Twenty Twenty One

2021.. Ah where do I begin?

For some reason this year feels different. So many beautiful experiences and so many stupid ones,but none that I regret.

There was a small write up by Rupi kaur that touched my heart towards the end of last year and when I was re reading it today, it felt like it is just as applicable today, in fact even more applicable this time. 

“It has been one of the greatest and difficult years of my life. I learnt that everything is temporary. Moments. Feelings. People. Flowers. I learnt love is about giving everything and letting it hurt. I learnt that vulnerability is always the right choice because it is easy to be cold in a world that makes it so difficult to remain soft. I learnt all things come in twos. Life and death. Pain and joy. Salt and sugar. Me and you. It is the balance of the universe. It has been an year of hurting so bad but living so good. Making friends out of strangers. Strangers out of friends. Learning mint chocolate ice cream will fix about everything. And for pains it can’t there will always be my mothers arms. We must learn to focus on warm energy. Always. Soak our limbs into it and become better lovers to the world. If we can’t learn to be kinder to eachother how will we ever learn to be kinder to the most desperate part of ourselves.” – Rupi kaur

And out of those many experiences this year, there are two very important things that I have learnt, firstly to prioritise my mental health – to be very honest it sounded like an overrated thing until I realsied how important it is. So in 2022 I am going to put my mental health first.

Secondly, growing up in the 21st century instant gratification is something that I need, in order to feel good about myself. And social media only makes it worse. Along with that I changed my school this year and the effort to fit in to the crowd was worse than I imagined, I have been trying hard not to be bothered by what other people have to say, because there will always be something to say, so I figured, might as well wear those bell bottom pants and jump off that cliff.

But truthfully more than anything, I am grateful for all my friends and family who have stayed with me throughout! Here’s to a kickass 2022!

Time Out!

As a part of the compassionate leadership program, my friend Saumya Shinde made a presentation on ‘Time Out!’ to which I could instantly relate.

It got me thinking about the last few weeks – sleepless nights and stressed-out days. I overworked myself extensively over the last month. From co-authoring a children’s book, designing and planning a ‘brand’ to studying for my exams; life had been rather interesting. Even when I was on vacation I was constantly thinking about ideas and ways to make them work.

I for the longest time said “I enjoy being busy”, and I do. I really do, but as a normal human being, I am only capable of doing a few things at a time, a fact I tend to ignore.

In the constant run to prove myself to the world, I often find myself feeling guilty when I do take a break. As though I am meant to do better things than just rest.

Yes, I have prioritized taking a break for a while now but a few times, who am I kidding, most of the time it feels like a now or never situation. And even when I do take a break, I take a break for the sake of taking a break. Not to rest, not for my mental health, just for the heck of it.

After listening to Saumya’s presentation, I realized that I had been stuck in this cycle of burning myself out, more often than not.

“Time Out” she said as if it was a kids’ game.

At first, I thought how silly. But eventually, I realized that had it not been for those time-outs, we would have run out of air and our bodies would have been too tired to continue playing, and the game would’ve been given a full stop instead of a comma.

Our bodies work the same way, if we do not take time for restoration our bodies and minds begin to break down – disease, depression, degeneration….etc. According to some of the latest research on the deprivation of rest, this can affect our sense of ‘happiness’ or can cause life-threatening conditions like heart diseases, diabetes, and high blood pressure.

 While rest is a counter-culture for a world that never sleeps, It is essential for our bodies to wake up the next day. The only way that is possible is by resting today. So let me stop here and take my Time Out! 

“To a Muslim Assalam to a Hindu Ram Ram”

The other day I was humming, ‘Kehena hi kya’, and that’s when my dad asked me if I had watched Bombay, I said no.

But after watching a few videos with Arwind swami in them, I knew I had to watch Bombay.

It started off just as I expected with a soft love story of two people from different religions, who eventually ended up eloping and naming their twin boys Kamal and Kabir, almost five, and both have been raised not sticking to one religion.

