Acharya Prashant, a Vedanta philosopher, an Advaita teacher, and the author of Karma, talks about his transition from the corporate world to the spiritual world. He also answers questions about Karma, a word as common in the spiritual lexicon as in the popular parlance.
Karma || Acharya Prashant
After studying at IIM and working in the corporate sector, you took respite into the world of wisdom and spirituality. How did you overcome the difficult period of ‘sorrow, longing, and search’?
The basic inner challenge that life presents to us remains the same, no matter what the circumstances are. The one all pervasive and ubiquitous challenge is to keep doing the ‘right thing’ even in the most difficult situations. So whether one is an MBA student or a corporate employee or a spiritual leader, one has to act rightly – which simply means to not act from a personal centre of greed and/or fear.
There has never been any tectonic shift in my life as such. As an individual, I have always aimed at gradually trekking higher and higher. So, this movement from being a consultant in the corporate world to leading PrashantAdvait Foundation, is to be understood as a process of elevation and not of renunciation. The shift was only towards something higher, towards something more critical and of higher caliber. And the search . . . it has not ended; it is very much there. But yes, the destination has changed.
Your book, Karma, was first spoken and written later. What made you pen down hundreds of questions that you’ve verbally answered in a decade?
Every project that the Foundation undertakes is in tandem with the needs and requirements of those for whose sake it exists. As an organisation and as a socio-spiritual mission, PrashantAdvait Foundation exists to serve and transform contemporary society. And one of its prominent objectives is to liberate spirituality from superstition; which could not have been possible without a total repudiation of the false beliefs linked with the concept of Karma – and this, we know, has been quite successfully achieved with the book. Because the Foundation believes in harnessing each and every medium/platform for the Mission, the idea to write books (and make them reach the masses on a wide scale) occurred quite naturally to us.
Why do you think what people know about Karma is wrong?
Unfortunately, today there is hardly any concept in spirituality which has not been both misinterpreted and misrepresented. The same tradition to which we owe gems like Sri Bhagwad Gita, has sadly become a vehicle for misappropriation. Real meanings and implications of concepts linked with spirituality stand obfuscated and distorted by centuries of misplaced expositions and self-appeasing translations.
So, instead of asking what is wrong in the contemporary definition of Karma, we should be skeptical enough to ask: is there really anything at all that is right about it? Because had there been even a single grain of truth in it, we humans couldn’t have been the way they are – violent, chaotic, depressed, loveless, faithless, and what not!
In your book, you’ve mentioned that one must do what is right and forget about the result. Is there an ideal way to work without expecting results?
It is not the expectation that is to be dropped, but the one with the expectation that must transform. If the actor – the doer, the centre from where the action is happening – is itself the one with desires and expectations, then no attempt to work without expecting results would be successful.
So do not look at the expectations, look at the one who is expecting. And having looked at it attentively, you might find the key to ‘Nishkama Karma’.
In one of the chapters, you have said, ‘Just be wisely selfish and help others’. Can you elaborate on what you mean by being ‘wisely selfish’? Does being selfish not count as bad Karma?
Selfishness is bad when the self is petty; but when the self reaches spiritual heights and the relationship with the other is of Love, then being selfish gets redefined as being compassionate.
Do you plan on writing another book? If yes, what would you like to focus on?
All I can say right now is that I will keep addressing issues that require attention, and books on those issues/topics/concepts will continue to be circulated to the masses.
Few authors capture the oddities of a zeitgeist, not just the soaring spirit but the awkwardness, the tiny contradictions that make life both messy and loveable as charmingly as Namita Gokhale— social commentator extraordinaire. Her books are as diverse as her host of unforgettable characters—from incisively witty dissections of individuals against a range of social backdrops to retellings and examinations of Indian mythology.
The Blind Matriarch||Namita Gokhale
Adding to this behemoth of a bibliography is her latest novel, The Blind Matriarch, which sketches a vivid portrait of an Indian joint family against the backdrop of the first and second waves of the pandemic, of the world in flux that we have inhabited for the last two years.
Before you read The Blind Matriarch here’s a quick list to help you acquaint yourself with some of Namita Gokhale’s oeuvre. Go ahead and fill up your to-read list for the month!
