The Insignificance of Hope

We today live in extremely hopeful times. The yoke of an unresponsive Government, often and frequently accused of being in a continuous state of policy paralysis has been dethroned. The country has been unshackled from the yoke of a dynasty that has intermittently ruled the country for decades. The entire hopes of the country is now reposed on the broad shoulders (or is it the 56 inch chest) of one man. Questions asked are promptly replied with, “Wait and see what he does.” I would be either an extremely competent and fearless person to shoulder this responsibility or a very scared person wondering how to deliver on the many promises made over the past few months that was dominated by rallies extolling people to vote for one person.

All said and done, all the noises seem to have the correct resonance and a start seems to have been made. I am willing to overlook the now-famous controversy between chicken dishes being served to a visiting Head of Government by respective Prime Ministers and whether one was right or the other. Politics is one thing, and running Government is another. One does end up saying things to win an election and yet ends up doing what is politically and diplomatically prudent when occupying the exalted Chair of Government. The difference between and agitator and an administrator was unfortunately quite lost on yet another politician, who has been dubbed AK49 due to his 49 days in power and the name of the Party, which was for a brief moment in history the harbinger of hope and change is taking on uncharitable acronyms.

Yet, I believe we live in a climate of hope. What I wonder is where this hope is coming from. From want of change, is what I figure. Change from what has been happening over the past many years. As a common man (the ubiquitous aam aadmi, not to be confused with a would-be national party that tried to usurp this position), is not so concerned about fiscal deficit, the value of the rupee or the current price of Brent in the international market. He does not care where the 300 unfortunate Nigerian girls are being kept hostage or whether North Korea will finally carry out a nuclear detonation. The stock market is something that he keeps hearing about without knowing or caring about it too much. He does even point to the Malacca Straits on the map, much less care about China’s regional territorial plans. Arunachal Pradesh is an Indian State and he wonders what the brouhaha is all about stapled visas. After all, he is lucky to be able to travel to his hometown to meet his folks once a year, if that.

Nope, the mango man (as he is also called) does not care about the ills of the world and whether outsourcing will be curtailed by the American Government. He is concerned about how many days of the month are left at the end of the money. In many case, how many hours are left at the end of the day and whether he can stretch the few measly coins in his pocket to put some food in the mouths of his hungry children. He does not understand why that ten rupee note that bought him so much just a few months back, is today refused even by the beggar, who by many accounts, has a fat bank balance due to the mafia that controls this industry. He is concerned about the bills that keep piling up – electricity, water, phone, tuition, private tuition. And living in India, he dreads festivals knowing that uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces, his wife and children, sundry other relatives and acquaintances will be looking towards him for a new set of clothes, long over due.

The aam aadmi is spending increasing amounts of time at the doorstep of whichever higher power he thinks will show him a way out of the hole that he seems to find himself in.

Yes, we are living in an era of hope. Hope for deliverance. Hope to find a way out to make ends meet without worrying too much about where the next meal is coming from. Hope that now the economy will become better and he will not dread going to office wondering if he still has his job. Hope in things to come. Hope in the future since there was nothing much in the past to write home about.

Yes, we live in hopeful times. And yes, this burden of hope of a large percentage of the 125 crore citizens is a burden that is being carried by one man. Even his colleagues and well wishers seem to have abdicated their individual responsibilities and point to that one person as the harbinger of good times to come. Indeed, the slogan is Good Times Have Come. Personally I wish him Godspeed since there are enough naysayers waiting in the wings for him to stumble and fall. They are waiting to smirk and utter aloud, “I told you so.”

Yet, we live in a state of hope. The nation hopes. The citizens hope. Dalal Street hopes. Corporate India hopes. The world hopes. Indeed, after being a pariah for so many years, the single most powerful nation in the world hopes that he will deign to accept their invitation to visit the land of the big apple. Hope lingers on and perseveres.

It is said, never deprive a person of hope since it might be the only thing he has. And that is what makes this era of hope so dangerous and frightening. If the hopes are belied (and I hope they are not), many many lives will be shattered at the impending status quo.

But that is a much more macro issue and I will not even attempt to judge on what may or may not happen in the near term or middle term future. Except, of course ... hope!

