2015 - The YEAR of the T.H.I.N.K

The easiest thing to do with New Year resolutions (and you must make New Year resolutions – I do that every year) is to copy-paste last year’s resolutions. Ideally do it without thinking. If you are thinking, do it with the confidence and conviction that this year you will be more successful.

Great plan.

But this year I went THINK. THINK. THUNK. And changed the way I made my resolutions. 

So this year is not about resolutions.

This year is the year of the year of the T.H.I.N.K. 

Here's what it stands for. And I welcome you to follow it.

T stands for Thinking about Thinking

NOW.

Now, in my mind, is a peril of today’s instant technology world. You are expected to respond to Whatsapp messages now. You are expected to respond to email s now. You are expected to answer calls now or send a message now saying you’ll do it later. And then, later becomes now again!

Then there’s the immediacy of social media. Facebook asks you, “What’s on your mind?” They mean what’s on your mind NOW? Twitter wants to know, “What’s happening?”  Obviously, now. What’s happening now. Which is fine. I understand the urgency of the world wanting to know what’s happening now. I don’t understand (or have thought much about) my having to respond now.

So when the world wants to know what I am doing NOW, I am going to step back and think before I respond, and think about whether I do want to respond. It’s no longer going to be about NOW. Not about TODAY. I’ve to get thinking about tomorrow . And day after. And the week after. And the month after. And probably 2020.

I’m going to think more. Think harder, deeper, clearer. And maybe the NOW when used for thinking will bring me so revelations. (I’ll let you know, but not now.)

So here’s my advice for you. Don’t respond to those urgent things unless they are important. Think. Think twice. Think more. And it’s fine if you don’t respond at all. As long as you  thought about it. You get the drift? 

H is for Home

Home is where the heart is. It’s also where the hearth is. Well, not so in Mumbai, but hearth as a metaphor for warmth is where you need to get the fires roaring.

2014 has not been a great year for the home with some unscheduled repairs. 2015 is a good year to think about home. (See? Already, thinking!) So it’s time to warm the hearth with friends over and family get-togethers, with games played together, meals cooked yourself (even if the family members are victims of your experimentation!), home is where the attention should be pointed to this year.  And it’s not just the four walls of home – it’s about all the people in there and the ones that come and go! Home is the centre of attention this year. Try it. I’m sure I’m going to have fun.

I is for… well, I!

Time to get selfish, guys! It’s going to be about I, me myself. Concentrate on the mental, physical and a bit of spiritual well-being. Every year starts with the resolution to lose weight , eat healthy, get fit. This year is the same but different. This year the focus is shifted on I. me, myself and whatever it takes to get me better. If it means learning new lessons, taking new courses, getting intellectually savvier, so be it. Make this the year to be a better you.  And I do want to end the year better in every way. A whole lot better. More whole.  More you. A better you. I am determined to do this. So move over world, a more self-oriented me is coming your way.

N means NO

I still haven’t learnt the art of saying No. (Yes I know there are self-help books available on that subject – I haven’t read any of them) But sometimes saying No is a good idea. Sometimes it’s not. I want to be discretionary. Okay more discretionary. And this is the way you do it. I’ve regretted saying No and I’ve regretted not saying NO. I want to go back to point 1 of this year’s resolutions and think about why I am saying no and to whom and to what effect.

Oh yes, let’s any way say No to bad habits and such. No to some excesses and No to… well… to certain Yesses that we say without thinking.

K is for Knowledge

If this year stretches bare in front of you, it’s because it’s a blank page. And you can choose to write what you want on it. Look at it another way, it’s also the written page that is still unread. 2015 (like all the years before that and after) should still focus on knowledge. On knowing. More. More about things you know. Some things about things you don’t know about. 

It’s about knowing me, knowing you. It’s about knowing the difference between information and wisdom. Knowing what stays, what goes. Knowing that this too shall pass and knowing that at the end of it all you are still an ignoramus barelycircling  the periphery of a vast pool of knowledge still undiscovered. So back to  books and learning and books about learning! Stagnate and perish. Learn and evolve. Knowing is all. 

