Being Loyal

When Greg Smith exposed how his company was bolstering profits by giving clients wrong advice, everyone on that conscience-deficient Wall Street immediately denounced him as 'disloyal'.

How would you define loyalty? How important is loyalty on the landscape of life? Sure, it is great to be loyal to your country, but then even the Mafia demands unequivocal loyalty.That quality of being faithful is very restrictive. Loyalty to one entity by definition excludes others. When one chooses one value over another, it is then the mettle if a person shows up. Smith chose honesty. I am not surprised that it is Wall Street that is touting the 'loyalty line'. It takes a rampant kind of moral decrepitude that allows such a distorted versions of values. Loyalty over honesty? Certainly not copacetic.

Loyalty, by itself, may be the least honorable of the noble values. It is self- serving by it's very nature. Loyalty actually says 'me and mine are above you and yours'. And that cannot be acceptable. Loyalty is appropriate as long it does not infringe on an other values . It is an honorable value only if it is in conjunction with other higher ideals like love,honesty, kindness, or justice.

I cannot think of any other quality that engenders groupism as much as loyalty does. White collar groups, corporate executives, the police 'blue wall', feminism... the list goes on. Everyone thinks they are doing the right thing by banding in a  group they belong to. Great, but not at the cost of truth, or even openness. It bothers me when women band together for no other reason than that they have a different chromosome. I do not support Hillary Clinton because she is a woman, I support her because she is brilliant.  I do not cry for victims of acid-throwing because they are women, I cry because of the injustice and pain. And would shed the same tears if it was a man whose face was burnt. Women who add the cause of  feminism to issues like this are negating the horror of the crime itself.

I am sure Iranians are being loyal to their country by calling us the Great Satan but it is both untrue and mean. Dick Cheney was being loyal to his shareholder friends by sending young Americans to an unnecessary war, and that certainly is the opposite of every human ideal we can imagine! I am sure a lot of us have been a loyal friend by supporting or ignoring something wrong the friend is doing. Oppressors all over the world get away with their crimes because of teams of people who are simply being 'loyal' to them.

Being loyal to friends, family, and country is admirable of course, but eventually loyalty to your own moral propriety is all that matters .

The end or the means?

Today Shakespeare really irritated me. 'All is well that ends well'. He picked such an inane platitude as a title for his play. By that yardstick everything in the world is rendered meaningless because everything- and everyone - actually ends! The end should not be an issue at all for it is the path, the journey, the process, and how you go about it that matters. And just as it is the living that is important not the dying, so also it is the means to an end that is the all-in-all, and the aim is quite immaterial.

Ancient wisdom has always guided us to live in the moment and not think of what is to come. This does not mean 'live it up now' and everything else be damned. It simply means that one must live each moment in the best possible way. The Gita says that 'the fruits of work should not be your motive'. The end result should not be our concern, for it is the doing of our duty that defines us. Our duty as friend, spouse, sibling child, fellow human.

If it is the aim to be a doctor, it is a poor, sick choice. If it is the process of healing, the living as a doctor that matters, then you have got it right. If you are going through the grind of college for that degree, seriously, it is not worth it. The 'grind' of education is exactly what should have meaning for you, or there will never be any learning involved.

Finally, and completely, it is only the doing that matters. What and how it is done. Steve Jobs gave us some wonderful iPhones. Great goal, good result of course ( I am an Apple fan). A month before the launch of the first iPhone, he insisted on changing the cover from plastic to something 'unscratchable' . Wonderful idea, most certainly. But waking up scores of young Chinese workers in the middle of night and handing them a cup of coffee and a biscuit for a mandatory 12-hour shift is simply not the right way to go about it. Does it make getting the right product ready at the right time worth it? No one with a head that works will say yes. They say success comes naturally to those who do what they love doing. But that is not enough. I believe what you love doing should also be done right.

It brings me to a related saying 'the ends justify the means'. So, if the end is good, whatever the means are applied to that 'good end' are acceptable? In what kind of perverted universe would that be fair? Can you go about lashing people so that they learn how to behave? Can draconian laws be in place because they offer security? Or you can bribe your way to a public office because you will be doing more good in that position?