I would rather concentrate on me and myself for the moment, the only thing I have control over. Or do I? Do any of us really have control over our own destinies? Aren’t we all interdependent? Do prosper, we require to live in an interconnected world, a world where our destiny is connected with the actions of others. For me to do something, others have to do something, and together we can further our individual destinies.

We do not live insular lives. If we have something to sell, we need someone to buy. If the buyer dithers or goes somewhere else, where does that leave us? I guess, hope for a better deal tomorrow.

I have been living in hope for almost two decades now. Some say (actually many say) that my hopes are too grand. Do not dream so big, they tell me. I understand their concerns, but hope keeps me going. I am yet to meet too many people who disagree with my thoughts or ideas. What they disagree with mainly is the scale of the ideas. Think small, they insist. Think BIG, I tell them. The amount of time it takes to sell a small idea (read cheap) is about the same as a big one. The problem I faced with a cheaper proposal (many times unstated) is, “It is too insignificant to waste time on.” On the other end of the spectrum, when presenting a bigger idea I have heard the whispers, “It is too big and too much is at risk.” Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Yet, hope lingers and one perseveres and proceeds for the next round of meetings ... and rejections.

I tell my daughters about Ray Croc and how he started McDonalds when he was 52. This when they inquire whether it is time I slowed down and got down to things more mundane. There is this guy who published his first book when he was 96 years old. Another guy who went through multiple pairs of shoes before someone cared to even read his proposal for funding. There are enough examples of people who stay at it, refusing to give it all up, telling themselves, “Someday!” And it is these pioneers who screw up the lives of people like who believe that they have been born for a reason and have a destiny to fulfil. Probably all balderdash.

Yet, hope in that tiny corner of the brain rejuvenates the grey cells and the next PowerPoint finds its way into some Conference Room or the other.

Some years ago I heard that God would not put you through trouble without giving the strength to face it. The continuation to that statement was, “I wish He did not have so much faith in me!” With increasing rejections, keeping the faith becomes so much more difficult. And it is not so much rejections that bother me really. It is the utter disregard with which one is treated. People think they are doing you a favour by deigning to meet with you. They refuse to respond to email, phone calls or text messages. They are always either busy or travelling or in a meeting. It is quite easy to say, “Listen, thanks a lot, this does not work for us.” Why waste your time and mine by refusing to close one way or another? And by keeping hope alive, a disservice is being done. To the project, to the individual and to the whole concept of hope itself.

There is yet another group of people who are the exploiters. They are the ones with the money, the entrepreneurs, wealth gained through hard work, diligence and I suspect with a fair bit of wheeling and dealing. They guard even their loose change with a vengeance. “So what if it costs you so much. I can only offer this much, take it or leave it. But you cannot leave out any of things you promised.” And there are worse people who take over your concept and end up executing it themselves without even a by your leave. They are worse than those who pick up the project, and ask you to execute it for a fee, as a paid employee. Demeaning, but better than being at the raw end of the barn where your horse used to be. No point in bolting the door now.

How important is hope really? Is it as significant as it is made out to be? Where would we be if we came face to face with the reality of hope? Is it a good thing that hope is always in the future and not staring us in the face with its realism right here and now?

With age comes wisdom, or so people say. I do not about wisdom, but realism certainly comes home to roost. One starts questioning the very premise on which hope is based and comes to face really some painful realities. When hope goes out of the window, your life can actually become like a deflated balloon. And it happens fast. That is when you grow old and spend the rest of your days sitting back without a care in the world, counting the days when someone hopefully will put two coins on your forever closed eyes as fare for the ferryman to take you across the river separating this world and the next.

Hope is very powerful, but then hope can also be very insignificant. Is it better or worse to delay the realisation of this insignificance of hope, I wonder.