 But the film took turns that I did not expect whatsoever.

The movie shows a huge part of the Babri masjid protests that happened in Bombay.

The riots, the fights, the shootings, the blasts, the innocent lives lost, and whatnot.

The beautiful thing is, not just the movie itself but also the actors who played the roles,

 A typical brahmin father Narayan Pillai was played by a Muslim actor – Nassar.

A proper Muslim father Basheer was played by a brahmin – Rajakrishnamurti (Kitty).

Shaila Bano – Born and bought up in a typical muslim family was played by Manisha Koirala who is a brahmin.

The legendary Maniratram – the eyes (director) of the film, a proper Brahmin. The ears of the film, a Muslim – A.R Rehman.

What’s more beautiful than that?

But the sad part is, Bombay is a film that was released in 1995, it’s been 26 years since – the Babri masjid was just an excuse for us to whip our weapons out. Today if not the Ram mandir then Kashmir, then cow slaughtering or even something as simple as a cricket match between Pakistan and India.

The fight started years before my great- grandparents were born, 

Generations have seen us fight against each other until we ripped the land apart and claimed it for ourselves.

There is a scene in Bombay (2:05:08) when one of the twins gets lost in the riot and a transgender woman takes him into her house to save him from the riots, and then he asks “what does being Hindu or Muslim mean? Why are they fighting?”

Just like she didn’t know how to answer that I don’t know either. Is it pride? Is it ego? I don’t know.

But what I know is that I want the future generation to see these fights and riots only as history.

                                      

“The culture of this soil is alike and same,

whom should I name whom should I blame,

for the walls we built for the wars we fought.

Were shortsightedness and narrow minded thought.

These are questions to be answered in the future,

Nobody could divide our ancient culture,

Music of Khusro and message of Nizam,

To a Muslim Assalam to a Hindu Ram Ram.”

Akhtar Jawad

Jaya Jaya hey!

” I have been propelled by fate into two high profile careers, both not of my choosing”

J.Jayalalithaa

After watching a movie made on the life of the legendary Jaya amma, (Actress and six times chief minister of Tamil Nadu) I was intrigued. 

So I came back home and started doing the most obvious thing any gen Z child would do, I binge-watched all the videos I could with her in them.

And two interviews stood out the most to me:

The Hardtalk India – Karan Thapar interview.

She is brutally blunt and isn’t ashamed a bit.

Sitting opposite to the ‘encounter cop’ Karan Thapar who has made men like Mr.Narendra Modi walk out of his show within the first few minutes isn’t easy.

Being questioned ‘why’ about every decision she has made in her life from why she contested on a certain day to why she added an extra ‘a’ to her name isn’t easy.

It is close to impossible to stay to stand one’s ground when the devil’s advocate is trying out every possible thing that he can to provoke you, despite you being the chief minister of a state.

But she did, she stood firm, so well that it almost felt unreal.

On the other hand, the Simmi Garewal interview was a smooth sailing one but it left me with more questions than answers.

Jayalalitha has always been an Icon, an icon who broke barriers and said women especially women with no background rightfully have their place in politics.

One of the major reasons I say she is my biggest inspiration is because both her professions are highly unconventional, especially in that generation.

So she felt like one of the very few women who actually chased their dreams and achieved them.

However, only after watching this interview, I realized that none of what she did was ever her dream. 

After doing about a hundred and forty films she said ‘I never wanted to get into films’

The interview was conducted after she contested the three elections (won two) and yet she said “I don’t like politics even today.”

The ideal life that she would have loved to live was to spend time in her farmhouse and not having to answer a single call or meet a single person.

Generally, when we are stressed, we say things like “ah I wish I could go live in another country’’ or “oh I wanna go just quit my job” when we say things like these we say them out of frustration at that moment, because honestly how long can a person live like that? But when Jayalalithaa said she wanted to live on a farm and not pick a call, it did not sound like it was out of frustration.

It sounded as if that was what she actually wanted to do.

