Spreading Happiness.

          Several of my friends and close relatives follow the rules set by a man with well-maintained tresses. They (the rules, not the tresses) are meant to lead to happiness on earth. For those who believe in karma, also a ticket to reserve a good seat for the Next Life/Hereafter.

The man’s whisker-haloed perma-smile (unknown dentist zindabad) and perfectly designed robes are displayed on lampposts, gates, commercial-spaces’ staircase walls, restaurants, upmarket fashion stores and Facebook posts. Those in search of happiness attend courses, mainly attended by corporate CEOs, doctors, architects, housewives with time to spare, children whose parents have admitted them into expensive private institutions, industrialists, award-winning and semi-retired actors, politicians in the fray, executives of companies whose bottom line is healthy, etc.

          “You know,” I said to Shri Husband after briefing him about this happiness business, “Bai Goanna has done an advanced course.”

          “Oh?” he snorted. “So now she’s happy? At last.”

          “She says it’s cured her of her rashes, sneezes, bad moods, idleness, excessive thirst and stomach problems.”

          “No smelly gas, then? Happiness for us, what say? And no excessive thirst? Should I stop locking my liquor cabinet?”

          “Don’t be mean,” I said, “Have an open mind.”

          “Do you have an open mind?” he asked.

          “Of course,” I retorted.

          “Sad,” he said with an exaggerated sigh. “Whatever was in it has fallen out.”

          I ignored the barb. Tentatively I suggested: “I want to do the course.”

          Expected response: “Why?”

          Me: “To de-stress.”

          He: “Why are you stressed?”

          Me: “Housework is stressful. Dusting, tidying, sweeping, mopping, washing, drying, ironing, putting away…”

          He, with the trademark interruption: “… if that be stressful, the maid should do it.”

          Me: “I don’t know whether they have special courses for maids. There are concessional and free courses for those who can’t afford, but usually there’s a fee to be paid.”

          He: “Knowledge is not free then?”

          Me: “They need the money for the good, charitable work they’re doing.”

          He: “Who’s they?”

          Me, very cautiously because his logic-and-reason mood always means trouble: “The volunteer-followers of...”

          He: “…the man with the tresses and robe?” I had seen it coming.

          Me, hastily adding: “He’s called the Big-Big-Boss or BBB. His volunteer-followers do lots and lots of work in many, many countries. Billions of people are benefiting.”

          He: “Charitable work as in running schools, hospitals, and planting trees, right?”

          Me: “Yes, he’s a great multinational fundraiser.”

He: “Hope the government is taxing him properly.”

Me: “Bai Goanna says everything in the ashram is above board and transparent.”

He: “She’s been there?”

Me: “And come back very impressed. Food, music, art, gardens, all very beautiful. There are quarters you can rent, or buy. And she made a lot of influential friends. She’s getting a new job plus she’s found someone to buy the stuff she makes, her product.”

He: “It’s called networking. Everybody scratches everybody else’s back.”

Me: “She says it’s the BBB’s grace.”

He: “Until recently she was talking about God’s grace. Replaced, huh?”

Me: “There are other things the volunteers do. They go to

farmers suffering from drought and finance related problems and natural disaster sites…”

          He: “Floods and earthquakes sites? I’ve seen only the Defence Forces helping out there. Never seen any of the Big Big Boss-folks helping clear the putrefying carcasses, either. Only government agencies seem to do those jobs.”

          I changed track: “Bai Goanna was so happy because at the airport, she could click a selfie standing right next to the Big Big Boss. And you know what…”

He: “What?”

Me: “…BBB even let her hold his hair-brush.”

          He: “Seriously? I mean next he might even let her brush the locks off his gleaming forehead.”

          Sarcasm drips off Shri Husband’s words like shampoo off a fish-scale.

          “That’s not an appropriate simile,” Shri Husband snapped. I told you, Shri Husband can read minds. Dangerous, no? Maybe I should do a course in meditation where one can empty out one’s mind before someone reads it.

          I changed track again: “Bai Goanna’s learnt how to do many things the correct way. Like eating…”

Interruption three: “…you mean like chewing each bite a hundred times?”

Me, in a display of great patience: “No, eating recommended satwick food, exercising using the nose…”

Interruption six (maybe it’s four, I’ve lost count): “Nose exercises? That’s novel.”

Me, now a bit irritable: “Breathing exercises, yaar, inhaling-exhaling done properly, they keep illness at bay and make everybody happy/contented/satisfied.”