Going about things the wrong way, morally, ethically or legally, can never, ever be justified. Period. The world is not worth saving if even one person has be hurt intentionally for it. We have enough pain going about in the world without people starting to use silly phrases likes 'the ends justify the means' to add to it. For any noble end, the means have to be equally noble.

The conservatives in the US want to prevent abortions. Though personally I cannot fathom how anyone has the dimwitted meanness to make a public issue of such a personal decision, even the end of saving a "life" has been made into a disgusting joke because the means they are adopting. Forcing women to undergo invasive unnecessary procedures is just a little less bad than legislating away their right to choose to terminate a pregnancy.

 All is not well just because it ends well; all is only well when all is well- that means from beginning to end.

Who you are should be what you are

For once I could follow up on time on the tragedy of the plane crash in Russia that killed young hockey players. The investigation revealed pilot error. That was just a euphemistic way of saying that the pilot was cocky and overconfident, and the copilot was drunk. The cockpit recordings revealed that the copilot was actually egging the pilot to go ‘faster’, and the pilot obliged. Then they made the rash decision to land even though visibility was close to zero. A trained pilot and navigator making a peurile, immature choice. Making silly decisions is usually born out of arrogance. That brings us to my question – how far can training override personality?

I believe that when times are tough, and in stressful situations, it is only one’s character that matters. You either have the wherewithal to do it right, or you don’t. It is not training that inculcated that ability into you; it is a lifetime of learning, most of it being unconscious and involuntary. What a person learns specific to the job he or she is doing can be ingrained only as far as it is aligned with the principles the person already has. Of course the pilot was trained to fly, of course he had experience, of course he knew the warning signs of all defects in the craft. Of course he believed that he could go faster and be safe, that he could certainly land the plane. What he did not have is the sensitivity to realize that he had to be overly cautious because he was literally carrying 50 lives.

What kind of a person would take that lightly? That is precisely what I am trying to point out. It is eventually the only thing that defines our work – the kind of person we are.

I remember the captain of our British airways flight refusing to take off from Mumbai even though the mechanical glitch had been fixed and the plane certified to fly, because he was not comfortable taking off in the craft in a repaired condition. British airways put us all up in a hotel for the night till the new craft came in. That was a good pilot of course, and I am sure a great man too. He exhibited a simple, yet all-important, value called responsibility. Training and experience may make a good pilot out of an irresponsible person , but when that irresponsibility does show up, it does so, sadly, with deadly effect.

It strikes us viscerally when people lose lives because of simple character flaws of another, but we do see – and often ignore – this phenomenon in all walks of life. Professional ability rarely overcomes character. We know of doctors who do not care, we know of accountants who play the books, we know of Presidents who never had the brains or the heart to lead. Sometimes the world gets lucky, and these inadequate people finish their tenures and move on. However, when a crisis does strike, everyone involved suffers.

Whatever you are, a hot dog cart puller, or an ambassador, it is the ‘who’ you are that matters.
A woman who can override personal issues to help a friend will be the same woman who can be a great first responder, or a successful CEO. Silly girls will always be silly, whether they are rich housewives, working to support themselves, or studying to better themselves. We cannot change who we are by adding course work, or even a degree to our portfolio. We change when we experience, and learnimbibe life’s lessons.For better or for worse, sometimes life does not bother to test, and thereby teach, some of us.

It is said that ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’. Unfortunately when the required strength is not available, the going just goes tragic. India is what it is today because when the going was really tough, we had Gandhi to guide us (oh yes, it takes great moral strength to be non-violent!). However, at the other end of the spectrum we have many countries wallowing in chaos and oppression because the people who lead them are not leaders in any other way but in their position.

So, do we wait for good fortune to throw our way the right doctor, teacher or taxi driver?
What we really need to do is take into account a person’s emotional intelligence along with those degrees and certificates. A lot of major corporations in India used to give candidates aptitude tests. Maybe that was really a good idea. For high-stress jobs a talk with a psychologist would be a good idea.

I would definitely be comfortable with an airline that checks a pilot’s mental health along with the required physical! Of course my favorite spiel – let your children do what they want to! What draws them is their natural calling. An occupation they find fulfilling will be one that is a good fit to their personality. Do the world a favour and let them follow their hearts!!

