What is this Beauty you speak of?

He passes the old red-bricked fort,

The majestic white-marbled palace

He spits on the walls of the magnificent minar,

He scribbles over parapets of filigreed finesse

Walking indifferently past the parade of jewel decked elephants,

He does not stop to admire the ceramic dolls,

The woven wares, the coloured kites, the mirrored wall-hangings,

Nothing seems to catch his attention at all

The early morning tunes of the sarangi

The soulful raag which accompanies the first sunrays

The powerful measured chanting of the mantras,

As the priests congregate in the sacred space

The aroma of freshly ground spices

The henna patterns adorning delicate hands and feet

It’s a pity that he is blind and deaf

To the hues and sounds of the busy street

As he accompanies his foreign guest around the city

He is bewildered by the awestruck look on her face

She stops to admire every monument and minaret

She gasps- “This is such an exotic place”!

Sadly the man will never know.

What is the beauty that his friend speaks of?

He has never heard, never looked, never understood.

If only he had taken one moment; one moment to just...STOP.

Birthday Brrrs!!

Hmmm...interesting weekend!

Sundays is the only day of the week when I can sleep till late without giving a damn about all the crazy domestic noises that inevitably filter through my door. My mum tells me I resemble a turtle when I sleep. You know the way a turtle will only plop his head out once in a while. Otherwise he is pretty much dead to the world. EXCUSE ME for being a useless household member on Sundays! You pathetic fellow losers who only get a single-day-weekend know what I’m talking about. What say to a round of high fives looozers??

This Sunday I wake up to the sounds in my head. Oh wait. That’s my cell phone.

As I squint at the phone, I realize it’s an ‘old’ work colleague. Literally.  She is married with a kid. Kid turned one this Sunday so her entire clan lands up in the city to celebrate the birthday of a one year old. Apparently it’s a big deal and all. A ‘lunch party’ is thrown in honour of the kid who has no idea what the hell is happening. And she warns me as she hangs up, “We have booked Orange Hara from 12:00 onwards so DO NOT be late”. ‘Lunch party’ sounded quite fashionably important and I was feeling quite guilty landing up at 2:30. Turns out it wasn’t a big deal at all!! $%**@!!

As I dragged myself out of bed, sincerely contemplating whether I should go, I realized why not. How bad can it be? BEEP! Wrong I was.

It all started with the birthday present. It suddenly hit me that I have never actually shopped for a kid before. I mean sure...I may have been proactive in helping my mum pick up a gift for some strange kid but here I had to take responsibility of the gift! After a lot of thought, I ended up getting a huge red telephone with funny eyes that made funny noises when you lifted the receiver. Wait... there is more!! The telephone has “whills”! The store owner excitedly demonstrated as he hopped around the store dragging the toy by a cable. Weirdo!

So I landed up at the kiddy party with a giant telephone. I was immediately blinded by the camera lights as I met the proud mom who had the bday baby in her arms. “Erm...Happy Birthday”, I said to no one in particular. It just felt foolish wishing the kid who seemed to be in limbo state. Do I wish the mum “Happy Birthday” on behalf of the baby? I didn’t have too long to worry about bday etiquette as I was ambushed by both my friend and her husband. “Who does he resemble? Who does he resemble”? “Are you sure this is your’s cause it does not seem to look like either one of you” didn’t seem to be the right answer. “Uh...(think think! Okay eenie meenie mi-nee mo....) you??” I said looking at the husband. Both parents beamed proudly. Yippie...passed with flying colours!

Well, the rest of the party pretty much sucked. As I safely hung out with a common friend of ours, the only stuff that was actually interesting/hilarious/ghastly was the following:

• Hilarious- Kids of all age groups going berserk as they danced spastically to incomprehensible remixed Hindi songs (what did they care about “Sheela ki jawani”). Apparently one tiny bugger did. The bald baby was excitedly grinding his teeth as he went into a stroke every now and then.
• Interesting and Ghastly- The mothers of babies who seemed to enjoy the party a little too much. Apparently they assumed it was their ‘jawani’ that was being referred to. Hence, bellies rippled on the dance floor.
• Just plain Ghastly- Bloody hell! There were babies running around everywhere..dropping food and stuff on the floor that just looked like some sort of...unrecognizable and very questionable goop. Brrr!!

Oh well...I guess the next time I’ll be attending one of these is when I have one of my own. (Brrr!! Need drink. NOW!)

Grow and Help Grow

I watched ‘Slumdog Millionaire” yesterday night...for the nth time. Well, what can I say! It’s quite a movie, ain’t it?

I remember watching the movie for the first time in the theatre- gold class and all the jiz that goes with it. As intentioned by the director, I ended up bearing an elephant-sized grudge against Anil Kapoor- the host of the show ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’. Sure, there are clearly other characters whom one would really end up hating- the hero’s brother who sleeps with the hero’s love interest, the gangster who imprisons the love interest, the sleazy chap who blinds small children- of their eyesight as well as their childhood.

But funnily enough, this time around, I wanted to throw a couple of hard punches at Anil Kapoor. What’s the deal with this guy anyway huh? Rich, famous, popular TV host. This guy has got it all and yet he resents the good fortune of a mere chai-walla who is on his way to win the show. Funny how people function sometimes. One would be surprised, maybe even flabbergasted at an illiterate, uneducated boy from the slums giving the right answers to questions that some of us may not know. But to feel bitter about the success of a person who is not nearly as fortunate as you is unexplainable.

Sure, I could apply my Psychology-backed know-how to arrive at what seems a plausible answer. But I am resistant at arriving at an answer that will make me question the basic goodness of man. Nakedly envious of a young boy who is intelligent, down-to-earth, easy-going, naive and almost childlike. As the show host makes repeated attempts at belittling the boy and insulting him on his show, you cannot help but wonder at this shameful show of pettiness. Are we so unsatisfied with our lives that we cannot bear to see another succeed? Are we so wrapped up in our own little world, worrying about our reputation, our status, our fame, and our success that we cannot for one second stop and enjoy another’s happy moment?

Why do we feel so threatened by another’s good fortune? Especially someone less fortunate than you. I find it highly disconcerting that one may find it so hard to sincerely congratulate another without thinking, “What if he does better than me?”; “What if he becomes more powerful/richer/successful than I am?” Why this? Why that?

In the field of training and development, a common issue that companies often come to us with is “insecurity”. Seniors feeling highly insecure because of their juniors performing much better. So what is it that managers most often do? Do not give them opportunities to prove their mettle since there is a risk of them rising the ranks faster. The end result is that these high-potential juniors are underused and misused. What is pity!

What we usually suggest is a development workshop which focuses on attitude change and mind-set change so that these “insecure” managers are sensitized to the damage that they are doing. I wish there was such a thing as Heart-Change. Not unlike a transplant.

It would be great if people could just have a ‘change of heart’. Switch to being happier for others. Kinder to others. More sympathetic to the unfortunate. More helpful to those who have not been as lucky in life. Just switch to having a happier heart.

Here is to wishing all of you the happiest of hearts!