The Walkway

The narrowing strip of land on which we were walking, if seen from sky, looked like a church fallen flat on the blue bed of water, with its long tapering spire thrust deep into the stomach of the sea, spilling a sea of blue blood.

However, if you looked above, from down, from the sea, you could hardly see the walk-way from there. From there, you could only see a flat face of one of the two mountainous walls, or their joining edge towering into the clouds.

The waves of the sea leaped and crashed furiously at the foot of the walls. At the top, almost a thousand feet above the sea, we were walking oblivious to the noise. The sound of sea could hardly climb up to us. There was a humming silence in the air, and a serenity typical of the seaside nights, embracing us all over. A gentle breeze blew carrying the cool freshness of the sea, caressing our faces, casting spell on our mind. That walk was like a dream.

We had come far from the city lights. We had walked past the sinking sun, and then the last of lamp-posts, and now the light faded behind us. In the light of day, we wouldn't possibly have taken that way. In the darkness, we were not able to see where the road led. The sides were appearing to come closer. They had to meet somewhere ahead. It was just a matter of distance.

Above us, the night was pitch dark, and it stretched as far as our eyes could see. The stars sparkled as they sometimes do. It seemed that they had descended a few stairs. They seemed nearer than ever.

The narrowing road was pushing us closer. It was increasingly hard for us to maintain a safe distance.

- Didn't I say you'll love it?
- Yes, I'm loving it.
- Hmm... but it's getting late. Look, the stars are out. I think we should go back now.
- Yes, the stars are out. And the night is lovely. I wonder if we could walk a little further.

It was getting narrower. And she was beginning to get worried about safety. She was beginning to get worried about fall. She was looking down at the sea. On my part, I was looking up at the stars. And at her.

While she was thinking, I was wondering.

I had no idea that something had gotten into her mind.

- I think we should stop now. We'll fall if we walk further.
- Let's hold each other. We'll not fall then.
- We'll surely fall then.

She smiled the way she smiles, beautifully, and meaningfully. I acknowledged the beauty but pretended not to understand the meaning. I pretended innocence. I wanted the life to go on like that. I didn't want anything to change.

That something had started to work on her mind, and on my unsuspecting happiness.

- I am loving it. But I'm afraid we'll get drowned.
- How come? We are among clouds. Water is nowhere near.

I was too happy to think too much about anything. And I didn't want her to think too much either. We were walking together, we were happy, and nothing else mattered.

Life went on like dream, for a few more dreamy minutes, till that happened. One of the stones she had stepped on lost its ground and fell into the deep reality of sea. The fall was as silent as death, and it was sinister in its premonition. It was just a fall, but there was something surreal about it.

Feelings began to get clouded by Fear. The change began to take place. To mark the beginning, the clouds of fear issued forth a frightful thunderbolt.

- I am sorry I came.

She steadied herself and turned back, her face hardened with a determination to go back to the lamp-posts. She was not the same person anymore. She was still with me, but I had already started to miss her. I was left alone with a stranger who wanted to leave, who wanted to leave stars for lamp-posts! My starry dream was turning into a lamp-post reality! And I could do nothing about it. To my dismay, it occurred to me that what I wanted to do didn't carry much weight in the larger scheme of things.

I was standing deserted like a fool, losing my respect, losing my fundamental rights. In no time, the simplest of things became complicated and difficult for me. I wanted to look back. But I couldn't. I wanted to say something to her. But I couldn't. My voice had lost its dignity, its power!

I was burning in shame. I wanted to break my frustrated heart. That was easy. I could do that. And I did that. I looked ahead - the road was still wide enough for solo walk. In my despair, in my desperation, in my self-hatred, I kept on walking, unable to forget my irrelevance, unable to forgive my disgraceful irrelevance in my own life.

I kept on walking alone, in a desperate need to restore my relevance to myself. I had to walk though the night didn't look lovely anymore. The loveliness had walked away to the lamp-posts. And the stars had gone back. What lied ahead was just a dark night, a solitary walk, and a silent fall. But I was not afraid of fall. I had to keep on walking, in order to keep myself from falling in my own eyes.

Let's Go Party

Man has selected a point on Earth's elliptical trajectory, randomly, but seriously. As soon as the earth reaches that random point, he bursts out in a serious celebration - the annual calendar changing ceremony.

Thousands of people wait for that moment. The moment that is unbearably banal, yet special. The moment that brings no surprise, but oddly - lots of sensation. The moment that changes nothing but mood. The suspension-of-logic moment. The mob-mentality moment. However, the ruling moment, the lucky moment, the princely moment, for which countless other moments wait on, hands tied to their back. The moment the hands of clocks hit that moment, all of them jump with a boundless joy - Happy New Year - believing that their joyful jump will bring them more joy in the new year.

Common man's superstition standing cheerfully on Copernicus' science.

