Preconceived Notions

Sahil adjusted his tie for the umpteenth number of time as he made his way across the sprawling gardens of the call centre, where he worked as an agent. He had been handpicked to take Jane, the director of operations at their UK headquarters, on a tour of Chennai. Although mindful of the honour bestowed on him, he was a bundle of nerves. This was her first visit to India and he had never interacted with her before. Before even meeting her he had decided that she would be a strict matronly type, who would instruct him to keep his finger on his lips.

He soon found out how wrong he was. During the introduction, the first thing he noticed about her was her sincere smile and warm handshake. She was a woman in her fifties and dressed comfortably in casual chi, while he was roasting in three piece suit in the sweltering heat of Chennai: all because he had assumed that she would turn up in formal attire. Before he could teach her anything about Chennai she had taught him a valuable lesson: how to be comfortable within himself.

His careful thought-out plan of taking her on a tour of Chennai’s swankiest malls went for a toss when she requested to visit a place steeped in Indian culture. He was ashamed when not a single name sprung up in his mind. Five years in this lovely city and he had never bothered to explore it, assuming there was nothing out of ordinary to visit. He called his wife and she came to his rescue by suggesting Dakshina Chitra on the ECR.

Needless to say, Jane thoroughly enjoyed the tour but Sahil enjoyed it more. The life size ‘huts’ representing the four south Indian states made for stunning panorama. They had lunch at the complex restaurant and Jane surprised him again by eating with her hands while he ate with a fork and a spoon. She regaled with throughout the meal with anecdotes about her kids, pets work and he shared with her the misadventures of his tiny tots.

Next she requested to visit a temple and he suggested Kapaleeshwara, one of the oldest temples in Chennai. When they reached the temple, they heard that a Bharatanatyam recital was about to start. Sahil quickly suggested leaving the place as it would get impossibly crowded, but she wanted to stay. Reluctantly he sat down to view the performance. “What beauty do people find in exaggerated movements?” he pondered sulkily. Over the next two hours he found the answer. He sat mesmerised by the grace and elegance of the dancers as they swayed perfectly to the rhythm of the beats under the canopy of stars.

The day came to an end and he bid Jane a warm goodbye. On his way back he recapitulated the number of preconceived notions that had been obliterated that day and smiled to himself.

Pre-conceived notions can be as dangerous as half-baked knowledge. A famous joke goes like this: After a training session on parachutes, the commanding officer reminds the junior recruits the importance of opening the parachute at the correct time. A recruit meekly voices his doubt, “And what if it does not open?” The officer replies with a flourish, “That my boy will be an apt example of Jumping to Conclusions.” We know how fatal it can be , and yet we keep making the error of pronouncing snap judgements.

When we spot a new student sitting aloof, from the rest of the group, we are quick to label him snobbish and arrogant. We never pause to think that he could be an introvert and that we should take the effort to break the ice.

We look at our colleague’s shabby clothes and conclude that he is too lazy to buy new ones. When a buddy refuses to join us for group lunch, he immediately gets dubbed ‘miserly’. Do we know their financial hardships? Do we ever acknowledge the fact that providing their families with three square meals a day or giving their children a descent education may be more important to them than owning designer clothes or gorging on packaged junk food?

We espy a fat person and are hasty to award him the sobriquet of a glutton. We do not examine if the cause of his obesity is something more serious than food, may be a thyroid problem for instance. Why? We do not have the time. We have to slot him in some bracket and get on with judging the next character, which comes along.

After his encounter with Jane, Sahil sure is trying to change his thought process. This way of thinking has been his companion for the last three decades and it cannot be easily shaken off, but he is doing his best. Let us persevere and have patience. Let us not judge him a rash judge of personalities.

This reminds me of a quote that my dad had written on a paper and pinned up on a board in my house: “Let us not judge others, so that we may not be judged.”

The Endless Quest...

There is a story about Mullah Nasruddin that goes like this. One day Mullah Nasruddin lost his ring down in the basement of his house, where it was very dark. There being no chance of his finding it in that darkness, he went on the streets and started looking for it there. Somebody passing by stopped and enquired: “What are you looking for Mullah Nasruddin? Have you lost something?” “Yes, I’ve lost my ring down in the basement”, said Mullah Nasruddin. “But why don’t you look for it down in the basement where you lost it?” asked the man in surprise. “Don’t be silly!” said Mullah Nasruddin, “How do you expect me to find anything in that darkness!”

But really isn’t that the irony of life? We look for something where we expect to find it, not where we want to find it, not where it necessarily is. Bring on the list of expectations- yes that long, endless list. The greatest challenge in today’s over populous world is rising expectations in relationships, and the striving to live up to them. Everyone is running in one direction or the other and there‘s a lot riding on each tide as it comes in and goes. Often we find ourselves short of patience, time and energy. Patience may not be a virtue your sibling seems to possess in abundance, but you still seek it from him. That you lose your temper over it is a different issue altogether. Don’t we often yearn for love where none is forthcoming? It’s not that we don’t have enough people who love us already, but that we want to be loved by that one person. Often we feel let down because we seek courage in a coward, loyalty in a nomad, encouragement from a cynic, faith from an atheist, obedience from an anarchist, emotional bonding from the disconnected, love and tolerance from the extremist, happiness from the world, stability in the stock market. The terms may make these qualities seem like abstractions, but you’ll find that you see them in people you come across all the time.

But isn’t that the very point of it all-What good is it to me to have a calm neighbour and a terribly impatient spouse? It’s like having all the solutions in the world but no problems to solve. No one had ever to try hard to be loved and treated with compassion by Mother Teresa- it was always there for the taking. But where these desirable qualities don’t seem to exist, one has to summon them, seek them out. If not by nature, everyone is capable of developing, acquiring and nurturing desired qualities. Why look outside, a peek into the mirror will unravel the long list of expectations we have from our own self.

As far as it concerns us, we know it is possible to summon the qualities we expect of our self , although it may take time. And when it comes to the world, it may sometimes seem that we are banging our head against a wall, but we never know when we’ll make headway. There are also times when we realize that we’ve been barking up the wrong tree, when we reach the topmost rung of the ladder to find that it’s been leaning against the wrong wall!!! Impractical as the Mullah’s actions may appear, in people, situations and relationships look where you expect to find something, for earnest and constant seeking does yield results even in the most unlikely of the situations, from the most unlikely individuals.