رزق اور موت کا خوف نہ رکھو
یہ اختیار صرف اللہ کے ہاتھ میں ہے..
रीजक और मौत का खौफ न रखों_ये‌ एख्त्यार सिर्फ अल्लाह के हाथ में है .

I think I am currently fascinated with writing sequels. Yesterday I wrote something about a Sikh preacher, who had interpreted Guru Nanak’s words that had a great relevance, especially in today’s milieu. The above couplet is something I came across today in one of the the Urdu groups I am member of that seems to be another interpretation of my previous thought.

Rizak is livelihood or the work we do to earn our livelihood and Maut is death. I think these two are currently the biggest causes of depression that’s forcing many ordinary and not so ordinary folks to committing suicide. Corona virus has scared us to our bones and though in some senses the strain seems to be weakening, the fact is that we are all worried about our lives. And of course, one of the biggest victims of this pandemic is economy that’s resulting in job losses all around! Factories are yet to restart to full capacity and the bigger challenge is to bring back labour who has migrated back to native. Companies are finding it difficult to sustain their workforce, when revenue streams have dried up.

I think the above couplet shows the light and the way. “Don’t be scared of loss of life and livelihood; no one else but only God almighty controls both of these.” There are several other connotations of the aforesaid teaching – “ जिसने पैदा किया है वो जीने की राह भी दिखाएगा ( Giver of life will also open the way for its sustenance)” , “जाके राखो साईंया मार सके ना कोई ( who can kill one whom the God protects) .

When nothing else works, faith works and let’s hold on to the string called life, for if life is there, livelihood will be arranged as both of these are not in any individual’s but God’s domain and control.

Came across a sermon by a holy Sikh preacher who quoted the famous Shabad (gurbani) by Guru Nanak that says:

“Hum aadmi hai ik dami hai
mohlat mahat na jana” which can be loosely translated as “Human beings live for short moment, not knowing the appointed time of departure.”

He cites a very glaring example of a person who has been advised by his Doctor that he has only one week to live as his serious ailment has now reached its end stage. The sermoniser asks the audience, “ Do you think such a person will fight with anyone or have greed to shortchange someone for quick gains or any such requirement for any material gain? His standard refrain to all this would be that what he needs to accumulate materials for or to have avarice for more as in any case he’s going!” The preacher further tells his audience that if such a person has even an iota of intelligence, he’d be bereft of all insecurities, fears or despair! To drive home his point, he says that if a person destined to live at least one week realises the futility of greed, materialism, fear, insecurity etc, what about all of us, who have no guarantee as to whether we will be alive to live the next moment! And then he quotes the aforesaid bani of Guru Nanak that there’s only one last breath that separates us from death!

The preacher further says that it doesn’t mean that due to uncertainty of life, we should not do or plan anything but wait for the ultimate moment. In fact, the message exhorts us to plan for positive things – progress, benevolence, charity, character and nation building, kindness et al!

A very powerful thought that, in fact , not only promotes positivity but expels negativity by stressing impermanence of everything, including life. And this immediately brings me to my favourite topic – Covid 19! If life is momentary, Corona cannot be permanent. If we are not to have greed for or attachment to materials , we definitely not need to fear pandemics, cyclones, floods, droughts etc.

Let’s live the moment!

Veni, vidi, vici ] “I came; I saw; I conquered”) is a Latin phrase popularly attributed to Julius Caesar who used the phrase in a letter to the Roman Senate around 47 BC after he had achieved a quick victory in his short war against Pharnaces II of Pontus at the Battle of Zela.^[2] The phrase is used to refer to a swift, conclusive victory.

I don’t know Latin and therefore, I am not sure that if this phrase in first person is to be converted into a phrase in third person, how will it sound, but in English, it will be “ He came; he saw; he conquered” and this is what describes best the personality to whom is this blog dedicated!

Like Caesar used this phrase after his quick victory, this person led us to many such quick wins. In fact, he came like a phenomenon, who changed the very way we thought and worked before, till we experienced his influence.