Paro|| Namita Gokhale
Paro: Dreams of Passion
First published in 1984, to both notoriety and critical acclaim, Paro remains a social comedy without parallel in contemporary Indian writing. Paro, heroic temptress, glides like an exotic
bird of prey through the world of privilege and Scotch that the rich of Bombay and Delhi inhabit, amidst her motley court of admirers including Lenin, the Marxist son of a cabinet minister; the fat and sinister Shambhu Nath Mishra, Congress Party eminence grise; Bucky Bhandpur, test cricketer and scion of a princely family to name but a few!
Priya||Namita Gokhale
Priya
India is shining, and Suresh Kaushal, the stout lawyer -of sober habits’, has propelled himself up the political ladder to become Minister of State for Food Processing, Animal Husbandry, Fisheries and Canneries. His wife Priya can’t believe their luck and, determined to ensure it doesn’t run out, struggles valiantly with -social vertigo, infidelity and menopause. In this wickedly funny, occasionally tender, book, Namita Gokhale resurrects some unforgettable characters from her 1984 cult bestseller Paro, and plunges them neck-deep into Delhi’s toxic waste of power, money and greed.
Shakuntala: The Play of Memory|| Namita Gokhale
Shakuntala: The Play of Memory
On the ghats of Kashi, the most ancient of cities, a woman confronts memories that have pursued her through birth and rebirth. In the life she recalls, she is Shakuntala of the northern mountains-spirited, imaginative, but destined like her legendary namesake to suffer ‘the samskaras of abandonment’. Stifled by social custom, hungry for experience, she deserts home and family to travel far and wide with a Greek horse merchant she meets by the Ganga. But an old restlessness compels her to forsake this life as well-and court tragedy.
God, Graves and Grandmother|| Namita Gokhale
Gods, Graves and Grandmother
‘Before mother left, in a long-ago time, we had been very rich. My grandmother had been a great singer, a kothewali whose voice was more liquid and beautiful than Lata Mangeshkar’s. Eleven nawabs and two Englishmen were besotted with the love of her.’ From these great heights, Gudiya’s world plunges into the depths of almost complete penury when she arrives in Delhi with her ancient grandmother, Ammi, fleeing small-town scandal and disgrace. Just when all seems lost, Ammi works a miracle: a slab of green marble stolen from a building site, and five rounded pebbles from a sahib’s garden, are transformed by the power of her singing voice into an inviolable place of worship. As we follow the twists and turns of Gudiya’s story, we see unfold before us the peculiar dance of chance and will that is human existence.
A Himalayan Love Story|| Part 1 of the Himalayan Trilogy
A Himalayan Love Story- Book I of the Himalayan Trilogy
A study in unrequited love, with its terrible irony and tragic urgency, told through the tale of two exiles. Parvati is young, beautiful and seemingly doomed; blooming early yet unable to find lasting love. Orphaned in adolescence and adopted by her headmaster uncle, Parvati escapes the constraints of this temporary home but, like many young women before her, finds a new prison in marriage. So when Mukul Nainwal, the local boy who has always loved her, returns to Nainital, he finds Parvati changed—she is a new challenge to his ideals, despite all his worldly success
The Book of Shadows: Book 2 of The Himalayan Trilogy
The Book of Shadows—Book II of the Himalayan Trilogy
Part ghost story, part erotic romance, The Book of Shadows is an ambitious book that investigates the nature of reality, love and faith. Scarred by her lover’s suicide and an acid attack that has left her permanently disfigured, Rachita Tiwari has sought refuge in a remote house in the Himalayan foothills. In this rambling house, built by a foolhardy missionary over a hundred years ago, she lives alone with an ancient and mysterious manservant, Lohaniju. As she retreats into herself, battling for her sanity and fearful of a world she no longer trusts, a different dimension claims her and the tremendous history of the house is played out before her.
Things To Leave Behind|| Part 3 of the Himalayan trilogy
Things to Leave Behind— Book III of the Himalayan Trilogy
Kumaon, 1856. History has already begun its steady march. Six native women clad in black and scarlet pichauras huddle around Naineetal Lake, attempting to cleanse it of ominous influences. Amidst a theatre of British impunity, feisty young Tilottama Dutt, whose uncle is hung when he protests the reigning order, and her daughter, Deoki, confront change as Indians and as women. Here is a fascinating historical epic illuminating with painstaking detail the mixed legacy of the British-Indian past.