She said she lived the first part of her life for her mother, the second part for MGR, and said ‘I want to live this third part of my life for myself but did she?

After watching hours of her interviews I realized that she is probably one of the most competitive people I know of. Say a word underestimating her and she will take it as a challenge to prove you wrong.

A woman as strong as her, a woman who proved everyone wrong,  a woman who fought every battle that came her way, why couldn’t she live the life she wanted? Why didn’t she pursue her interests after making her family financially secure?

Did she continue to pursue acting only to prove that she could be on top?

Did she take to politics only to prove that women like her, are capable of ruling?

And in the process of proving herself to the world, did she lose herself?

Embracing Diversity

Diversity is the nature of nature.

Be it plants, be it animals, be it any other species including homo sapiens, we’re all so diversified and yet everything has its place and purpose in nature.

For someone who is born in one of the most populated and culturally diverse countries, with numerous languages and hundreds of tribes diversity comes by birth.

However, because of our inability to coexist and appreciate the differences between each other – we’ve lost a lot as a country from tribes and languages to ancient recipes and traditions in the name of caste, creed, religion, or gender.

There is one test to know whether a civilisation is advanced or not and to check if diversity is appreciated by it or not.

Every single state in our country has its own festivals, has its own food, has its own culture, and it’s on us to choose whether to look at the border in between or to look beyond it and celebrate us.

Mahatma Gandhi once said “Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilisation.”

I think it’s time for us to finally say goodbye to the discrimination that comes with diversity and start celebrating the beauty that lies in it.

Silence please 🤫

When I’m alone at home I look in the mirror and give my award winning speech, or I pretend to be a boss in board meetings or even my own therapist sometimes.

And when I’m with people, I go completely crazy.

I can have the best time with absolute strangers and not be scared.

If you ask me what I fear the most, then I have to say that it’s losing my ability to communicate in which my voice plays a major role.

Besides I have read that silence is one of the most powerful things.

It can apparently improve your concentration and focus and bring stillness in you – and for a person who changes the layout of her room every two months and wants to try something new every single day, stability sounded surprisingly interesting.

So to challenge myself I decided to go mute for 24 hours.

——————————————

Have you ever played charades for 24 hours straight ? 

Well that’s what it felt like.

And if there was one person who enjoyed this whole day thoroughly, it was my sister – she took complete advantage of the fact that I couldn’t say anything to her.

From teasing me to tickling me, she literally vented out all the resentment she had bottled up for the last 12 years!

Another learning was, the immense amount of energy I used while talking had no place to go.

But I had to do something with all the energy!

So I locked myself up and wrote something that I had been procrastinating for months now.

However, I don’t know if I experienced any of those so called “benefits” of silence, but what I did realise was, normally when I’m in a situation I don’t like, I get angry.

But not being able to do that is what made me understand that being silent and thinking about the situation instead of reacting too fast or lashing out, can actually help and change my point of view in the situation.

And now when I think about it, getting through the day wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.

So I might as well do it again!

The kitchen

Over the last few years I’ve seen my sister Raaga enjoy cooking and baking, but it never interested me, and when I started to think about why , I realised that there are a couple reasons.

I remember asking one of my friends what her parents do and she said to me “ My dad is a project developer and my mom gave her career up, to cook and take care of us.“

And that didn’t sound new or surprising to me, I’ve heard that more often than not, from a lot of different people.

Maybe that’s exactly why I don’t want to learn cooking.

Because in the outside world I’ve barely seen women make their own decisions, especially women who stay at home mainly to cook and take care of the family.

Cooking makes me feels as if I were giving up the power I have and my ability to do much more than that.

And I don’t like that feeling. 

And there is a poet ‘Vimala’, who didn’t like it either.

And after reading her account of two generations of women within the four walls of the kitchen, I couldn’t stop myself from adding it here:

“ This kitchen: how wonderful!

Wafting aroma,

how it makes the mouth water,

like an open shop of sweets.

