I never ever read any self-help books. Correction - never ever read any self-help books. Unfortunately the same word is used here for both tenses. Some friends suggested books like the ‘Monk who sold his Ferrari’, 'Mars/Venus' series, and so on. Life was uncomplicated and smooth until I met these books…..and then it seemed like a tsunami hit me. Ah, so this explains why I behaved like that with my childhood friend, why I did not go skiing, etc……digging out incidents from the past to explain the present. Creating imaginary traumas and psychological problems to explain all the mistakes in my life so far.

Here are the contents from a typical book :

* Eat your lunch out in the park, in the sunshine. Take a walk to the bistro, with friends. (so now I need a book to tell me how to enjoy those things in life that are free!)

* Give and love unconditionally. Love is like a catharsis. (okay, so now even falling in love has an ulterior motive – betterment of oneself)!

* Send little notes to tell a person how special (s)he is. (yeah right, does not matter if you do not see that person’s face for a year)!

* Keep a pet…..(yup, bring a pedigree dog and when one gets tired of him, abandon him at a shelter).

*

My first question is to question these suggestions (or remedies to improve one’s life). My second question is since when have we started needing something, ironically a darned book instead of a family member, to tell us and remind us of some of the most basic lessons in life? Shouldn’t being kind to people and animals, giving love, socializing well and other such basic behaviour come naturally to us? Or perhaps the sequence is such that one book creates imaginary issues in our lives, another offers the explanations and yet another gives us valuable ideas to get out of the rut!

Did our previous generations also have such complex problems? Again, two questions – is the problem really a show-stopper or are we making mountains out of molehills; and is the solution itself being the cause for the problem here? We are not even traveling in circles, maybe we have something of a Moebius strip here!

Yes, challenges have always been there for everyone. Some fought them, others accepted and moved on in life, a few more whined and took the beatings and called them ‘sacrifices’. Life went on. Puppies grow up on their own, detached from their parents. I saw a touching film recently, “Ours, L’ ” about a sweet little bear cub who loses his mother in an accident and has to face many foes and battle several hardships and nightmares. In the wild, his only hope for love and companionship is an adult male bear. The film ends with the bear cub getting his first sleep in hibernation, without nightmares of any kind.

Is a book or a guru really needed to one through life? Ignorance is bliss; some issues were never issues during our grandparents’ era. Is ignorance really peaceful? Knowledge is powerful but in the wrong hands, it can be destructive or even bourgeois. Why the latter? Rumination over too many issues and by potentially ‘unsuitable’ people can sometimes cause a lot of ‘unlearning’ of basic teachings and even destroy the meaning of knowledge. One needs to have capability to assimilate what one takes in. A swan can separate milk from water, not a duck.

On similar lines, a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer…..all are very good, but when a nation has hundreds of engineering and medical colleges, something is terribly out of balance. Entrance exams, aptitude tests….yes, science is real, not abstract….but, 4.0 GPA, gold medal, blah-blah-blah...says who? Who is that authority that is leading these rat races? Rats floating along the tributaries to join the main river; making the rich richer and meanwhile making causing fissures in their own lives. And lo! These books to the rescue. New terms and solutions being invented to accommodate the knotty lives of the rats so they can continue their professional lives successfully. Compatibility, divorces, affairs, pre-marital, extra-marital, atheism, believers, religion, masochistic, sadism, God complex, insomnia, stress, incest, molesting,……..wait a minute! Were these issues not there since time immemorial?

No, these nasty problems came only because of the ‘westernization’ of Indian culture, is the argument some people put forward when we have these discussions. This is news to me. Denying something and blaming that on a foreign culture is cowardice. At the same time, thinking too much about such issues could take it’s toll. Not everyone is a swan. Movies, books and cafe discussions over these topics only. Whatever happened to 'small talk'? Or is everyone feeling the need to get out of 'small talk' and think deep, lest they be considered inane? It is a tightrope walk.

What if one lives life a day at a time? If someone is trying to be bossy at work, telling them you do not like that. Or dealing a molester on the street with a slap would be a quick action – he might pull out a knife in retaliation but at least we are ‘living’, even if it is for the moment! Why not just live like that little bear? All creatures have souls, but humans are the most enlightened......some say. What kind of 'enlightenment' is this? This spark of life is usually there in children as a natural instinct, but human adults tend to overprotect and mollycoddle. But ‘speaking out’ too much and too often, can be annoying as well. An extreme of nothing would be ideal, yet so difficult a rule to follow.

Disclaimer : And no, I have read none of those books mentioned above. Just scanned a few pages. Neither am I facing any major problems in life (at least that is the perception)!

This blog is not supposed to a condensation of those books either…..like a T.V broadcasting it’s own image broadcasting it’s own image…….to infinity! Neither am I trying to preach or instruct, since I do not know if I am a swan or a duck in the making! Ending on a spiritual note for a change - a verse I particularly like :

ये जग है दो घडी का सपना,
आँख खुली कोइ ना अपना |
अन्त्: काल कछु काम न आवे,
संग रहे हरी नाम ||