"Where am I in the journey of living or meeting my personal VIMISTRA?"

My personal vision is to make "A world where everyone has realized their power; and thereby empower others so that everyone enjoys their Freedom, Life, and Dignity."

To accomplish the above vision, my mission will be "to cultivate the self-worth among the most marginalized community - especially focusing LGBTQIA, Disabled community, Dalits and women (cross-cutting)."

The strategy that I hope to use while I am in my mission is that "in my personal and professional space, I will consciously try to conscientise people. I will facilitate reflective guided discussions and dialogues, write blogs and articles, and actively participate as well as interact/share (Paulo Freire's conscientization methodology) in all opportunities that I get to engage with individuals and organizations in India and South Asia." 

My reflection on 17th January 2020: 

These vision, mission, and strategy together are called VIMISTRA. When I reflect back on my VIMISTRA I feel that it is certainly required to be my ideal to be my way of life as a professionally trained social worker. It should be my mantra, my essence of living (as I see my passion and profession to be the same) and my way of life. As a social worker, I adamantly feel that everyone should recognize their power and thereby empower themselves and others who get in touch with them. I have haphazardly walked the VIMISTRA. I feel very ashamed that as a responsible social worker I have done it from my comfort zone and did not take any step beyond it to ensure that I work to achieve my vision. Having said that I would like to share that after the last workshop I facilitated two workshops with young CSO professionals (120 participants) on social work values and the need for them to work for LGBTQIA and Disabled people. These professionals were from all over India. The feedback that I got from the participants made me feel that I could sensitize them. Besides that my effort to ensure that transgenders are involved in our organizational development programmes as well as a staff is an ongoing struggle that I love to engage with.

Gracefully bye 2019

I am ready to say gracefully bye to 2019. The year was like the hot coffee which came and sipped in me with all its warmth and caffeine energizing and harming me somewhere. I am waiting eagerly for 2020 - a brand new year. I hope that the coming new year will have everything 20-20. All short and sweet like 20-20 cricket. I hope it will be young, vibrant, electrifying and experiencing. This new year will be challenging too with all right-wing ideas coming out of the closet. Let's see what is stored in 2020. But this is sure that I am ready to leave behind 2019.

A lace of fragrance from 2019 that I will definitely take with me is the pursuit of knowledge through my Ph.D. studies. Registering myself for Ph.D. was something excellent that happened with me out of nowhere in 2019. It was never a thought decision when the year began. But it happened for good. After a long time, I got to make new diverse group of scholarly friends and guides. I visited Arunachal Pradesh this year and learned the tribal dynamics of the state. The tribe that really attracted me at least by name is the Idu Mishmi tribes. I came to know of Nidhi tribes and their culture a bit. 2019 also made me exposed to the nutritional landscape of India and through my professional front, I could be part of the Nutrition program of my organization. I will start the 2020 journey by visiting an aspirational district (as per NITI Ayog) of India in South Gujarat named Dang (maybe most of you have not heard about it). Dang is a tribal-dominated district of Gujarat with a fair number of malnourished children. It will give me an opportunity to learn about another Bhil tribe of India. The five Kings of Dangs are the only hereditary royals in India whose titles are currently recognized by the government owing to an agreement made during the British Raj in 1842 (as per Wikipedia). 

2020 will be a scholarly year for me as I resolute to publish at least one scholarly article on poverty and rural governance. A lot to read and understand before writing the article. Don't know how it will shape. Bit nervous!! I will have to review a lot of scholarly articles. I have to also manage lot of official work and projects. I need to practice diligently the organized way of managing my work. 

2019 was the year when my mother was in ICU for the first time. Her health will a major area of concern for me in 2020. Looking for love and manage my loneliness will be another major opportunity (not saying as a challenge) for me in the coming year. 

One of the major knowledge that I learned this year is about Appreciative Inquiry. It really changed my outlook on life. It's taught me to see life as a mystery to be solved rather than a problem to be solved. Wow, what great learning. Happy for myself. The two books that I read among five really touched me are Siddhartha (written by Hermann Hesse) and book by Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for 21st Century. Both the books enlightened me and gave me the energy to reflect life more deeply. The training that changed my life was the Emerging leadership program by Quest Alliance. I am continuing the same this year too. I hope I emerge as a good leader. I have a dream to become President of India one day. Unbelievable!!!

Let 2020 be the year known to me as the year which made me more human, more sincere, more sensitive and more a person who sees life as an opportunity to explore. 