He: “Bai Goanna has reached level one of happiness with the selfie and brush incident. Now I gather she’s aiming for level two? Up the scale to delight? And if the BBB gives her permission to wash dandruff off that brush, that would be ecstacy? Eh?”

The conversation was getting out of hand. I was about to discontinue it by leaving the room when Bai Goanna came in. Her greeting “Hail BBB” was ill-timed.

More about what followed some other time.

Feedback: sheelajaywant@yahoo.co.in

Disciples 2009.

(29 November ’09)

            One of the patients admitted in the hospital wanted to get discharged in a big hurry. Satya Sai Baba was coming to town and he HAD to have darshan. He’d served the ‘swami’ for over two decades by looking after one of his institutions near his house. The billing was taking time and the gentleman was frantic that he’d miss his chance. Then he told me how the man wasn’t a man at all, but a god in guise. How did he know? He had cured so many people of so many illnesses, he said. Why, wondered my disbelieving mind, did he not give comfort to this same old man who was telling me this story? Why did he give him suffering that required him to get admitted every other month? But he spoke on and I listened. He told me of a huge hospital near Bangalore which Baba’s devotees had set up, which had multi-specialty tertiary care given for free. Wonder number two: why was this man paying through his nose for treatment here, then? His wife pitched in: there were going to be over five lakh people flocking to their suburb to see him that evening. No police bandobast, no traffic jams, she said, the volunteers would be guiding everyone. Ideal targets for men with illegal arms, I guessed silently. Back to the old man: the volunteers, they do everything. Do you know, he added, no one keeps accounts of the thousands of crores that come into the coffers. Either the man was terribly naïve, or ignorant, or… have run out of vocabulary.

            The next day, we read about it in the papers. My friend’s parents, also ardent followers/worshipers of the Baba, had gone for a darshan since it was ages since the Big Man had come hereabouts and they were unlikely to ever go to his ashram. I asked my friend about the experience. He said, “No one knew what was happening, it was chaotic. There were different gates, and the crowd was packed tightly in the ground so one couldn’t go to the loo. The cops were there, but most of the devotees clearly weren’t law-abiding and all the whistling and waving had no effect on the drivers/owners of the cars/scooters. The noise level was awful. What saved us were the mobile phones. We aught to worship technology, you know.” Yes, they got to see the Baba, from a distance away, and the parents believed that he looked at them and into their eyes. Considering they were not next to each other, and that many others believed the same, it’s likely that the Baba dear has a problem focusing.

            Nothing new about this disciple stuff. When Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living teachers/promoters come by, I admire they tenacity. Do not give up is their motto. Don’t mind if someone says, “No I don’t want to join up your classes.” Pester them, gently of course, pester again, yet again, coax, cajole, bully, keep at it, don’t give up. No wonder many of them have flourishing businesses. They have the aptitude. And then, networking helps. You see the badge and you connect. Could be of Asaram Bapu or Anirudha Bapu or the Amrit Mother or Sadhu Vaswani, whoever.

            Thing is, all of them really do speak sense. I’ve heard them on Aastha Channel and some I’ve witnessed live. I’ve read much material written about and by them. There’s no doubt their oratory skills and leadership qualities, the way they can organize events and market them, are phenomenal. Wonder whether any management school studies their strategies and models. Maybe they do. The breathing exercises do good, the medicines do good, and the psychological tricks also do good. But they’re not flawless. Not the men, not their methods or medicines, and certainly they’re not gods. But none of the followers will agree. ‘It’s a matter of faith’, claim most. To paste paper posters all over? No consideration for forests, aesthetics or other people’s property. All those volunteers who go around ‘spreading the word’ could channel their energies in many better ways. A dirty country like ours could benefit if each one just picked up a broom and swept the fronts AND backs of our homes, the roads AND pavements beside it, and managed our own garbage. No Swami(ni) will get his/her hands dirty, nor would want his/her disciples to. Leave that to the government, the municipality whilst they breathe-in, breathe-out, and meditate on matters spiritual. In a hospital, some of these volunteers come to help ‘destress’ the patients. No one volunteers to give bedpans or clean the dirty utensils room.

            Not to say that dirty jobs are to be glorified.