A Cave in the Mountains

In the last one decade this is the second time that I have been laid out with a major surgery. The last time it was a motorcycle accident when I was travelling around Rajasthan with my American friend Thomas Elliot. We had just crossed Jhunjhunun after copious amounts of tea, next stop Delhi. It was late evening and by the time we hit the road, the sky was turning dark. It was a moonless night and for about twenty kilometres I followed a highway taxi, making him the pace setter. Soon, he slowed down. There was a shantytown to our left and I figured he was stopping to disgorge passengers. Little did I know when I started overtaking him that barely at a distance of less than ten feet my life would change forever. The taxi was not stopping to disgorge passengers but to allow a cow to cross the road. But I was already committed and needless to say, I had not seen the cow. By the time I did, much of the less than ten feet had been covered and by the time I stood on my brakes I had smacked headlong into the cow. With a scream of agony that could be heard back in Jhunjhunun a little over twenty kilometres away, I lay on the road writhing in agony till some villagers came by and carried me to the side of the road where I lay for another hour or so trying to figure out what had happened. A taxi was commissioned and writhing in pain and agony I made my way to the Government Hospital back in Jhunjhunun. A doctor was summoned and he along with six or seven ward boys wrestled with poor little me till they could finally straighten my broken leg at the knee. My screams could be heard in Baggar, a little over twenty kilometres away, where the accident had taken place. The otherwise calm of the desert night was shattered by my screams yet again. The wildlife, of which there is plenty, must have wondered at this sudden, unknown, indescribable sound of what they must have thought was the growl of a new predator import.

I stayed in the Government Hospital overnight, got into an ambulance and drove back to Delhi to be operated on the following day. The knee was entirely shattered and the doctors managed to cement it in place and locked their craftsmanship with three screws, each about four inches long. My collar bone had broken too, but that was a minor irritant compared to what had happened to my knee.

About a week later I was back home, bed-bound for the next many weeks. Two months later the second round of agony hit me when physiotherapy started. My knee was a shambles and was irrevocably bent at about a thirty degree angle. The physiotherapist took it as his bounden duty to ensure that he straighten it out. Molten wax was something I got used to. What I did not get used to was the physical torture that I was subjected to by the physiotherapist. He tried for a few weeks and by that time I had decided to spare myself the torture and left the fate of my leg to well ... fate.

While in bed I had made myself three promises. One that I would ride a motorcycle again. Two, that I would visit my Buddhist teacher in Dharamshala. And three, I would visit Ladakh again. These three objectives kept me going and just about when I thought that the walker would be my companion for life, I stood on my own two feet again, without any other external support. And oh, the promises to myself? I kept all three of them within the next one year.

Doctors told me that osteoarthritis had set in due to the accident and the surgery and that I would require a total knee replacement in the next four or five years. Life went on and took on as normal a routine as possible pretty soon. A year later I was again in the hills riding my motorcycle again in an attempt at a new world record that unfortunately had to be aborted due to unseasonal weather patterns. I did have a pronounced limp, my right leg was shorter by about four inches, I had to relearn to walk and I overcame these situations. I started the OTA Survival School. I made almost 200 short films on survival. I relocated to Hyderabad for about a year. I then came back to Delhi. Produced a few corporate audiovisuals. Visited sundry places every once in a while. And managed to keep up my annual tryst with Ladakh.

The days went by as did the weeks and months and years. I was away in Sawai Madhopur shooting an audiovisual when the left ankle gave up on me entirely. I did not remember hurting it in any way, but I just could not walk anymore. X-rays did not show anything. A visit to the doctor and his immediate diagnosis was that it was because of the busted right leg that was putting increasing pressure on my left ankle. And hence the discomfort. Solution? Knee replacement surgery. I knew that I could postpone it by another year or so before walking would become very difficult and took the decision to go in for the surgery immediately. The surgeon was met and the date was fixed for Dec 18, 2013. 

That was still more than a month away and I decided to spend that time in Goa learning scuba diving. So I went off to Goa. And that was another story altogether. Spent the first day in the pool learning to breathe under water. Kind of figured that out after a while but could not get used to not getting air through my nose. Managed to stay underwater for sometime, panicked and resurfaced. Much to the chagrin of the instructor, I managed it enough for him to  invite me over the next day for a stint out in the sea. I was apprehensive throughout the boat ride and ultimately gathered enough courage to sit on the side of the boat, gear and all, to be pushed overboard into the sea. Took me almost half an hour to gather the courage to go more than a foot or so under water. The panic was a bit much. And the sea water, of which I drank plenty, was awful. Anyway, managed to go down about seven or eight metres to the bottom, did some of the mandatory things before I sprang back to the surface again.

There was to be a second dive and I just did not manage that. Try as I might, my mind had given up completely and refused to even try breathing under water. The instructor too gave up on me and we decided to spend another day at the pool overcoming my fear and panic.

