The Road To Nirvana Is Paved With Distractions

During this lockdown, I’ve maintained a disciplined schedule of working out, sleeping well, eating healthy and lying shamelessly. But the one activity that I’m honestly trying to get better at is meditation, and yes I’m gonna ignore the fact that taking deep, relaxing breaths during a pandemic marked by breathlessness feels a little bit like showing off. It’s like running 100-metre sprints during the polio crisis or telling Okinawa war vets that kamikazes are delicious and they should totes try some.

For the record, I’d like to state that meditation truly is a life-changing invention, like the wheel or the ‘Skip Intro’ button. So any shortcomings are mine and mine alone. For example, on most days, I can spend six hours staring at my toenails but when I decide to meditate for just fifteen minutes, I suddenly have the schedule of an ER surgeon who’s also the President Of The World during an ongoing alien invasion.

The next step is to open the Headspace app on my phone (no, this is not a paid post – also nobody has paid for the written word since 2008.) But when I unlock my phone to open Headspace, some magical time travel happens and boom, it’s one hour later and I’m still on Insta and Twitter and now I want to slap people more than I did at the start of the day, so I’m worried a 15-minute session won’t cut it but I can’t do longer because remember, the aliens have just blown up the White House and I’m Bill Pullman giving a speech while simultaneously performing a C-section with my feet but whatever, let’s start.

Lights dimmed, notifications off, just the calming session playing and I start taking a few deep breaths, shutting out the world, my body relaxing as I focus on the inhale-exhale cycle, in through the nose, slowly out through the mouth, in through the nose, slowwwwly out through the mouth, in through the I LOVE IT WHEN WHEN YOU CALL ME SENORITA, NA MAIN SAMHA NA MAIN JAANA ugh earworm, okay focus, inhale, slow exhale, inhale, slow MUJHSE NAZAR NA PHEROOOO wow always the Abhay Deol voice, stupid brain, okay focus focus, why is my butt suddenly itchy, is it a symptom of colorectal cancer, is this how I die, I’m glad they called it colorectal cancer ‘cos if you told people they had ass cancer they would just laugh haha, oh hey that broccoli in the fridge might go bad soon, isn’t it weird how broccoli looks like gobhi that ate a lot of broccoli, oho is this what they call a veg joke wow Ashish aaj toh angaar hi angaar OKAY FOCUS YOU IDIOT and remember what you learnt: don’t try to fight the thoughts, let them come and go, don’t latch on to them, see them as clouds drifting across the sky, bye bye ass cancer thought, okay the mind is clear again phew, let’s just count breaths… 1… 2… 3… deep breaths deep breaths deep breaths deep RACE SAANSON KI!! I give up.

The lockdown is by no means my first attempt at meditation. I started a few years ago and by ‘started’ I mean I did it only when I felt like it, a strategy I’d also like to apply to taxes. My aversion was partly because I was once made to attend a three-day meditation camp as a kid. This proves the adage that whether it’s religion or karela, if you were forced to do it as a child, you’ll probably hate it as an adult. (Heroin is a notable exception to this rule.)

Anyway, this happened when I was ten and visiting my cousins in Ghaziabad, a town in U.P famous for its traditional murders, power cuts and murders during power cuts. But something worse was in store when I found out that I, along with two cousins my age, were to be bundled off to some meditation camp for kids, probably because the nearest gulag was full.

To be fair, some of my older uncles had gotten into meditation and wanted us to experience the same clarity of thought and peace of mind, which we did anyway BECAUSE WE WERE KIDS AND THAT WAS OUR DEFAULT STATE. In fact, the only stress I had in life was about being plonked into this camp during my summer holidays, which I’d planned to spend going back and forth between comic books and TV while slowly replacing all the fluids in my body with Thums Up.

My cousins and I protested the decision but minority voices in U.P are often ignored. Three hours later, we were deposited at the camp in Delhi whose name I forget but it was run by the same people who run that famous 10-day vipassana course that your hippie friend won’t shut up about. That’s the one where you wake up at 4 a.m., meditate for about 10 hours a day while maintaining absolute silence for the entire 10-day duration, but by the end you feel amazing because you get to leave.

Thankfully, as kids, we had way fewer hours of meditation. The sessions were split across the day and drove home the basics: focusing on one’s breath and blocking out all thoughts about how much you hate your uncles. The No Talking rule also only applied to a small radius outside the main meditation hall because the headline ‘INSTRUCTORS MAULED BY TWO HUNDRED FERAL KIDS, NO ONE SAW ANYTHING’ would’ve been bad PR.

