Confusing the temporary with the permanent, happiness with pleasure, continuing to search for vague things rather than appreciating what has already been given, and trying to change conditions instead of changing oneself, almost always lead to suffering. There are always signs and signals provided by the higher intelligence of the world to avoid this confusion. Sometimes such cues are received but mostly ignored, and when reality bites, it hurts. Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, under whose tutelage I matured, was very sensitive to such signals, and promptly adjusted his life to the rise and fall of fortunes. In hindsight, I feel that he was even aware of his departure from this world when he wrote in our book, Transcendence, released a month prior to his death, “No maneuvers are required any more, as I am placed in my final position in eternity.” 

It was a sacred moment, when I met the “founding father of the Republic of Zambia” and “Gandhi of Africa,” Dr. Kenneth Kaunda (1924 –2021) on November 30, 2018, in his house on the outskirts of Lusaka. A heavily built man but frail in his mid-nineties, Dr. Kaunda stood up from his seat, raised his hand, carrying his signature white handkerchief, to my head, and murmured a prayer of blessing. I instantly knew that it was one of those times, when a phase ends and another starts, like the summer solstice, when sun moves farthest to the north in the sky and then start returning from the very next day, or the point of contraflexure, when the bending moment changes direction in a beam, or allotropic transformations in metallurgy, when a metal changes from one of these crystalline structures to another while remaining solid.

Besides Zambia, this tour of Africa included Kenya, Ethiopia, and Uganda, and turned out to be my last international travel. I had a cardiac complication in February 2019 and after that, stopped traveling altogether. I adjusted myself to a home-confined life with structured reading and diving deep into books that I would not have dared to earlier, like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil’s Aeneid, Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and the ultimate novel ever written by anyone, Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. Excellent English translations are available for all these books and can be accessed on the Internet even without buying the books. And then I realized the truth that we all are basically minds, mistaking ourselves as bodies. And at the mental level, we can connect to even those who have lived before us in faraway lands. 

Recently, I enjoyed reading a short, beautiful book, Search Inside Yourself by Chade Meng-Tan (b. 1971) and his talks on YouTube. Meng, as he is normally called, is a software engineer, born and educated in Singapore, and worked at the Google campus in Mountain View, California (2000-2015), spending the first eight years in Engineering and later starting “mindfulness training” courses at the company. After quitting Google, Meng started the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, and a movement called One Billion Acts of Peace. There is nothing new Meng is presenting, but his take on the traditional Buddhist technique of mindfulness is scientific, and the way he blended it with the famous concept of Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman (b. 1946) is both, brilliant and practically useful. 

Meng defines “mindfulness” as paying attention to the basic fact that you are alive by feeling your breath – the air going in and coming out. This is not as simple as it sounds. Thoughts arise in the mind, the body distracts us by itches, muscular twists, and even the sensation of pain here and there. Meng tells us to return to keep feeling the breath, ignoring these interruptions, and keep expanding these “mindful of breathing” spells by practice. Meng writes in the aforementioned book, “The good news is that mindfulness is embarrassingly easy… the hard part in mindful practice is deepening, strengthening, and sustaining it, especially in times of difficulty… All you have to do is sit without an agenda for two minutes. Life really cannot get much simpler than that. The idea here is to shift from “doing” to “being,” whatever that means to you, for just two minutes. Just be.”

Meng kept the book simple – no complicated terms, or jargons – but included simple examples that anyone could relate to. Meng compares meditation with exercise. “When you are weight training, every time you flex your biceps in resistance to the weight of dumbbells, your bicep muscles grow a little bit stronger. The same process happens during meditation. Every time your attention wanders away from your breath, and you bring it back, it is like flexing your biceps—your “muscle” of attention grows a bit stronger.”

After enhancing the attention on our breath, or rather, bringing it back to our breath when it wanders, Meng asks us to extend it into every part of our life. Meng quotes William James, the father of modern psychology, “And the faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention over and over again is the very root of judgement, character, and will.  No one is compos sui if he have it not. An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence.”

