his deep roots in Indian ways of thinking and being, and being true to yourself is also being true to your dharma (however you define it). This is the second quality: courage of conviction, and doing what is right or righteous. Gandhi's references to Rama evoke not a mythical or historical personage as much as they do a set of values for public life: upholding dharma or law, carrying out one's duty, doing what is needed, taking action. (It is another matter that we may read those definitions of dharma or right action differently; but the right or even duty to define for oneself is surely part of this tradition.)

More than all of these, for years now, I have been struck by the idea that a satyagrahi must first meet some criteria before she can offer satyagraha (not wage, but offer). The notion that a degree of personal evolution is a prerequisite for political or public action moves me greatly. It resonates with the important Indian value that saiyyam (self-control or self-discipline, but less negatively) is to be cultivated by all persons and personages. The Puranas are full of stories about gods (Indra, most often) who are unable to control their lusts, their egos, their anger. Indra's repeated fall from grace is a mythical illustration of Shantideva's advice that a moment of anger can be a monumental spiritual setback.

I will not declare here that all politicians are bad or politics stinks. But how many politicians or political activists can you think of that come into the public arena without avarice or ambition, without anger or without ego. Each of these is harder to lose than the one before. We may not seek fame and fortune in politics, but how much better is it if your activity is constantly fueled by anger?Nowadays, I find that perpetual outrage very hard to be around. Yes, there is a great deal to be outraged about, but witnessing the anger, one should be able to move without it towards action. And leaving behind ego? For most of us, it would be hard to separate our selves from our egos even intellectually.

Gandhi's view that the satyagrahi within has to cultivated before a person can offer satyagraha is therefore inspiring. It is irrelevant whether Gandhi or any other satyagrahi consistently and perfectly met this requirement. What is very relevant is the idea that social change begins within a single individual, that the individual's inner journey animates the public one.

This works on so many levels. If I am struggling and struggling with awareness and honesty that I am, I am more compassionate towards others, no matter what their challenges. Compassion enhances my identification with them, and motivates me to serve, surely an imperative in public life. The will to serve slowly diminishes the ego, as does the recognition that we are all the same. In the context of a long journey, small lapses are small; in the absence of that journey, there are only lapses.

As I grow older and want to commit more and more of my time to broader objectives, I find myself reflecting on this a great deal. My appreciation of Gandhiji's journey improves as I understand how profound his inner challenges must have been. At the same time, I grow fonder of him--almost as a family member--as I realize that his road and mine or yours are not that different. He too had to work hard at overcoming a liking for this or a distaste for that. He too had to learn patience. He had to learn to be honest, more and more honest. Because he acknowledged being challenged, it is easier to face our challenges. It was not his ambition to become a Mahatma, but by looking each situation in the eye and patiently seeking to resolve it, responding to the demands of each moment, and then being honest about his inner struggles each time, he became one.

Mahatma-hood has served Gandhiji ill. It has separated him from us. It has taken a quirky, lively person and made him a plaster-of-Paris saint cum cure for insomnia. It has created an industry of image-makers for this iconoclast. It has replaced the drama and colour of his life for vapid dialogues and insipid sepia tones. The Mahatma's life is told as a string of discrete events--born in Porbandar, went to South Africa, got pushed off a train, started a farm, came to India, became Father of the Nation--which obfuscate how he lived and who he was. None of this makes a difference to Gandhi, but what a loss to us!