And then it happened. On my way to the centre the next day I fell down on the road, slipping on some gravel and broke my busted knee again. Somehow I managed to get back home and visited the doctor in the evening. A wonderful doctor, he took a look at the X-ray and decided there was no fracture. He put a knee brace and told me to get back to Delhi. Which I did a few days later. I had already fixed my appointment with the surgeon from Goa itself and on reaching Delhi was relieved to hear from the doctor that this recent accident would not in any way postpone my slated surgery and that I could prepone it if I so desired. Not that I was going anywhere. The leg hurt bad and I was back on a walker. A date was fixed for Dec 1, 2013 to get admitted for surgery the following day. 

I believe that knee replacement surgeries normally take less than an hour ... mine took over two hours. I would wake up in the middle of the surgery and yap with the anaesthetist who was standing at my head. I could hear the chiselling and hammering going on and knew what was happening from all the videos I had seen on the subject on YouTube. Ooooops. But it did not hurt one bit thanks to the copious amounts of anaesthetics I was on. Out of surgery and into the ICU for a night which was spent yapping with the nurse into the wee hours of the night. 

Physiotherapy started in the hospital the next day and I learnt about the fracture that did not show up on the X-ray. Of the three screws from the previous surgery, one had to be kept inside the knee to take care of the fracture. Nevertheless the tortuous physiotherapists happened once again in my life but I must say, this time around it was far less painful.

And less than a week after my surgery I was back home. Lots of medicines, lots of painkillers and lots of pain followed. A physiotherapist came home everyday showing me the exercises and making his best effort to make me scream out in agony. But again, this time it was much easier than the last time around. The physiotherapist came once a day and every day he made me promise that I would continue the exercises at least five times each day. Never happened. Never did I get to do the exercises five times. Four is the maximum number I have managed.

And then one day the medicines stopped. And the pain started. Constant and nagging. It was as if someone had my knee in a vice and would not let go. In fact, s/he would twist it every now and then. So what, said the physiotherapist, no pain no gain. I wonder if he ever had to undergo the kind of pain I was being subjected to. And the additional fracture was not helping any. Moreover, my muscles had gone into hibernation over the last eight years and had to be goaded to come back to life. I had lived with a lower leg bent at the knee and below and now that the leg had been straightened, I had to relearn this new sensation. The walker gave way to a stick, the stitches were removed, the bandages found their way into the waste bin, and I continued to endure the pain. A pain so bad that I could not sleep at night. I would wake up groaning and moaning.

One thing that being in bed for extended periods with nothing to do, results in one thing – you get to do a lot of thinking. The last time I had in front of me three promises I had made myself. I wanted to go down that same road once again. But try as I might, no worthwhile promises made sense. I am eight years older and a look at the last few years and the years to come do not bring about any particular things that make much sense. All one can do is harp back at the past and the fruitlessness of an unknown future. And that is a bad combination. I know that I need something to look forward to, but just cannot seem to think of anything. It is as if my life has had its day and the future is kind of dark, bleak and pointless. A look further back into my life, prior to the accident, and another bunch of negative thoughts floods my brain. A childhood that left my parents wanting, a school life that could have been more academically inclined, a failure as an executive, a bigger failure as an entrepreneur, a sorry figure of a husband, just a little bit better as a father, a failed adventurer and now at a little over 50, a failed life to look back on, without a beacon blinking at me from the future.

My grandfather was some kind of astrologer and he had made me an almanac when I was still a toddler. He prophesied that one day I would become a mendicant. Maybe it is time for me to renounce the world and find myself a cave in the mountains.

The Possession of Leisure

Take a look around you. Everyone is running. Running after something or the other. Running to reach someplace. Running to catch a train. Running to make a meeting. Running to make end meet. Running to stay ahead of the others. Running after time. Everyone seems to have something to run after. Something that they aspire for. Something that they dream about. Something that they want to own. To possess. Whether it is at work or at home. And they end up spending their entire lives running, without ever having the joy of enjoying what they have attained through all this running. The time for enjoying is always tomorrow. Yet, tomorrow never seems to come. And one day it is all over. You lie on your deathbed, looking back at your life, and the process of running starts all over again. What could have been done. What should have been done. What needed to be done. All the missed opportunities. Now gone forever. And you close your eyes to eternal sleep.