I think T.S.Eliot put it succinctly when he said this. 

2015 is the YEAR of the T.H.I.N.K.

Hope I succeed in making it so. What about you?

GUEST POST: Musings on completing 12 months in India

A guest post by an esteemed colleague: Sunil Munsif

We completed our first year back in India on 4-Jan-14.

For the past 14-15 years, every trip to India was for a short duration. Now this is where we belong. There is no return flight to Heathrow that we have to track. In those early days, Saloni found it difficult to accept that the apartment we rent in Powai was not a short-let holiday home that we were occupying before we went home to Woking.

I flew into and out of Heathrow a few times in 2013 and it felt strange to think of it as just another airport. In the past, our trips would end at Heathrow. Aurangzeb "Zeb-bhai" Qureshi the Pakistani taxi driver I had befriended would greet us with a warm smile and hug, help us load bag-loads of khakhras and theplas (various Indian breads) and athanu (pickle) into the boot of his car and drive us home. On the recent 2-3 journeys into and out of Heathrow, nothing had quite changed but everything was so different.

On one of those trips, I stayed with some friends in Hounslow and headed to Woking early on a Saturday morning to work out with Fil Artusa and the group with whom I had done Circuit Training for many years. I then drove "home" and sat outside our house and called Saloni in India to ask her to add milk to the cereal that she would have kept ready in anticipation. We had a good laugh but it felt so strange that all those memories that we had of that place were now in our hearts and in some random photographs and videos. A young family was now creating their own stories inside and in our stead.

I have been asked by a lot of people how it feels to be back in India. It has been wonderful.

A few have thought of us as crazy. “Why did you have to leave the civilised world and come back to the chaos that is India?” The honest answer is, because it was time.

For the 14-15 years that we lived away, we had always talked about returning to India. It was always a question of when not if. We could not visualise ourselves growing old anywhere outside India.

So it has been great to be spoilt by the riches of India. We’ve loved having sunshine for ten months in the year. Our nice green neighbourhood and leafy boulevards make an after-dinner walk mandatory and not another attempt to fight the elements. We have loved not having to tune into the weather forecast before we decided what to wear. We’ve stepped into restaurants knowing that they will have great food that we will love. At home our cook has spoilt us by getting us to sample cuisine from across our vast nation. Our maid has always come in with a wide smile to regale us with stories of our neighbourhood. The laundry man gives me choice in what I should wear because I have all the shirts I need properly washed and ironed. The chowkidar (security guard) makes me feel important by snapping to attention as I step out of the house before helping me reverse out of the parking lot. A single phone call and the green grocer delivers vegetables and fruits. Another phone call and the plumber or electrician comes around to repair something that my DIY skills have ruined.

We’ve celebrated Holi and Diwali, Pateti and Eid with family and friends. We’ve been able to be there for family and friends in good times and some not so good times. We were there to hospitalise my 92 year-old aunt when she fell and broke her hip. Saloni was able to see her Dad a dozen times this year and talk to him every single evening before he died suddenly leaving a huge void in our lives. Being an hour away meant that she was able to rush across and be at the cremation, something she could not do last year when her mother died. She broke tradition by escorting him on his last journey and lighting his pyre. That morning I was proud to be a Hindu as the religion rose above petty beliefs and allowed a daughter to grieve and bid a teary final good bye as her father’s body was reduced to ash and reunited with the Five Basic Elements.

The India we have come back to is a young, vibrant India. The youth of the country has ambition and drive. They are living lives that are materially better than their parents. And they want to enjoy the good things in life at an early age. That has put a lot of strain on the infrastructure. Roads are already congested with cars before they are properly built and inaugurated. Sometimes we despair at the “me-first” attitude that they wear on their sleeve. After so many years away living amongst the most courteous people in the world, it has been trying.

But I remain happy and hopeful. About India, about its people and my future. It is nice to come home.

(A guest post by an esteemed colleague: Sunil Munsif)

Feel free to mail Sunil on sunil.munsif@gmail.com or post your comments here!