Success Begets Hostility

I do not fathom this hostility. Every time I begin doing well in any front, I am faced with people trying to bring me down. I am trying to solve this equation. I do not think I understand the problem, and the reason why I am unable to give it an elegant solution.

When I wasn’t doing well, that is to say, when I was ‘flawed’, when I would have no other option but to listen and imbibe the best in everybody around me, people were ‘nice’ to me. I used to be a terrific listener, not that I am any less now, I had made a few associations that seemed very strong to me that time. And mind you this is not a very long time ago. The Timeline would be just about 6 months in the past. I was still under medication for my ill health. I would fall ill every drop of a hat. I would not be in perfect mental and physical health to shoulder any responsibilities at home or at work, or anywhere else. People thronged to me. People both older and younger than me, my relatives, my superiors at work, people closely associated with my personal and professional life.

My medication was put to a stop merely 9 months ago. I started feeling good about life. The very first time, I realised that I have more sense of freedom than I did, in the last 5 years that I had been suffering. I was quite a slave to a severe health condition for those miserable 5 years. I was at home for 3 years straight, when I mean at home, I literally mean home, completely cut off from the outside world. It took me a rather large; an effort to heal. I worked almost 2 years while I was still unwell. It was easy to work with the condition because you automatically see pity in the eyes of people. Until they were ignorant of my condition they were reticent, when they were quite aware, they were filled with empathy. Though I was not very comfortable in seeking people’s pities and sympathies, I found it quite easy to get along. They wouldn’t be too hard on me, or they would not be critical of most of the things I did. Even if I faltered in any regard, I was always forgiven. I mistook many of these deeds to kindness. I told myself that my perspective of people’s cruelty and apathy towards life in general was not on firm grounds. I told myself that most people in general are kind and caring. They are forgiving and humble. I was in for a surprise. That is totally untrue!

Back in August when I was out of the medication and was pronounced ‘fit’, I vowed to myself that I will change many things about my life beginning with my weight, my lifestyle, my attitude: personal, professional and social and ending with everything that seemed wrong and brought about negativity in me. After a lot of procrastination, I finally put to practise a decently good lifestyle of eating right and exercising. I also began socialising. Trying to smile whenever possible, being a part of the office fun culture, trying to be as nice as possible at home, owning up more responsibilities, et al. I started feeling good within. My inner happiness was certainly visible to the outside world. People did notice changes in my person. A few did compliment me. They all knew I was battling all the wrongs that had attached themselves to me while I was unwell all these years. I lost a terrific amount of weight. I started looking and feeling more confident. This also reflected in my work. I started getting recognized at work. My family also noticed that I was doing far better than their expectations. In a nutshell, I seemed to get back my long lost limelight, at least in small quanta! Amidst all this hustle-bustle, I started noticing that, ever since I have recovered and (might add) doing well aesthetically, people have started falling out with me. It perturbed me for almost a month. I am not going to highlight anybody in specific here, but in general, I could perceive the negative energy creeping back.

Now I am talking of the present. I think I almost figured out why this is happening! I am using the word ‘almost’ here because; I need a few more practical sessions before I could justify the theoretical findings.

I think people (perhaps me included) are inherently insecure. We are insecure of everything around us. We are insecure parents with the fear of losing control on our children, we are insecure students with peer pressure, we are insecure friends with the fear of not being in the friend circle after a certain period, we are insecure lovers with the fear of losing the person we love to another, we are insecure executives with the fear of  under-performance, we are insecure seniors with the fear of seeing our juniors perform better and move ahead, this is a saga that is perpetual. At every mode we are insecure about one thing or the other. I figure so is the case with people’s behaviours to one and other. They were merely boosting their own rather ‘weak’ esteems while they were offering me their empathies. They were themselves drowned in their insecurities that it was a momentary relief to offer another person of ‘lower’ existence some pity to heighten their own mere existence.

Now when I begin to do well, their philanthropic self gets an attack of confusion! This perhaps translates into hostility. To confirm this theory, I will have to keep myself on the table and examine my behaviour towards someone who has transformed from two different worlds.

I hope I will find my muse!

Playing with Fire..

As much as I would like to be strong, certain incidents, albeit completely unavoidable weigh me down to the point of minima. Being a woman, was supposed to be a matter of immense pride, or so I was taught all through my childhood and adolescent life. I never doubted that daughters and sons stand on an equal stage, boy and girls at school share the same platform for success and Fathers and Mothers were as important in decision making as my brother and I were.