Let us step back for a while and ask ourselves what is the purpose of all this running, when on that final moment of reckoning, all you have is you and your memories. Can the memories be of joy and happiness of a life well lived, or does it have to be about the things that could have been. I once read somewhere “No one on his deathbed ever said, I wish I had spent more time in the office.” So true. Yet, every waking moment of our lives we run after that elusive pot of gold at the rainbow. We run after that mirage in the horizon. We are always on the lookout for that turn in the road of our lives which will change our fortunes forever. And yet, when we finally do take that turn, there emerges ahead of us yet another turn, yet another rainbow, yet another mirage. And the chase continues. We continue to run till we fall.

Why can’t we gift ourselves the luxury of leisure? Why can’t we decide to take possession of that luxury called time? Is it decadence that allows us that luxury? Is it only people who do not have to think about what tomorrow entails who can have the luxury of leisure. Without a care in the world, without the eternal running endemic to humankind? Do people look at those with time on their hands, enjoying the luxury of leisure as fortunate human beings who do not have to work for a living? Maybe yes. But when you come down to think of it, how much of our lives are spent in keeping up with the person next door? Why do we have to compare ourselves with someone else? And why does all equations have to be drawn against the equaliser of material possessions? Isn’t that what we try to do when we are running? Get a better job, a higher salary, a bigger car, a four bedroom house, china and silver on the table? Why does it have to be that? Why can’t we be happy to live the life that we want to? Maybe because we have forgotten what we want out of life. Maybe we never knew what life has to offer. Maybe we are so conditioned to grow up, get educated, get employed, make money and teach our children to do the same. Why can’t we step back for once and gift ourselves the luxury of leisure?

Is it so difficult to possess leisure? No, it is not. Not when you really get down to it. What does one need to lead a happy and contended life? Not much, to be honest. Three square meals a day, a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs and the wind in our faces. Why should we consider ourselves happy only if we have the big television and a fancy cellphone and a sparkling sedan parked outside? We will not take any of that away with us when we make out final journey. On that day if we can ride the wagon with a smile on our faces and no regrets in our hearts, is the proof of a fulfilled life.

I would love to go back to sustenance living. Grow what you can eat, build a home with your own hands, as big as your needs, breathe the fresh clean air away from the dust and grime and fumes of the city, never have anyone to compete with, just have family around you to love and to cherish. That is my dream. I want to stop running and give myself the luxury of leisure.

The blood of our bravehearts

It has been a long time since the Army has been involved in a protracted operation to apprehend / neutralise infiltrators, trying to get into Indian territory. I understand that winter is near and the snows on the mountains will not make it easier for people to infiltrate. In 2013 the level of infiltrations and ceasefire violations have taken a quantum leap. Skirmishes have occurred quite frequently. But this operation in the Keran sector has lasted fifteen days. Despite what the denials might be, I am quite sure that the infiltrators were quite heavily entrenched, and equipped with arms, ammunition, food, medicines and other supplies. In the first few days we heard about infiltrators being eliminated but no bodies were recovered. This gave rise to the story that they had occupied a village along the border and that the operation was not only to neutralise or apprehend the terrorists, but also to liberate the village. This operation happened, as is so often the case, when one unit was handing over the area of operations to another. And this time one of the units that found themselves in the line of fire almost the day they landed in the sector was the 3rd Regiment of the Third Gorkha Rifles (3/3 GR), which I am proud to say is the Regiment that my father was commissioned into on Dec 4, 1954.

Anyway. After 15 days the operation came to a halt but the battle continues. A large cache of arms have been recovered – sniper rifles, automatic weapons, pistol, and such like. Almost ten of the supposed 35-40 terrorists have been killed. And in the coming weeks that are left before the snow comes down blanketing the countryside, the Army expects more such attempts to push in terrorists and militants (and soldiers?) into Jammu & Kashmir. The current operation is over, but the battle, like I said, continues.

There are a lot of people who are questioning the fact of these infiltrations. How can there be so many infiltrations in an area that is supposedly the most tightly guarded in the whole world? People are trying to fault the Army. Little do they realise the difficulties that the Army finds itself in. The terrain is hilly and mountainous. There are innumerable places to hunker down and evade detection. The terrorists have been known to dig tunnels under the fence. They cut the fence wire and sneak in under covering and distractionary fire from the Pakistan army. Yes, people will come in, the task is to catch them before they can get into more populated areas.