Wish you all a very happy new year... Welcome 2020... I m ready to embrace you...

Negative Thoughts are also thoughts... why to shy about it

It was in my class VIII physics class that I learned Newton's third law, which tells, "Every action has the equal and opposite reaction." So it means that whatever we do or think have equal and opposite reactions. My positive thoughts also have negative thoughts and my negative thoughts also have positive thoughts. Hence it is normal to have negative thoughts with positive thoughts. Why does the world always praise positivity when there is bound to have negativity also? Why is negativity untouchable when it is very much there within us. All our positive thoughts are supported by our negative thoughts. It is through our negativity that positivity evolves. It is through all frustrations new innovations and inventions happened. It is through the struggle that we have achieved success. Then why the emotions that are related to frustrations, struggle, negativity, loneliness, sadness, etc are said to be bad and our friends ask us to abstain from it.

So emotions are the truth. It will come. Always all the emotions cannot be positive. They will definitely be negative. Why people reject emotions? Why can't we think of supporting a person to deal with those emotions? Its the handling of emotions that make people hurt themselves or others. Hence listening to people's emotions and accepting it is something that we should learn. When we are affected by emotions that make us feel not so good then we should share openly without any shy or shame. The people who listen to others such emotions should listen to it rather than superimpose or suppress it with other emotions.

We as a friend should support others by just listening to their emotions. Listening is one of the biggest support that we can do to others who just want to share their emotions. Actually many a time people take a huge amount of courage to share their emotions with others (whom they think can provide them a patient hearing). Hence a human being we need to give patients hearing and go beyond by feeling empathetic. Many a time when people share their emotions we start judging them and supporting them with counter emotions thinking that they are negative and they need to be injected positive thoughts. In the process, we make those people more frustrated and live them more lonely.

In our universities and colleges, we are never taught how to listen. We are never exposed to the experience whereby listening things were resolved to a large extent. Our exposures are always such that strengthens our belief that it's only through lecturing or talking we can exhibit our talents and our expertise. Our socialization process should teach us to listen. 

What we Learn and What World Expects...

Life was always difficult for me. All the difficulties of life were very normal for me. These difficulties were common in everyone's life. But the most difficult part of my life that I really cannot cope up with, is the lack of love in my life. I always felt that I will easily get love, maybe I was overconfident about my personality, which I thought to be loving and pleasing. But actually, as I grew up I found that with all my socialization process I have grown up to be a very boring person. A person who could be liked easily but not loved. All my myth about me shattered by the time I reached my 40s. I understood that my religion, my family, my society, my education even the film that I saw taught me to be a person who is just the opposite of what the world wants. Another revelation that I got is that what the world wants may not be what it expects. Our socialization process wants us to make a perfect person which actually the world at large doesn't want.

Now I understand that people who smoke and drink alcohol hiding the so-called society (who actually wants that we all smoke and drink and enjoy life) are actually the fittest of all. As they become big, as I see, people love their company. They meet to enjoy and make merry.  They have actually learned to enjoy life. Our parents and school taught us not to lie but actually by telling lie we manage so many things in our lives so easily and smoothly. Most of the system in our present (adult) world doesn't like honesty, doesn't like truthfulness. They like some corruption, a lot of lies and a lot of slangs and a lot of many things which actually from childhood we are taught that they are bad and we should abstain from it. If you see our religion, though it teaches us to be sinless the people who manage our religion do all those things which are sinful and they live so happily (most of them are richest people on earth). I hope you can all make a sense of what I am trying to convey. In one word the world really functions at different levels than what we are really taught of how the world may function.

I learned that love is divine. It is something that is very common. Every human being has someone selected for life long partner and relationship. No one will live alone. Love happens at first sight. Electric current will flow through your vein if you touch that chosen one for you. Love and lust are very different. "I love you" and "I like you" are synonymous. Blah, blah blah and blah...

But actually, in the actual world, the love between two people starts with "Suhag Raat". This is basically a ceremony to start love with sex. It is the sexual satisfaction that keeps the relationship intact. So if sexual satisfaction is fewer people started with extra-marital affairs hidingly. But actually, those extramarital affairs helped them to continue living happily. But our socialization process shared that adultery is sin and bad (though supreme court now allows it in our country). If your sexual orientation is different than getting love is more difficult or totally impossible. Our education taught us that there can be only one kind of love - heterosexual love. All other types of love are sinful. But actually, there is love beyond man and woman. Why are we not taught that love is love and love doesn't see gender. So even homosexuality is very much prevalent in this world, but our socialization process never tells us its existence. People who could manage two relationships (one mandated by society and one that actually the person wants as per nature) are managing it flawlessly without any concern of how they might be telling lie and destroying other's life. They just need enjoyment. May be lust for them is more important than so-called love.