Lost in Time: Ghatotkacha and the Game of Illusions
Lost In Time: Ghatotkacha And The Game Of Illusions
Young Chintamani Dev Gupta, on holiday in a bird camp near Lake Sattal, is transported via a wormhole to the days of the Mahabharata. Trapped in time, he meets Ghatotkacha and his mother, the demoness Hidimba. But the gentle giant, a master of illusion and mind-boggling rakshasa technology, wields his strength just as well as he knows the age-old secrets of the forest and the elemental forces. And in his enlightening company, Chintamani finds himself in the thick of the events of the most enduring Indian epic. This unusual take on YA literature offers an intense yet tender look at a rare friendship as well as the abiding puzzles of the past.
The Puffin Mahabharata|| Namita Gokhale
The Puffin Mahabharata
‘Told and retold a million times, the story of the Mahabharata is about defeat as much as victory, about humility as much as courage. It is the greatest story ever told.’
Like a modern-day suta or storyteller, Namita Gokhale brings alive India’s richest literary treasure with disarming ease and simplicity. She retells this timeless tale of mortals and immortals and stories within stories, of valour, deceit, glory, and despair, for today’s young reader in a clear, contemporary style.
The Book of Shiva|| Namita Gokhale
The Book Of Shiva
Shiva: Destroyer and Protector, Supreme Ascetic and Lord of the Universe. He is Ardhanarishwara, half-man and half-woman; he is Neelakantha, who drank poison to save the three worlds-and yet, when crazed with grief at the death of Sati, set about destroying them. Shiva holds within him the answers to some of the greatest dilemmas that have perplexed mankind. Who is Shiva? Why does he roam the world as a naked ascetic covered with ash? What was the tandava? What is the story behind the worship of the linga and what vision of the world does it signify? Namita Gokhale examines these questions and many others that lie within the myriad of stories about Shiva. Even as she unravels his complexities, she finds a philosophy and worldview that is terrifying and yet life-affirming—an outlook that is to many the essence of Indian thought.
In Search of Sita: Revisiting Mythology|| Edited by Malashri Lal and Namita Gokhale
In Search Of Sita: Revisiting Mythology (Edited by Malashri Lal and Namita Gokhale)
Sita is one of the defining figures of Indian womanhood, yet there is no single version of her story. Different accounts coexist in myth, literature and folktale. Canonical texts deify Sita while regional variations humanize her. However, she is remembered, revered or written about, Sita continues to exert a powerful influence on the collective Indian psyche. In Search of Sita presents essays, conversations and commentaries that explore different aspects of her life-offering fresh interpretations of this enigmatic figure and her indelible impact on our everyday lives.
Jaipur Journals: A Love Letter to the Greatest Literary Show on Earth..|| Namita Gokhale
Jaipur Journals
Partly a love letter to the greatest literary show on earth, partly a satire about the glittery set that throngs this literary venue year on year, and partly an ode to the millions of aspiring writers who wander the earth with unsubmitted manuscripts in their bags, Jaipur Journals is a light-footed romp that showcases Gokhale’s unsparing eye for the pretensions and the pathos of that loneliest tribe of them all: the writers. Told from multiple perspectives, set against the backdrop of the vibrant multilingual Jaipur Literature Festival, Jaipur Journals features diverse stories of lost love and regret.
Asoca-often spelled Ashoka-was hailed as Ashoka the Great, the emperor who ruled most of the Indian Subcontinent and was pivotal in the spread of Buddhism from India to other parts of Asia in the third century BC. But his life as emperor was not always led by non-violence. History has it that he masterminded one of the biggest and deadliest wars ever fought, and it was the insurmountable grief he experienced at the sight of the people dying and dead on the battleground that made him turn to Buddhism and take a vow of ahimsa.
Who was the man, and who was the king? What were his demons, and what gave him strength? Asoca: A Sutra, drawn from research and portrayed with energy and complexity, transports the reader to the era of the Mauryan dynasty with atmospheric vividness and insight.