But the Army in under another kind of pressure, this time from their own Government unfortunately. They are not allowed “hot pursuit”. They are not allowed to cross the Line of Control. They are not allowed to use indiscriminate use of firepower. They also do not have the communication facilities required to combat such activities. Guerrilla warfare is very different from conventional warfare. And Pakistan and its cohorts excel in it. On the other hand, the powers that be, sitting in South Block, go back to the glory days of war, when armies faced each other, eyeball to eyeball, on the battlefield, went to war, and may the best team win. Guerrilla warfare is about tactics and deception, it has to be tackled to guile and strategy. Dealing with such infiltrators needs to be unconventional. It has to be demonstrably preventive. The soldiers need to send the message to the other side borrowing from the film Sholay – “Tum ek marogey to hum char marengey (If you kill one, we will kill four).”

Whenever people talk of sending a strong message to Pakistan, the almost automatic and robotic response is, “So do you think we should go to war?” The time probably has come for a military solution to the problem. Even so, short of war there are a lot of solutions to put pressure on the rogue elements in Pakistan, to squeeze them, to ensure that they start hurting at the upper levels. Currently, some infiltrators die and that is the amount of discomfort to the establishment training and equipping them. The discomfort needs to be palpable and it should come home to roost.

Why can’t the Indian Government be more assertive in their public statements?

Why can’t the Indian Government impress upon the global community about what is happening?

Why can’t the Indian Government insist on diplomatic sanctions against Pakistan?

Why can’t the Indian Government try and get sanctions imposed by the world against Pakistan?

Why can’t the Indian Government reinstate India as a no-fly zone for Pakistani aircraft?

Why can’t the Indian Government impose a blockade of ships going into Pakistan?

OK, the Pakistani Government could be the babe in the woods, without knowing what their military and intelligence services are up to. Let us give them the benefit of doubt. But with the above initiatives, the people of Pakistan will start putting pressure on the Pakistan Government to act against the rogue elements in the Pakistan military and ISI.

The possible outcome of such activity inside Pakistan could be another coup d’état. So be it. At least India and the rest of the world will know who is the person sitting across the table and whether that person has the power to take decisions. I am sure that the Prime Minister of Pakistan or his Government has no clue. They cannot have breakfast without the approval of the military/ISI nexus. And Nawaz Sharief will be extra cautious about displeasing the military given his history at having been ignobly ousted from office during his last term. So the less we expect from the civilian dispensation from within Pakistan, the better. It has to be external pressure applied to make things change.

In the meanwhile India should go ahead and destroy all known terrorist camps within Pakistan ... WITH THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE PAKISTAN GOVERNMENT. After all these terrorists are “non State actors” and Pakistan has nothing to do with them. So they should not have any trouble if India “assists” them in removing this menace from within Pakistani territory. Maybe terrorism within Pakistan will also go down with these camps destroyed and manpower eliminated.

India could try these solutions for a few months to see if there is visible improvement in the situation. Meanwhile the threat of war should be a clear and distinct possibility ... visibly and out in the open. And this hogwash about both countries being nuclear powers is pure bollocks. Pakistan may not have a no-first-use policy, but they will be foolish to embark on a nuclear misadventure. They know they will become global pariahs overnight and with the state the country is in, they can ill afford that. Pakistan will never use their nuclear arsenal. Let India call the bluff and let us see who blinks first.

And after the war, let the armies decide on the post-war treaty. Left to the politicians, they will once again hand over strategic assets gained after the loss of soldiers. And the problem will continue. In 1965 we captured the Haji Pir Pass and then gave it away. The Haji Pir sector is from where much of the infiltration takes place today. If we land up in Lahore and are found having a drink at the Club waiting for the rest of the formations to catch up, we should hold on to it. And recapture and keep as much territory as possible from what Pakistan took away in 1947-48. Give the Army a free hand in case of war and see the Kashmir problem disappearing into the mists of history.

Meanwhile, along the Line of Control, we will continue to see the soldiers’ blood flowing needlessly.