For the whole 24 hours, as the earth turns, the hands of clock keep on hitting at 12, and people keep on jumping with joy, as it happens. A gigantic jump-wave rises from Japan (land of rising jump) and travels west-ward... till it comes round and reaches the east-most shores. In the meanwhile, world ubiquitously witnesses a curious synchronization of jumping-with-joy with ticking-of-clock!

A spectacular show for the aliens.

Thinking of it, mankind has an amazing ability to be happy on pre-determined occasions - on "Happy Days" - on Festivals, which have only mythological relevance, and little personal relevance. However, fun is the dress code for all on festivals, and "Have Fun" is the categorical imperative. Wily or Nilly, all of us "have fun" on festivals. Those who don't feel any particular joy on festivals must feign it. There is no escape from fun but one - and that leads to isolation.

Feigning is still fine with me. That's civilization.

And what's more? Go get a life.

In the rage of happiness, man-kind wrecks the most unkind vengeance on poor animal-kind. Customarily, whenever man gets happy, he takes out his dagger, goes out and comes back happily with mutilated body of an animal dangling dead in his blood-stained hand. In no time, the body is skinned and chopped in hundred happy pieces. With the blood of killed animal, he happily red-washes his Happy Day. Red has been the traditional color of every human festival.

The next standard item in the standard festival protocol is getting drunk, which is usually followed by a wild boogie-woogie - besotted bodies rocking and rolling and banging heads on deafeningly loud beats of drums, till they abandon their senses for the Devil to take. In the steam rising from the dance floor, bodies get warmed up for the heat of last rites. Bodies running around fire, fire running around bodies. Fire dancing on bodies, bodies dancing on fire. Smell of smoke filling the air. Sound of hysteria filling the soul.

Bang Bang Boom Boom.

By the time the dythramb reaches its crescendo, the demon-men and demon-women, with horns grown on their heads, fail to hear anything, except the infernal signals received by their horn-radars, to ultimate pleasure of Dionysus.

Success = Failure

Success = Failure

The difference between success and failure lies only in what is seen and what is hidden. We see all the pros of success, but not its cons. And we see all the cons of failure, but not its pros. And we conclude that cons of success and pros of failure do not exist.

But they do. They are not seen. But they do exist. And if looked properly, they can be seen also.

Does that make failure any more pleasant? No. I am not saying that. There is no doubt that failure is unpleasant. But it is not always as bad as it is considered. And success is not always that good. This sounds odd. But this is not as odd as it sounds.

Life is not that straight-forward as we take it to be. It take unexpected turns, and what wait at those turns - surprises!

Those who fail may not immediately appreciate the hidden pros of failure. But those who succeed do realize the hidden cons of success, the nuggets of failure stuffed in success - they call it cost of success. Often the price that they pay is too much for what they get, and perhaps that's why they are not as happy as we expect them to be. Look around yourself and you'd know what I am talking about. Or better, look inside.

From happiness point of view, there is not much difference between success and failure.

Even from freedom point of view, the equation holds. You may not know what it means to walk unobserved on the street with your girl-friend. Sachin Tendulkar does know it. Ask him how much can he pay to be a common man for a day, to be able to sit at Chaupati without getting bogged-down by demands of autographs and photographs.

Open your eyes and look around - few things can be more cruel to a man than his success. I was watching Fashion, and the equation flashed before my eyes : Success = Failure.

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If you kill one, you are a killer. If you kill thousand, you are Alexander.

I wonder why do we respect success. What makes success respectable?

We respect what we consider good. But there is nothing inherently good or bad in success. Success has little to do with Good and Bad, with Morality. Someone can successfully kill someone, and someone can successfully save someone - and both can be successful in their respective goals. Success is all about execution, not about intention, not about goal. Consequently, Hitler is no less successful than Gandhi! You must have heard - nothing succeeds like success!

Success involves interplay of acquisition (in foreground) and sacrifice (in background). What you sacrifice and what you acquire don't matter. 'What' doesn't matter. 'How much' matters. You can sacrifice peace to acquire wealth. Or vice versa. You can do either successfully, since success is amoral.

And since success is amoral, we disregard morality when we respect success. And that should come as a surprise to any conscientious society. The take away point - Context is important.

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Management Mantra:- Convince. Confuse. Corrupt.

Carrot and Stick - Success is beyond Good and Bad. But every system super-imposes Good and Bad on success to manage people smoothly and run itself successfully. That's why good success is awarded and encouraged. Good success is as good as success and Bad success is as bad as failure, which brings disapproval and shame.

Every system think for its own - economic system or family system. So we must think on our own. We must not be confused. Words are treacherous, so we must be cautious.

Growth involves 'being'. And success involves 'doing' and 'having'. So success has more to do with efficiency and possession than with growth. But don't we usually confuse efficiency with intelligence, and possession with growth? We must realize that efficiency does not mean intelligence, and possession does not mean growth.

