Money Matters - a short review of The Psychology of Money
If someone had told me that my first finished and so far favourite book of 2023 would be about finances and money, and it would not be boring at all, I would have scoffed at them for not knowing me! I am creative, and I’ve often been heard in discussions proudly proclaiming myself as financially illiterate. Can’t go into the details of my ignorance in a public blog post, but I really am.
As the book’s author Morgan Housel says, health and money are the two things that impact everybody, whether they are interested in them or not. This book went a step ahead; it got me interested in the health of my finances. Morgan uses jargon-free storytelling to convey the most essential aspects of personal finance and approach towards making sense of money matters.
The Psychology of Money is not a how-to guide; Morgan doesn’t share investment tips and tricks but instead provides a sensible thought structure to change your outlook towards money. It may not be a book for experienced investors and those who are experts at managing their wealth, but then, it may be, so universal are the ideas it describes.
My suggestion? Go grab a copy right now. If a person totally uninterested in his financial health can finish it in two days, you know you have something good at hand.
“Money’s greatest intrinsic value—and this can’t be overstated—is its ability to give you control over your time. ”
Dear Whosoever Is Going To Read This 03 - the Sunday evening dread
It’s that time of the week again. I call it the Sunday evening dread. As another Monday looms, I instinctively look back at the weekend slipping out of hand. There’s this feeling of the day, the weekend just not been enough. I start questioning myself about what I did or, more often, what I didn’t. I wonder where the heck all the time went. And if I’m in a complicated state of mind, the previous question is enlarged to contain my whole life. Yeah, all the nearly forty-three years of it.
Not a nice place to be in, not on a Sunday, not any day.
The fact is, I had a perfectly normal day by Sunday standards. I woke up late, had okayish food, finished a thriller on Netflix, didn’t take a bath, scrolled through Instagram, played with my toddler, and ‘conversed’ with my wife (opposite of what women blame us men for not talking profoundly and meaningfully about life with them). Still, there’s this nagging thought that maybe I didn’t do enough. That I didn’t justify this day of rest by resting really well or, conversely, by making more productive use of my time.
Maybe the key here is the word ‘productive.’ Maybe the uneasiness is because of not having a tangible output for all the time I put in as input. Maybe this little bit of writing will help assuage that concern, at least.
What do you think, dear whosoever is reading this? Do you also feel the same at times? If not particularly on a Sunday evening, maybe towards the end of a vacation or approaching your birthday? Is this what a mid-life crisis looks like in its weekly instalment?
Dear Whosoever Is Going To Read This 02
In the 1980s, when I was coming of age, the tongue of my family and community was not English. Though our words were sufficient for the requirements of offices and schools, they were not employed in the daily intercourse of life. English was a subject to be studied, a skill to be acquired, but not a medium of natural expression.
Yet, very early in my teenage years, a curious desire took root within me to master the art of conversing in English and set myself apart from those around me. I borrowed fiction titles from a distant library, rented American movies and strained to understand the songs broadcasted on the precious two hours of MTV we received via government television. The internet, with its instant access to lyrics, was not yet a thing, and I later learned that I had been singing many of those songs incorrectly. But the movies, they did teach me the nuances of slang and helped me find a sense of ease in spoken English. It was the books, however, that had the most lasting impact, enriching my vocabulary and shaping my storytelling abilities, despite the lack of practice in pronunciation.
But time moves on, and with it, the world around us. Now English is the default language in the corporate workplace, my family and I converse in it more than half the time, and the majority of media we consume- the books we read, the movies we watch and the songs we listen to, all are in English. I find myself having to actively make an effort to write in Hindi, my mother tongue. And it pains me.
I wonder, will there come a second teenage, where I will again desire to set myself apart by choosing Hindi over English? Only time will tell.
And yet, as I reflect upon these thoughts, I am reminded that even now, I sometimes read "heart" as "hurt" before correcting myself and realize there's not much difference between the two.
Dear Whosoever Is Going To Read This
Dear Whosoever Is Going To Read This,
It is nearly 4pm in the afternoon on a freezing, grey winter day somewhere in the Delhi NCR area. It is the 6th of January, 2023, and in the spirit of new year's resolutions, I decided to open my Kindle app and select a new book to read. New is the key here because I can't look at all the dozen books I've started and left in between. But choosing a new book is also tricky. Very tricky. More often than not, the process goes like this: I want something that's not too serious, not too frivolous, not reality, not fiction, not a travelogue, not a memoir, definitely not a romance, and so many 'nots' that I end up reading science fiction in the end. I love SF. But this is only the sixth day of the new year. Time to choose something new. May the universe guide me! So, sitting on the toilet seat on a cold, grey winter evening somewhere in Delhi NCR, I opened the kindle app on my phone, closed my eyes, scrolled up and down a few times and touched somewhere on the screen.
