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HOW WE DE-STRESSED OURSELVES– IN A REAL LIFE SITUATION: The ultimate stress buster lies in your mind

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    I was once faced with an ominous situation that looked like a lifetime disaster, where my younger child was diagnosed of ‘Brain Cancer’ when he was just about two-an-a-half-years old. What followed thereafter was a long battle of nerves, emotions, brawn and brain through the thick and thin of my fast corporate life. Even though, at the end of it we lost the battle, because we couldn’t save him, but not before fighting up to the last straw.

    I then had a very demanding corporate job. And during that phase of my life we were located in various metros such as Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi –NCR. Where, we did not have any day-to-day support from our extended family nor even old buddies. Nevertheless, we had to survive, by fighting the menacing circumstances, where, caring colleagues and friendly neighbours were the only ones who came forward to help us.

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    The prevailing situation fatigued me no end. I was working for some big banners those days who took good care of me. They were considerate under the circumstances. But I still had to continuously perform to keep my stalk and career ambitions alive. My wife, who too was qualified, had to abandon her career because she had to stay put at home to take care of the child. And beyond that, there were immense financial and emotional insecurities to deal with, in terms of expensive treatment, physical stress and the mystery behind the ultimate cure. 

    When he fell sick, we were in our late thirties. A tricky age, when we were not quite clear, whether we should adventure for a third child when the second was in peril to maintain the count of two. And God! it was a horrendous situation, when even the Indian economy every now and then was not doing well and lot of companies were issuing pink slips. This led to severe job insecurity, when every month our medical bills were spiraling above seventy five thousand in the final years of his life.

    But even with all these humongous issues we needed to work and survive. So, we charted out an omnipotent methodology to de-stress ourselves. It was a seamless combination of ideas, thoughts, mythology and even some physical exercises, that took us through the ordeal. And, as we were approaching the end, the intensity of stress increased exponentially, and under those circumstances this was how we eased our tension:

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  1. CHAIN OF STRONG THOUGHTS:

    Everything, in one’s life starts from the mind. Mind is your biggest problem. Your biggest enemy. But also your biggest friend. Your solution provider and leveler. So, we decided to control it by conditioning ourselves, in the following  manner: By …..

  • Deciding to do away, with all the negative emotions.
  • Nothing is permanent so why worry. Just keep doing what you are supposed to do under the circumstances.
  • PUSH (Pray Until Something Happens) Pray and pray.
  • Don’t plan excessively. Take life one day at a time.
  • No matter how bad things are, they could be worse.
  • At any given time in your life. There is something going right and something wrong. This balances life. For in life not everything will go wrong, nor everything will go right in one go. That is the law of the nature.
  • Life is a very sturdy boat. So, just keep moving and don’t stop. For movement is life and stillness is death.
  • Whatever, you can do for the child do within your means. Don’t get intimidated by what others tell you to do. Especially, if it is beyond your means.
  • Our child may have to leave the world soon. But even I have to go some day. For that’s destiny. At the end of it we all have to go. No one can fight the law of nature. So why worry.
  • Don’t try to run the universe yourself. Leave few things to God. Your child could be one of them.
  • Human beings are blind. They can’t even see the next moment of life. So how can they predict the time of anyone’s death.
  • There is something called the destiny. Try and believe in it.
  • When the child was very critical towards the end days. I started believing in miracles all the more. Even when it did not happen with us. But it kept me charged under the circumstances.
  • I started taking my work more passionately. Remember your daily routine could be one of your biggest stress busters.
  • Just dress up and show up for work. Never sulk around in those negative surroundings and emotions.
  • After a bad day there is always a good day. But one really doesn’t know which is that bad day and which is a good day.
  • Only get dismayed by situations you have created for yourself and not situations that God has created for you. For he only will correct it. ‘Brain Cancer’ was God’s creation.
  • Try and be watchful whenever, there is a change of surroundings, locations, friends and colleagues around you. For, every change of situation, will have something new to offer. And, with that. There is also a possibility of some new energies coming close to you to influence you. Remember, life is all about positive and negative energies.
  • Life is an esoteric journey. For every new situation you’ll have some new company who would leave you when that part of the journey is over. So nothing is permanent.
  • To console ourselves we even started thinking. This child has a short life.  He is here to spread a message. So, don’t just feel morose about it and help the cause.
  • In those firefighting days we had created our own little Gods. Anything, that helped our circumstances was like a God to us. And, how clearly, we felt. There are two worlds. One is the world of cancer and the other is without it for the lucky ones. Where, we belonged to the former.
  • We never initiated a discussion around our child’s health to look for sympathies. As we believed in God and in ourselves.

PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES

  • I took up to regular walking and weekend Golf. It was a great stress buster.
  • Deep breathing became a regular activity that helped us in restoring freshness and rejuvenated our lives, even in those scary nights when we couldn’t sleep.
  • I got hooked up to one of the soap operas that suited my timing for deflecting my tired mind.
  • We kept our home ambience alive for we didn’t want to give advance invitation to death. And, in that, we looked for micro positivity in life.
  • Whatever the child wanted we provided. We were proud of him and never negative.
  • I got into a hobby that still continues. To divert my mind.

MYTHOLOGY A GREAT LEVELER

  • What to talk of human beings, when, even Gods had to leave their mortal bodies.
  • The biggest unknown boon of life is a painless exit and a dignified death. Mythology, combined with our circumstances taught us that.

    These are pointers from the book: “GLOOM BEHIND THE SMILE” now catalogued in many libraries of the US including Harvard and Library of Congress. It is also catalogued in libraries of Canada and even India.

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By Kamlesh Tripathi

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    Shravan Charity Mission is an NGO that works for poor children suffering from life threatening diseases. Should you wish to donate for the cause the bank details are given below:

NAME OF ACCOUNT: SHRAVAN CHARITY MISSION

Account no: 680510110004635 (BANK OF INDIA)

IFSC code: BKID0006805

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Our publications

GLOOM BEHIND THE SMILE

ONE TO TANGO … RIA’S ODYSSEY

AADAB LUCKNOW … FOND MEMORIES

REFRACTIONS … FROM THE PRISM OF GOD

(CAN BE BOUGHT FROM ON LINE BOOK STORES OR WRITE TO US FOR COPIES)

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SPINDRIFT

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    Finding is such pure joy. And how rare, too! It had been several years since I had picked up anything when I found a penknife, a Hindi thriller and a five rupee coin, the last named beaming at me from below the seat of a ramshackle bus plying in our very own metropolis. Recalling that Elvis ditty ‘finders keepers, losers weepers’ I closed my eyes, stiffened my sinews and commended my soul to God before picking up the coin glistening in the errant sunbeam which had chanced through one of the innumerable slits in the roof. Nobody noticed. The conductor did raise a quizzical eye brow but that was about all. The term ‘conductor’ through over use has lost its semantic substance. The fellow is basically a logistics manager and with training can outsmart any sophisticated route operator. Even a funambulist might take a cue from the number of jobs he juggles while on board the boneshaker. This perception is wholly reserved for our country. Now coming back to the treasure trove -the Hindi thriller was a disappointment- not a patch on the Col  Vinod and Capt  Hameed  era  whodunits. Hindi detective fiction since then has been on the decline, virtually on the ‘endangered species’ list. Such a sorry state is inexplicable considering the vast treasure of Indian fiction available in genres like Sorcery, Witchcraft, Tilism, and detective fiction. ‘Chandrakanta’ and ‘Bhootnath’ had once fired the imagination of generation of readers and also contributed immensely to the popularity of Hindi language. These works of Devaki Nandan Khatri have outlived the copyright regime and are in the public domain since the early 60s. That is why they were churning out Chandrakanta serials decades ago paying scant regard to the original text and plot. But perhaps I am digressing.

    In a life time frittered away looking at the mirror I scarcely noticed the ‘sixpence lying at my feet’.  I was never much of a chance finder. At times one does strike a gold mine but the instances are so far removed that they vanish like the may snow drift. Once while waiting to get my vintage Ambassador car serviced I came across an unclaimed copy  Of Human Bondage  by Somerset Maugham. I was familiar with the works of Maugham and therefore happy to add to my collection of Moon and the Sixpence  and Eyeless in Gaza. The neo-intellectuals in my college days would talk of Camus, Kafka and Maugham in the same breath. Perusal of their works was considered the hallmark of intellectual prowess and was a sure passport to the local salons where deipnosophists abound. Photograph of Camus in a trench coat and fedora with a cigarette dangling loosely from the corner of the mouth, looking very much the Bogart of the noir genre, was one of the most widely reproduced photograph of the time.

humphreyHUMPHRY BOGART

    God’s largesse did not end with the book. This time it was a crumpled hundred rupee note with remnants of superfine khaini , the closest western variant being the snuff, much in vogue among the aristocracy of Europe in the days of yore. This bonanza came my way while going to Ranchi town from my college campus at Mesra. It was not one of those savoury trips one looks forward to but an undignified exit due to hostel vacation orders. As the college had been closed sine die it was being hotly debated whether to push homewards or to foregather in some cosy pastoral retreat for some good times together. It all depended on the pelf and riches.

    Emboldened by the find I decided to join the merry revelers, home being at ‘Lands End’. Though I put the money to good use I still haven’t been able to figure out what made the fellow to ‘crumple it’ and to tuck the promissory note under the seat. Perhaps he was a chance finder like me and had acted the way he did to avoid detection by fellow passengers. Of course he would take the booty away while disembarking. Another plausible theory was that he has merely stored the surplus khaini there for a rainy day quite forgetting the king’s ransom in the form of a crumpled note.