Published earlier in www.theviewspaper.net

Back home

http://theviewspaper.net/back-home/

Written when we had 'decided' to move back to India. :/

I remember a British neighbour I had befriended when we moved to New Jersey. We were both feeling our way around in this country, getting licenses and discovering stores. She left within a year. She said it was “too different”, and that people here “do not even understand English”. I was amused. But I now realize how significant what she said was. Different cultures have different languages, however similar the script and words are. It seems disorienting when other people understand a thing differently because of what their cultural compass dictates. So here I am today, struggling to make sense of my own confused feelings. I really do enjoy the ease of life here in the developed hemisphere. But I am also aware of the thrill of sheer joy that courses through me every time I think that I have to start packing for India. I have been a weasel and have accepted the citizenship of USA. But happily that has had no effect on anything within me. I had always assumed that taking the oath would reset my DNA in some insidious way. I go back to India on a reduced status of PIO, or its glorified version of OCI (it does sound better with the word ‘citizen’ in it!).

However, what is confusing me is a sense of déjà vu, a feeling of distancing myself again from people I love; of starting anew again. I have no home to start off from, and it is a new city. I am leaving friends that have filled the void of family and leaving a country whose founding ideals I cherish (Freedom does ring here, not correctly all the time, but it does ring). But I am so content!

Is being born in a country enough to permanently make you its own? I doubt it because, I know of many who moved to the West in adulthood and have that disgusting, warped personality of a tree, that neither knows its roots nor its flowers. I cannot call them Indian, and I am sure they do all they can to avoid that association.

I have lived here like an outsider, which I am. I have enjoyed it, most certainly. I have learnt about different cultures. But most importantly, I have learnt about myself. I think every Indian should be sent abroad for sometime to develop patriotism! You realize what a phenomenal country we are, and how resilient and progressive we are. I have learnt more about what it is to be Indian than I did in India itself. I think if you are proud of your heritage you will put your best foot forward when you stand as its symbol, and then the best becomes a part of who you are. Also, I have made friends for life from all over the world. But all those friends, each and everyone, is loyal to the country they were born in. I think that has unconsciously been a make-or-break issue with me. My Indian friends, of course, envy me for going back home! My American friends think I am crazy to be going back because, to them this is the ideal place to be. My Egyptian friends think it would be understandable if I was going to Egypt because that is the best place in the world. And I admire them for that. They, in reality, in their own way, understand perfectly why I want to go back. Home is always the perfect place to live.

So what is it that I love in my country? There is dirt, power cuts, corruption, a severe lack of civic sense, language changes from state to state. But life is so much more than matter of convenience. It is living to be yourself, to live your hopes an ideals and work towards to your goals. It is living when your day has meaning for yourself, and for others. And you cannot come into your own unless you live somewhere you can call your own. A place is your own where you find that sense of belonging I spoke of in my blog. It is a place where people share one’s values. Who understand your jargon, who need no explanation for what you wear, or why you cry.

To be specific, what I love is that ability to stop the car and just ask anyone on the road for directions. What I love is the security of knowing you talk to the autowala or the driver next to you in a traffic jam. You can yell at them or ask to borrow the cell phone. What I love is that if my neighbour’s child is misbehaving I can be the ‘aunty’ and scold him without the fear of prosecution on weird charges.

That involvement in each other’s life is what a community is based on. Of course it is not a perfect community. And sometimes when it is manifested in nosy gossip it does get intolerable. But I would not trade that feeling of familiarity for anything in the world. And certainly not for what passes for ‘politeness’ here. I have lived with the silence of neighbours which is broken by that very artificial ‘Hi’. I fail to understand what kind of people crave this distant coldness. Psychopaths, maybe. A stranger is not a danger in my home; rather, someone to be helped or welcomed, unless proven otherwise. Here it is the other way around. Of course the Americans are lonely people. How can you make friends if you start off with mistrust?

So excuse me if I am not falling apart because I will have to deal with unruly traffic, or with someone selling me ‘fresh’ vegetables a few days old. I will have that unique, wonderful option of venting with my dhobi, or dropping by unannounced for ‘chai’ at a friend’s home. I cannot wait to be home!