It opened a book titled 'The Puma Years: A Memoir' by Laura Coleman. The cover interested me less than the little note by Jane Goodall, "You will love this book." Now I can do many things in life but can't ignore Jane, so I started reading it. A few pages down the line, I like the voice of the narrator and the way she is structuring her story. And I'm like, hey, I, too, talk like this. Talk like this to myself that is. Fun fact: I'm not that excited about talking to other human beings. And while thinking how much I talk to myself, silently, with words echoing within the cranium, I thought why not start jotting that down and see if someone out there might also be interested in my private conversations with myself.
That's it. That's the genesis. Maybe I'll keep up with this for some time. Maybe this will vanish in the heavy pollution-laden AQI 400 Delhi NCR air like so many other new year's resolutions around this time. I'll keep you posted.
And to those wondering, any one individual even, no, I didn't write all of this on the toilet seat. I finished my business like a good old guy, washed my hands with soap for more than twenty seconds as recommended by the WHO and then wrote all of this while standing at my dining table where I was supposed to have my lunch some time ago.
So thank you, dear whosoever reading this, I hope to come back soon with another bit of mental conversation.
Namaste!
2022
It comes unannounced.
You are sitting a slight distance away from your wife and your son.
She’s talking about her day, some experience in the crowd, while your toddler is trying his best to squeeze out the juice from a 200ml pack and ruin his clothes and the floor...and suddenly, it washes over you.
It comes in the form of an artist you just discovered, in the last two minutes of a TV series you just finished watching, a song that touched something inside that zombie heart of yours.
It comes unannounced when you talk to an old friend who casually reminds you how far you have come…how far.
You wonder how all the billion moments you have lived have contributed to this very moment, that despite everything, yes, every damn thing that life threw at you, you are sitting here, on the sofa, listening to your wife talking about her day while your son is trying to squeeze the juice out of a 200ml pack and ruin his clothes.
You wonder, you smile a faint smile, and you say a silent thanks.
Gratitude.
फ़िर एक बार
क़नाट प्लेस की चमचमाती दुकानों के पीछे वाली गलियों में
विजय नगर, कमला नगर, और नॉर्थ कैम्पस की धमनियों में
विश्वविद्यालय मेट्रो स्टेशन से आर्ट्स फ़ैक तक
बुक लैंड से पटरी वाले भैय्या की किताबों तक
प्रगति मैदान गेट नम्बर दस से वर्ल्ड बुक फ़ेयेर के हाल्स तक
मंडी हाउस से रवींद्र भवन तक
पसौंदा चौक से तुम्हारे घर की एक गली पहले तक
…
मैं फ़िर से चलना चाहता हूँ तुम्हारे साथ
फ़िर से वो वक़्त बिताना चाहता हूँ, जब वक़्त कम होता था हमारे पास
…
जब हम बिछड़ते थे इक अनकहे वादे के साथ
जब हाथ छोड़ते ही नहीं थे एक दूसरे का हाथ
जब क़दम राह भी थे और मंज़िल भी
जब दिल दरिया भी थे और साहिल भी
…
फ़िर से इक बार छानना चाहता हूँ दिल्ली की गलियों की फाँक
मैं फ़िर से, सिर्फ़, चलना चाहता हूँ तुम्हारे साथ
Home and the cycle of time - on watching Gamak Ghar
It is difficult to write about Gamak Ghar without feeling enveloped in a haze of nostalgia. It feels as if you have turned the last page of a book and are now looking back at it wistfully...the story, the characters, the journey you travelled together, and the bittersweet parting you will now have to endure as you move on to another world.
Here, the ancestral home of the director is both the stage and the protagonist. People come and go, becoming pictures on the walls, diaries in the trunk, or anecdotes in conversations as once a bustling joint family home falls into disuse and disrepair. The family has spread far and wide and now no one has enough time to pay it a visit.
It is only towards the end of the film that you feel as if the house has also agreed to let go, accepting that its time has finally come to an end. A newer, more modern version of it will take its place. While the extended family will continue to visit on Chatth or special occasions, the only way to return to this particular house will now be through the pictures preserved in family albums. This house will now exist in the already fading memory of those who remain, eventually they too will fade away, becoming memories themselves.
Gamak Ghar will talk to anyone who has ever left a 'home' behind. Shot beautifully, the film is visual poetry evoking a sense of passing away of time that makes you question your own mortality. What will remain of me when finally, I'm not 'here?' Would anyone 'return' to me looking back in time? What is certain is that this endless cycle will continue, with those coming after me asking the same questions, what is home, what is memory, what is time.