And he didn’t come at the best of the times! Within a few days of his arrival on the scene, he was welcomed with a relatively large sized fraud that we faced! He was just new in the system , but the way he brought all the stakeholders together, delineated clear cut responsibilities and set up a rhythm of deliberations, actually made us beware that this person was indeed a phenomenon and no ordinary mortal. While we were still struggling with the aforesaid fraud, the first signs of pandemic started knocking at the door! Of course, it’s a different story that pandemic gripped India virtually in no time and by the last week of March, it was already there everywhere and even more than 6 months since then, it doesn’t seem to be going away anytime too soon. And here he was, leading from the front, ensuring that our BCP preparation on paper actually effectively got executed on the ground. And what he started in the first week of April, a daily cadence to review all related aspects – critical activities, customer proposition, health of the people working on the ground, work from home et al – it’s a long list, , has all got embedded in our DNAs today and ironically, we have emerged more strong, more enabled, more in control, more smart and more systematic as an outcome of the pandemic rather than anything to the contrary.

A popular story goes about Guru Nanak having blessed a useless, idle, foolish person to stay put wherever he was and a hardworking, intelligent, positively attuned person to be uprooted to be going places. When his disciple asked him about his strange act of blessing a fool and bestowing curse upon a hard worker, Guru replied, I want this intelligent person and doer to go from one place to another to spread his knowledge, positivity and hard work attitude amongst masses, while the other person should remain confined to one place only so that no body picks up his vices.” In English, they say that rolling stone gathers no moss. What else can explain his such a short stay? It just beats the imagination that if instead of 10 months he had stayed for 10 years where could we have been!

All the best NT, as we lovingly call him! Our loss is someone’s gain, but what we gained from you is something that we are going to cherish during our lifetimes and to that extent, it’s been a short time togetherness but an experience of a lifetime!

However, I would not like to elaborate on the title of this write up as I couldn’t think of any other words to sum up this personality.

As lines of a popular song go-

May God be in your mind
May God be in your heart
May God be always looking over your shoulders

God is in my mind,
In my thoughts all the time
God in my words,
God is my life
God is in my heart,
In the love that I share
God in all I do,
God is my prayerGod looks over me,
God looks after you
God is in me,
God is in you

My earlier blog that had the similar title as this one was received rather well. Encouraged by the response and looking to the reaffirmation of my belief and that too by none other than our very own ex president and the Missile man of india, the most revered Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, I felt encouraged to write part 2.

In the course of a talk, Dr Kalam narrates an incident relating to his friend, an eminent cardiac surgeon of Baroda, Dr Shailesh Mehta. Dr Mehta in his 69th year was as busy as ever, with patients needing up to 1 month wait to get his appointment. Only junior doctors would see the report first and refer a doable case to Dr Mehta so that his precious time was not getting squandered away on gone cases. This was the case of a 6 years old child who had her heart totally clogged. The battery of junior doctors had declined the case but on fervent plea by the child’s parents referred it to Dr Mehta for his final opinion. Dr Mehta reiterated what junior doctors had said – that it was a hopeless case. He said that surgery would be very complex and chances of success were barely 30%. Without surgery the girl could survive for a few months and given the luck even a few years. Parents decided to take chance and the girl was admitted for surgery on the destined day. Dr Mehta wearing his sterile uniform saw the small child lying on the operation table. He asked the child whether she was worried. The girl said she wasn’t but she had a question to ask? She asked the Doctor, “ My parents tell me that a child’s heart is the abode of God. When you cut open my heart, please do tell me how the good looks like”? Dr Mehta told Dr Kalam that he was then caught in a double dilemma. As it was, chances of survival were only 30% and if at all the surgery was to be successful, he would have to do the impossible task of explaining how the God looked like to the child!

As the child was cut open, the case appeared to be more hopeless than it was imagined to be. 45 minutes into surgery, the flow of the blood into heart stopped completely and Dr Mehta decided upon calling off the surgery and informing the parents about the bad news of the child’s death. His mind strayed into the child’s query and he started sobbing! Then a miracle happened, suddenly a junior doctor informed Dr Mehta about the start of blood flow into child’s heart. The surgery went on for more than 6 hours and at the end of it, child had a heart that would last her a lifetime.

