Sunday 27 February 2011

Sandwich diplomacy

This post is dedicated to a woman I find immensely attractive and appealing. Queen Rania of Jordan is one of those ladies one cannot help but be drawn to.  She oozes beauty, power and intelligence - all the ingredients for my kind of woman!

We live in times when pre-conceived notions are rampant.  We are quick to judge one another, we long (in spite of our internal attempts to be "broad-minded") to stereotype one another.  It's as though we need to pigeon-hole one another, to attach a particular label to one another. And often, our notions about the other person are, in fact, erroneous and grossly inaccurate.

The problem is a breakdown in communication.  When inter-faith/inter-cultural dialogue is at an all-time and perilous low, there is no better time to taste the other side's sandwich before forming opinions.  Allow me to explain.  In 2010, Queen Rania released a children's book entitled "The Sandwich Swap".  The book tells a tale about two young schoolgirls - Salma, who likes her hummus sandwich for lunch, and Lillie, who loves her peanut butter sandwich.  Before even tasting each other's sandwich, Salma and Lillie think each other's sandwiches are "yucky". Yet, when they eventually take a bite of the contents of each other's lunch box, they realise that the sandwiches are not what they had thought to originally be.  The moral of the story is that where we are all too quick to judge the other side, we need to exercise caution and indulge in tasting the other side, before drawing our conclusions.



Difficult to achieve - I am all too guilty of stereotyping.  However, sometimes all it takes is a children's tale to convey a key message to us "responsible grown-ups".

Sunday 20 February 2011

The Positivity Injection

I'm not one to include the word "awesome" in my vocabulary.  This is, of course, largely attributable to my strong British education.  Besides, the word, when enunciated, just does not sound as resplendent as the words that we, on this side of the Atlantic, use to convey the same effect: "brilliant", "super", "amazing".  There are times when I make a conscious attempt to include other words to express my approval for something - I say: "That's great/fantastic/superb/perfect".

Notwithstanding the words that we use to convey our happiness/approval, we all want to actually feel what we're saying.  When we say "That's great!", we actually want to feel great. We want to feel great that the cashier at Sainsbury's has offered to pack our bags for us. We want to feel "brilliant" when we see that New Year's Eve fireworks display.  We want to feel "amazing" when we're at that electrifying concert.  And 9 times out of 10, we do end up feeling that way, even if for just a short moment.

That moment feels so good (for want of a better word to use here!), but is forgotten all too soon.  We have somehow learned to dispose away with those small moments in which we feel good, blissful and content with everything around us. And all too quickly, when life throws its conspicuous boomerangs at us, we let those boomerangs take us down, we brood over our problems, how difficult our lives have become, how much of a struggle every-day living has become, how much uncertainty prevails around us.  Our most effective weapons against such depressing times are those countless short moments in which we feel loved, we feel cared for, we feel happy/amazing/super/brilliant or just nice.  Yet we forget that we have these weapons at our disposal.  Why? Because we forget (almost immediately after experiencing them) about the moments when we feel so great to be alive! We forget about the moments in which we savoured (even for 2 seconds) life's simple pleasures.

In 2008, my dad was diagnosed with a malignant conjunctival melanoma (a cancerous brown spot on the white part of his eye).  It could not have come at a worse time. I was due to sit my final exams at university, and my dad flew in to London to receive treatment.  Now, by all accounts, a conjunctival melanoma is not as scary as a liver, gastric or breast tumour.  However, it is its potential to metamorphosise into one that is scary. My parents needed all the emotional support they could get during that time - through the countless doctor's appointments, hospital visits, surgical procedures etc. I had to balance my studies with providing as much emotional support as I could to them. I used to think - "Why? Why is this happening now? Could it not have waited for 2 more months, after which I could have easily dealt with it, being on vacation?" The trouble is that life's boomerangs come to you unannounced and unexpected. We have to learn to deal with them.  What got me through those tumultuous times, was my focus on life's simple pleasures - I learned to be grateful for everything else that was "right" in my life - the extensive family and friends' support I had in the UK, the financial resources that my family had access to facilitate the necessary treatment, the spiritual grounding that gave me the strength to comprehend the situation I was in, and most importantly, my health and my music.  I began to learn to savour the taste of my Starbucks gingerbread latte, something that I was and still am a big fan of.  I began to learn to relish the smell of fresh rain falling on the London pavements, the natural resultant high of having the first cheesy bite in my Pizza Hut margherita. As Neil Pasricha explains in his talk below, I began to experience life through the eyes of those of an infant, taking in everything once again for the first time and relishing each such maiden experience.  



