Nishtha Gehija

The other day my elder sister was taking her 8yo nephew to his summer camp on her Activa, when they both met with an accident.

While she protected my nephew with her arm like a true Jhansi ki Rani, she ended up twisting her own foot in the process.

The innocent 8yo walked up to the driver of the tempo traveller, which was the same vehicle whose brakes had failed, and asked him innocently yet protectively, “Why did you hit my mom?”

In that state of lying on the floor she asked my nephew to come back to her, and told him, “I’m fine, nothing has happened to me.”

This is where I wish parents changed themselves. (My sister did, after my lecture :))
Parents project themselves to be unharmed, 10/10 absolutely I-can-do-it-with-a-broken-leg kinda humans, who are never prone to any hurt, physical or emotional.

And then one day when we grow up, when our head hits the brick a thousand times, we realise in the most unexpected ways that our parents are humans too. They aren’t as perfect as we think them to be. They were never. And it gives us more empathy, but after a lot of years of unrequited anger.

So here is my request to all parents, even though I am least qualified to: Share your most real pains and problems with your kids. Not because you would burden them. But because you want them to be witnesses and partners in your life. Because you want them to feel okay when they go through the same things, which they invariably would. Because you want them to know that life is not as rosy, yet it is up to us what we do to what has been done to us.

Authenticity never goes out of style. Ever.

Now that you know about it, what are you going to do?

In a manner that you don’t betray your core values?

And you create something meaningful for the world!

What NOT to do:

I do this. I want to do this for you. Can you please make that happen?

What to DO:

Hey, I saw you are doing this. This thing could become better if you did a, b and c. Also, once you do these, your business will be affected in this manner.

I could help you do this. Here is the work I have done and here is why I could help:

…

Please do not get lost as just another person in the long list of someone else’s cold emails.

Make it impossible for people to say no.

A goal in general: I want to make XX achievement by ABC date.

It sets success to a certain date, making you feel less at home about yourself every single day.

A goal as a process: I will write a blog daily. I will write an essay weekly. I will record a vlog 5x a week.

It makes sure you take care of your inputs. You are showing up because you care. You are showing up for yourself instead of one future date. You are building a well of self-confidence that consistently showing up and getting better each day solve for everything you want to build.

Then when there is a day you don’t feel like doing something, you still do it, because your actions are tied to a goal as a process and a function, not goal as a possible future.

No feeling in the world could override this.

…please postpone all commitments on your weekends and spend time with yourself.

People full of joy for life make time for emptiness.

Some people will stay perpetually dissatisfied.

Some people will be hurt because you did not do what they wanted you to do.

And some people will be hurt just because they haven’t been hurt lately, and the habit of hurting wants to take over.

Nothing others do is a reflection of who you are, especially if you are clear as water with yourself about why you are doing something and why you are not.

No matter what you do, some people’s opinions are meant to be ignored my friend.

The joy of believing the other person did what we think they did, and not listening to them.

The euphoria of someone else being wrong, without ever having a conversation with them.

The bliss of bequeathing blame, because responsibility is a scary subject.

Listening is boring. Boring gives peace. You can either create chaos or pursue peace. Once you experience peace, you’ll realise all the wars you had been fighting so far had been nothing more than vague.

Because every single book that is there on his bookshelf, he has read them.

So is Aamir Khan an avid reader.

And here we are, scrolling kilometres on the phone every day, looking for the next reel that will fulfill you.

My friend, the thing that will fulfill you is not the screen in your hand, but the book in your bookshelf.

If screen could make you rich, the influencers wouldn’t be asking to “like, share, subscribe”. (Guilty here too :))

I have lately started cycling again.

My spiritual class, which initially used to be at a 3-minute walking distance has now shifted to a place a kilometer away.

So I got my cycle repaired to commute there every day.

Why not car? Because cars are usually comfortable for a drive of more than 2-3 kms. With 1 km, taking the car out and parking itself take a lot of time, and then the walk from the parking spot to your spiritual class.

With cycle, I get out like a buzz, flying with childlike joy, and in this little distance, perhaps reaching faster than a car.

It is such a joyful thing at the place I live at too, that when I had gotten my cycle serviced and cleaned, my landlord uncle sent me this:

Even my parents jumped with joy when I told them about this new habit of mine.

…

Cycling often reminds me of my childhood, where a lot of it was spent. For some reason, I have always found solace in cycling.

