Kanha Tiger Reserve

I remember reading about Secret Service Agents. You know the ones whom would sit in a corner and scan the entire room while being focused on everything that was happening. They’d notice every movement and every conversation each person was making and would be the first ones to react to any change.

I am different. I can barely focus on the task I’m working on for more than 5 minutes even when it is the only thing I have to do. I never quite understood these mavericks who had that broad vision and yet attention to everything.

And that brings me to my recent trip to Kanha. Kanha National Park is one of the tiger reserves of India. Stretching over 1,945 sqkm expanding over forests and meadows, Kanha is big. BIG. In fact it took our jeep over 4 hours to cover every track inside the forest in hopes of seeing the Royal Bengal Tiger. But more on that later.

As the jeep goes through the jungle, it offers a sight unimaginable for eyes born and brought up in cities. The vast jungle is accompanied by stretches of meadows or open grasslands which expand as far as the eyes can see. You may compare it to looking at the ocean from a beach, but this is different. There may be signs of activity far off. You might mistake a deer for a tree or a far-off bison for a rock. You can never be too careful about what you might miss. For as far as you can see, you better be attentive? Because no rules that you can think of apply in the jungle. Animals are good at blending in with their surroundings and you never know where they might come out of and when they might attack you, much like they don’t know when they might have to fight or take flight for their own lives. Your eyes show you more than you’ve ever seen. No walls or buildings block your vision. There’s nothing to focus on. And yet one moment of complacence might mean the difference between life and death. You’re always ready, yet you have nothing particular to be ready for. So you are focused on nothing, except the entire jungle.

The perspective widens. To me, it opened a new way of “seeing” things. As if my mind didn’t know that my eyes were even capable of seeing something like this. It was a very literal rendition of the words “the complete picture”, when you have something to see for as far as it is possible to see. After a while it didn’t remain about spotting a tiger. I admired the forest itself rather than the deer, elephants, bulls, and monkeys crossing our path every so often.

Time and again we’d stop to see an elephant crossing, or a bison drinking from a lake, or monkeys just hanging out and being monkeys. One very captivating scene we stopped for was a bunch of deer and monkeys hanging out together. They were intermingling, lying on the ground together, sharing a drink from the pond, chewing leaves… basically they were being buds. It was like seeing my company’s IT team mingling with the marketing guys in a company picnic. But it also showed that this was a place where they had no fear, for the jungle is a place where you always live in fear of predators. But they seemed to have found a nice spot for themselves to hang out and feel free. And it was a little ironic to see monkeys being more relaxed in life in general than I was. Made me doubt if human evolution was really such a good idea.

I’m back at home now, reminiscing about the trip. Part of me wants to go back and see that beautiful expanse again (the rest of me is thinking about lunch). Maybe I’ll go back. Maybe I won’t. Most probably I’ll go somewhere else and find something even more stupendous. Till then, my mind keeps going back to those Secret Service Agents. Sometimes you need to experience a perspective to understand it. Sometimes it comes in the form of advanced military training. Sometimes, it comes in sitting in an open jeep going through a jungle trying to spot a Royal Bengal Tiger.

MBA Theory

Prelude

Recently I was asked to work with a person. This guy is an MBA and in typical MBA fashion, talks a lot. I was once on the phone with him for 9 minutes (in which obviously he did most of the talking) and at the end of it I felt I gained no new information. I kept asking him to email whatever details he was sharing and he kept giving excuses about why he wouldn't/couldn't email me what he was telling. He is always late for meetings. At one point he told me, "I have an early morning appointment at Nariman Point at 11:30 AM." I had no idea on how to react to that. 11:30 AM for me is noon before which I can feed my dog after walking it after buying one after researching about which one to buy. But this guy makes good rapport with people, something which I have had trouble with. He follows no schedule and is something of a free-willer. I see him as someone who absolutely lacks discipline and I could not for the life of me work with him. But I have to. I get irritated while talking to him and I conduct conversations with him on an overly no-nonsense basis. He makes commitments and gives promises I know he has neither researched about nor can he fulfill. Besides I just get irritated on him talking too much and documenting nothing. So here's my theory.

