Saturday, November 03, 2007

Shangri La aka Finding Maggi

What is that with these tortured souls I don’t know!! And I am not including myself in that. Wherever I see an intelligent soul, whatever I read about the geniuses, all of them talk about a calling in their life. And some responded to that call, a few still wait for the call. I am in the second half of people. I am waiting for that call too, but nothing but stupid phone calls come to me.

Sometimes I feel that there is going to be no call at all. It is not as if I am waiting for a miracle to happen one fine morning inside my head and I construe that as a call. I am wondering what that would be, if at all that happens. It is always about finding a purpose in life. Beats me!

I don’t know what is wrong with the current purpose in life? Someone pays me handsomely and I go around kicking asses. May not be a glorious purpose in life, but still I kick someone else’s ass, so I don’t feel tired about it. Maybe if mine is kicked I would suddenly start searching my purpose. Long time ago, I wrote a piece called Chase, and then also I had the same confusion. Later, discovered that the chase would be to find the lost combs! Now that Airtel has introduced ‘Search made Simple’ my search for the combs would also stop.

Jokes apart this purpose business baffles me. I see a pattern here. All these searchers travel east and land up at India and that’s where they find their calling. Some smoke hashish and see God, others simply follow a modern guru like a lapdog and consume whatever he dishes out. They learn some mantras and keep repeating it in an anglicized manner like a broken gramophone record.

So what do we do now? We are already in the place where called folks arrive! Maybe God is my next door neighbor, I don't know. But,I can’t understand why instead of just peeping above the wall and yell for me, He wastes ISD to call these firangs. I think this whole ‘calling’ business is some industry. Maybe secretly funded by Indian Tourism Development Board! Should be bigger the Voice industry itself.

There are plenty of books that sell dreams of the exotic east and the meditation and yoga ( I am not discounting these at all, but I don’t know whether they are panacea for a materialistic white guy ). And there is word of mouth also. Guys who go back home and spread the good news of the magic of the Orient. Not that I disclaim the power, but I guess the search is something really deep inside you. You dig yourself deeper and deeper, and then you understand what you want to do really. And that could be as simple of status quo, go back kicking asses and retire or maybe just give into your wanderlust and roam for a while and come back hoping that everything from now on will be different.

Sometimes you dig too deep also there is an issue, you would not comprehend a damn thing and get completely clueless about what little you knew already about yourself. There is this series of articles that come in a Tamizh weekly in the title of ‘Care of Platform’. Those guys don’t have a roof above their head. But they seem to be happy within their purview.

Sakichi Toyoda popularized the concept of 5 why’s and Jim Collins also talks about that in his book ‘Built to Last’. For anything and everything, simply ask 5 why’s and you will arrive at a root cause. At a more philosophical level, the 5 Why's also demonstrate Dr. Deming's principle that the real problem usually lies in the deeper system rather than in the performance of an individual who is working within that system. So instead of simply worrying too much and searching for a answer a conscious drill down will help more.

Having said all these, if one is living in a concrete jungle and works in another for 18 hours a day, an Eastern book with its glorification of the serenity of the Himalayas, the pristine Ganges, the Hindu mysticism would definitely give a ray of hope.

There are just Bisleri bottles lying around in all these places nowadays. And of course you can get Maggi noodles also. But that can’t constitute a purpose, isn’t it. Finding Maggi?!

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