    I might add, that now and then, perhaps a ball pen, pocket comb or a sparsely populated purse  or some such trifles, no matter how well supplied one may be with, cannot be acquired without a thrill. Think of a Blackbury or a Rayban thus found. We all live and learn. A defeatist may venture something like “it takes all sorts”.

    The essence of finding something which brings to us unalloyed joy is half unexpectedness and half uniqueness. There being no aposematic forecast, no intuitive premonition and the ‘gift’ coming to you by chance: no one is to be thanked, no one to be owed anything. “Something for nothing …  ” Ay, there’s the rub…”. Shakespeare has put these things so beautifully. To look for the thing is to transform the whole plot-to rob it of its ‘sublime suddenness’-perchance to become even concerned or greedy.

    In its larger context we may use the word discovery-something akin to Columbus discovering America or was it the West Indies. Our concern for trifles and small findings are at once so stimulating and pure joy that to meddle with it would only appeal to a killjoy. Yet there are people who have an unsavoury sense of the sport!

    I recall the small rustic game or charade being played out by stringing a purse or paper money (bill or note) or any such desirable object which the casual walker gleefully stoops to pick up. The pranksters conveniently hidden from view have a field day as they pull the string leading the unsuspecting wayfarer on a merry chase. There are many clever variants which the fun-seeking lads have in their repertoire. In this cyber age of ours such diversions may seem blasé. But for a country whose half the population lives below poverty line there may still be some relevance left in such innocuous and simple pastimes.

    One common thread which runs through this serendipity is the absence of haste. My once rural seat and current urban dwellings present contrasting styles in time management. Reckon a simple activity like breakfast. Absence of haste is anathema to modern spirit. For most commuters it is always charged with disturbing quiet. The unnerving scenario of buses disappearing round the corner and the cacophony of traffic jams brood over the chota hazri , transforming mild God-fearing men into wild harpies as they sprint out like bats from hell. Down at the rural seat the meals are leisurely and indolent- a perfect epitome of laid-back country life of a cultured man. It is a breakfast of ease and languescent mood, a meal of ‘soft murmurs and rustling papers’.

    Circumstances afford little options. This harum-scarum age of ours has everything excepting time where brutish bolting of food is the in-thing. However, a quiet leisurely, laid- back meal by the crackling logs in winter has its unwavering charm.

    Let’s take a little time off for ourselves.

    “We look before and after

    And pine for what is not”

    A.K.Tripathi,

    Guwahati-2015

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VIGNETTE: #SABHARWAL LEAVES #SWAMI BEHIND IN #KAROLBAGH

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    Both Sabharwal and Swami were very senior to me both in age and seniority. Our office those days was in the sprawling boulevard of Parliament Street in New Delhi. Just opposite to the VIP police station, and not very far from the point where it embraced the ever famous Connaught circus. The pride of New Delhi and even India.

    Sabharwal, a Punjabi Khatri used to reside in Kirti Nagar. While, Swami a Tamil Brahmin in Karol Bagh. That happened to be the nerve center of the huge South Indian population, residing in Delhi then. Sabharwal and Swami (S&S) made an interesting duo. One being the likes of a carefree, lively and mast Punjabi. The other, a conservative and ritualistic Brahmin from the South. Sabharwal then was the liaison manager and Swami the admin manager of the company.

    While Sabharwal truly believed in YOLO (You only live once) and often basked in the theory of carpe diem. Swami prescribed to the simple Brahmin culture of south. And he made it more evident by sporting the famous horizontal chandan tilak on his forehead. Which noticeably, by the time he use to reach office used to dry up and change its colour.

    But even with all the asymmetry between them in terms of their origin, habits, language and gait, I still found S&S to be the toast of office. I guess, the combination was explosive and somewhat different. Apparently, they were very good friends. They used to come to office together in the morning and even leave together in the evening. In Sabharwal’s faded, yet rugged Vespa scooter.

    Once, like every other morning. Sabharwal, with his helmet tied to his chin. That reduced his audibility anyway, in the crowded traffic of Karol Bagh. Reached the usual spot, from where Swami use to hop on to his scooter.  He saw Swami standing there. And as usual he halted for a moment and moved on. Thinking, Swami is well perched behind him. In about half an hour he reached office. As traffic used to be much less those days. Only to realise Swami was there. Most likely he was left behind.

    Sabharwal, perplexed to this very unexpected one waited for some moments at the car park for him. Then slowly walked up to the office in the second floor. And following him soon. In Rambo style entered Swami, fuming. Mobiles were not invented then.