Moreover, since efficiency is mechanical in nature, the pursuit of efficiency is likely to impede the growth of intelligence, which is anything but mechanical. Similarly, and more often than not, the pursuit of possession impedes growth.

An ass in an ass, in Birthday suit or in Armani suit. And a man is a man.

Man is made complete. He grows with time, and growth is natural, inevitable, and individual. He doesn't have to grow like someone else to feel good about himself. But often he is made to feel otherwise - "beta, bade hoke kya banoge?" How does one answer a question like that? How does one know that in advance? How does a bud know how it will look like after it will have bloomed into a flower? This attitude prefers certainties of past over mysteries of future. This attitude is mechanical to the core, and tries to engineer life - to plan and program life because it allows a better control over life. But isn't it foolish, and futile, to control something as random as life? And isn't a controlled life a lifeless life?

How does it matter if it is successful or not?

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Success: Meaning? Immortality?
Man can not digest meaninglessness. He can not believe that his existence is merely incidental. His being rebels against this thought. He seeks meaning in meaninglessness, order in disorder, constantly, desperately.

Man dreads death. He longs to live forever. But since death is the only certainty in life, he seeks to live in something - in somebody or in something. He writes his name on stones. He likes to read his name in magazines. He fathers children, and he likes to father companies.

The two roads meet at a point - meaning in immortality. The old History book is the place to be - that's success!

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Survival of the fittest.
But History has limited seats in its room - birth of Competition. Envy. Rivalry. Survival of the fittest. Survival not on earth, but in the pages of old History book. remember - that's the place to be!

Now many have to lose if one has to win. Many have to die if one has to survive.

"Macedonia is too small for you", Phillip said. And Alexander the Great began his great journey to get rid of his unbearably claustrophobic country.

"Europe is a mole-hill", lamented Napoleon and set out on his odyssey to arid deserts of Africa, and then to ice-cold hills of Alps.

One died young in Babylon; other died defeated, and was buried in unmarked tomb in Helena.

However, they got their seats in History room. We know their names. Nothing else matters. Alexander was incredibly good at killing people, and he didn't want to waste his talent. After all talent is talent, and it must be acknowledged. Why should we always seek value in talent? Don't we keep books of records - who spits farthest, who eats how many lizards etc?

Napoleon was a great emperor, whose fiery ambition was fueled by his shame for his common background. Looking at him it seems that ambition essentially stems from a sense of smallness, a shame, a complex. Ambition - one's desire to be someone who one is not. Ambition - self hate. What else? Why would he wander to places he neither loved not hated? Why would he go uninvited, unwanted? And why would he win when he didn't know what to be done after winning? Did he need all that? Ambition - first cousin of Greed the Deadly Sin. Ambition, I believe, is an unfortunate disease, which can not be cured by any medicine, any achievement, any conquest. Those who live with it die with it. Ask Josephine. Didn't Napoleon leave her - his first and last red-blooded love - to marry another woman, only to be accepted by the blue-blooded nobility. The poor commoner emperor! Though he lived in riches, his penury lived inside him.

Instead of finding happiness in ordinariness, man strives for extra-ordinariness. And in vain. This quest of extra-ordinariness is the cause of all human strife. And if taken to its logical conclusion - it ends with Nietzsche's Superman and Eugenics and Hitler's purity of race and ethnic cleansing.

For those who are punished for their ordinariness, Success is Revenge. Rich man's peace gives way to poor man's Justice.

Good old Edmond Dantes, an ordinary man who didn't demand too much from life, who occupied a very small space in the world, and who minded his own business, till all that happened, decided to slough his ordinariness, to expand himself, and to assert himself on the world.

He avenged his ordinariness. Success, like Revenge, is about expansion, and penetration. Like Revenge, Success is disgustingly masculine.

However, the wheel of success rolls on, making infinite vicious circles of failure.

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Micro Success versus Macro Success.

My organization needs innovation for success. My question is - does mankind need innovation? My answer is - No. I believe that the technology that we already have is good enough for us. We don't need any more of it. All we need is more efficient application of available technology - we need better management and better governance.

Let's list down top 5 contemporary problems of mankind and let's see if they can be resolved by innovation.

1. Loneliness
2. Death and Disease
3. Disparity
4. Pollution
5. War and Terrorism

I'm afraid some of these problems are rather aggravated by technology. Was Hiroshima or 9/11 possible without technology? Can porn industry survive without technology? Mankind is still nursing the wounds of modernity, and mass production. We don't want any more of it.

But then the success of my organization depends on innovation.


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The idea is to redefine success, so that it is better than failure, not just nominally, but in real terms. The idea is to redefine successful, so that he is any different from what he is today - a pathetic loser.

The essence of work is growth, and leisure. If Man doesn't have leisure, he would not be able to wonder. He would not be able to realize his potential as a human being.

And he would not be able to play with his kids.