बेस्ट फ़्रेंड
सुबह से कई बार घंटी बजी है
हर बार दौड़ कर जाता हूँ
दरवाज़ा खोलता हूँ
मायूस वापस आ जाता हूँ अपने कमरे में
ऐसे बर्ताव कर रहा हूँ
जैसे कोई बच्चा
अपने ‘बेस्ट फ़्रेंड्ज़’ का इंतज़ार कर रहा हो
‘फ़्रेंड्ज़’ ही तो हैं
कुछ किताबें मँगवायी थीं ‘ऑनलाइन’
आज आनी हैं तीन
तीन-तीन नयी किताबें!
बस अगली घंटी बजे तो गले मिलूँ उनसे
Seven years ago…
Seven years ago today, I was in London, saying goodbye to the hotel room I was staying in. It was the end of a brief, two week period during which I had crisscrossed the whole city by the Tube, the train, the buses and walked ten thousand steps on average every day in search of a room. A room of my own in the city I was now going to call home. In those two weeks, I saw rooms, halls and pigeonholes and met would-be flatmates, landlords and dealers, carefully evaluating the pros and cons of each place and individual before stumbling upon a place I liked immediately upon entering. It was a two-room duplex in which I was offered the lower floor. I still remember the light from the window, streaming in softly like a greeting, welcoming me in.
Seven years ago today, I was in London, strolling in Hyde Park. My hotel was just across the road and as I was supposed to shift to that new place around 2pm, I had the whole morning free. An early riser, I had already packed my bags, had breakfast at the nearby Sheila’s cafe (my regular haunt those days because the hotel food was too expensive), and was wondering why they call it spring when it is still so cold. (Funny that I don’t remember my big hotel’s name but of that little street-side cafe. Hmm.)
Seven years ago today, I was in London, thinking about the life I had left behind in Delhi and anxious about the one I had to build in this new city. Apart from an official contact, I knew no one there. The future felt like a big, blank unknown. It was a beautiful April morning to be in the park. Children were playing, flowers were blooming, and a soft breeze formed ripples on the surface of the water bodies. People around me looked content, settled in their lives, the opposite of what I was feeling...uprooted and hoping to find some new ground.
Seven years later today, I am in Delhi, going through some photos from that day that an app brought to the surface of time. Recuperating at home, I have recently been discharged from a week-long stay at the hospital. It has been a bright and hot April day. The night is comparatively pleasant. From another room in the house, I hear my wife wrapping up her day’s meetings. My two-year-old has just finished his evening nap and now wants me to play with him. I have asked for ten minutes from him, though I do not think he understands the notion yet and will be back soon. I am still thinking about that day, that London year, and cannot shake the feeling as if all of that was crucial for me to reach where I have, that life was somehow preparing me for the things to come.
Seven years later today, I am here, sitting in my room, alone but not alone. The very opposite of what I was feeling that day seven years ago, rooted and at home.
Walking on water
It is said that Jesus walked on water. Devout Christians believe in it. Like an actual, historical incident that took place. It is also said that Rama’s monkey army created a bridge of floating rocks that helped him cross over to the island of Lanka and defeat the evil Ravana. Devout Hindus believe in it.
Believers, whether Christians or Hindus, would strongly disagree with me, and nowhere I’m trying to contest their beliefs, but for me, I believe that our ancestors were wise and creative enough to realise that complex metaphysical or meditative concepts are best understood as simple stories. That, to reach a layperson, you don’t need academic erudition, but simple, everyday parables. It just happened that as the centuries passed by, the stories took the form of histories.
But why am I thinking of Jesus and Rama and the whole notion of walking on the water today? It comes from this book I’m reading, ‘The Art of Happiness’ by His Holiness The Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler.
While talking about happiness (the real, deep-seated stuff and not momentary pleasures) His Holiness mentions that we can train our minds for it. He says, “Within Buddhist practice there are various methods of trying to sustain a calm mind when some disturbing event happens. Through repeated practice of these methods we can get to the point where some disturbance may occur but the negative effects on our mind remain on the surface, like the waves that may ripple on the surface of an ocean but don’t have much effect deep down.”
And humbly he continues, “And, although my own experience may be very little, I have found this to be true in my own small practice. So, if I receive some tragic news, at that moment I may experience some disturbance within my mind, but it goes very quickly. Or, I may become irritated and develop some anger, but again, it dissipates very quickly. There is no effect on the deeper mind. No hatred. This was achieved through gradual practice; it didn’t happen overnight.”
Krishna says more or less the same thing in Shri Bhagavad Geeta. He calls it ‘Samta.’ That the true path to liberation lies in being ‘Sam’ (pronounced as sum), that whatever life gives you, happiness or sadness, riches or troubles, don’t let it affect your inner, deeper self. (Adding as a Mandalorian fan, “This is the way.”)
