shant gadhadhari bheem, shant

Everyone gets used to everything. Once I met a Chinese lady who was on a study trip here. We got talking at a mutual friends place and I asked her, “how is it possible for the Chinese to live without real freedom”. How can the government control everything and the Chinese become used to it without revolt?” She said “its just the way of life and you get used to it. Without meaning disrespect, but in India there is a tribe which pushes one of its own daughters into prostitution. It’s just it. Over a period of time you don’t know what else”. I guess it’s true to some extent. People are great at adapting to surroundings and get used to it. I always wonder. Like in some regimes like North Korea, how could a mad cap dictator survive with the kind of atrocities committed by him? Don’t the people revolt, know that it’s stupid and this cant work like this? I guess not.

Many years ago I had a long and memorable chat with my dad. It was when I was in school. I argued that non violence was the best means. We were so many of us. All we needed was one Indian to kill one British and we were done. We outnumbered them by a large margin. It doesn’t work that way. I think George Bernad Shaw said ‘Progress depends on the unreasonable man’. He is right as well. People prefer status quo but status quo must be challenged. I want change but I am also part of people. So what am I? an unreasonable man or a status quo man?

I think a lot depends on age. When I was much younger I was impatient. Time was running out. I would hop jobs and go for the best offer, the best job and flirt with many. As age progressed, I found myself ready to play the waiting game. Waiting waiting waiting.  So did cobwebs grow under my back side. Have I lost the fire I once had? Well yes and no.

Oh yes the bland rage that I had is gone. I am no longer the angry young man I once was. Ready to change the world and refusing to see logic and patience. But I guess you can’t ever continue with that rage. It burns you and those around you. You learn to shimmer and crouch and learn to direct it. Not hitting every ball and waiting for the right ball is also aggression. Dour defense is as aggressive as flashy stroke play. It’s how you define aggression.

I was and still will always be extremely aggressive. But the manifestation has changed. It comes out differently. I miss the idiot I once was but I am also thankful that I am no longer the idiot I once was. One realizes that the world can’t be changed in one day. It takes time and patience. Also one acknowledges that the world’s priorities are different from yours and it’s definitely not true that yours are the most important priorities alive. So this kind of patience is critical to the living and adapting to the environment around you. Especially, if you are the aggressive sorts. Aggression is a means to an end.

I have also learnt that naturally aggressive people and toppers and people in high places can’t just tone down that easily. If some has reached somewhere they have reached there by aiming and working towards it. And if you think they are not aggressive. I think you must think again. Its only that their priorities or world wisdom tells them something that you don’t know. When I was much younger I would be eager to criticize and complain. Now I hold my horses.  It’s important to understand the context and put yourself in their shoes. Now figure, are you really that sure of the situation. Are you jumping to conclusions without assigning probabilities? Like today at the gymkhana I overheard some conversation where the person said ‘that is the solution. That’s the only way to solve it.’ It struck me hard. I have learnt to say more often than not “that SEEMS to me as the solution to the problem”. Because you never know.

Recently Rahul Gandhi got screwed in the media for the interview he had on a news channel. He answered randomly to questions asked. No matter what he was asked, his answers were something else. Woah. Easily one of the worst possible interviews. He lost a lot of his urban English speaking fans. But hell, I am not ready to haul him over coals yet. He is definitely not stupid. I always like to look at the other side. Why did he say thus? What was on his mind? What would have been the strategic reasoning behind it? Was he that naïve? I don’t believe that the truth is that simple as it is made out to be. Yes it sounded bad, but was there another game that was being played?

Restraining aggression is easily one of the most difficult things to do. Rather let me reword that one  - Redirecting aggression is easily one of the most difficult things to do. Curbing your natural instinct while honing it so that you don’t lose your mojo is just a bloody difficult thing to do.

I am reminded of my boss who used to say “shant gadhadhari bheem, shant”. If you are born after 1980 you won’t really get the reference. This was from the epic serialised version of the Mahabharat, wherein the eldest of the Pandavs continuously held back the biggest of the Pandavs, namely Bheem. Shant – Peace. Peace.

And talking of being used to something. I love my desk in the mornings and I am so used to it. I will really miss this when I leave. As and when I leave.