I remember when I was a teenager, I knew my parents were about to get me a cycle when I returned from school. As I returned, the blue cycle was waiting for me. The one which is a teenage cycle with a relatively longer seat and a back support (and no place for back carrier). I remember that long ride in our home vaada itself. The very act of cycling and holding those two handles given insurmountable joy and control to a perpetual loner like me.

I have had 4 cycles in my hometown (right from baby tricycle to the teenage cycle to a doodhwaala type cycle aka the one with back-stand to the usual cycle without gears).

The current one (of the pic sent by my landlord uncle) is my 5th cycle.

But it still feels coming home, each time I cycle.

I have been living in this area for long, so a part of me also knows that the people on this route also smile when they see me glide through the roads every morning, breezing like a free bird. I cannot point out exactly how, but I somehow know that.

At the end, let me share my favourite words from the song Eldest Daughter:

We lie back
A beautiful, beautiful time lapse
Ferris wheels, kisses and lilacs
And things I said were dumb
‘Cause I thought that I’d never find that beautiful, beautiful life that
Shimmers that innocent light back
Like when we were young

Be it family, friend or a stranger: think deeply if this nature, this behaviour is something you can put up with 5-6 days of the week.

AND be enthused on Sunday evenings that you will work with them again tomorrow.

If no, you know your answer.

PS: No, you CAN’T fix people.

Right before the final show of the Eras Tour, Taylor Swift spoke to her team in the team huddle, on how when anyone asks them how to choose the profession, the default is to say “no, please don’t become that”. A part of that is also reflected in her lyrics of TLOAS song, that say:

the more you play, the more that you pay
You’re softer than a kitten
So you don’t know the life of a showgirl, babe
And you’re never gonna wanna

In a podcast episode, Gursimran Khamba also spoke about the fact that if you “want” to become a writer in the industry, maybe you shouldn’t.

I also fundamentally believe that if you are asking this question, writing is not for you.

An artist does not wait to be told how to become an artist. They are an artist first, and then they eventually learn to monetise, if at all they want to.

It is also a fulfilling journey if you are not fantasising on Oprah or Michelangelo, and go do the work while taking care of how to pay your bills. When the pressure is not there, the pounds manifest eventually.

I know this would become a little pessimistic but it is so important for me to bring this out.

Sometimes you try and you try. You try different ways. You try for months. But the other person is so lost in their lives that they do not care to acknowledge your existence even once.

It shatters you to the core. Your family can feel it. They know you are going through something. You also know the silent exit of that beautiful relationship (whatever it is — colleague, friend, a blood relations) is near.

But you thrive. You learn to live with that pain. And you move forward.

One of those days that you have moved forward, they will come back into your life just to check if you are alive. They are so used to you checking in on them, that their non-empathetic self is also worried if you exist.

So they reach out. But they have stopped caring.

At this point, a wonderful thing happens to you too. You respond, but you do so out of responsibility and not feeling the same way like you did. But you have already emotionally moved on.

Maybe this entire ruckus was designed so you could move on emotionally from someone who did not know how to value it.

It hurts. But then it teaches you how to how to love after being detached. It teaches you that the purpose of this relationship lingering meaninglessly all along was to teach you detachment.

You learnt the lesson. Life is fine now.

I hail from a conservative family, with prevalent patriarchy. But I see my cousin be of immense help to his wife. He transports food from kitchen to the dining area, changes his decisions to support his wife’s decisions, and treats her like an equal and not someone to be suppressed. He has broken the chain. 

Last month, my BIL drove 10 hours (back and forth) to drive to a hospital in a different city to get my mom’s surgery done. He used his contacts to get us the best doctors, and was throughout patient (pun not intended) with us. He is not that usual son-in-law who only demands “respect” from in laws but never shows up when needed. He has broken the chain.

I used to suffer immensely in my previous jobs. Mostly because I did not love what I did. So with immense courage, some failures and not caring about embarrassment, I became a writer. I think I have broken the chain of sempiternal suffering. 

More often than not, you cannot control where you are born and what you have been given. Yet, you have been given the wisdom to make choices. Which necessarily need not be the choices that are being generationally made. You have the armour of education, which a lot of your previous generations were often denied.

You can make the choice today to be a nicer, to be a different human being. 

You can break the chain.

I am writing this at a point where no one of us knows what is going to be the result of IPL 2026. I have not watched a single match of IPL ever, but at this point I know that RCB is playing the finals.