Meng now integrates the emotional competency concept of Daniel Goleman. Once you start living in mindfulness, you become more aware of yourself. Three emotional competencies are cited – to be aware of your emotions, knowing your strengths and limits, and a sense of your self-worth and capabilities. Meng writes, “Eventually, we reach a point where we are comfortable in our skins. There are no skeletons in our closets we do not already know about. There is nothing about ourselves we cannot deal with. This is the basis of self-confidence.” 

Meng compares mind and mindfulness with a pole and the flag hoisted upon it. Meng writes, “In the presence of strong emotions, the mind may be turbulent like a flag fluttering in the wind. The flagpole represents mindfulness — it keeps the mind steady and grounded despite all that emotional movement. This stability is what allows us to view ourselves with third-person objectivity.” 

My favorite part in the book is where Meng writes, “Thoughts and emotions are like clouds — some beautiful, some dark — while our core being is like the sky. Clouds are not the sky; they are phenomena in the sky that come and go. Similarly, thoughts and emotions are not who we are; they are simply phenomena in the mind and body that come and go. Possessing this insight, one creates the possibility of change within oneself.”  

And what is that change? Allow life to live through you, instated of trying to waste your life in trying to manipulate it. Meng closes the book with a poem.

With deep inner peace,
And great compassion,
Aspire daily to save the world,
But do not strive to achieve it.
Just do whatever comes naturally.
Because when aspiration is strong
And compassion blossoms,
Whatever comes most naturally,
Is also the right thing to do.

I traveled when opportunities presented themselves, taking me to distant places and meeting great human beings. When my cardiac situation halted it, I replaced traveling with reading books, not disturbing my meeting with great minds. In addition to traveling to faraway places, through books, I can even visit the past and dive into the future.  

Worldview and self-view are the two poles between which the mind oscillates. What these poles mean to an individual is of vital importance. The difficulty is that these poles evolve throughout life – they initially develop and then grow, depending on the work and the people around, and eventually become fixed, so much so that people become restricted and even dysfunctional in their lives. I share here my worldview and self-view – what these are and how they were formed, with the hope that it triggers you to articulate yours. =

I will start with the worldview. It starts with chauvinism. Every child is a prince/ princess. The ego is the axis around which everything else must revolve. Children in poor families learn coping and adaptation a little earlier than those who are born in affluent families. But many people, rich and poor, never learn to deal with reality and live deluded lives, trying to change things and the people around them as per their likes and dislikes, wasting almost their entire life force in vain. Most addictions are rooted in this false sense of importance that people give to themselves.

I was born in the inner city of Meerut, the new world for the “old city.” I was the first child of my parents, with a doting paternal grandmother in addition. Even my maternal grandmother and her sister were kind to me, and I grew up as a pampered child. My illusions started breaking as I went to school. I was bad at sports – even the normal hand-eye coordination required to hit pebbles on target and fly kites was missing. I learnt cycling post high school, more out of shame than any enthusiasm. 

Academically, I excelled. Studying in the Hindi medium, I cleared every class in the “first division,” which meant 60% marks in the 1960s. I got admission to Engineering on merit, but my handicap of not studying in the English medium burst in my face without delay and with full force. My first year was more of a survival – I was quick to learn subjects, but spelling mistakes would mar my answer sheets like food stains on a tablecloth. It was only in Machine Drawing that I could secure my first ‘A’ Grade, because there was no language involved. I captured the first and third angle views of objects without difficulty.

Determined to learn English, I started reading novels – my first one was The Vulture is a Patient Bird by James Hadley Chase. I bought a second-hand copy for two rupees. It took me more than a month to finish the 160-page book. I had to consult Bhargava’s English-to-Hindi-dictionary at least once every page. It was the story of a safe-breaker, a beautiful lady, an expert young hunter, and an ace pilot with a shady past, who formed a team to steal a priceless antique ring from a millionaire’s closely guarded fortress in a remote place in Africa. 