In all the above processes we lie and we hurt but it doesn't matter to us. The world runs successfully with lies and hurt. Because it gives people success and deep satisfaction. Then why do our socialization process teaches so differently than what the world wants us? In all these, people who want to live as per set norms of society (which the person learned from his socialization process) suffers loneliness and depression at larger. I feel this generally comes from our strive to be "good" and not 'bad".  We need to ask what is "good" and what is "bad"? Does it really exist? Or is it just the myth? We do everything that the world wants us to do but when they are exposed then we deny, we punish ourselves or others, we feel ashamed and above all we defend. But this is the world and we have to navigate through it.

Review of Siddhartha...my perception

Review of 'Siddhartha' - my own reflection, my own wisdom...

"Siddhartha" written by Hermeann Hesse, is a story of discovering oneself - a spiritual quest. The main protagonist of the story, Siddhartha, actually resembles all of us who at some point of time will definitely have a series of questions that Siddhartha had, in order to know oneself. Many a time we ignore it by saying, "Don't think too much." or we really ponder on those questions and try to find the answer. Many a time we get those answers many a time we get engrossed in our life so much that we keep those questions open for long to naturally evaporate from our conscious. In the story, Siddhartha had 'discontent in himself'. He started to feel that people and materials around him 'would not bring him joy forever and ever, would not nurse him, feed him, satisfy him.' In our lifetime, we are exposed to the most and best of the wisdom that is documented by wise people. But like Siddhartha, many a time we don't find meaning in them. We just listen and keep these pearls of wisdom in a high platform with a clear understanding that they cannot be practiced in this world. We get into our life and gain our own knowledge but many a time we fail to reflect on them. These knowledge need to be hard pressed like we do to a mustard seed in order to to take out the oil from it. These 'hard pressed' is the process of getting wisdom out of our knowledge. The mustard seeds are our knowledge. Ultimately the seeds are gone but the oil remains. The same way the knowledge is necessary to get the wisdom out of it but ultimately the wisdom makes us relevant and takes life forward in a meaningful way. Siddhartha in the story puts it very nicely to Govinda at the end that, '...wisdom cannot be passed on. Wisdom which a wise man tries to pass on to someone always sounds like foolishness.' It's so true. He further goes to tell, 'Knowledge can be conveyed, but not wisdom'. I feel the story of Siddhartha gives a strong message that if we are only a seeker of knowledge we may only be a follower. But when we are a seeker of wisdom, we will be driven away from our teachers, religion and such things which imparts knowledge. Seeking wisdom makes us in charge of our life and help us to constantly reflect on the knowledge that we gather from our life and take out inference from it which is wisdom. I feel the quest for life leads us to collect wisdom. In the end, Siddhartha shared beautiful wisdom. He says that the world is not imperfect or on a slow path of perfection. The world is already perfect in every moment. What a great reflection and great wisdom. He continues to say that everyone is Brahman, a creator. Everything is within oneself. All good and bad, all sin and bliss are existing in everything. So love and venerate everything for the potential that it has in itself. But these are all wisdom that Siddhartha had. It is meaningful to him but can be foolishness to others. Hence wisdom is very personal to oneself. This quest for wisdom will lead you in life. 

This quest for wisdom, made Siddhartha and his friend Govinda, leave their home to join the ascetics, fast, pray and meditate intensely and yet Siddhartha cannot find his peace. They hear of the Buddha and Govinda decides to join his followers. But Siddhartha wants his own discovery for himself. He moves ahead, meets Kamala, is driven towards material pleasures but after some time abandons this life too. Eventually, all his experiences, all the events in his life help him to meet his spiritual guide and he has his own awakening. Siddhartha's life changes when he begins to question what he’s been taught. He wonders if gods are not just human constructs and if anyone but Atman (whom he calls the “Only One”) should receive honor and sacrifice. He’s desperate to find the path to this deepest part of himself. Despite his father’s objections, Siddhartha leaves his village and joins a group of wandering ascetics called the samanas. Govinda follows. Siddhartha learns to fast. He wears a loincloth, and his hair and nails grow as his stomach shrinks. His goal is to empty himself of every dream and desire, to become “un-selfed.” He meditates and takes on the forms of various animals and other natural formations. His voluntary suffering enables him to overcome hunger, pain, thirst, and fatigue and to linger in the “nonself” for a time. But eventually, he always comes back to himself and feels the torments of living. He notes even the oldest samana has not reached nirvana (or liberation from the endless cycle of birth and death). Siddhartha theorizes that words and learning are the enemies of true knowledge. Knowledge itself is all around and within the soul.