Here are 5 memorable characters from Irwin Allen Sealy’s historical novel
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Asoca||Irwin Allen Sealy
Asoca – The nonconformist, mighty emperor of the Mauryan empire. A contrarian by nature, he is stubborn but thoughtful. He may not the most good-looking man, but for his mother he is her ‘little rhizome.’
‘From early childhood words were a game, and the pleasures of this game were those of reshaping the world… Rule your speech and you rule the world. My voice owed a little to every person and place I had known and admired, but the mix was mine alone.’
‘The hardest part, I found, was sitting there at all once all your factotums had left: alone with empire, imagining the extent of it off to one side and then the other way and then forward and backward on every side till you felt yourself positively abandoned.’
‘Every kingdom needs an honest, fearless man…to show up both the charlatan who seizes power and the incumbent who has lost his way.’
Uncle K – The shrewd strategist of Mauryan legacy, the creator of the immense Arthashastra, Asoca’s Uncle K is always by the King’s side. The King’s chief advisor, Uncle K talks like a book and his eyes, ears and mind are everywhere.
“Crooked as his name portends, bent in every part, twisted from hairpiece to toenails, this aged crow makes blackness look grey. Guile is younger—the hills are younger—than Kautilya, maker and keeper of kings.”
“The arch-monarchist for whom the kingdom was more important than his tenure as prime minister, than his own position as kingmaker, than life itself.”
Bindusara, the Dotted – He is the handsome Mauryan King, the man of virtues who prefers reconciliation to war. He grew up to rule—and to rue the day he was born.
‘My father Bindusara was a handsome man. Good looks were important to him, and they reappeared in his firstborn like vindication. Susima was a mirror in which he saw his chief virtue displayed, and father and son took it less as a gift of nature than as a divine right: it was a mark of approval, even, you would think, accomplishment.’
‘Father, whose sword leapt from its scabbard in the course of every rousing speech, whose lusty verses were applauded in the gardens at the annual festival, and whose concubines lived in terror of a visit on any given night, this man was crying.’
Madhumitta – Her name implies nectar of the gods. She is Asoca’s Queen Bee, his anchor, the woman he loved and desired.
‘The look in her eye said she would serve the truth. Such assurance burns in the elect; it is what creates disciples. Her determination awed me. Service was to me an abstract concept, a secular, almost departmental thing. For Madhumitta it was an article of faith.’
‘Madhumitta, dear wife, I cannot believe you have forgotten me in your nunnery. I have forgotten nothing, not the tender abstraction on your forehead, not the soft broom in your gentle hand of a morning, not the silent reproof to an erring child or errant husband, not the loving kindness you spread through that house you ruled.’
Susima – The eldest son of Bindusara, heir apparent of the empire. The apple of everyone’s eyes, he become Asoca’s arch-rival in his quest for the throne.
‘He [Susima] was, truth be told, the noblest of us all. He didn’t lie or cheat or push and shove and scramble. But then, he didn’t have to. He carried himself as if the crown were a settled thing.’
‘Susima, ultimate theoretician, wrapped in birchbark scroll for armour. He was still the master of the cool shot, born of meditation and intellect; I was the poor guerilla. A Susiman universe was the opposite of mine.’
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Asoca: A Sutra leaves the reader breathless with the full-bodied richness of Sealy’s prose, his trademark whimsy and his imaginative modern reconstruction of that enigmatic and brilliant ruler of the Indian subcontinent.
The Incomparable Festival (Musaddas Tahniyat-e-Jashn-e-Benazir) by Mir Yar Ali (whose pen name was Jan Sahib) is a little-known but sumptuous masterpiece of Indo-Islamic literary culture, presented here for the first time in English translation. This extended poem celebrates the royal festival popularly called jashn-e-benazir(the incomparable festival), inaugurated in 1866 by the Nawab Kalb-e-Ali Khan (r. 1865-87) with the aim of promoting art, culture and trade in his kingdom at Rampur in northern India. The task of commemorating the sights and wonders of the festival was given to the hugely popular writer of rekhti verse, that tart and playful sub-genre of the ghazal, reflecting popular women’s speech, of which Jan Sahib was one of the last practitioners.