Travails of travel

They say travelling opens the mind. I drove across northern USA from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific. And I know for sure it does nothing for the mind. It does a lot for the heart.

The drive, as it may be called for want of a better word, was not a vacation as much a celebration of a new start in a new place. We human beings do need to feel a 'new beginning' so many times in our lives, we tend to forget that each sunrise is a miraculous new beginning that heralds new experiences. How do we forget that no two days can ever be alike, unless we make it so?

Like all journeys,our odyssey (yes, in an Odyssey too!)began with pangs of separation. Leaving friends that have been the scaffolding of my sanity and the joy of my heart was more frightening than sorrowful. It was so heartening to hear each one of them tell me it was for the best, and remind me that distance is never an issue between friends. Because if even one had said 'Oh no , why are you going?' I might not have made it. Of course New Jersey was far from perfect, but my friends there are perfect by far.

Everyone does need a change, a break, a vacation. It could be a TV time-slot, it could be jog around with your pal, it could be a few month's hiatus from routine. A change recharges our mind and invigorates our soul.

I do not know of anything that could re-enliven you like a trip to a totally new place. Not with a tour guide, or with five star bookings, but on your own steam, and on your own time. What makes it refreshing is not the change of scene, it is the stripping of paraphernalia we collect and the provisions we deem essential. We really do not need the gold, the crystal, or the fancy crockery. What we need is food to fill us and water to quench and clean.

And of course petrol to fill the car! One of the most terrifying moments of my life was up in the mountains that we did not expect to climb, and realizing that we were out of gasoline,not knowing how far we had to go, and my husband rolling the car down the unfamiliar steep slopes on neutral gear to conserve gas. An experience like that redefines stress. Now if someone tells me they are 'stressed' because of their kids' extracurricular schedules I am going to choke laughing! Stress is not that rushed feeling when you have planned- well or otherwise- on things to happen. Stress is the feeling when you cannot take a breath in (or out) because you do not know if you can deal with that 'worst case scenario' if it does happen.

We managed to descend from the mountains without incident, and reached this adorable little store/ home /gas station in the middle of nowhere. (Town of Emmet- population 10). It was the quaintest, sweetest ramshackle cabin out of a fairytale. Had to have been angels. God does not test the unprepared.

Of course we were unprepared! We had the route mapped roughly, we had the iPad, we had overnight reservations in nice hotels and lodges. The rest we would take as it came. That, we thought would add to the experience. I do not much care for what it did add! A lot of nervous checking of signals on the cell phone,rechecking navigation, realizing that we were not mentally conditioned for long roads through deserted lands, and the nagging fear of what if the car..( God forbid, here!). Though it ensured our comfort, and did really, really well, the Honda Odyssey van is not made for cross country roughing it out. Small roads at edges of waterfalls, or after sunset drives across Grizzly country are not exactly comforting unless you are driving a humvee and have OnStar.

Of course I would rather drive across the US than any other country. The blessing of GPS on the iPad is worth more than words can express. The rest areas give a traveller not only a chance to get the blood moving into parts of the body that have lost feeling, but also gives the chance to interact with other people. Some states of course have a better hospitality: South Dakota had scenic rest stops, Idaho rest areas offer free coffee, Ohio has huge service areas; and Wyoming should not be called a civilized state. I cannot believe there can be such barren, uninspiring stretches of empty, depressing landscape that we encountered in Wyoming.It had green of course, and the undulating hills, but the feeling it gave was of a dull, dead place where life cannot blossom.The Exits that are pointers to settled life for highway travellers just end up in dirt roads that lead to nothing.Even the Badlands were not that bad. Barren rock has a magnetism all its own.

But inhospitable Wyoming also holds a part of the gorgeous Yellowstone National Park. We drove through quite a few protected areas, but the raw beauty of Yellowstone is hard to match. One can revel in the flawless lakes, and then walk a quarter of a mile to beds of boiling mud!

We drove on roads through grasslands, hills, mountains, volcanoes, glaciers, forests. It was glorious and awe-inspiring. But at the end of each day what we needed was to stop. Not just to rest and recharge, but to make connect with our fellowmen. To say hello to the friendly hotel receptionist, to sit down for dinner. And yes, to switch on the TV (and laptop!)