It breathes spices, 

Incense from the pooja room,

Wakes in the morning to the noise of churning butter,

of vessels being scrubbed.

The earthen oven gets a fresh much-wash,

decks herself for the burning.

from the small change in the box of spices and seasoning.

We bought ourselves, sweets,

played house, played being cooks.

With jaggery and lentils.

It was a magic world.

The kitchen snared my childhood,

remained a spell, a passion.

Wisps of childhood shadows lifted,

It’s no longer a playground.

They taught me ‘kitchenness’ here,

my shaping started here.

Mother, grandmother, all the mothers

in the house, they say,

learned their motherhood here.

Our kitchen is now a graveyard

 with corpses of all kinds 

tins, dishes, sacks.

It hangs there in the smoke,

clouds from damp firewood.

Fears, despair, silence, lurking there,

Mother floats like a spirit

She looks like the morning kitchen herself.

Her eyes ran out of tears long ago,

Her hands are worn out with endless scrubbing.

Look she does not have hands anymore.

She looks like a ladle, a bowl,

A piece of kitchen bric-a-brac.

Sometimes she looks like a flaming oven,

Sometimes a trapped tigress

Restless, she paces the kitchen floor,

bangs pots and pans.

How easily, they say, with the flick of ladle!

the cooking gets done

None comes this way, except to eat.

My mother is the empress of the kitchen empire,

But the names on pots and plates are my father’s.

Fortunately, they said, I fell into a good kitchen:

gas stove, grinder, sink, and tiles.

I make cakes and puddings,

Not old fashioned things like mother:

still, the name on everything is my husband’s.

My kitchen wakes

to the whirr and hisses of the grinder,

The hiss of the pressure cooker.

I move like my modern kitchen;

a wind-up toy.

My kitchen is like a workshop,

It’s like a butcher’s shop with its babble.

Washing what has been washed endlessly 

cooking and serving, cooking and serving.

Scrubbing and washing

there’s the kitchen in my dreams:

the smell of spices even in jasmine,

Damm this kitchen.

Inhuman, it sucks our blood, robs us

Of hopes and dreams,

a demon, a vulture 

eating into us bit by bit all our lives.

Kitchen culture, kitchen talk, 

Reduced to kitchen maids and cooks.

Let’s smash these kitchens for making ladle-wielding our duty.

No more names on kitchen things.

Let’s uproot these separate stoves.

Our children are about to enter 

these lonely kitchens.

Come, for their sake,

Let’s demolish 

these kitchens now!“

                  – Vimala 

t’s been more than thirty years since this poem was written and the fact that it is still relevant speaks for itself.

Thirty years. Everything changed. Except this.

Except that our kitchen still sucks our blood and robs us of hopes and dreams.

I don’t want to not dream.

I don’t want to smell spices even in the jasmine I wear.

I don’t want to feel content because my kitchen has electric appliances

But I want to see this poem in history textbooks.

Not relevant anymore.

Just a piece of history.

Accidental challenge. Accidental opportunity. Accidental Learning.

Around mid-last year when we were all trapped at home, I ended up watching a documentary about Tony Robbins on Netflix called  “I am not your guru “.

And by the end of the documentary, I wanted to attend his workshop, for what? I don’t know.  But I just wanted to.

The other day while I was lethargically procrastinating everything and watching YouTube, an ad popped up, with Tony.

It said something about a challenge, “own your future challenge.”

And the ad did its job. I clicked on the link and I registered myself.

Little did my disciplined little mind know that my sleep schedule was going to go haywire  then onwards.

The sessions began at 11:30 pm and ended around 2:30- 3ish.

But oh god! It was so worth it!

This time it was for five days and we also ended up having a bonus day in the end. 

My entire childhood , people said knowledge was power.

But Tony denies it. 

Because ‘knowledge’ is  only potential power whereas ‘execution’ is the real power.

When Tony began talking, it seemed as if he was an imposter, just paraphrasing and synthesising a bunch of books that even I had read.