The poem is a world album depicting various classes on the cusp of social upheaval ranging across legendary khayal singers, percussionists, and instrumentalists, courtesans, boy-dancers, poets, storytellers (dastango) and reciters of elegies (marsiyago). It brings to light their culinary tastes, artisanal products, religious rituals and beliefs, and savoury idioms, delineating identities of caste and gender in early modern society.
Read on to step into another, more colourful world from the past and immerse yourself in the chaotic, prismatic brilliance of the jashn-e-benazir.
A wine-girl from Aminabad, to Rampur have I come.
I am the only one whom his presence considers
welcome.
As for the others, on my appearance their allure has
become—
The difference between hellfire and light, O sweet
kingdom!
May he shower me with bounty every year and always!
The nameworthy Nawab may he survive always!
[31]
The train of us wine-girls will always be the rarest.
To the seat in the royal crimson pavilion we are nearest.
With hookahs made of gold and silver are we blest.
Sending blessings upon the rich, puff away the humblest.
We charge two gold coins for one fill of the hookah.
They come here to smoke, from the rajah to the fellah.
[32]
How well their stalls the moneychangers have decorated!
Gold and silver ornaments on sheets lie uncounted.
Without a fear of thieves, they are happily exhibited.
Heaps of rupee and gold coins lie everywhere deposited.
They are eager to raise loans of pice and cowries.
‘Come!’ they holler if you want to change your monies.
[33]
There the jewellers’ shops are, about which here’s the
statement:
Weighing precious stones, Mr Ruby-Pearls makes an
assessment.
Two brokers he has but their partnership causes some
bafflement:
Emerald says to diamond, about our value how can
there be agreement?
Madams Nose-Ring and Ruby some jewels have they
bought.
With the munificence of His Highness, gratis have they
got.
[34]
The drapers have their shops so well-carpeted,
That the satin sky observing them is impressed.
Such pieces of brocades and damask are on display
spread!
And bundles of golden lace lie about unwrapped.
All the fairgoers, whether from near or far, declare:
Pieces of muslin embroidery spread around a glare.
[35]
The status of each retailer is told by his ware.
All his ware from home is brought here to the fair.
At throwaway rates, a fixed price is tagged nowhere.
He doesn’t have to ask: how many would you care?
Well, when the nameworthy Nawab is recompensing,
What shopkeeper would not make a killing!
[36]
Abundance at no price is the fair’s condition.
A player beg for alms? That is out of the question.
With a smile on their face, each player shows perfection.
The prince is a connoisseur and they’re sure of his
appreciation.
The wheel of heaven stops with their magical tricks,
Turning a hide into a cat, and other feather-into-a-
In this unique tale of suppression and suffering the distinctive traits of the characters is what holds the attention of the reader and brings poignance to the narration. Here’s a quick look at the characters that make China Room the fascinating tale that it is.
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China Room||Sunjeev Sahota
Mehar
Mehar is the first character we are introduced to in the book. She enjoys a life as carefree as any child until news breaks that she is to be married to a man she has never met at the age of 15. Following this marriage, she starts living in a small room with two other women. The three of them were married to three brothers in a single ceremony, but they cannot identify their husbands. Mehar constantly develops tests and theories despite the risk to determine which one is hers. Any questions related to the identity of the brothers are rebuffed, and Mehar soon discovers that all her efforts for clarity and independence only bring danger and threats.
Mehar is one of the two protagonists of China Room.
The Great Grandson
Fast forward to 1999 and an unnamed young man from the UK, lonely, alienated and isolated, ground down by the relentless racism (overt and hidden) and the violence of the life he has experienced, culturally estranged, finds himself in the throes of a heroin addiction. Despite knowing little of India, he finds himself in the family home in the Punjab to address his addiction prior to starting university. During his stay he meets a young local woman who he strikes up a friendship with and this changes the path his life takes thereafter.
He is Mehar’s great grandson and even though his story unfolds in less detail than hers, he is the second protagonist of China Room.