Dr Kalam sums up the above incident beautifully. He says that from then onwards, Dr Mehta who had performed thousands of surgeries and had full confidence in his skills decided to put a picture of God in his OT and to commence his surgery only after paying obeisance to almighty.

The story is not about miracles or spreading religion or blind faith. It’s about the good teachings or “samskaras” that we receive from our parents and gurus that have the effect of “culturing” us. The sheer purity of the thought makes it a powerful one raising it above all the cliches and lip service that we receive at later stages of our lives.

Let’s bow to Dr Kalam and Dr Mehta for this is what we need today – to skill our selves the best and have faith in our heart that an invisible power is with us to guide us through in this life’s journey.

My mom turns 84 today on the 4th of October. Touch wood- she’s superb for her 84 years. Enjoys reasonably good health, is fiercely independent – physically, mentally and financially, sounds mellifluous for her 84 years – probably thanks to her lifelong passion – singing.

She loved singing right since her childhood though it wasn’t considered a good passion and even a worst profession by her family. However, after marriage, she found a supporting husband in my father, who encouraged her to sing, whenever any opportunity came her way. She soon realised that professional singing required learning under a good Guru and practice or riyaaz. And in spite of her familial responsibilities and limited scope, she went on to achieving one milestone after another. From singing at the local cultural programmes to singing in Gurudwara, temple and social parties to singing on AIR and cutting a disc for HMV, she achieved all that was possible given her rather late start and other constraints. And her active career spanned almost half a century till about a couple of years ago, when she decided to slacken the pace and sing only occasionally at the most special request.

However, if there’s get together – whether of family members or friends, it’s not complete without her singing one ditty from the large repertoire of work that she built over the years of her professional singing career. She sang almost in all genres – Geet, ghazal, bhajans, folk songs, film songs, Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Bhojpuri, Haryanvi et al and earned public accolades.

I think her passion for music has kept her young, mentally alert, generally happy and having zest for life. It’s unfortunate that none of her children or grandchildren could emulate her art, though all of us possess an ear for good music.

Happy 84th birthday Mummy. It’s just a number for as long as your voice retains melody and heart love for music, you should live and enjoy life.

Writing is power and sometimes a powerful piece can change one’s perspective. At some stage or other in our professional lives, all of us must have attended leadership talks or programmes or review meetings with bosses, where we are exhorted to act and inspired through pep talk. It is indeed true that what looks very impressive initially does tend to taper off as less effective or theoretical or even rhetorical in due course, but to call it banal and cliche needs some serious pen power. As the writer says, at a recent party, she minced no words in telling a cliche spouter, “ You are the most obnoxious, self-centred, predictable, cliche spouting bore I have ever met in my life.” Of course, she hurried on to add that the above she only said in her mind and not on the face of the mentioned person to whom she instead showed her pretty face with a vapid smile as he went on and on with “mind- numbing cliches”.

What are these self-centred, mind-numbing cliches that the author is referring to? These are actually common idiomatic phrases that can adorn one’s expression in writing but sound cliched and boring when mouthed by a self styled leader in the context of establishing his or her supremacy or dominance. We all must have heard, “ Instead of crying over spilt milk, I am on boarding movers and shakers in my company , capable of delivering results” or “ I need someone who thinks out of box” or “ Let’s get to the low hanging fruits” or “ Come dressed to kill at the office party and let your hair down.”

I am sure that to most of the readers the above expressions would be no strangers, having come across them and many more at various stages of our professional lives. But, as mentioned above, while many of us might have felt sceptical about these exhortations or transmission of Jnana ( Gyana), calling these expressions or phrases cliches is certainly a new perspective. I think the author of this piece weaves sarcasm around the hollowness of the spouters of these expressions! In today’s cut throat competition in professional lives and fast changing skills, the scope of lasting relationship between an employer and employee or a boss and subordinate is rather limited and waning. When these are mouthed sans the sincerity or deep rooted welfare of the audience, instead of making impression, they sound cliched. On the contrary, our parental advice or the advice by our teachers, friends and well wishers come from the bottom of the heart with genuine concern for our betterment and success. Therefore, such advices and exhortations stay with us throughout, without ever becoming dated or redundant.