Which is why I want to write this before we know the results of IPL.

One, no matter what you do, how you do it matters more than anything else.

Two, have fun baby. He is dancing to songs in practice, doing the snake hiss to his friends in opponent teams, and is casually having fun with all his team mates. Wokes would say that is PR (maybe that is true), but you simply cannot project having fun. It has to come from within.

Related to that, if you build the right relationships with high profile people like him by caring for him and not milking him for content, you will get your content anyway. I am referring to Danish Sait here, who is a good friend of Virat Kohli. There are several questions that only Danish has earned the credibility to ask from Cheeku, and Cheeku has answered them cheekily. Because Danish cares.

Four, have the right intent. I have heard him say this in several clips, and it matters so much because you can have a lucky day or a lucky year by fidgeting with your intent. But if you really care, you know you have done right to yourself. Anyone else never mattered anyway.

Five, you can only control your effort. You can not control your performance. But how you show up in the preparation for it is always something you can control. This is slowly but more importantly, becoming my life mantra.

Six, despite all the good things, sometimes good things might not happen to you. Be it 19 November 2023 or maybe retirement from Test team. But you can still show up with your grace in the next thing you do. Or let what happened to you become your fate. It’s hard to choose grace, but that is the right thing to do, like Virat (and in this case even Rohit) did.

Seven, this is for all of us, especially for non-cricket watchers like me, if you are really looking for lessons to grow, you will find them. You always find what you are really, really looking for.

PS: When RCB won IPL 2025, I was so happy for Virat. “I have given this team my youth, my prime, my experience.” Greatness takes so much from you, that the ones in the stands cannot fathom to understand.

Chill maaro bro.

You have tried everything.

And still we are here.

So it means we cannot control anything else now.

Why not chill and have fun?

When you can’t change something, it also loses the power to challenge your emotions.

One, that make you a better person each time you do the thing you had committed. Showing up for that basketball practice, reading at least 10 pages every day, taking a weekly off sans internet.

The other types of commitments are the ones that are a collateral damage each time we do them. We do them for multiple reasons, underneath all of them is a common one: because we have not learnt to say no.

Commitments are a great thing when they nurture you back. The wise ones are always working on shedding the ones that take more from you than they ever give you.

Is not the same as a pauper and a prince.

The Small Life is a deliberate attempt to live with less than your means, to not be victimised by lifestyle inflation, and to live for yourself instead of making sure others see your wealth too.

Such people do not care whether others know about their net worth or not. They are simply too focused on growing it and too grown up in not showing it.

The Grand Life is a consistent path of keeping up with the Joneses. There is always something new we need to bring to home, something that needs an upgrade, and an item about which you cannot speak in front of a friend who makes meagre money.

Such people want to make sure others know them for how rich they are, even though their savings and investments are burning faster than fuel.

Technically, a lot of the times the ones living the Small Life are richer than the ones living the Grand Life.

See, living with the right tools is not wrong. Even the ones living the Small Life have great tools, only so much to an extent that they need them and they want it for themselves, not for show-off or to maintain a certain lifestyle.

In other times, it reminds me of the Rudyard Kipling quote, “Beware of overconcern for money, or position, or glory. Someday you will meet a man who cares for none of these things. Then you will know how poor you are.”

Everyone starts their life as Akash.

Then they do a few things that Sameer does.

And eventually become Siddharth for the rest of their lives.

I stopped thinking about that question long ago.

But now I have increasingly come to believe (through the study of spirituality) that the purpose of our lives is to make others feel lighter through our very presence.

And it is something you cannot force. It is something you have to build in yourself everyday, through study of good wisdom, meditation, contemplation of that wisdom, and so on.

No one wants to be a parasite but they end up becoming one when they are:

• always thinking what could go wrong
• bringing their bag of problems everywhere they go
• are perpetually sad because they think the world owes them anything

So much of life is about shedding your old beliefs, beliefs that drain more from you than anybody else.

The purpose of life is to live it.

…but will you still be my friend?

I try to do it but cannot, so I give you the real reasons why I cannot do what you ask me to do. Will you get upset and loosen up our friendship?

Is friendship all about being performative, and the moment we are not doing things, we are losing friends?

Can we be friends for who we are as humans, even when the performance ceases?

I understand if you do not want to be friends then, but then were we friends to begin with?