The upbringing was terrific, but I understand now, with all due respect to my parents, that I have been deceived into believing that the female sex is as empowered as her male counterpart. I realise now how we, women, are all fooled into advocating that the society will give us the freedom to live, untouched by the heinous face of the world.

No way! Women have to fight for their right to exist alongside men, and they will all be martyrs at the end of this valiant fight. Especially I see this in the work culture. I have not worked in too many organizations. But I, for as long as I have worked and from all the experiences I have collected from my other women counterparts, have come to believe that women will never be granted equal status intrinsically. Even if they are twice as smarter and hard working as their male counter parts, they shall be curbed as much as possible from escalating to success.

If a woman is ‘physically’ weaker than a man then that is perhaps how God designed her to be more delicate than a man. I shall not dare questions the superior designs of the Almighty. But why do we fail to notice that there are woman body builders and karate champions who could certainly break bones of men as well as anyone could. It is just a matter of choice. Some women want to stick to the delicate form whilst some want to be body builders. Similarly, women have been shunned from working outside of their homes and intellectual indulgence for so long that it has taken a while for them to be as confident as the men, who have been doing this since time immemorial. The low confidence has been sewn into the genome of women. This is certainly a work of evolution! Unlike the delicate form of the female this has been brought about by the society. Societal force made them stay away from working and many things that men weren’t forbidden from doing. This doesn’t mean that she cannot be as good as the man in anything, if not better?

Why do I have to keep hearing things such as:

1. Sales Jobs are for men.

2. Real Estate profile jobs are for men.

3. Working late hours is for the man

.

.

This list could go on.

This really angers me! Why can’t a woman be a good sales person? I never get any of my seniors to support me when I bring this subject up.  Why is there a segregation at all? If men can be airline stewards, then woman can certainly be sales women!

The reason why rapes and sexual violence happens is because men think that they are more superior and that they can do anything and get away with it. This animosity in men has gotten stronger ever since women have started getting into the forefront. The male ‘ego’ can’t seem to tolerate that. He thinks in his subconscious mind “Now since women around me have begun being my equals, it is time I showed them, who’s the superior of the two, I will rape her and exercise my tyranny over her”.  

I see the male ego trying to overpower me in all arenas. I see tinges of this in my father and brother as well. As much as I appreciate them curbing this ‘male ego’, they dissemble it quite adroitly, due to the presence of a headstrong feminist at home, I certainly see the clichéd ‘Male Chauvinism’ in them. I see it in my colleagues. I see it in my boss; I see it in a little child too.

My colleagues, all of them being men, never seem to treat me as one of them. One particular colleague of mine from the H.R. thinks that I am not fit enough to be informed of the happenings in the company. And I being the only woman in the organization ought to be at a lower post in order to maintain hierarchy. For the sake of the goodness of Human Resource, how could he distinguish between the genders! My boss certainly thinks I am incapable of the brilliant things his male team members are capable of doing. I, quite often (in fact everyday) witness favouritism at the work place. It irks me once in a while. In fact what drove me to write this is that, I have been literally pleading my boss every fortnight to give me an opportunity in hard-core hotel sales. The concept of hotel sales and revenue management is invigorating to my spirit. Every time I spend some moments reading articles and the process of it, though it isn’t rocket science, it always makes me yearn to experience that profile. My boss did give in once, recently. He asked me to accompany him and another senior to a meeting. I was really excited. My excitement died when I was merely introduced to the gentleman we were to meet with. I felt like a complete idiot, sitting there and barely saying anything at all. And then when we got back, I asked him if I could independently go on calls. He said, “Yes, you may, but keep in mind that your other work should not suffer while on calls.” I gladly agreed. I calculated the entire time management in my mind. I decided I will work extra hours after office to get ends to meet. I couldn’t dissemble my happiness, I was smiling from within. Little did I realize that my happiness was short lived. The next day when I began discussing my plans for the ‘Sales mission’ my boss was so apathetic towards the entire conversation that it lent a very bad taste. To add to my distaste, he told me that I would just be wasting my time and energy. Such is the encouragement I receive from my seniors. This is all because I am a woman. A woman perhaps incapable of being her male counter parts equal.

Perhaps it is my incapability that I cannot get all these men to see the truth.