As the story built up, my need to consult the dictionary came down. New words started looking familiar as the events unfolded. The team succeeded in stealing the ring, but three members died one by one, as the millionaire had laced it with poison. Whoever wore the ring, died. By the time I read The Godfather written by Mario Puzo, a year later, I replaced the English-to-Hindi dictionary with a Merriam-Webster English-to-English one, sold by the University library at a 50% subsidy.  

After graduating in mechanical engineering, I was hired as a Teaching Associate with an option to do Masters. I consider those the golden years of my life. I had a 1 BHK house given by the university, rode a bicycle, and spent a minimum of three hours in the sprawling university library. There was some esoteric attraction in the form of the books in the Humanities section and I would read about ancient Greek and later, Western philosophy for no rhyme or reason. As soon as I completed my Masters, I got selected to work in the DRDO and relocated to Hyderabad. 

I was fascinated by the large corridors of the Missile Laboratory where I was posted. The fortress-like gates, security guards, the pomp of the Military rank-holding officers moving around, and heavy-duty armoured vehicles, some of them with wheels as big as my height, were surreal. But I was not intimidated. I could speak English fluently and with a natural flavour of wit and sarcasm that I never knew when and from where I acquired. Maybe it was latent and finally manifested? I used to speak my mind, not very common for Junior Officers. I was spotted by Dr. A.P.J. Kalam, the director there, perhaps for that. 

He assigned me the task of developing a titanium air bottle for a surface-to-air missile. During this work, I interacted with metallurgists, visited the Bharat Heavy Plate and Vessels Limited in Visakhapatnam, the IIT, Madras, and finally, in August 1985, the Aérospatiale in France. This was my first air travel. One week in France, visiting Paris, Clermont-Ferrand, and Bordeaux, opened my mind. No one spoke English there. French people speak French and excel in their lives in every aspect without any difficulty, or rather, with ease. Later, when I went to China, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy, no one spoke English there either. 

So, I learnt that, in the world, strength respects strength. And all strong people, or nations, are proud of their language. Our biggest handicap is our disrespect for our mother tongue. Because English gives people a ticket to success in India, it is seen as a mark of superiority. In some families, parents converse with their children in English. The tragedy is that even the best education in English will not make you think in English, articulate feelings, and thoughts, and capture your intuitions. Your DNA will communicate to you through your flesh and impulses using the mother tongue and not in English. So, this is a tragedy of modern India that we think, feel and work in different languages while discarding our mother tongue, more out of necessity.     

The purpose of life is expanding your consciousness. Reading books and traveling play a very important role in this regard. Some fortunate people have mentors in their lives. I had Dr. Kalam mentoring me and consider it as my biggest blessing. Know yourself as your DNA. Live in sync with the environment around you, and eat food that is fresh, simple, and inexpensive. All exotic food that reaches you through long supply chains, processed with preservatives is, indeed, an assault on your autoimmune system. Oily and spicy food colour your temperament. And above all have an open-mind. 

The German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), famously wrote in The Critique of Practical Reason these words, also engraved in German on his tombstone, “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.” Let your mind be anchored to the idea of your divine essence inside and your connection with the immense universe outside. Keep using your mother tongue as much as possible and read its literature, for it would resonate with the experiences of your ancestors embedded in your DNA. And be mindful that life is not about thinking alone; life is about feeling. Feel life and respond to the tasks it assigns to you and it will guide you to glory! That is what enlightenment is, if such a word must be there. 

Every decade has its own flavour. When I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, poverty and mismanagement were accepted as the norm. I spent many hours standing in queue at ration shops, which would not open regularly, and their operators blatantly sold sugar and wheat in the black market. Ballot boxes were “looted” in the elections, news about dacoit gangs striking towns and villages were common, and movies were made about the lives of smugglers. India was seen as a backward and laggard nation.  

Things struck rock bottom in July 1991, when India was forced to mortgage 46.91 tonnes of gold with the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan to raise just $ 400 million. The false pride of a Sone ki Chidiya burst in its face! Although different leaders got the credit for what was called economic liberalization, the truth was that the Indian economy was forced open by the World Bank and the IMF, for foreign entities to operate in Indian markets. The rupee was devalued. Markets were flooded with imported TVs, refrigerators and cars, and the middle class rejoiced.  