For a moment I do not mean that we should ignore everything new as cliche ridden and only hold on to age old wisdom endowed by our parents and gurus. We all need to be adaptive, open to re-skilling, working hard like no tomorrow and constantly evolving. And listen to the bores and braggarts with a vapid smile like the author, picking up whatever sounds reasonable and ignoring the cliche!

I distinctly recall- exactly 29 days ago I had heralded the start of September on a very optimistic and pleasant note and had exhorted all my readers to dance to the tune of maverick Bobby Darin’s evergreen tune of Come September! However, even the most optimistic and eternally hopeful chaps like me can also get caught in the sea of negativity when the things continue to worsen but refuse to hit nadir, not raising any hope of reversal of the trend!

Covid tightened its grip on India and both – infections as well as mortality rates went up substantially. On a personal note, Corona entered my home with my wife getting infected having travelled in connection with the funeral of her brother and contacting Corona in the process. Her 3 weeks of self isolation within our home was one of the most painful and agonising events in our recent lives. And that’s not all. On the national front, Sushant’s death and Kangana’s rub off with Maharashtra government became unsavoury to the last t. Entry of Narcotics Control Bureau in addition to CBI has given new twist to Sushant’s case and only God almighty knows where will this mess lead to and quagmire end. China’s PLA and Indian troops came eye ball to eye ball at Pangong Tso in Ladakh and situation remained extremely explosive and sensitive. Economy went into deeper recession and seemed to be in tatters with one green shoot followed by a darker reality! Vaccine remained elusive and so was any comprehensive cure for Covid. International flights remained suspended and people continued to be bereft of their children and other nears and dears, stuck up across continents. Job scenario remained gloomy and ironically more people continued losing jobs than getting them! And we lost one of the country’s finest playback singers S P Balasubrahmanyam, apart from noted economist Isher Judge Ahluwalia. As if this was not enough, our elected representatives, those expected to lay moral code for the entire nation, behaved most irresponsibly and the nation once against erupted in protests against new Farm bill. To tell you the truth, I have not been able to assess till date whether it’s of such great benefit to farmers, especially the small ones and if so, why so much protest?

But let’s not lose hope. Just about while I am writing this blog, pace of Covid infections has come down, my wife has fully recovered, Bollywood has taken Sushant and Kangana incidents in its stride and resumed shooting, india and China have agreed against further built up of forces, rains have been adequate and sowing of crops has been at a new record level, in spite of all bottlenecks, IPL is happening and French open is starting, Delhi metro has resumed service and Mumbai metro is likely to follow suit and from tomorrow, restaurants and bars are likely to be opened in Mumbai! There’s no known song “ Come October” but let’s celebrate the advent of October by overcoming the gloom by singing and dancing to the following created by me:

September came and we celebrated

But it created ruckus and went;

We hoped all would be kosher and well

But stubborn Covid remained hell bent!

Covid attacked communities, nations and the world

But worst it entered my very home;

I was worried, agonised and distraught,

But we fought off and survived the doom!

Tomorrow comes a crisp new October

With cool breezes and blue skies

My hopes are alive again

And I want to sing, dance and eat delicious pies!

It’s the onset of Q4 of the calendar year and Q3 of the financial year, but the biggest cause of celebration is that 2020 is now just a quarter away from its end!

Shakuntala Devi was a child prodigy. Very early in life, as her parents discovered, she was good with numbers. And there have been so many instances of child prodigies who finished their higher studies in early teens, astonishing the academicians with their knowledge and absorption levels that were much ahead of the age of these prodigies.