Like everything else in life, the travails, of course, came with treasures. The small towns we went through are unforgettable. The warm people we met gently reinforced my belief that we all are exactly the same. The memories we have are priceless. The splendour of virgin lands on this continent have to be seen to be believed.The joy one feels in renewing one's connection to the land does not diminish us as humans. Knowing we share a home of such beauty with flora and fauna of such diversity elevates us to being more than mankind. We become earthlings. I did not learn anything of practical importance. I saw, heard, and felt. My mind probably learnt the names of new places, but what my heart learnt was of more vital importance- that it is not the earth that belongs to us, it is we who will always belong to the earth.

Thoughts on Terrorism

It seems to me that terrorism is always front page news nowadays. Whether it is bomb blasts in Mumbai or a man throwing acid on a woman’s face – the horrific stories continue.
Terrorism is defined by Dictionary.com as: 1) the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purpose; and 2) the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism. By its very definition terrorism comprises any action that terrorizes – even if it frightens just one person. The identification of ‘evil’ is not predicated by who the perpetrator is, or what the reason behind it is. When people say an act is justified if it is government-sponsored, or if it ‘has to be done’, what they are also saying is that the act is unacceptable if it hurts them and understandable if it hurts others. Arguably, any action can be rationalized by the offender but certainly not by the victim. And the same goes for the facile “the ends justify the means” theory. If water boarding and other forms of torture sit comfortably on your soul, you cannot discount whatever ‘means’ the other person thought justified too! Causing harm, or creating fear, irrespective of who the culprit is (or who the victim is for that matter), is terrorism. How do we fight this spreading malaise if we are doing exactly the same? What right do we have to complain if we cannot hold a higher moral ground?  Recently in Indonesia, a crazed mob violently attacked people of a different sect. These vile murders were definitely terroristic. What bothers me equally is that the courts let the criminals go. They were not even charged with murder! I am more terrified of such a judicial system than I am of the bunch of thugs who got away with it!
The events in the U.S. on Sept 11 were heinous and unprecedented, but then so is the process of Rendition. We do not (as we should not!) try to deconstruct why Osama bin Laden turned into the beast he was. And so also we must not try to absolve the actions of the men and women posing happily with their victims in Abu Ghraib prison.
And though the media has targeted Islam as its harbinger, the truth is that terrorism is too widespread over time, places and people to be slotted into any one cause. Fear has been a potent weapon for all power-hungry dictators and political parties.  CNN’s Fareed Zakaria pointed out: “The European Union's 2010 Terrorism Situation and Trend Report had some fascinating findings. It showed that of the 294 terror attacks committed in Europe in 2009, only one was conducted by Islamists. That's a third of one percent. The most recent statistics show that there were 249 terror attacks in Europe in 2010. Only three of those attacks were carried out by Islamist terrorists.”  
It will be our loss if we continue to dismiss terror attacks that do not fit into our preset bias. We rail and shout for action if a crime against humanity is done by a swarthy, turbaned guy. But we are quiet when Robert Mugabe orders the murders of his opponents, ensures that his countrymen live in fear of starvation and violent repression.
However horrible the actuality of an act of terror is, I believe what is equally terrible is the frenzy whipped up all over the world while we are ‘expecting’ it.  Doubtless we need to do all we can to avoid any terrorist act to come to fruition. But living in fear, untrusting and bitter, is as much succumbing to terrorism as whatever heinous act was planned.
It annoys me when people are afraid to use the “T’ word unless there is a dark haired, bearded man involved somewhere. The media has been reticent to use this label for the blond, blue-eyed man who went on a rampage killing children in Norway. It is easy to identify evil with something that is unfamiliar because it allows us to distance ourselves from what causes distress and angst. But if we cannot come terms with the reality of this growing cancer of anarchy, we are not going to be able to get rid of it.
Conducting something that causes or threatens physical harm is classic terrorism. But I believe even creating panic, even if unfounded, is terrorism.  I would venture to say any act of abuse is terrorism. What else should a kid terrified by an abusive parent call it?  Is not schoolyard bullying, too, a form of terrorism? When a leader suggests that the country will be at peril if he is not voted into power – that is terrorism. The “we will be attacked, unless…” propaganda creates at least the same amount of dread than the actuality of the horrific event. If a gang presence in the area makes it difficult for children to walk out after sunset - that is neighbourhood terrorism by the gang.
I would call the Holocaust terrorism, and what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinian people today terrorism too. What women in tribal Pakistan are suffering is also terrorism. Yes, we need to wage a war on terror. But we are not going to get anywhere if it does not encompass terrorism in all forms and all in its avatars. Any entity, person or organization, that propagates fear and destruction is subscribing to terrorism. And we, as humanity on the whole, need to stand up to it, not because of fear but with righteous indignation. Of course we need to put down political terrorism strongly, with action and words. But we also need to condemn individual acts of terror the same way. Maybe making a local terrorist pay for his acts will enable us to develop the wherewithal to deal with the bigger groups that haunt us.