    ‘Arrey Baba, kya hua? Before, I could even sit. You moved the scooter, when my leg was midair.’

    ‘Arrey Swami, sorry yaar! I just don’t know what happened to me. I was in deep thoughts. Thinking, how to tackle that idiot in Udyog Bhawan. I stopped and moved, thinking you were on board, and since I was in deep thoughts. I never spoke to you and for some strange reason. I thought even you are quiet today. It was only when I was nearing Patel Chowk. I realised the scooter was feeling very light. Is when I turned around and you were not there.’

    Out of breath Swami was slowly coming to terms with Sabharwal’s gross error. Is when we all had a hearty laugh followed by a cup of tea.

    Today, Mr Sabharwal is not with us. To laugh and remember about this endearing and hearty episode. But we all have cherished memories of him. And this is what life is all about. My tributes to him, and may, he rest in peace.

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ALL WOMEN’S ROUGH & TOUGH PINK FLEET OF MERU CAB

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By Kamlesh Tripathi

Meru lady cab driver Jyoti Gupta
Meru lady cab driver Jyoti Gupta

 

It was a novel experience when my wife and I were driven home the other day from Delhi Airport by Ms Jyoti Gupta, a lady cab driver, of the pink fleet of radio cabs, christened ‘Meru Eve,’ recently introduced by Meru Cabs.

To begin with Jyoti briefly narrated how the chief executive of Meru Cabs, Siddhartha Pahwa, announced the new service from a dais decorated with daisies and gladioli at the time of launch. The holistic concept being, how to make women safer in Delhi; where the newfound breed, of these daring and young female cabbies were adding value.

Meru lady cab driver
Meru lady cab driver

We had some luggage that needed to be transferred to the luggage carrier atop and tied. I offered to help but she refused priding she could do that just alone, and she did it. And while she was doing that we could see some male cabbies prying and smiling at her.

And as we started from the airport, I could see both male and female eyes gazing at her, for she was a novelty- a cab driver, who had dared to break into the hitherto male bastion of cabbies.

In the small conversation that followed she told us why she took up to this career. Surely, it was not for any pantomime. But the intense and rancid pattern of daily abuse from her husband. She now had two college going children, and was up in arms with her husband, seeking divorce; and had merited class ten herself, from Haldwani.

Quick to learn and savvy about business numbers. Knowing her vehicle inside-out. Not scared of the male rowdiness or the male overwhelm on the road. And while driving, she appeared quite a seasoned and inveterate, as I was not missing the male counterpart for a change.

And, there was something captivating about her. For she was not sulking to the challenges of a tough profession, but was gaga about it. As, by now she had already demonstrated the definition of toughness. That was moving away from stark physicality to an enduring mindset which females too had. And, last but not the least she conveyed the ultimate mission of life, that was common for both man and woman, and it was only the short lived difficulties that are different.

All the best Jyoti!

IT COULD BE FOR MORE THAN ONE REASON: SO JUST DON’T DUMP YOUR FRIEND YET.

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BY KAMLESH TRIPATHI

Recently, I visited an old friend-cum-colleague of mine, whom I knew quite well. An innate live-wire, I should say. Whom, I had known for the last thirty years but was meeting him after three years. With the idea of reminiscing those good old days. I was now plonked in his drawing room holding a fancy glass and some mouthwatering snacks.

In the initial moments of warm-up I felt as usual; and as usual as I used to feel in his company earlier. But then a little beyond that. I felt as if the winds had changed. For he was not the same, and had become sober, quiet and somewhat unresponsive. Anyhow, I went past those unwieldy moments and left with an overbearing him.

Later on. I pondered and pondered, about what I thought. The diffident behaviour of my friend. And, each time I only came across emotions and insinuations that had no logic. Next day, as usual, I was back, dabbling my laptop. When, I decided to surf around certain industries, where I found some logical co-relation with my friend’s behaviour.

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The industry in which my friend was working was undergoing torturous times. When, I decided to peep into his company figures, which I found were even more pathetic. As for the past two years it was in deep red. I then decided to drop the disturbing thoughts and leave the whole thing to unknown destiny.

Time trickled by. It was three months since I had met him. When, one day. I got a call from him again. And, his very first sentence took me back to times immemorial. Thirty years, to be precise. He had found a new job. I found in him the same chirpy soul talking to me, and once again he invited me home. In the manner, he usually invited me. Which, I couldn’t refuse. Sure enough, he had regained himself, and it was heartening to visualize that. So, I drew a moral out of his story.

In life don’t ever misunderstand any such friend and don’t write him off. For you really don’t know, who might be standing next to you when you are close to crossing the broken bridge. They may look and behave in a manner that may make you feel, they are annoyed with you. But they could be annoyed with themselves. Yielding and bleeding to their own circumstances in this unnecessary tough world.

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