Although Siddhartha met and spoke to the Buddha and feels truth emanating from him, he still decides he must carry on in his search for Atman alone. This quest for wisdom was so strong in Siddhartha, that in spite of him believing Buddha, he still feels no amount of teaching can bring about the deliverance of a person’s soul. Meeting the Buddha shows him the only way one can discover the depths of his soul is through personal experience.

at one point of time, Siddhartha shuns the rituals and self-sacrifice that previously guided him and get sunk into worldly pleasure, sex, gambling. After a while, even these things can’t keep him from feeling sluggish and discontented with life. Loathing himself and feeling like something has died inside of him, he abruptly leaves this life behind. Siddhartha hangs over a tree near the river, contemplating suicide. He hears the “om” within himself that once reminded him to seek perfection and completeness. He sinks into a deep sleep and awakens refreshed and joyful. Siddhartha begins to find a particular beauty in the river. Once again, he encounters the ferryman, Vasudeva, who listens well as Siddhartha bears his soul. Siddhartha sees the ferryman’s joy and peace and realizes he can learn much by spending time in this man’s presence. He stays on to work for and live with the ferryman and to listen to the river speaking to him. 

Siddhartha continues to learn from the river, and Vasudeva helps him see a vision that changes him. He sees and hears the faces and sounds of all people, sees their goodness and evil, tears and joy, all coming together at once. Within this, he discovers a wholeness that could be summed up in the word “om.” The last climax wherein Govinda and Siddhartha have a final meeting summarises the quest which started in the beginning. Siddhartha reiterates that experiences rather than the teachings of man have led him to this place. He says time itself is a human construct, and he now sees how the past, present and future flow together all at once.

He says he believes the key to all things is the ability to love himself and all beings with awe and admiration. He asks Govinda to kiss his forehead, and the man sees a vision of his own, filled with all of the good and evil, pain and beauty of life in faces, actions, and animals. He sees the perfect peace in Siddhartha that he once saw in the Buddha’s eyes, and he falls to his knees feeling deep love. 

The story in a strong metaphor of river and ferryman explains that life is like the river which if heard with silence and patience will give you a lot of answers and points of reflection. It will connect you to your past, as it did to Siddhartha when it reminded him of his father's feeling when he was unable to handle his anxiety with regard to his son's future. And the ferryman resembles a guide that you need in your life who can give you direction. This guide can be you yourself but you should have your oars to guide yourself. If you do not have oars you can definitely borrow it for sometimes from someone.  

The story was in a very simple language but conveyed a very profound message for all seekers. It made me to understand life and seek my own wisdom. 

Article 15 films's tagline aptly says —“Farq bahut kar liya, ab farq laayenge (We discriminated, now we will bring about a change)”.

Recently I attended five days workshop-cum-training on Emerging Leadership Programme at Bangalore. In that workshop, I reflected on the word, "Power". According to the discussion in that workshop, I understood that "Power" is the ability to achieve the desired/intended goal. It has a positive connotation attached to it. But the word power in the real world has a very different connotation attached to it. It is generally understood and seen by people as a mean to oppress and marginalise other fellow human being. It is used to eliminate other's existence for the sake of my own existence. Power needs to be shown to empower others, is what we reflected in the workshop. But in real world power is used to dis-empower others and push them into fear and ultimately to the culture of silence. 