AGRATA, LOST & FOUND

Strong wind would blow over her feminine structure, heavy monsoons poured out their sorrows to her, yet Agrata, always stood on firm grounds above her tiny feet. Her feet may have been tiny, probably the tiniest one would find in a girl of her age, yet there was no storm strong enough to shake her.

Agrata had acquired her firmness of ground and invincible courage since her childhood. She was the most pampered child amongst her three other siblings, two older sisters and a younger brother.

Even as a child she possessed a will strong enough to pave pathways to acquire what her heart desired. She came from loving family, parents as selfless as mother Earth, and siblings who never left her side. Despite having all that a child needs, Agrata was not content. Every day she secretively mourned for assets that she didn’t possess and yearned for more vanity and an extravagant lifestyle. She seldom regarded others’ feelings above her own and she failed to understand the virtue of a humble living.

Being from a Hindu-Brahmin family, she grew up listening to the stories of the Hindu Gods, but never paid them any heed. Her Mother was a religious person, and yet she couldn’t bring her daughter to be even half as devoted to the love of God as she was. There were many stories she would listen to, and felt they were starkly devoid of logic and sense. One of these stories was the story of Lord Ganesh.

One day when Lord Ganesh and his brother Karthikeya had come of age, they wanted to get married. Yes they did! Both wanted to marry before the other. Their parents Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati were in a fix. They weren’t sure whom to please and whom to deny as both the sons very equally dear to them. Agrata was confused at the point, that why the two brothers couldn’t get married alongside!

Shiva came up with a solution. He pronounced a task for the two. The task was that whosoever will encircle the universe first will be married first. Karthikeya set out on this odyssey to encircle the universe. Everyone believed that it was rather easy for him to win the task as he was of an athletic build and his vehicle was a peacock. Whereas Ganesh was pot bellied and his vehicle was a rat. A couple of years passed by since Karthikeya and left, and Ganesh was happy going about his routine life. When his father questioned him if he has accepted defeat, Ganesh smiled and encircled his parents seven times and stated that his parents are his Universe and that he has completed the given task seven times. His parents had to accept his belief and declared him the winner! This Agrata considered rather illogical and refused to acknowledge any mythological stories.

More than her will, the attribute most noticed in her was her stubbornness. She was too stiff to budge for anything in the world, except her fluttering heart. She would behave in synchronization with the whims of the life pump! It was a matter of oddity for her family and friends to understand how she could be so different from the rest of her family. He father, Ramanuja was a simple man, a person of equal experience and knowledge that made him a kind and loving parent. Her Mother, Suguna was a logical woman, too straightforward at times for a mother’s humour, yet very devoted nonetheless. The oldest of the Siblings, Surbhi, was a motherly sister, an obedient daughter, and an emotional girl. The second of the four children, Rani had taken after her older sister, but extrovert in nature as opposed to Surbhi’s reserved disposition. The last was a brother, Gyan, as warm as the sun, who was academically very intellectual, but a boy of sweet temperament.

One fine afternoon, which wasn’t close to being fine, it was hot and sultry, Agrata decided that she had had enough of the sheltered life at Delhi that made her mind mundane and strife. She wanted to feed her thirsty adventurous heart and experiment with the word ‘independence’ and ‘freedom’. She decided to part from her family and set forth on a journey to witness the spectacles of the world which she was convinced would be a part of her life soon. Little did she know of the shortcomings of these spectacles that lay ahead of her. Despite her family’s combined efforts to dissuade her from her fanciful enterprise, she set forth to challenge her destiny at twice the verve and strength that she was bestowed upon.

She moved to Bangalore, a cosmopolitan city in India, best known as the ‘Silicon valley’ of the country. At first, when she landed herself in a decent college to study literature and art, she felt the first feelings of contentment. She believed that she had found a reason to her existence. She made friends, and lovers. She possessed a charm that was both attractive and dangerous. She reached the pink of her life during the first year. At cosmopolitan cities in India, it was a trend to hang out with friends, adorn the latest fashion, party, dance and drink. Agrata indulged in all these ‘trends’ to convince herself of her victory. Unfortunately for her, Agrata didn’t realize that every party eventually ended, every dream would break into the mornings and every misconception would turn into deception.