What particularly helped me to look at life through an infant's eyes, was my close association with my nephew, who at the time had just turned 6 months old.  I would look at Saaj's face every time I'd spend time with him, and would try to imagine his thoughts as he began taking things in for the first time - it must have been an exciting time for him, setting his eyes on so many things (a plasma tv, a car, a mobile phone, a grasshopper, a golden leaf) for the first time.

Savouring life's pleasures, just as an infant does, is what can shape one's attitude and approach to dealing with life's boomerangs. And once you've mastered that, there's no reason why one cannot begin leading a life that's truly brilliant/great/perfect/super/amazing or......"awesome"!

Saturday 19 February 2011

Is being an Oshwal compatible with being a Jain?


As an Oshwal who grew up in East Africa, my identity is clear. I hail from a prosperous migrant community of high-achieving individuals. Traditionally, we are businessmen and traders, and congenital economists (remember the acronym for what a SHAH is? Sastu Hoi Apnu Hoi! That which is at the right price, will be ours!) Thinking of getting a good bargain for anything in life? You need to meet an Oshwal. Economy is in our blood!



No surprise then that a community which, at the turn of the nineteenth century, lived in clusters of mudshacks and communal courtyards, is now, in the twenty first century, a prosperous, wealthy and relatively stable community. Our homes are relatively palatial (to say the least!), our cars are grand, we have seamless access to world-class education, and it's not long before we'll be running global superpowers (cue. Sonal Shah's 2008 appointment to Barack Obama's transition team).


Amidst all this prosperity, however, I contend that the following have crept in to the Oshwal ethos: arrogance, a sense of superiority, and an almost apocalyptic erosion of fundamental values that originally drove our pioneers to get us to where we are today!

My problem is this: Oshwals are inherently meant to be Jains. The Jain Aum has been embodied as the logo of several of our educational and social institutions. You will find that our community centres are mostly annexed to a Jain temple or shrine. Jainism, a universal philosophy, emphasises non-violence (ahimsa), non-possessiveness (aparigraha), non-stealing (asteya), self-control (saiyyam, or what I like to refer to as brahmacharya), adherence to the Truth (satya) and pluralism (anekaantavaad). Now hopefully it becomes self-explanatory how "arrogance, a sense of superiority, and an almost apocalyptic erosion of fundamental values" are inconsistent with the very fundamentals of Jainism.

A replica of the Samovasaran - from where it is believed that Mahavir taught Jainism

So, as an Oshwal I am clear. I am successful, prosperous and proud of my social background. However, as an aspirant of Jain values, I am perplexed.
Allow me to explain...

When I grew up in Mombasa, Kenya (the birthplace of the Oshwal diaspora's present-day prosperity outside India), I was often exposed to a sense that Oshwals were the best at everything. We were the only community with so much unity; with a flourishing medical fund that provided medical insurance to those who needed it; with the best private schools in East Africa; and with an education fund from which we could take interest-free loans to finance our studies at some of the world's premier institutions. No other Gujarati community, at the time, had any such opportunities. On the social front, we had a plethora of youth leagues which ensured that our social calendars were always full with exciting community events (children's parties, competitions, sports days (the famous telegames!).

So when I first came to the UK, I had it engraved in my psyche that I was the best and I came from the best! I soon learnt the hard way and realised that I was not the "creme de la creme" that I once thought (with almost divine conviction!) I was.

This is precisely the problem. We think that our way is the best. So much so, that we've enveloped our religion into this psyche. I did not realise it at the time, but there was in Mombasa, during the time of my childhood and adolescence, a growing phenomenon of what I would now dare to call Jain extremism. Impressionable minds were being taught that Jainism is the only way, that going to the Hindu temples was taboo, that going to enjoy the Navratri festivities was contradictory to Jainism, and that a married Jain woman had to be sari-clad both inside and outside the home (other forms of very modest and decent dressing were just not acceptable - married Jain women had to adorn a sari and that is it - there was no qualification to that rule). Soon there were unspoken contests between teenagers - who could fast for the longest period at the next Paryushan?

The trouble is that some of this extemist ethos continues today. It might not continue to exist in Mombasa today (or it might - I don't know - if you live in Mombasa you can be the judge of that), but it certainly exists amongst certain families here in the UK, the USA and India.

So my question is this: how are any of these consistent with the Jain tenets? Mahavir Swami taught us that there are many approaches to the Truth, and that no one approach was exclusively the correct one - anekaantavaad (the multiplicity of viewpoints). This beautiful principle is a key, but often forgotten, tenet of Jainism as practised by the layman (the shraavak/shraavika). If we are to follow Jainism in its essence, then we need to cultivate a new ethos; an ethos that allows us to bask in our glory and prosperity, but at the same time ensures that we accept and make a reasonable attempt at understanding other people's ways of approaching the Truth, other people's customs, and, most importantly, the cultures of others.