Coming back to the parables of walking on water or the bridge of rocks floating above the sea, aren’t Jesus and Rama telling me the same thing?
That, I can create miracles if I train to stop my mind from getting affected by everything that comes my way. That, to go out and conquer the world outside, first I must learn to float above the commotion inside. That, there is a deeper, truer, happier, more peaceful me, and that it is possible to achieve this state of being.
Easier said than done? You bet!
But at least I can try…try walking on water.
Yesterday we watched just another movie…
As parents of a nearly two-year-old, we don’t get much ‘us’ time, so yesterday, when the little one dozed off a few hours before his daily schedule, we were clueless about what to do. Sort of when an employee gets a surprise half-day off because the boss is out of town and the poor thing doesn’t know what to do with all the free time in hand, yeah something like that. So we did the most obvious thing chronically sleep-deprived parents would do in our place, we watched a movie.
It is this new Disney movie, Jungle Cruise featuring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt. (Yeah, please don’t judge us. This is not a post about watching an obscure French movie on MUBI and pouring out my relationship-deepening, cathartic advice. Or is it?) Jungle Cruise is okay, a fun movie, something that you watch and forget, nothing much to write about actually.
But, and yes, there is a but, this is what this post is about.
A few minutes back, while getting mentally ready (it is half-past nine in the am) to face what could be another stressful workday, I thought about the movie and smiled. Yes, it is a silly movie full of adventure tropes and a wisecracking main character full of dad jokes, the thing is, it made us laugh and chuckle and fall in love with a pet Jaguar named Proxima. It kept us together for around 2 hours of our maddeningly busy lives. And that is actually something to write about.
More often than not, we overlook these little moments, these day to day joys, because we have tuned ourselves to look out for those really awesome, perfect moments that will somehow make our lives incredible. They do, but they are so few and far out that it doesn’t make sense to live only for those perfect moments. They are the highlight reels of our lives yes, but a whole lot is going on regularly that makes the movie. And like movies, not every moment of our life can be a blockbuster, most will have to play the role of an underdog that no one wants to write much about.
So yeah, let’s try, let’s cherish those hurried breakfasts, those quick WhatsApp chats in the middle of endless meetings, those little evening walks outside while haggling with vegetable vendors, let’s try and lift up these obscure, underdog moments of our lives…these are where we live our lives.
Mayflies
Taking birth
Growing up
Meeting their mate
And dying
Mayflies
Live their whole lives
All
Within
A
Single
Human
Day
And I'm amazed at the sentient us
You and me
Intersecting
In this small sliver of time
Since the big bang
Not even a blink and a miss in the cosmic frame of things
And yet
And yet
Here we are
Living, loving, leaving and meeting
Till our day ends and the night begins
Till we have time
A moment to marvel
Just saw this tweet. I know we all are busy, I know we have so much urgent and important stuff to do, but look at this. Please do. And take a moment. This is a sunset on an altogether ‘other’ planet. This is mind-blowing. This should be. The fact that something humanmade has travelled all the way to another planet and is clicking pics there and sharing with us thousands of miles away should really blow our minds. But it doesn’t. I fail to understand what could be more important in our daily job lists than this. What could be more wonderful than stopping by and marvelling at what we humans have achieved so far…and what we could…
My friend, a ghazal
Our days a charade, dead, my friend
Our nights a mirage, alive, my friend
Winter comes, with its frozen warmth
Your embrace tonight, I crave my friend
Such sweetness in life for the ignorant, the naive
Wish me the bitterness of knowledge, my friend
Forty one revolutions around the Sun
How shall it end, my search, my friend
The moment arrives, when we part our ways
Let’s savour us, till the end, my friend
In a mehfil I met her a long time ago
She spoke with her eyes, I heard, my friend
It started with a word, it will end with you
This ghazal is all, my universe, my friend
On Adulthood…
These days I'm reading Upstream by Mary Oliver. One of the seven new books I mentioned in a post a few days back. Have read only a few pages so far, but even in those few, she keeps talking about her life being her own, that she made it whatever it became. I found this particular section illuminating.
I’ve always struggled with the thoughts of being childish versus being a grown-up. Yes, even in the fourth decade of my life :) I look back at situations and think I could have done better, not given in to emotions or could have done something opposite of what I eventually did. Over the years, that control over my feelings somehow became the definition of being an adult. But is that so?
“And that I did not give to anyone the responsibility for my life.”
Isn’t this the very definition of being an adult? That we stop being children when we decide that now onwards, our lives are going to be the result of our actions, our reactions? And that we will not be laying the responsibility of whatever life we get on someone else’s door?
What do you think?