My Memoirs - Volume 6 - My thoughts

"Sahab, Please give me a few rupees, my child is hungry"

I see two eyes peeking at me through the glass window of my air-conditioned car where on the other side of window is mostly a poor woman with a small malnourished child on her hips who is begging for basic survival and it breaks my heart. Sometimes I reach out into my wallet and help them, I sit and look at them while containing my anguish at this tragedy of life and sometimes I use all my resolve and become stone hearted and turn away from the window. Each tap on the window breaks my heart and makes me ashamed that I can't help each of these unfortunate souls that I see everywhere I travel in India.

Welcome to a special place in my world: "My Thoughts"

The one entity with whom I spend the most time is my own self and I get the companionship of my thoughts at all stages of my day and my life. What I end up presenting to the world is quite close to who I am from inside, but I always feel that the day I will be the same inside and out is the day I will be the best version of myself.

"bahut hi shandaar d0 run aur isike saath Bharat ka score chaar wicket pe ek sau pachaas run ( Amazing two runs scored and India is now on 150/4)"

I would focus on my radio real hard when Sunil Gavaskar was batting and use all my energy and will power to try and create a small window in my radio where I could see Gavaskar take those singles! Sometimes I would take a pillow up a thick branch of a banyan tree, put my pillow at the curve of the branch, lie down, put the radio on my chest and wish for that small TV on my radio. There were other households which had a TV but I was done taking the insults from people when I visited their homes to watch a match or the TV serial "Ramayana" every Sunday. I wanted my own small TV in my palm and I used to pray for it. My wish and my will was so strong that sometimes I would see Amjad Khan from the movie sholay sitting on top of a rock talking to his goons on my Tape Recorder! I could see the scene of a movie I had never seen play out on the transparent screen of my tape recorder with the two wheels of the cassette rolling away to the sound track of the movie!

I would visit my ancestral village in Rajasthan to spend the school holidays. My bed used to be under the open skies where I would usually wake up to at least 10 eyes sitting all around me waiting for me to get up to see the "Shehari Babu" who could speak in English. All the kids would line up in the sand around me intently staring at me wrapped in a blanket from head to toe and they would wait for sometimes an hour for a glimpse! I didn't have my own room in the city where it was always a shared room with my parents, I didn't even have the luxury of shared room in the village. My bedroom was a bed under the open skies, my bathroom was the open courtyard in the house. I was so done with this lack of privacy that all I had on my mind was to have a room for myself. I would set off with my sheep and Goats on the mile long walk to the farmland in the morning and intensely start working the moment I reached there. I would go up the trees, cut the soft tree leaves of Khejdi for the young ones, cut myself at multiple places while going up the thorny branches of those very wretched desert trees, get drenched in sweat and then sit next to our water well on one side of our farm and dream of the life I wanted for myself.

On one of those days I decided to build a house right there in the middle of the field where no one would come and disturb me. I used a desert herb called kheep (Leptadenia pyrotechnica) for this enterprise. I cut the kheep from the roots and collected loads of them to make the walls and roof of my house, I peeled the fibre of the kheep and made ropes from it just like Indian women make braids with multiple hair strands. When I was ready with enough ropes, I set out to find and collect cow dung and sand to use as cement for my new house. I worked on it from morning till night every day and after many days of effort, I finally built a small hut for myself! I still remember the feeling when for the first time I entered it and lay down on the sandy floor. I felt like a millionaire!

"This is not right Munish, this young girl should have a twinkle in her eyes, a spring in her feet and a confidence in her heart that she can win the world. And you will have to make her achieve it." Instructs my inner voice to me

A young girl recently walked into my office to get a few documents signed. She was unsure, appeared weak and for sure she was intimidated at filling in for a colleague and standing in front of me. I almost felt that she was exhibiting the persona of someone who had entered a lion's den! She got the work done and fled. My heart and mind were subconsciously recording all of this but at that moment this was just a regular transaction with a fellow colleague walking to my office, taking my signature and leaving. When I saw her again in my office a few days later, my earlier observations took a firmer shape and I paused to observe and reflect. I saw a young girl, feeble voice, weak on confidence. She had the blessings of God on her forehead just above her nervous watery eyes and on her slender neck as most Hindu folks have in the form of a "tika". I saw her feet exposed in a slipper and I saw her neatly worn clothes which gave away her humble background. I noted all of this in a glance and my heart came in my mouth with emotions that will need a chapter to pen in. I smiled at her, tried to make her comfortable, signed the documents and saw her go as I got another assignment given to me by my inner voice. I knew what I had to do at least in my thoughts. I had to turn this girl into a confident and successful professional, I had to provide a permanent smile on her face! I am fortunate that this inner voice of mine has saved and strengthened my soul by helping me identify and strengthen people around me over the last many decades of my life. I haven't always been successful but God knows I have always given it my best shot.

Why do we live a dual life when we can easily be who we are? I know myself from inside and I know that everyone else must also have nothing but inner goodness in them. Why can't we exercise this inner goodness and bring it out so the whole world can see and benefit from it?

It's really amazing how we think and how we act. We love our spouse, our friends, our colleagues and yet we are able to hurt them by one quip, one remark, one moment of anger. We have love inside but hate outside in that moment. A moment which takes away so much from us. Why can't we be who we actually are?