But it’s what he did after, that made me want to attend day 2 of this challenge.

When I saw his documentary I thought it was dumb that he made his students jump and dance.

Man, I was wrong!

And this was probably the first time I was happy about being wrong.

Because with him I jumped and danced and trust me, it was like intoxication; a trance. It set the tone and gave us all the motivation required to learn from the other speakers.

Over the 6 days, there were such amazing speakers that  all of them had made  an impact.

And here are my favourite learnings from the 6 days:

It was all about the self-education industry and how this is one of the most booming industries in the world.

Even though I didn’t have any intentions of getting into this industry , I did learn a lot and these learnings could be applied to anything in general.

So I thought why not share my learnings with you.

The basic economic problem today is that there are insufficient resources. But when it comes to the self-education industry each one of us has an unlimited supply of what people need and want.

And that unlimited supply is our journey. Our experiences. Our failures and how we overcome them.

But what matters at the end of the day is what you choose to do with these experiences. 

It matters how you turn your mess into your message.

Because somewhere somebody is starting in a place you have already been in.

The self-education industry is the bridge builder – 

You went through a slump, you were in a pit and you got out of it. Now if you are in the self-education industry then you are building a bridge for other people to go through it smoothly.

Without falling into the pit that you fell into.

The messy middle – Jenna Kutcher 

We had Jenna come up, who is a mom and a marketing entrepreneur.

She taught me the importance of mess.

I know it sounds dumb and a little cinematic, but hear me out okay… when we put up transformations online, be it any transformation we show the before and the after but we never show the middle. 

Because it’s messy.

But it’s no magic right, we don’t have clear skin, perfect bodies, and six-packs overnight.

It took time, it tested our patience, we wanted to give up.

But we didn’t and it is so important to show that messy middle, it might not inspire a thousand people, but even if it impacts one, your job is done.

The Dot – Dean Graziosi 

The dot is your market, your niche.

Say you want to write a book about the Stanislavsky method of acting.

There are seven billion people in the world, you are not writing to all of them. You are writing to the people who want to learn to act.

You are not writing to everyone who wants to learn acting, you are writing to the people who want to know the methods of acting.

You are not writing to everyone who wants to learn the methods of acting, you are writing to people who want to learn the Stanislavsky method of acting.

And that is your dot.

When you have your dot clear then, confidence comes by itself.

Selling or giving? – Dean Graziosi 

Dean says when you love something so much that you want others to experience it, you will never look at it as selling ever again.

You are solving/preventing a problem for them no matter how big or small it is. 

Let’s say you are selling a moisturizer – you are preventing people from dry skin.

Let’s say you are selling a lint roller – you are solving the problem of having lint on their clothes.

So selling is a service and not something to be ashamed of.

The quickest way to sell – 3 steps.

Dean says and now I think I’m starting to believe , that these three steps can sell about anything.

1. Hook – This is used to instantly grab your target’s attention. The quickest way to do this is by living inside your prospective client’s head. Answer these questions before you approach them :

•     What is their biggest fear ?
•     What is their biggest goal ?
•     Your ideal client is you a few years ago . So what would you have said to your younger self that would have instantly grabbed their attention.

2. Your story – This I think is the easiest part. But instead of giving your whole life away simply narrate a scene of your life.

GIVE YOUR CUSTOMER AN ANECDOTE. ( I promise anecdotes never go wrong )

The simplest way to do it is – I was this , this was my problem , and this is how I overcame it.

3. Irresistible offer – This is the most important part!

Give them your hook, then your story, and give them an offer they can’t deny. This can ideally be your call to action.

Ex : I was this , this was my problem , this is how I overcame it, and here is my contact info in case you want to learn from me.

Think about it now , if you are the customer would you buy it if they sold it to you this way ?

Flex  – social media strategy – Glo Atanmo 

Glo is a Travel blogger with over 250K people in her community.

And here’s how she built that insanely amazing community.

F – Find your voice and find a platform for it , it could be anything , a YouTube , podcast, or a blog.

