Nishtha Gehija

And you will figure, almost all of them had an unfair advantage that you didn’t.

Someone did not have to worry about paying the rent. Others always got food (literally) served on a platter. If this is not enough, some lucky fellas had supportive parents even before they were born.

Or, you can focus on the unfair advantage you have. Maybe you are articulate like no one. Maybe you have the patience to be a good listener. Maybe you are creative par excellence.

When we focus on what we don’t control, our life spirals out of control. When we focus on what we have, we create miracles even we hadn’t fathomed.

What do you bring to the table? Noise or silence?

When you bring silence, is it silence of acceptance or a silence of being scary?

When people are around you, are they allowed to be themselves or are they supposed to be like you?

The table is crowded. With all people alike. We need you. And who you are in your simplest, untainted, purest way, without the masks of success and the failures, but just you having a conversation.

The table is crowded with noise. Can we have you with your signal?

(On friendship breakups with people who are still our friends)

When I texted you multiple times during the last year, I was sick and tired of your nonchalance.

Yes life could beat us all up, but I never understood the karmic account of punishing someone else for someone else’s sins.

I became friendless because you became careless.

And now, every now and then, I come across a meme or a quote that I wish to share with you. I even open up our WhatsApp chat. And then I don’t text you.

People have some tolerance for nonchalance. I have exhausted mine. Without you ever being aware of it.

So when you text me, I wonder, do you really care, or do you simply want to have someone who cares for you without caring a dime. (Absolutely not related, but “bhulega dil jis din tumhein wo din zindagi ka aakhiri din hoga” is playing on another browser on my Spotify.)

Sometimes we get up and leave, and people do not even realise. And I do not know, which one of these two is the worse part.

I went to Bengaluru for a half-a-day trip. And when I landed in Delhi, the first thing I thought to myself upon stepping out of the plane is “nothing feels better than your own city’s AQI” 🙂

Our need for home is so deep we don’t even realise it.

Last time I went there in 2016 for a 3-day trip I remember traces about.

Now that I went back for a half-a-day, how much or how little can you even capture? But I will try.

People of Bengaluru are extremely sweet. Like all of them. Even the richest of the richest elites. They are the same sweet people who they are inside and who they are outside.

The display of wealth is so much different, slightly more subtle from the way Delhi people display wealth. There is no “this or that” but every city has its own equation of how the richest operate.

Lastly, what is supposed to begin at 6 pm begins at 6 pm even if it was a bad rain day yesterday in Bengaluru, and the traffic of this city is anyway bad (I experienced this even in the half a day). The event even ended on time, and it is always a pleasure when things start and end on time.

I cannot say anything about the food because I carried my own, like I always do. But the city even in this smallest amount of time looked promising, fascinating to me.

Anyway, I had always had a subtle thought about “what does Bengaluru look like” in so many years. And yet when I had a chance to really go there, I booked the flights for the smallest amount of time. Irony dies a thousand deaths in our own lives.

Skip that meeting.

Get on a phone call instead of video call.

Skip that meeting.

Plan your day before you start.

Skip that meeting.

Spend time creating not complaining.

Skip that meeting.

Schedule reading/cleaning your closet/cleaning your desk in your free time.

Skip that meeting.

When email works, use it. When email doesn’t work and you need a meeting, still try using the email.

Skip that meeting.

Meetings are a proxy for trying to appear busy, seeking validation and having an empty life. People who do not love themselves love meetings and wasting their time.

Lastly, SKIP THAT MEETING. You’ll create better things by being away from that meeting. The only thing you have is your mind. If you let it rust in meaningless meanderings of everyone else, how will it ever create anything fertile?

There is a nice bungalow at the back of my house, that stayed vacant for over a month after the past tenant moved out. But now it is occupied.

In my last job I used to think my life is over if I ever got out of here. It turns out, my life only got better when I got out of it.

Two years ago I was clinging to a toxic friendship because I did not know now to get out. But I slowly got out, and one day, hit the final nail in the coffin.

Two secret ingredients of giving things some time while you keep moving forward in the smallest ways are our answers to everything in life.

1. Know what you want
2. Figure how to get it

As simple as this sounds, most of us do not know what we want, so we hallucinate our own selves,

We deserve better.

Everyone else loses it too. It’s a cycle,

Of all things, be grateful you haven’t lost your mind.

A chance to be empathetic.

A chance to be nice to those extended family members who don’t care a dime about you.

A chance to spend less money.

A chance to make the best of your time.

A chance to put across your point with honesty without being rude.

A chance to put down your phone and think on a paper.