In the Hindi film, Article 15, the two dialogue, ' Unhe aukaat dikahan jaroori tha' and ‘Aukaat wahi hai jo hum dete hain’ clearly says how we want the power to be shown and understood/perceived by others. In the film, the three girls were raped and among them, two were hanged on a tree just to show the power (negative connotation) of the upper caste and create a fear among the lower caste people. It depicts centuries-old class and caste and gender privilege that exists until today in modern India. Every time the police officer used "in log" and "un log" to say something about the lower caste, I was feeling uncomfortable to see that how many of us through words exclude and divide people on the basis of the identity. On one side are the upper-castes and the untrammelled power that comes with caste position; on the other, are the lowest of the low, the invisible, the Dalits; and in between is the heartbreaking divide which shapes our destiny in this country even today. Right wings are in power now. They talk about Nationalism, Akhand Bharat... but what type of nationalism we want? what type of Akhand Bharat we want where the people of my country hate each other on the basis of some abstract thing which is caste. Another important word is used often by the police officer (in the film) to warn subtly the main protagonist - PS officer Ayan Ranjan (Khurrana) is "Santulan" (Balance). It is exactly what we are taught in our family and schools very much diplomatically and politically. We are always motivated to keep the status-co. We are always asked to keep the status co. People who disbalance or disturb the status co, like in the film the Dalit leader who mobilised Dalits to question the definition of power construed by the so-called powerful, are killed mercilessly without any guilty. State-sponsored terrorism is not against the people who want to show the "Aukaat" but against those people who want to empower Dalits and other marginalised community. It happened with Bhagat Singh and continues. At least in the English language,  when we say lower-caste it sounds not so bad but when we say lower caste in Hindi, the name of each of the lower caste is an abusive word. 

Caste discrimination is just not the main land's issue. It is also there very much in all over India. It has sipped into all our other religion which actually started due to caste-based violence (What an irony?). The film depicts very well the civil war that exists in our country for centuries based on caste. I really liked that the film started with the song by Bob Dylan (one of my favourite singer) playing in the background: "...how many years can some people exist before they are allowed to be free?" when Ayaan, the main protagonist, entering the village and comparing air pollution of Delhi with an experience of fresh air full of oxygen in the village, naive of the violent environment that he will experience which has taken many more lives than the pollution of cities. The first song in the film - "Kahab to lagi jaaye dhak se" is really a good song to make us understand consciously the difference between rich and poor on the basis of the privilege and hardship they enjoy and face respectively. Like Ayan, many of our young Indians are not aware of caste-based discrimination. They are very bookish and naive. But are they very much unknown to us? Do we need a film to say that? We have become so much insensitive that zero tolerance on caste-based discrimination is a distant dream in our country. 

One of the very important thing that the film wanted to show was how the government institution, the police force, which has the power (in positive connotation) to eliminate the caste-based discrimination is actually preserving and practising shamelessly.  The two police officer in the film - Solanki and Sinha have internalised the discrimination so well with such a perfection that they find it very much normal not to offer pakodas from their plate to the upper caste officers or refuse to drink water from a glass at his place. 

I am depressed and sad after watching the movie. I am among most of you all waiting for a hero. Do I have the courage to be a hero? Has our education system, family system, professional space failed us? Are we all suffering from an acute syndrome of 'culture of silence'? In the film at one point in time, Ayan calls to her lover and says, "... I will un-mess it". To which his lover replied that whether there is any word called 'un-mess' in the english language. Then Ayan says that we need to frame new words. This metaphor is strong enough message that calls all of us 'to learn, unlearn and relearn' many things that we learned during the process of our socialization. We Indians really need to go deeper and understand our value system. 

Having said all this, I want to say one thing that I find two actors - Ayushman and Sahid, showing their own responsibility as a responsible actor. One is working in a film which is misogynist and another one is using film as a platform to raise the critical question on how we Indians are behaving with our fellow Indians. History will remember them on the basis of the film they choose. 

Do we have Ayan like police officers in our country? Do we need them? Has the caste system so strongly rooted that no one can uproot it? Do we really need Article 15 in our constitution when we are not able to follow it? Is the article really making any sense to our government executives who need to ensure its implementation? Has the CSOs in India failed in empowering people of our country for the last 70 years? 

What is real romance?

I think a lot of people don’t understand what real romance is. Anyone can buy flowers, candy and jewellery. The truly romantic things in life are those little things you do every day to show you care, and that you’re thinking of them. It’s going out of your way to make them happy. The way you hold his/her hand when you know he's/she’s scared, or you save the last piece of cake for her/him. The random text or call in the middle of the day, just to say “I love you” or “I miss you”. The way she/he stops to kiss you when he/she passes by. It’s dedicating his/her favourite song to her/his, and letting her /him eat your fries; telling her/him she’s/he's beautiful/handsome. It’s putting your favourite show on pause so she/he can tell you about her/his day, and laughing at his/her jokes, even the really lame ones. It’s slow dancing in the kitchen and kissing in the rain. Romance isn’t about buying, it’s about giving. True romance is in gestures. True love is not letting go the person whom you love or even like. Letting him/her go means you never wanted him/her.