There were other non-meditation activities as well like drawing, playing in the park, slowly digging a hole in the wall and covering it with a Rita Hayworth poster etc. We also had multiple meal breaks where we enjoyed khichdi and lauki, the scintillating cuisine of jaundice patients. A huge curtain ran through the centre of the dining hall, separating the boys and girls, which was hugely discriminatory against a boy who had just spotted a cute girl and fallen in love, something that happened every three days at that age. It was pointless though. Even if I’d had the guts or the charm to talk to her, what could I really say at a meditation shivir? “Heyyy… nice nostrils. You inhale really well. Do you want to get some lauki tonight?”

Of course things have changed since, or as the poet Rilke once wrote, “Friendship ended with childhood, stress is my best friend now.” And while it’s definitely not a substitute for professional help, meditation has served as a helpful anxiety mitigation device, much better than my other techniques like large whiskeys and restless leg shaking that looks like Elvis getting electrocuted.

But you don’t need to wait for undue life stress to kick in before you try it. That sense of focus and equanimity feels great at any point. The only side-effect is that you might use the phrase ‘high on life’ unironically, in which case please walk into the nearest glass door repeatedly until that urge subsides.

Also, to the women reading this: in case you were at that meditation camp and think you may be the girl from my story, do feel free to get in touch. I don’t know your name but I will recognize your nostrils.

Stop, Or My Mom Will Refute!

Last week, the Indian government finally managed to get its hands on 26/11 handler Abu Jundal, probably because Kasab was bored and demanded company (I mean there’s only so much goat porn one can watch) The arrest has been described as a major achievement for India, because we can now finally prove that Pakistan was behind the attacks, as opposed to earlier when the evidence pointed to pygmies from Congo.

Abu Jundal is reportedly a nasty piece of work, who evaded arrest all these years via the standard method of nibbling softly on the ISI’s earlobe. And now that he’s in custody, the circus will go on as usual: India will interrogate him until he reveals shocking details like Pakistan runs terror camps, or that Shahid Afridi and Rekha share the same anti-ageing DNA, after which Manmohan Singh will reiterate his anti-terror policy by staring balefully at Pakistan until the US feels sorry for India and promises to write a remark in Zardari’s diary.

Then there was also Jundal’s mother claiming that he was innocent. I feel bad for her, as you would do for a mother whose son turns out to be a mass murderer. You know how it is – you spend all day taking care of your kid, but you turn your back for one second, and the tyke sticks a pencil in his nose, or walks into an LeT camp. It happens. And she probably really believes that he is innocent, and that he went to Pakistan only for the wild beach parties.

It’s not her fault. As an Indian mother, she is genetically wired to reject any statement that goes against the idea of her son being the Noble King of Sunshine and Rainbow Land. It doesn’t matter what sort of maniac we’re talking about. If Hitler were Indian, his mother would have rushed to his defence saying that he was a sweet boy who had been led astray by that Mussolini kid. (For some reason, I see Kirron Kher as the mother, stuffing Hitler’s face with paranthas going, “Kitna patla ho gaya hai! Bilkul Jewish lag raha hai!“)

Things don’t change that much with age. I’m 27, and my mother sometimes still treats me like I’m at the mental age of Rahul Gandhi. It doesn’t matter what I say – nothing seems to beat her ninja-like maternal reflex. This is what the average conversation in my house sounds like:

Me: Greetings, O Maternal Figure. I have come here only to tell you that I recently saw a burning bush and had an epiphany, thanks to which I shall now march into active war-zones to preach the message of love through shamanism and interpretive dance, while wearing only satin boxers and a towel as a cape.

Mom: Uh huh. Did you have breakfast today?

OK, I’m kidding. Sometimes she also responds with, “Get a haircut.”

It’s also amazing how mothers operate on worst-scenario mode. Son’s gone for a rock show? Probably doing drugs. Gone to a party? Probably doing drugs. The party’s in Juhu? Definitely doing drugs. A prime example of this was when I was in school, and used to frequent a McDonald’s (because this was New Bombay, and McDonald’s was our Fire and Ice, okay?)

Anyway, in an example of stellar planning, the place next to the McD’s was a flashy dance bar. So yes, at one point, I was duly asked, if I, a wisp of a teenager, had ever been to the dance bar. I didn’t know what to say, so I said no and went back to pawning my mom’s jewellery. (Mom, if you’re reading this, relax. I only did it to pay for the abortion.)

The best way to counter maternal paranoia is to just agree. I realised this in college, when I came home after a “DJ Nite!” at a fest and gleefully chatted about the pot-filled classrooms that I’d been sitting around in. I don’t think my mother will ever forgive me for that shock. (She’s started with her revenge though – she keeps throwing around words like ‘arranged’ and ‘marriage’ without using any other words in between.)

Also, I’m glad that I have no real arguments with my parents anymore. It’s a wonderful thing that you only begin to see in your twenties, and I’m all for it. I also know that no matter what I do, I can count on my mother to stand by me, while blaming my misdeeds on those pygmies from Congo.

(Note: This is my HT column dated 1st July 2012. Link to original post here.)