The share market boomed. But it also unleashed large-scale corruption. New words like “scam” entered the lexicon. Over the years, while the rich became richer, the spirit of philanthropy evaporated. Privatization of health and education eclipsed charitable hospitals and colleges, earlier a hallmark of Indian society. The policy of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) was created as a fig leaf to hide the nakedness of profiteering. But even this was misused for tax evasion more than it was used for doing good on the ground. The “India Shining” campaign was rejected by people. The neo-rich and corporate honchos were not trusted by the people. There was uneasiness amongst the poor. 

Things were not good at the global level too. American companies were rushing to China to manufacture their goods at lower costs and abandoning their factories and firing their own workers. The term, ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance), was popularly used first in a 2004 report titled, Who Cares Wins: Connecting Financial Markets to a Changing World, which was a joint initiative of financial institutions at the invitation of the then United Nations Secretary-General, Ghanaian diplomat Kofi Annan. Eighteen financial institutions from nine countries, with total assets under management of over 6 trillion USD participated in developing this report.

Since then, the idea gained traction that the way that environmental, social, and corporate governance issues are managed, is part of companies’ overall management quality, and needed to compete successfully in a more globalized, interconnected, and competitive world. More importantly, a consensus was created for financial institutions to commit to integrating environmental, social and governance factors in investment processes. Someone must pay for the collective good of humanity and the wealth generators themselves would be the best people to make it a part of wealth creation. 

As the idea built up, a variety of organizations and financial institutions devised ways to measure the extent to which a specific corporation was aligned to ESG goals. In what was nothing short of a miracle, ESG turned out to be a great success. So much so, that in 2015, the United Nations (UN) adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a worldwide call to action to eradicate poverty, protect the planet and improve the lives and prospects of everyone, everywhere. A 15-year plan was made to achieve the goals.

The SDGs are universal and thus, apply to the entire world – developed and developing countries alike. They are integrated and indivisible, calling for coherent and integrated solutions and multi-stakeholder partnerships to address the complex development challenges we face. And they call for systematically and explicitly reducing inequality and focusing on those left behind on the path to sustainable development. Everyone in the world is now aware of the top three SDG priorities of no poverty, zero hunger, and good health and wellbeing.

Gradually, an awareness swept across the corporate world. Why not align the new investments to the SDGs? Why not refine HR policies so as to achieve human resource development, rather than mere management? A small army of business executives worked on Agenda 2030, deciphering the fundamental importance of reliable, timely and disaggregated data and statistics. India joined the mainstream and much of the country’s National Development Agenda is mirrored in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Dr. Nirav Mandir, the young chief of HR at Shree Ramkrishna Exports (SRK), Surat, a diamond business house with an annual turnover of more than a billion dollars and employing more than 6000 people, was amongst the first in India to embrace the SDGs into their management.  As if prodded by the hand of Providence, when the SRK leader, Govind Bhai Dholakia, decided to create the new building of his company, Nirav was tasked to pursue the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for green buildings. 

Nirav blended into this assignment that spread over six years, awareness creation about sustainability, not merely as a building standard, but as a way of life. Very active in HR parlance, he mobilized his peers in measuring progress achieved and making decisions supporting the SDGs that were based on evidence, without which change remains superficial and temporary. Fully supported by Govind Bhai, and mentored by Mahesh Ramanujam, the Indian-origin CEO of the U.S. Green Building Council, Nirav developed a unique model of HR policies in the company transcending the workplace, where “free from addiction” is a norm and families are invited in business success celebrations. 

Govind Bhai writes in his autobiography, Diamonds are Forever And So Are Morals, “Nirav Mandir, looking after HR in our company led hundreds of employees to work tirelessly as the backbone of the green building movement where they found common ground was the belief that success in life and business is all about our willingness to reimagine the way we treat each other. We decided to go for Gold Rating certification, which implied 60-79 points earned on the ‘Green building’ criteria and became the pioneers in the Indian diamond industry in this regard. With further improvements, we would later achieve the highest Platinum Rating.”