As the sands of time passed through her triumphed fist, she became popular at college for the wrong reasons. Her professors always found a reason to pick at her, though she excelled in academia, they disliked her arrogance. She found her friends turning to foes by the number, due to things that were inexplicable to her own self. She started keeping to herself, and indulged in books and music. Then a time came by when she would converse aloud with none but herself, at the presence of others. Everything that she conceived as beautiful and satisfying turned into thorns of nightmares that controlled her tremendously. The Agrata, who was known to have an invincible grip on her ground, was being gripped by the misfortunes of her destiny. She lost herself, and started descending grossly into insanity. There was a time when she couldn’t even read a single line, leave alone volumes of books she used to gobble up at a time, in the past. She detested Society, and she detested light. She took to darkness and it devoured her.

She would have reached her grave, if it had not been for her family, who came to her rescue. When her Mother heard of her ailment, she flew to her side, and gave her all her time. She nursed her and took care of her like the little Agrata she had nurtured as an infant. With her mother’s healing powers, Agrata, decided to quit her present life and get back to the shelter of her home. When she got back home, she didn’t see pity in the eyes of her family, but she saw love, and more love & only love. Her sisters would always dress her up, to invoke her lost charm. Her brother would play the guitar & encourage her to sing with him to stimulate her passion for music. Her father would read her bed time stories. Every member in the family protected her, as a delicate flower, craving to see in it its lost colours & fragrance.

The love of her family was more powerful than anything in her life. Agrata realized that, her kit and kin were her truest friends, her parents were the guide, and ‘independence’ was not a thing to be sought alone, but to be felt in unison with all those one loved.

The sun shone brightly again and the warmth brought back the lost colours of Agrata’s life. And she was content with her share of happiness and sorrows. She never again felt the need to be the best any more. She realised that she was always special for her family who would go to the end of the Earth to make her feel special. She learnt that happiness comes with togetherness and selflessness. And until today her favourite epic story has been the story of Lord Ganesh!

Failed as a Human Being!

I have been revisiting my past for a few days since. It has been quite exhausting, I have to honestly admit. The overflow of memories is ineffable! It is ‘almost’ moistening my eyes. But most importantly I realise how far I have come from there!

I never thought I would write about him. I thought I had left him far behind in the past. But obviously there was some unfinished business. I have known him for a LONG time; long enough to know that I would not want to associate with such a person ever in my life. In fact, whenever I meet a person, who displays a few of his qualities, I shun that person far away from my life. I doubt if I could ever forget him. I couldn’t. That is because he is everything I do not want to be. He is everything I detest in humankind.

He seemed really nice to me at first. I always thought we were very close. I used to call him my ‘best friend’. I told myself for a long time that he has done a lot for me and has been doing a lot for me. I never questioned what the ‘lot’ he did for me was. I never questioned his judgements; though he’s always ask me not to be judgemental on the contrary. He was (is?) a complete hypocrite. It is a pity that I was ever associated with a person like him.

I never loved him, though I admitted it to myself more than a few times. I was afraid of him. I was afraid of losing his ‘friendship’. I was tormented that he would judge me for one of my flaws. I was frightened that he will abandon me and after that I will thrown into oblivion. I wasn’t like this before I knew him. I had more confidence that God himself did. He always undermined my confidence. He always made me feel little about myself. And I noticed he’d do the same with everybody he associated with. A few people would agree with me, and those who do not, are still under his influence.

I sought my freedom from this disgusting tyrant when I was at the point of minima. I was depressed, and psychotic due to some unfortunate events in my life which are not of relevance here. I even had seizures. My life was almost lifeless. The Master put up with me for a while, but one fine day, he decided, he had had enough of nonsense from me, and called it quits. He said, “If you wanted to die, you would have taken the exact amount of sleeping pills that would have killed you. You can still do it; at least you won’t be a damn hypocrite.” That was it. I knew I was kidding myself that he was a friend. He was more demented than I was. I moved on. Since I was rid of his presence in my life, my body and mind began healing. It was almost magical. Of course my Family and my Doctor friend from AIIMS have had a great hand in pulling me through, but not being associated with evil, set me into light, like an auto pilot.

Interestingly, he didn’t stop there. He wrote me an email the following year, an abrupt one at that, asking me not to contact him. It was hilarious to read that email. Being in contact with the devil, I knew there would be a minor setback in my life. Yes, there certainly was, and I sprung back to life, after the effects of evil had diluted and vanished.

They say he is doing very well in his professional life. I say, what is the point if he excels in what he does; he failed as a human being.

Lesson: Detach from all evil. It may take a while, it may seem impossible. But when you have gotten rid of the devil, you can’t help but smile the happiness of God within you!