Mai
Mai, being a widow, is the matriarch and prototypical overbearing mother-in-law to three new brides. She is a hard and unrelenting task master to everyone she comes across including her own sons. She has sequestered the girls from contact with the men—except when she summons them to a darkened chamber at night in the hope that they become pregnant with a son. She is a tyrannical figure who makes everything about the young girls’ lives oppressive and hard, the work, the claustrophobic veils and small suffocating areas that they had to work in and sleep. She guards the identities of her sons from her daughters-in-law fiercely.
Harbans and Gurleen
The other two new brides that married into the family along with Mehar. Gurleen is a meek and diligent worker, while Harbans likes to grumble and banter. They, along with Mehar, spend their days doing chores. Mehar considers them both her sisters.
The Three Brothers
The three brothers, of which one is our protagonist Meher’s husband, are an enigma in this story. The author doesn’t reveal too much about them so they are as much of a mystery to the readers as to their spouses, but they seem to be detestable characters. They are described as individuals who are sweaty and carry strong odours, to the extent that it is their individual body odours that Meher uses to identify them. They work hard all day and physical labour is their main contribution to the family’s economy, but there is something quite despicable about their overt masculinity.
While many use religion to justify why they are being unfair to a person’s gender and sexuality, Devdutt Pattanaik in his books The Pregnant King and Shikhandi And Other Queer Tales They Don’t Tell You shows how mythologies across the world appreciate what we deem as queer. Here are 6 quotes on what it means to be a man, a woman, or a queer. What it feels to be a woman Repercussion of Patriarchy The meaning of queer in different mythologies Should the queer hide or be heard like the thunderous clap of the hijra? The functions of the forms Traces of feminism in Hindu mythology Read Devdutt Pattanaik’sThe Pregnant King and Shikhandi And Other Queer Tales They Don’t Tell You and make sense of queerness and the diversity in society.
Cars are such an intrinsic part of our lives that it is difficult to visualise a world without them. Although they are the second biggest villain when it comes to air pollution, some villains come in attractive packages and arouse varied passions in the human heart. Gautam Sen’s articulate and extremely readable look at cars, ‘The Automobile: An Indian Love Affair’ gives us a peek into the past and how this industry has evolved. An insight that traverses down the memory lane giving us snippets of information that creates a clearer picture of a familiar and well-loved subject. Knowing about the evolution of the automobile is never a dull subject because all of us regardless of what generation we belong to, have witnessed this gradual unfolding of the multitudinous avatars of the four wheeler.
The Automobile||Gautam Sen
The biggest patrons of cars in the early 20th century were the several princely states during the British Raj. For the Maharajas owning cars was more of a quirk than actually a means for transportation. There are exceedingly entertaining anecdotes of how the Maharaja of Bharatpur converted his Rolls Royce into a hunting car equipped with a howdah (a seat for elephants usually) and how another Maharaja after being insulted by the sales person in London proceeded to buy a whole fleet of luxury cars that would only carry the garbage of the city! Let’s not forget that the Indian royalty were genuine connoisseurs and patrons of the growing automobile industry. The love affair with cars in India continued as industrialists joined the royalty in their predilection for cars. Bentleys, Rolls Royces, Jaguars, Cadillacs and Mercedes Benz were some of the names that became commonly known amongst the upper class in the country. There are interesting instances of art collectors from princely families tracing and acquiring rare vehicles. Owing to a desire to embrace modernity a lot of these erstwhile owners of fancy luxury cars abandoned them, but for some it became a passion of a lifetime to salvage them. Protap Roy a prince from Bengal and Roni Khan from Mumbai were two such individuals. Like-minded people created the Vintage and Classic Car Club of India and a passion for maintaining old cars as the auto heritage of India manifested in the shape of the Auto World Vintage Car Museum.
Moving on from the romance of the classical styles to the more functional ones over the decades post independence, the evolution of cars and their influence on society and culture is not without its own drama. In Hindi films we saw a surfeit of Impalas, and the films generally ended with a car chase where breaks would fail over a precipice. Fiats and ambassadors were the most common cars seen on Indian roads during the 60s and 70s. With the advent of the 80s the tiny Maruti made its debut on the scene and there was a rush to book this car of the future. In Indian villages folk songs were composed in praise of this car and the owner of a Maruti car was judged as someone quite successful in his life. However, these were still times when families owned just one car, the family car regardless of its size. Cars weren’t air-conditioned and it was quite an agony to be driving in the hot Indian summer with the car packed with the entire family.