A chance to know that life is a chance, and you have to create your own chances.

Fever takes away your appetite.

The little that is left, is now to be used very carefully, because you cannot eat cold things. No butter milk, curd, fruits. Also, no dry fruits. All of these have the potential to make the sore throat worse.

The best thing that works is only freshly cooked food. That too light food, and in little quantity.

It always blows my mind how any illness brings us closer to what we really need to do.

PS: I do have curd and butter milk and dry fruits and fruits daily, but sometimes this “cleansing” of living on minimal is also beautiful.

My mother has been having a rough quarter so far. She underwent a back and hip surgery in May, and the recovery (thankfully visible) has been slow.

It has led to her worst mood swings, sometimes she being oblivious to them.

But if there is one thing that truly lights her up is whenever I call her up to ask a recipe. Even if she wakes up in the middle of her nap and sees a miss call around my meal time, she calls me back again. Nothing, absolutely nothing else lights her up.

Being useful is probably every human being’s personal Mount Everest.

Kids of different Indian families pass from the same school but do not always have the same fluency over English (if that is what they are looking for).

There are multitudes of avid readers I know, not all of them are equally articulate. As a matter of fact, scattered.

People watch the same videos of the same educational channel, yet the changes in their lives are not the same.

There are no good or bad people, but excellence is an individual choice. Sometimes it happens by default, but often it a conscious choice.

When we were very young and had no knowledge of the outside world, we all would only look up to our parents for wisdom. We still do. 

Today that we are talking about Guru Purnima, I think the biggest wisdom we could take from our first teachers, our parents, is unlearning a few of their learnings. 

The one big ignorance I see in our world is how most people become an exact replica of their parents. It’s an incredible thing, if you are copying their qualities. But it is something to unlearn, if we are copying the traits that made them miserable in the first place. 

So you can learn unconditional love from your mother without sacrificing your physical and mental health like your mother. 

You could learn how to be a responsible human being from your father without letting others walk over you. 

Guru is a Hindi word, which means “dispeller of ignorance”.

Maybe we could begin with letting go of our own ignorance, and not becoming like our parents worst parts, but only picking their brightest parts.

They may break someone’s heart.

They may shatter their trust in you forever.

They may make them doubt yourself, if they trusted you.

And most importantly, the words that leave your mouth never come back. We talk about irreversible damage to our lives all of the time, but we have the joy of preventing it by being careful with our words.

Chilla is one of my absolutely favourite breakfasts to eat.

When I first started making chillas, it would turn into a mess time and again. Sometimes a pudding, sometimes too hard, sometimes too soft.

It was almost impossible to crack the right recipe, the correct SOP to get it done.

Until one day, it did click.

Now I am an expert at at lease two types of chillas: besan chilla and ragi chilla.

The proportion of suji, the amount of curd to add, the duration of fermentation, the duration for which to let it cook before you flip it.

Our lives, I believe, are a version of the chilla syndrome.

We start anything new first, and we are messy. It is only after repeated events of iteration, getting better and constant focus that we find our mojo.

The question is not about just “not giving up” but the bigger question is in the process of not giving up, are you:

(a) trying better each time,

(b) not repeating the same mistakes.

Of course, please don’t give up, bit please give up on the parts that aren’t useful.

The road to expertise is begins with mess and is treaded with careful elimination.

Before you give up on good things (your job, your streak of writing, crotchet), etc., try giving up on the harmful things (scrolling, sweets, past, trauma and the trash in your house).

The bad goes out before the good goes out.

This morning, as I was walking from my spiritual class back to home, a bike ran past me.

On the pillion seat was seated a 4/5 year old school kid, who randomly looked back.

And I waved to him with a smile.

The kid was stunned for half a second, and then he waved back.

He then turned his face ahead, and looked back one more time. I waved again with a smile, he responded with greater smile, till the time he was back to facing forward.

This happened one more time, until the motorcycle reached a T-point and vanished.

A part of me believes that the kid is going to be happier and a little more confident today, because someone made him feel seen, instead of being self-focused.

All the self-assured people I know have exactly this in common: they make themselves feel seen. Either they are given this from their family, or they give this to themselves in the lack of it.

It’s the little things that no one sees, are usually the biggest things.

And I usually do not post about my “achievements” online these days, but to make a kid happy and be their trusted ally for “waving”, is equivalent to getting a sticker from them 🙂

There is an unfair advantage to a persona that does not cry on the internet.

Does not mean life gets easy for them.

Simply means they use their life problems, learn from them, and later share a success story out of them.

There is massive credibility in being the person who is never upset, all set.