L – Learn a new skill. Having more skills than what you are required to have will help in differentiating you from your competition. It will make you an irreplaceable asset. 

E – Enter a community. There is always so much to take away from a community , it will give you content and credibility.\

X – Experiment. Experiment for a hundred days , anything that can be done for a hundred days , can create a huge impact.

Ex : #hundreddaysofhappiness , #hundreddaysofsweat 

In fact, a few days ago , I started my own experiment.

It’s called a hundred days of sunsets. Because almost every day we’ve been staring at one screen or another so I thought just for a couple of minutes at least why not go watch the sunset.

The six days that I spent listening and understanding what these speakers are saying have been a few of the most educative days for me , so much to learn , so much to take away.

Now as Dean Graziosi says , the most important part is implementation and I’m going to go do that now.

Fate vs Free will

You opened the link and started reading this blog – is it because of fate or free will?

You are now thinking about it – is it fate or is it free will?

But what is fate?

Fate as google suggests is – things outside of a person’s control, predetermined by a supernatural power.

And free will is the capacity to choose what to do and what not to.

Freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention.

There are people who believe that another force decides what they do or what they don’t.

So much so that they think the responsibility for things always lies outside of themselves.

They believe that their entire life is dependent on people around them ( parents , friends , family , school , government & God)

And there are other kind of people who truly believe in free will, they believe that everything around them can change if they want it to. And that they can achieve anything and everything by just exercising their will.

They believe that their parents , friends , family , school , government all come under their will.

And when I had this question of what is more powerful, is it fate or is it free will? I couldn’t answer it.

I don’t know if I can answer it even now.

It is chaos and confusion I don’t know if my fate makes me feel that way or my free will- but here’s what I found.

Rationally free will’s principle says that: An action is free only if the agent – that is , the person doing the thing could have done otherwise. – so truly free will requires options.

And determinism by contrast doesn’t allow options. It says that every event is caused by a previous event. A person could have never done anything apart from what he/she already did.

Now even after reading that I couldn’t figure it out.

Because I do believe that every event is caused by a previous event but at the same time I also do believe that I am one person who thinks that everything and anything is under my will.

So what is it that governs our life?

And finally a person from the YouTube channel ‘school of life’ had made this really interesting comparison:

“We are like dogs , a dog who is tied to a leash and this leash is tied to an unpredictable cart.

The leash is long enough to give me a degree of lever but not long enough to let me wander wherever I want.”

So I realised , maybe my life is a combination of both , in fact a perfect combination – I don’t know which one is greater , but do I have to ?

I needed that.

I needed that.

For the longest time I have been the most confident person I know , in fact over confident. And I take pride in that.

Oh! For that sake I used to compliment myself on a daily basis and sometimes so much that my friends call me “self obsessed” as a joke.

But off-late it’s not been the same.

A few months ago I posted on Instagram about how I’m slowly coming to terms and getting okay with my acne.

And it has been like that until now , but for some reason its not the same anymore, in fact I’m just letting it get into my head every single day , and I don’t know how to deal with it.

I don’t.

I’ve tried it all from home made face masks  to actually consulting a dermatologist , but nothing seems to work.

One day someone asked me why I have pimples and another day a person literally came and said “ Enti moham anta padipoindi ” I laugh and try to leave it there but it stays , maybe not on the top of my head , but it stays.

Today was one of that day, today I hit saturation.

It got to a point where I didn’t take my mask off ,not because I’m scared of covid but because I’m insecure about my acne.

Later , I came back home and the only person I could think of is my cousin Manas. I called her and I asked “ have you ever looked in the mirror and said oh I look like shit! Because I did that today and I don’t know how to deal with it “

She said “ Pari , I’ve been in this body for so long , that I’ve gotten used to it at this point. That you will start to feel normal in it.

But beyond all that It does not matter how you look , and I know it sounds cliche , but what really matters is who you are as a person , and I know that you are a great one.“

Thank you.

I needed that.