Slowly with liberalisation and globalisation the Indian economy took off, and since cars are truly the barometer of the economic health of a country, a variety of new cars could be seen on the Indian roads. New competition made Maruti bring out more luxurious and larger cars into the market. Korean, Japanese, American motor companies were some that found a willing market in India. Recent history is something we are all aware of, there are cars available for every taste and to suit every pocket. Easy car loans make it possible for the young to buy a car fairly easily. In fact now our problem is a surfeit of cars and the horrific traffic situation in larger towns. One also sees more women drivers on the roads as the easy availability of cars is synonymous with the independence and safety of women in our country. Most families have several cars to facilitate all the members of the family and most people are constantly looking to upgrade their mode of transport depending on their financial situation. A love for travel and adventure sports has brought in a variety of SUVs, larger utility vans as well as jeeps into the market. Culturally we aren’t really very different from the western world when it comes to emotions aroused by a car. So these lyrics from the Tracy Chapman song Fast Car make a lot of sense when it comes to young dreams:
Robert T. Kiyosaki grew up with two dads. His own, and his best friends’. Both men, he tells us, were successful in their careers, working hard all their lives. Both earned substantial incomes. Yet one always struggled financially. The other would become one of the richest men in Hawaii.
Both men were strong, charismatic, and influencial. Both men offered Robert advice, but they did not advice the same things.
Which dad’s advice would you like us to share with you today?
Rich Dad? Well, we thought so.
Here are seven pieces of advice that Robert got from Rich Dad:
“A job is only a short-term solution to a long-term problem. Most people have only one problem in mind, and it’s short-term. It’s the bills at the end of the month, the Tar Baby. Money controls their lives, or should I say the fear and ignorance about money controls it. So they do as their parents did. They get up every day and go to work for money, not taking the time to ask the question, ‘Is there another way?’ Their emotions now control their thinking, not their heads.”
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“The Rich know that money is an illusion, truly like the carrot for the donkey. It’s only out of fear and greed that the illusion of money is held together by billions of people who believe that money is real. It’s not. Money is really made up. It is only because of the illusion of confidence and the ignorance of the masses that this house of cards stands.”
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“Illiteracy, both in words and numbers, is the foundation of financial struggle. If people are having difficulties financially, there is something that they don’t understand, either in words or numbers. The rich are rich because they are more literate in different areas then people who struggle financially. So if you want to be rich and maintain your wealth, it’s important to be financially literate, in words as well as numbers.”
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“Start minding your business. Keep your daytime job, but start buying really assets, not liabilities.”
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“An important distinction is that rich people buy luxuries last, while the poor and middle class often buy luxuries first… The old-money people, the long-term rich, build their asset column first. Then the income generated from the asset column buys their luxuries.”
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“Great opportunities are not seen with your eyes. They are seen with your mind. Most people will never get wealthy because they are not trained financially to recognize opportunities right in front of them.”
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“Fear inspires winners. And failure defeats losers. It is the biggest secret of winners. It’s the secret losers don’t know. The greatest secret of winners is that failure inspires winning; thus, they’re not afraid of losing.”
Enriched by Kiyosaki’s personal experience and the teachings he received from his rich dad and poor dad, Rich Dad Poor Dad highlights different attitudes towards money, work and life.
So the stage is set, the curtain about to rise. Tomorrow, Sarasavi Bookshop at One Galle Face will be launching my first book in 5 years. I don’t know really know why, but there’s something of a feeding frenzy going on. Old aunties in kaftans and dangling earrings are jostling for pole position, rising from their covid-stricken beds, throwing caution and turmeric to the winds. I have explained to everyone that there’s a pandemic on, and please, they mustn’t feel the need to humour me by turning up.
‘How could we not?’ they say in incredulous tones. ‘We simply HAVE to be there for you!’