We also read and heard wonderful stories of a grandma or a grandpa appearing for her or his class 10 exam, sometimes appearing alongside their grandchild. And there are stories galore of someone starting a business, a passion or a mere hobby at ripe old age well after end of his or her first innings.

The readers may be wondering why suddenly I have started discussing child prodigies and old age achievers? The reason is a beautiful thought that I came across on the personal time clock inbuilt into each of the human beings. The question posed was similar – why someone immediately on passing out of the college is picked up for placement by an MNC at an annual package of Rs25 lakh plus, while another superannuates well before reaching anywhere near the number offered to the young prodigy? And this analogy can be extended to any of the examples that we come across each day in our day to day lives! To quote my own example, I learnt cycling when I was 13 or 14, while my elder brother picked up my dad’s big cycle when he was 6 years old! I flew for the first time well into my mid 30s, while my grandson is a frequent flyer at the age of 1! My first overseas visit materialised well into my 40s, while the frequent flier grandson of mine is already a globe trotter. Ironically, my father never made his passport, meaning all his 80 plus years he never had the opportunity to cross Indian borders! And he sometimes jokingly used to mention that what his son earned every month was more than the terminal benefits he received on his retirement to sustain rest of his life!

The question then arises is why comparison! Why we sneer at someone becoming a CEO at the age of 35 and having all the riches of life? Why we don’t sympathise with a young executive burning himself or herself out at 40 and suffering a stroke while still in 40s? It’s all very mysterious and deep and can be simplified for easy understanding based on the concept of inbuilt time clock, as aforesaid. Each one of us work as per our own respective time clocks and it’s futile to attribute any emotion to someone’s early success or late failure or vice versa. There’s nothing “too late in life” and everything comes at the appointed time as set in one’s time clock.

There are several sayings and theories that directly or indirectly bear the essence of personal time clock. We all must have heard “ better late then never”, “ you cannot fight your destiny”, “ one gets nothing more or nothing less than destiny has in store for him” or our very own “samay bada balwan” all mean the same thing. Let’s go on doing our actions and efforts – everything will come at its appropriate time. And it does not conflict with the need to do “karma” or effort, which is everyone’s duty and without which even the time clock stops. Karma is the battery on which time clock runs.

God has made each individual unique and has fitted him or her with a unique time clock. It’s such a powerful concept, isn’t it? It immediately places one’s mind at rest.

Corona has added another name to the list of its celebrity victims – a singer par excellence S P Balasubrahmanyam. 74 years old doyen of filmy music lost battle to Corona.

I clearly remember, I was just out of the school and into college when a remake of a Telugu super hit movie took the country by storm. The movie was Ek Duje Ke Liye that had two new actors introduced to Bollywood fans. One already a super star down south Kamla Hassan and Rati Agnihotri. However, the movie also introduced S P Balasubrahmanyam, who was already ruling the roost in South to Bollywood. As the character played by Kamal Hassan was that of a Tamilian boy, SPB, who in any case was his voice down south, became a natural choice. And Laxmikant Pyarelal, who composed the music for the movie came up with some inspired scores thanks to their favourite Lata and the mint fresh voice of SPB. Tere mere beech main became a sort of national anthem, fetching national award for best singer for SPB, while the title song, with SPB singing his part of lyrics in English became a national rage. And who can forget the genius of Anand Bakshi in writing a full song by using titles of Bollywood movies , mere jeevan sathi pyar kiye ja, sung with much aplomb by SPB. In spite of his immense talent, Kamal Hassan acted in few movies, but SPB found his strong foothold in Bollywood, singing not only for LP, but also R D Burman ( Sagar) and Raamlakshman, whose compositions in three blockbusters – Maine Pyar Kiya, Hum Aapke Hain Koun and Hum Saath Saath Hain became a rage and were mainly sung by SPB. In fact, he became the voice of an upcoming Salman Khan.

Born in a Telugu family, he ruled the roost in South for decades singing in all the four languages. And whatever work he did in Bollywood became etched in 24K gold. He was not the first singer from South – before him P Sushila, Vani Jairam and K J Yesudas and later on S Janki also made their mark and but repertoire of Hindi songs sung by SPB is unmatched.