I have always been an ESG enthusiast, even when this term was not articulated. In 1993, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam tasked me with developing civilian spinoffs of Defence technology, in what was, perhaps, the first example of channelling organizational resources for the larger good of people. The impact of this ideology was so transformative that I resigned from my secure job at DRDO to pursue interdisciplinary and multi-agency projects of societal importance. I might have missed out on some honours and rewards by stepping out of the might and glory of the missile world, but developing a low-cost coronary stent, or setting up telemedicine connectivity in the 1990s when even 2G telecom did not exist, was no less satisfying. 

I was recently going through the findings of a Gallup 2021 report – The Will of the Workplace for Environmental, Social and Governance. It mentions, “In September 2020, the World Economic Forum published a report with inputs from CEOs of 120 companies, in collaboration with the big-four accounting firms (Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC). The report outlines a path for creating consistent metrics and reporting for sustainable value creation. Based on four pillars — principles of governance, planet, people, and prosperity — the report presents 21 core metrics and 34 expanded metrics.”

So, no business can be just making profits anymore. It must also do social good. That is the trend and flavor of the present times. High-sounding words like charity and philanthropy have been replaced with heavy-duty terms like responsibility and commitment. Companies must invest in the larger good of making the lives of people a little better, preserving the environment, adopting cleaner energy, and supporting local over global commodities and products. I see in my lifetime, the beginning of a new era of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG). As such, ESG can’t be a popular name for the era, but as things change for the better, a catchy name like “humanization” will also appear. 

The world over, sighting dolphins is considered as a good omen and a great symbol of good luck. That capitalists will take care of the progress of humanity is more of a wish, rather than a reality on ground. I see ESG as a dolphin and dream of it with a rainbow for the progress of humanity. The proverbial dolphins have not yet jumped out of the waters to give a sighting; they are still in the seas.   

Of late, I spend much of my time reading books. Excellent books are available on the Internet, which can be read for free. One can even download them, highlight the portions one likes and even add notes. Being a technical person, I consider this as another great gift of technology.

I recently found a beautiful, small book on the Internet, The Gifts of Imperfection, by the American research professor, Casandra Brené Brown (b. 1965). She talks on a 20-minute lecture platform, TEDx, and is considered as “a new star of social psychology.” The book courageously declares on the cover itself, “Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to be and Embrace Who You Are.” Later in the book, she explains this process as “wholehearted living,” which comes out of practice.

The book calls courage, compassion, and connections as the three gifts of imperfection. Consider these three words as verbs – actions. So, courage is all about taking actions courageously. It could be anything, from something as small as getting up at 6 a.m., to reducing the sugar and salt in your diet, to quitting your addictions, which may not necessarily be smoking, or consuming alcohol, but eating junk food, guzzling soft drinks, watching TV for hours, being hooked to social media, or idle talk, lethargy, procrastination… there are a hundred types and a thousand forms to it. If something must stop, stop it – period.

The biggest courage is to speak out what your heart says. And we all fail here. We are conditioned to “sugarcoat” our criticism, not to convey bad news, and say “yes” even if we want to say “no.” Not only does life get complicated by such behavior, but every time we do this, we let ourselves down. In our attempt to be nice to people around us, we grow up becoming a stranger to our own selves and live bogus lives. 

Compassion is a very misunderstood word. Contrary to what is generally believed, it is not about being kind and caring towards others. It is about being kind and caring to your own self. It is about experiencing your feelings, especially addressing your fears, and not running away from them. The practice of compassion involves moving towards what scares us, engaging it, and overcoming it. 

The biggest barrier to compassion is the failure to see boundaries – my own and those of others – and instead of accepting accountability, shifting the blame. Insincere students blame teachers, lazy and incompetent employees blame their supervisors and working conditions, businesspeople blame markets, and the public in general blames the leaders. Even grown-up people do not hesitate in blaming their now-old parents for their failures in life. 