And who am I to spurn such loyalty? Though it’s something of a toss-up whether they’re there for me, or because they’re fed up having sat at home socially isolated all year. Or perhaps they’re coming for the bubbly that’s going to be served, in plastic cups. (Never spoil an Auntie, has always been my motto.)
In the middle of all this chaos, Colombo Fashion Week rings up.
‘Is it true you’re launching your book on the last night of fashion week?’ they ask sternly. Obviously I have committed some grave social faux pas, though I do not know quite what. (In the normal way of things, Ashok Ferrey knows as much about fashion as Mother Theresa does about disco dancing.)
‘Yes,’ I reply tremulously. ‘But it’s an early show, 4.30 – 6 pm.’
‘So that’s OK then,’ they reply. ‘Because we’ll be requiring you on stage to recite the opening poem. At 7.30 sharp.’
‘But I’ll be tired,’ I bleat.
The Unmarriageable Man || Ashok Ferrey
‘You? Tired?’ They curl their upper lip. (Colombo Fashion Week does a very good curled upper lip.)
‘Don’t be late. Wardrobe will be in touch to let you know which designer you’re wearing.’
It seems that I have to recite the alternate lines of a song, with the amazing Julius Mitchell singing, and on keyboards.
I think to myself: It’s a good thing Ashok Ferrey isn’t going to be the one singing. Otherwise it really will be the last night of Colombo Fashion Week. Forever.
Exuberance and dread, attachment and estrangement: in this novel, Jhumpa Lahiri stretches her themes to the limit. The woman at the center wavers between stasis and movement, between the need to belong and the refusal to form lasting ties. The city she calls home, an engaging backdrop to her days, acts as a confidant: the sidewalks around her house, parks, bridges, piazzas, streets, stores, coffee bars. We follow her to the pool she frequents and to the train station that sometimes leads her to her mother, mired in a desperate solitude after her father’s untimely death. In addition to colleagues at work, where she never quite feels at ease, she has girl friends, guy friends, and “him,” a shadow who both consoles and unsettles her. But in the arc of a year, as one season gives way to the next, transformation awaits. One day at the sea, both overwhelmed and replenished by the sun’s vital heat, her perspective will change. This is the first novel she has written in Italian and translated into English. It brims with the impulse to cross barriers. By grafting herself onto a new literary language, Lahiri has pushed herself to a new level of artistic achievement.
Here is an excerpt from the book Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri:
The city doesn’t beckon or lend me a shoulder today. Maybe it knows I’m about to leave. The sun’s dull disk defeats me; the dense sky is the same one that will carry me away. That vast and vaporous territory, lacking precise pathways, is all that binds us together now. But it never preserves our tracks. The sky, unlike the sea, never holds on to the people that pass through it. The sky contains nothing of our spirit, it doesn’t care. Always shifting, altering its aspect from one moment to the next, it can’t be defined.
Whereabouts| Jhumpa Lahiri
This morning I’m scared. I’m afraid to leave this house, this neighborhood, this urban cocoon. But I’ve already got one foot out the door. The suitcases, purchased at my former stationery store, are already packed. I just need to lock them now. I’ve given the key to my subletter and I’ve told her how often she needs to water the plants, and how the handle of the door to the balcony sometimes sticks. I’ve emptied out one closet and locked another, inside of which I’ve amassed everything I consider important. It’s not much in the end: notebooks, letters, some photos and papers, my diligent agendas. As for the rest, I don’t really care, though it does occur to me that for the first time someone else will be using my cups, dishes, forks, and napkins on a daily basis.
Last night at dinner, at a friend’s house, everyone wished me well, telling me to have a wonderful time. They hugged me and said, Good luck! He wasn’t there, he had other plans. I had a nice time anyway, we lingered at the table, still talking after midnight.
I tell myself: A new sky awaits me, even though it’s the same as this one. In some ways it will be quite grand. For an entire year, for example, I won’t have to shop for food, or cook, or do the dishes. I’ll never have to eat dinner by myself.
I might have said no, I might have just stayed put. But something’s telling me to push past the barrier of my life, just like the dog that pulled me along the paths of the villa. And so I heed my call, having come to know the guts and soul of this place a little too well. It’s just that today, feeling slothful, I’m prey to those embedded fears that don’t dissipate.