While we speak of damage by Corona to businesses, economy and jobs, the collateral damage in the form of lives of precious gems like SPB, a Padma Bhushan awardee and six times national award winner, is priceless.

Of course, legends like SPB always remain alive in the memory of their millions of fans through the work they leave behind. Even 40 years after his death, great Rafi is alive in the hearts of his fans and in fact, his popularity seems to be only going up. Ditto for Mukesh, Kishore and now SPB.

Rest in peace sir!

She Is Gone (He Is Gone)- A poem

You can shed tears that he is gone
Or you can smile because he has lived
You can close your eyes and pray that he will come back
Or you can open your eyes and see all that he has left
Your heart can be empty because you can’t see him
Or you can be full of the love that you shared
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday
Or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday
You can remember him and only that he is gone
Or you can cherish his memory and let it live on
You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back
Or you can do what he would want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

We always say that behind each and every ritual and tradition, there is a solid background or purpose. Much of the rituals that we observe on our festivals or other occasions such as birth and death, have deep ideology behind them. However, over the years rituals have taken a precedence over the ideology or deeper significance. People of Ayodhya lighted lamps to welcome their beloved King Ram who returned after an exile of 14 years and undergoing lots of trauma. Lighting of lamps is symbolic, but bursting fire crackers and polluting the environment is an example of ritual taking precedence over the purpose.

Similarly in Christian traditions, there’s a ritual of Month’s mind, which is a requiem mass in which friends and relatives of a dead person congregate one month after the death of the person. Actually for relatives and friends of the deceased, the bereavement of a beloved is a life long trauma, though nature has miraculous healing power that heals each and every wound over a period of time. However, a month is too short a period to get completely off the grief and therefore, this congregation or mass has a great significance of applying healing touch on the wounds of the immediate family. In our tradition, we have a ritual of 13 or 17 days, though in this modern life and especially in this time of pandemic, all rituals have been curtailed and simplified.

The reason for me suddenly remembering this important Christian tradition is this morning conversation with my wife. As she woke up looking groggy and restless, I asked her the reason. She confessed to not having slept the whole night as one month ago, this was the last night of her brother, who had breathed his last in the wee hours of 23rd August. That makes him dead for exactly one month today and hence this sudden trigger in my mind for Month’s mind. As all rituals and traditions are similar and their objectives are exactly the same, I quote a prayer from a requiem mass of a friend’s wife, who died young a few years ago. It reads as under

We have gathered here today to celebrate the Months mind / Death Anniversary of our dear Jasmit (I have replaced that lady’s name with my BIL’s name). Let us thank God, for all the joys that he/she brought into our lives and also pray for the grace that we may be strong and carry on living our lives as Jasmit would want us to.

We will now give praise and thanks to the Lord and Saviour for by dying, he destroyed our death; and by rising, he restored our life. With our dear Jasmit let us praise God saying:

Your steadfast love O Lord never ceases.

Father, we give you thanks because of your love for Jasmit. You have called him/her to live with you in your heavenly home in the fullness of your love, peace and joy. Though we grieve his/her going, we accept your will no matter how hard to bear. We thank you for the love he/she lavished on all of us during his/her life and for all the good that he/she accomplished in this world.

And then everyone sings this prayer:

Father, help us to see death for what it really is:
The end of pain and the beginning of joy
The end of frustration and the beginning of fulfilment

The end of weakness and the beginning of strength
The end of fear and the beginning of tranquility
The end of poverty and the beginning of riches.
We make this prayer through Christ our Lord

Isn’t the above prayer echoing the feelings that my wife, his sister, his other sisters, his wife, children and above all his mother that they all would be undergoing today? And on a philosophical note, aren’t all the religions showing the same path of mercy, compassion and pragmatism?

This month will become an year and year will become years and everyone will get immersed in day to day chores , but on special days , his memories will continue to come back to haunt his immediate family.