Strong Ideals

I wrote for the Viewspaper recently about youth and its idealism. The strength of an upcoming generation lies only in its idealism. It is that which drives its energy, it is that that gives it its identity.

But this very characteristic that seems to be the evolutionary material for society, the stuff that ensures progressive betterment of the world, is lost somewhere along the years. As youth matures the idealism is not concretized to action, but turns into a jaded dream.

So how is the world going to move on? What we need is the strength of character in youth to push their ideals through to their 'age of reason'.

I believe all of us are born with stars in our eyes. It is the adults around us, sadly, that make us look only at the ground on which we need to trudge. Of course I am not taking into consideration the inexcusable and unfortunate conditions a large part of the world is in. Those born in strife-ridden, war-torn areas, and in debilitating poverty. Sadly, all their emotional and physical resources are tied up in simply surviving. It is a resounding indictment of us all that such dire predicaments exist at all - but that is for another blog. :)

But for those of us who live in relative comfort, it is even more imperative that we recognize our responsibility not to flitter away our lives, when we are blessed enough to have the chance to dream. And I do not mean the aim of getting into that fancy school, or to be in a position to earn a five-figure salary. That is not what I would classify as a dream. How is that any different from wanting an expensive purse or getting a nose-job? It has nothing to do with your emotional intelligence! Sure, go ahead and be that CEO, but do it because that is what you feel like doing, not thinking of being. Do it because you want to make a difference like Iaccoca or Ford, not to make a mansion like Ambani. Because if position and power are your driving force, it is just a step away from swindling people - like the Enron executives, and like doctors who 'operate' simply because they do not know what else to do! If that happens to be the dream, then one is simply a waste of oxygen for this planet.

So for that rare young person who is out there somewhere wanting to do something to make difference not only in his own life, bit in at least one another. How would you hold on to that idealism? For it is imperative that you do.

One way of course is perseverance. I have never believed in 'try until you succeed'. It is rotten nonsense and a waste of time. Give something a shot twice at the most. Then move on. What perseverance should be is akin to preserving. You have to continue to believe in those principles. And that you can - as you certainly can - move the world. Anywhere, anytime, anyhow, just by being who you are. Just by living that dream in any small way everyday. You may not be able to open that orphanage, but you could talk nicely to a kid you see on the roads. You may not be able to send chartered planes of food to Africa, but you could volunteer in soup-kitchens. It is exactly the same, because it will give exactly that same sense of purpose, and more importantly a sense of triumph. A life of meaning does not have to be big. Idealism does not have to be flashy or glamorous. It does not crave to be acknowledged. It need only be honoured and fostered by the person holding those ideals.

The kids working for Teach for America/ Teach for India do not do it for recognition. It asks too much of commitment for people to do it just for 'look good' college application. It is tough, emotionally taxing, monetarily unrewarding. But I have yet to see a more grounded, happy, optimistic bunch of kids. That to me defines youth. What keeps them that way is idealism that has not been smothered.

When Gandhi took on the British raj, he did what he believed needed to be done. He did not do it for the cameras. He did not even ask anyone to do what he was doing. People followed him because right is always recognized. One has to just have the will to keep putting it out there.

My message to young idealists - go ahead, live those ideals everyday. Once they become a natural part of your personal grammar, you will also develop the strength of character to see your dreams through.