Who Am I?

Why blogging and Ground rules for my blogs makes it amply clear what and how I want to write. Let me tell you a story now.

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The legend goes that ages ago, there lived a king who was all powerful. As is the case with such powerful rulers, he grew arrogant. But aside this single vice of his, he was an efficient administrator and ensured that people in his kingdom lived happily.

Once, on a hunting expedition in the forest adjacent to his kingdom, he met an old yogi outside an ancient temple deep into the woods. The king got down from his high horse and paid his obeisance to the yogi. As the king exchanged pleasantries with the yogi, the king couldn’t help but notice the sorry state in which the yogi was - bare footed, clothes in tatter, a shaved head with long, grey, uneven beard hanging down his rugged and sun scorched face. He in his kingly clothes, adorning with precious jewels and bathing profusely in the best scents of the world smirked.

The yogi, as aware as he was, read the king’s thoughts.

“My dear son, I see that a few thoughts have passed your mind,” the yogi spoke.

“Oh Maharaj, you know everything. How can I hide anything from you,” the king hesitated for a moment and released the reigns of his horse. A soldier came running and held the horse.

The yogi smiled, “Don’t hesitate my child. Speak your mind.”

The king cleared his throat and spoke, “I see you are an enlightened soul, but I see you in such a dire state. Don’t you think you should be living a better life than what you are leading now.”

“Why do you think so? What separates you from me?” the yogi spoke raising his firm voice.

The king, feeling slighted, smiled, “It is for everyone to see. I am the King of this kingdom, and you are…eh… just a yogi.”

“That is beyond the point. Let me first know who you actually are? Then we would decide who is better off.” the yogi smiled at the King and sat on the little porch outside the temple.

“I am the King of this entire kingdom,” the king went off.

“But that’s because you inherited the kingdom from your father,” the yogi cut the king in the middle. “What I asked is who are you?”

The king slightly baffled, parroted his name.

“But that’s your name. Did you keep it yourself?”

The King remained quiet. “This long name has been given to you by your parents, right?” The yogi smiled beatifically.

The King, not to be let down, replied, “That’s true. But I take care of my kingdom. I ensure that all my citizens live happily.”

“But that’s your job. You’re not doing anybody any favour. You relinquish it today, and the same would be expected from the next king.” The yogi picked a small leaf from the ground, looked at the king again twirling the leaf in his hand, “I ask you again. Who are you?”

The king thought for a moment and tossed around with all the answers he could think of in his head. But as intelligent as he was, he knew all of them would be shot down by the discerning yogi. Ashamed now, he replied, “I don’t know.”

“So, my child, when you don’t even know who you are, why this vanity? Why do you think that you are better than anybody else in this world?”

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Well, that’s a story, but that primordial question stops me in my tracks. Who am I to give advice, that too, unsolicited (through my blogs), to anybody? Have I figured it all out? Well, not yet. But still, if I were to give advice to a 20-year-old me (or even 40 year me), what would that be? Following few blogs would go out to all young ones (and probably older ones as well) who might want to stop in their tracks, listen to it, and possibly gain some from it.

But before that, a bit about me. Figuring out oneself is an arduous task, and I am wary of committing the same mistake as the king, but possibly a background about me would help my readers/audience.

I was born in Jaipur and am still living in Jaipur, and in between 40 years have passed. I did my engineering from IIT Kanpur, did few jobs in IT industry (as is the norm for an average engineering graduate in India), joined IIM Lucknow (realizing that software coding was not for me). The survival instinct in me is so acute that even before an industry/company/relationship looks remotely difficult to deal with, I leave on my instinct.

Almost 12 years have passed since then – I did jobs in India/Africa/Singapore, did some good work and some average. I wrote a book in between (we would talk about it in greater detail separately). I had some great reporting managers, and some real duds.

But then that’s life. Trying to lead life on my own terms has largely been the leitmotif of it. People who try to do it always have it hard, and so I’ve gone through my share of ups and down because of my failure to accept things for what they are, and a bit due to my own incorrigibility.

I’m still a work in progress, and life has been a good but hard teacher. I’ve been a mediocre student of it, and like always, a late bloomer – next is to be seen if I can make something big out of it (for the uninitiated, big is a very relative term). Now we would get to some of my musings/unsolicited advices in my next blog.

It's better to burn out than fade away. - Kurt Cobain