Compassion is all about acceptance. We need to accept ourselves and accept others as we and they are and find a solution, rather than wasting time and energy in blame games. Setting boundaries and making people accountable is more work than just shaming and blaming. Parents do that quite regularly while raising their children. Students who are a little slow in learning or not sharp enough, are berated at home and struggle in school. Without good marks in senior school, admission in good colleges is ruled out. 

Connection is fundamental. Human beings are, by nature, social animals. We are designed to work together and extend our cooperation in order to progress. Our relationships shape our biology, as well as our experiences. Patients surrounded by well-meaning and caring family and friends recover faster. Neglected and abandoned people are plunged into addictions and a plethora of chronic ailments. 

The secret is that our brain operates through connections. Love is as fundamental an emotion to the brain as oxygen is to its cells. It simply does not function in the absence of love. The root cause of our failure in life is the lack or absence of love. We try to find it where it is not present and never approach where it is waiting to be tapped. So, the problem is not that the people around you are unloving; the problem is that you are stuck up thinking about them. Move on and move away; you will find love in abundance.

Social media is an imposter for connections. There can be nothing more insensitive than using emojis for expressing one’s feelings. Not only is the person using an emoji, trivializing the emotion, but also the person to whom it is being sent. Over time, relationships turn into stereotypes, like emojis. 

Life is a school. The purpose of living is not finding the path of least resistance, but gaining experience. Human life is the only form in the universe endowed with consciousness and choice. Whatever you do using these gifts would be good and anything done by ignoring them will be fraught with danger. The saying that there is no gain without pain is, indeed, true. So, engage with people, tell them your stories, and hear theirs, and you will find a new meaning emerging out of the apparent nothingness.

But what if I am cheated? The answer is – you will learn about people in the process. Each of us is given an immortal essence inside, like an embedded chip of infinite intelligence. There is nothing that is incomprehensible or hidden from this. Instead of being afraid of being cheated by others, stop cheating your own self, with immediate effect. Everyone in this world is born with imperfections. Your faults are, indeed, the road signs on your way to succeed in life.  

Take imperfections as a site to start. Whatever you find as your biggest fault, start working there and you will experience soon that everyone around you is helping you in the process – the entire universe will conspire to help you repair your fault. But instead, if you blame others for your fault, get angry and enter fights, the faults will not go away, but fester like wounds and worsen. 

I close with a quote from the book, The Gifts of Imperfection, “Understanding the difference between healthy striving and perfectionism is critical to laying down the shield and picking up your life. Research shows that perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it is often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis.” 

So, accept and embrace your imperfections, your shortcomings, your faults and start working on them – bit by bit, silently, without making a fuss or show, and you will soon find the onset of healing. Even if you talk to a stranger, you will find a friend there… That is how this world is designed. 

Last month, I spent time reading His Dark Materials, by the English author, Philip Pullman. It is a three-book novel comprised of Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. Written as a children’s book, in Harry Potter style, at a superficial level, this book is a fantasy, but presents the most fundamental question – the forces of ‘religion,’ who believe in destiny and present themselves as an intermediary force, versus the free-thinkers, who discard the idea of destiny and allow people to control their own lives. The Northern Lights has been made into films, first, in 2007 and then, in 2019. 

Having lived life past youth, settled in a family, and reaching a point in one’s livelihood, every thoughtful person starts realizing that all does not happen as one wishes and that there is an ongoing conflict between what one feels and what one is told, wherever one goes. The axis of all personal struggle is about being in control of every moment of our life. As we grow, we know that the controls we enjoyed are no more effective – things do not happen as per plan, people behave in unpredictable ways, and as old age sets in, and the end point of life is visible, the futility of life stares at us.

My take from the book is that knowledge is fundamental to earn one’s livelihood. Without knowledge, no one can, indeed, survive in the world. The right to decide how one wants to live is given to everyone by God and must never be denied. This right is very desirable. Pullman says that one must operate on one’s knowledge, and live without the grace, comfort and protection of a higher power. Here lies the pivot. I spent a few days in reflection and then realized that there is, indeed, no conflict, confusion, or even dilemma in his statement. All problems arise out of the error in understanding the meaning of knowledge and grace. 