            To get back to the old gentleman I mentioned in the beginning. What interested me was the way he treated the lower staff: badly. He called the clerks all sorts of names, the threw important ‘contacts’ at us, he made sure he went all the way up to the CE to get his work done before the others. Forget the queue, forget everything else, I must have the darshan. Attitude, focus, perseverance, he had it all…. all that I lacked.

            I thought: he’s got what we need in corporate life: but he’s pointed in a different direction.

Disciples 2009.

(29 November ’09)

            One of the patients admitted in the hospital wanted to get discharged in a big hurry. Satya Sai Baba was coming to town and he HAD to have darshan. He’d served the ‘swami’ for over two decades by looking after one of his institutions near his house. The billing was taking time and the gentleman was frantic that he’d miss his chance. Then he told me how the man wasn’t a man at all, but a god in guise. How did he know? He had cured so many people of so many illnesses, he said. Why, wondered my disbelieving mind, did he not give comfort to this same old man who was telling me this story? Why did he give him suffering that required him to get admitted every other month? But he spoke on and I listened. He told me of a huge hospital near Bangalore which Baba’s devotees had set up, which had multi-specialty tertiary care given for free. Wonder number two: why was this man paying through his nose for treatment here, then? His wife pitched in: there were going to be over five lakh people flocking to their suburb to see him that evening. No police bandobast, no traffic jams, she said, the volunteers would be guiding everyone. Ideal targets for men with illegal arms, I guessed silently. Back to the old man: the volunteers, they do everything. Do you know, he added, no one keeps accounts of the thousands of crores that come into the coffers. Either the man was terribly naïve, or ignorant, or… have run out of vocabulary.

            The next day, we read about it in the papers. My friend’s parents, also ardent followers/worshipers of the Baba, had gone for a darshan since it was ages since the Big Man had come hereabouts and they were unlikely to ever go to his ashram. I asked my friend about the experience. He said, “No one knew what was happening, it was chaotic. There were different gates, and the crowd was packed tightly in the ground so one couldn’t go to the loo. The cops were there, but most of the devotees clearly weren’t law-abiding and all the whistling and waving had no effect on the drivers/owners of the cars/scooters. The noise level was awful. What saved us were the mobile phones. We aught to worship technology, you know.” Yes, they got to see the Baba, from a distance away, and the parents believed that he looked at them and into their eyes. Considering they were not next to each other, and that many others believed the same, it’s likely that the Baba dear has a problem focusing.

            Nothing new about this disciple stuff. When Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living teachers/promoters come by, I admire they tenacity. Do not give up is their motto. Don’t mind if someone says, “No I don’t want to join up your classes.” Pester them, gently of course, pester again, yet again, coax, cajole, bully, keep at it, don’t give up. No wonder many of them have flourishing businesses. They have the aptitude. And then, networking helps. You see the badge and you connect. Could be of Asaram Bapu or Anirudha Bapu or the Amrit Mother or Sadhu Vaswani, whoever.

            Thing is, all of them really do speak sense. I’ve heard them on Aastha Channel and some I’ve witnessed live. I’ve read much material written about and by them. There’s no doubt their oratory skills and leadership qualities, the way they can organize events and market them, are phenomenal. Wonder whether any management school studies their strategies and models. Maybe they do. The breathing exercises do good, the medicines do good, and the psychological tricks also do good. But they’re not flawless. Not the men, not their methods or medicines, and certainly they’re not gods. But none of the followers will agree. ‘It’s a matter of faith’, claim most. To paste paper posters all over? No consideration for forests, aesthetics or other people’s property. All those volunteers who go around ‘spreading the word’ could channel their energies in many better ways. A dirty country like ours could benefit if each one just picked up a broom and swept the fronts AND backs of our homes, the roads AND pavements beside it, and managed our own garbage. No Swami(ni) will get his/her hands dirty, nor would want his/her disciples to. Leave that to the government, the municipality whilst they breathe-in, breathe-out, and meditate on matters spiritual. In a hospital, some of these volunteers come to help ‘destress’ the patients. No one volunteers to give bedpans or clean the dirty utensils room.

            Not to say that dirty jobs are to be glorified.

            To get back to the old gentleman I mentioned in the beginning. What interested me was the way he treated the lower staff: badly. He called the clerks all sorts of names, the threw important ‘contacts’ at us, he made sure he went all the way up to the CE to get his work done before the others. Forget the queue, forget everything else, I must have the darshan. Attitude, focus, perseverance, he had it all…. all that I lacked.

            I thought: he’s got what we need in corporate life: but he’s pointed in a different direction.

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