The ninth verse of the Ishavasya Upanishad, comprised of just 18 verses, puts it very bluntly:

अन्धन्तमः प्रविशन्ति येऽविद्यामुपासते । 

ततो भूय इव ते तमोय उ विद्यायां रताः ॥

They who live in complete ignorance, fall into blind darkness; and they who live by knowledge alone, fall into an even deeper darkness.

So, it is neither by living in ignorance of what is happening around, nor by its complete knowledge, that life can be understood. The mind must be applied to make sense of the situation you are in, attend to the responsibility and obligations that the situation brings in, but leave the outcome to a higher power, as you are not the only person living in the world – there are 8 billion like you – and as your situation has emerged out of a bigger situation, the solutions also lie beyond you. But the key is to do your part, your bit of what is to be done. Not doing that is sin. 

When I watch people living false lives – not studying in one’s student days, not taking care of their physical and mental fitness, not honing the skills required in earning their livelihood, but pretending at work, and not feeling grateful for the gift of life, family and friends that they have already received, I look at these as acts of self-inflicting injury, the splurging of one’s endowments, and becoming a part of the problem for everyone, rather than a part of the solution in their own lives. As time passes, these people’s own colleagues, relatives, and even children desert them, and they spend their last years in despair. 

It is unpleasant to look at life in this way. But not to know something, because it hurts, is no escape either. It is here that Pullman’s book offers some brilliant insights. Pullman presents daemons, the external expressions of people’s souls, taking forms that symbolize their owners’ character. Pullman presents them as animal companions present with one from birth till the end of one’s life. They keep changing their forms, depending upon the situation, but their basic form remains unchanged.

Your daemon represents your basic nature, the way you are – your instincts, your drives, your temperament, your likes, and dislikes. Your daemon is your uniqueness. The world we live in is designed to separate us from our daemon and turn us into components of a machine – working where fitted. As we grow, we shun our daemons, but they never die till our own death. Living connected to your daemon, is, therefore, the only way to live a purposeful life. In practical terms, keep your child alive in your heart, be mindful of your emotions, and keep releasing them appropriately.

There is a quiz on the Internet. You answer ten questions, and your daemon is suggested to you. My daemon was a grey wolf. It was written, “Your daemon is mysterious, loyal, strong, and the kind that would do anything for their loved ones. But with that, you have a dangerous side that can frighten your enemies and sometimes even your friends.” I searched for more clues. One site says about people with a grey wolf daemon, “You are self-motivated and ambitious. Once you have an idea in your head there is little that can stop you on your road to success. You don’t let yourself get pushed around and you won’t stop until you’ve achieved your goals.” 

Had my daemon been a peacock, a lion, or even an elephant, I would have been delighted, perhaps. But a wolf? It took me a while to digest this. But as I recollected my experiences, starting from early childhood, University, the DRDO, the Care Hospital, my time with President Kalam and after him, my health, friendships, fights, and health issues… the grey wolf looked more and more reasonable. 

I certainly enjoyed cooperative game hunting to achieve recognition; I was quick to adapt where I was; I tackled difficult people diplomatically, rather than going in for direct fights, which I was sure I would lose; I had a good social nature and very expressive behavior, no different from individual or group howling. I travelled with my wife and children, prioritizing these trips over other expenses. But the Aha! moment came when I realized that a wolf is the ancestor of the domestic dog. 

And then, many characters flooded my memories, who flourished in their careers by following the commands their bosses gave them – right or wrong was never their concern. They did what they were told to and felt happy with whenever and whatever they got. But I could not do that. I remain a little bit of a wild animal in this world, never fully domesticated, and in the process, perhaps, not as rewarded as others. 

So, know your daemon. And then keep him close to your heart in whatever you do. Let your daemon talk to you. Drift, wait, and obey, if you like, but hear him, nevertheless. As Philip Pullman writes about multiverses, this world is just one place, a little aspect of the One, which exists in a million forms, at a million places, even at this very moment. Your daemon is your bridge into those unseen realms and helps you meet your doppelgänger – your double i.e., your true nature, like a mirror!