There are 2 types of people in the world. Finance guys (in lack of a better word) and Marketers. There are also HR people but they are useless. We'll come back to them in a moment.

The Finance Guy

Now Finance people are organized like the excel sheets they work on. They follow strict logic and a code of conduct. They also have a creative tune to them but even their creativity is so systematic and bounded by rules that it doesn't look like creativity at all. Like Sango (the God XLRI teacher), Finance people don't speak too many words. But each word they speak is backed up by legally binding papers (or a strong will). Very few times you'd see a proper Finner (slang term for Finance guy) making a commitment without backing it up by anything other than his own will. At its extreme, this guy would be an anti-social person who's unable to understand social customs and etiquette. He's the guy who does all the work on a project but hates making the presentation to a bunch of people. He is in need of a Marketer who can protect him from the world which he does not care about. These people are generally found in the field of Finance (obviously), scientific research, academia, literature, military, and Infosys.

                             

The Marketer

On the other hand, Marketers are bakchods in the truest sense of the word. They hate documentation simply because they are too lazy to write anything. Also they lack the discipline to follow a task to its end. They need someone to takeover the task from their hands in the middle. They live in constant hope that things will eventually fall in place on their own. It's not that they don't think about making an effort. The thing is they don't think that making an effort has any value. "Jisne paida kiya wo palega". This refers to God when they talk about it but a Finner would say this refers to their parents. Marketers are people who understand “people”. They know that human beings are bundles of emotions rather than logical algorithms. This is an insight which enables them to work with people. This baffles Finners because Finners expect people to be logical. They aren't. Marketers are generally found in funded start-ups, FMCG companies, call centers, broking houses, and in their homes unemployed.

But there's a danger to the complete lack of adherence to rules and discipline. If stretched too far, a Marketers may fall into the trap of being an HR. Let's take a moment to appreciate that.

While a Marketers seem to be idling their time away, they are the glue binding the group. Heaven knows if a team is left to the Finner it wouldn't last a day. Marketers know how to hold a group together, even if they do it sub-consciously. But the Marketer can claim to be a genuine marketer, seemingly bringing business and holding the team together, while he might actually be an HR wearing the skin of a Marketer.

And that's where the game gets dangerous. For you don't know if the guy you're dealing with is an agile antelope or a wolf wearing a deer carcass. This confusion makes Finners such as myself irritated. Note, we already hate not knowing stuff. You cannot codify something that lacks logic and definition. On top of that, we have to figure out if the person we are dealing with is Superman or Lex Luther (because of course, we ourselves are Batmen). We fail to understand which side to take and then often, end up attacking the wrong person. Because both Marketers and HRs irritate us with similar traits. But one of them helps the business while the other is the bane of our existence (get it? "Bane". OK enough DC jokes).

And so the battle continues.

In Summary

Finner	Marketer	HR
Usually seen with hands in pockets. A sign of being closed to others	Usually seen with frantically moving hands. Too excited about everything on the planet	Usually seen with hands inside their pants. Enough said
Reaches at 2:00 for a meeting scheduled at 4:00	Reaches at 6:00 for a meeting scheduled at 4:00. On the next day	Times to meet coincide with lunch time
Uses few words while speaking	Uses few breaths while speaking	Does not speak unless a direct threat is made
Phone conversations last 30 seconds flat	Take 10 minutes on the phone to warm up	Phone conversations restricted to calling you in their cabin – and that means trouble
Prefers documenting information (orgasms on graphs and charts)	Prefers one long monologue for all the information	Can quote “company policies and guidelines” by heart – lack awareness for anything else in the world
Have a fixed routine of work	Asks you for the spelling of “routine”	Can quote “company policies and guidelines by heart – lack awareness for anything else in the world
Treats people as logical creatures	Treats people as emotional creatures	Does not treat people as creatures
Socially apathetic	Socially overwhelming	Socially pathetic
Makes the presentation	Presents the presentation	Finds flaws in the presentation
Pessimists	Optimists	Idiots
Does not rely on God	Relies on God	Thinks of himself as God
Perfect example: Batman	Perfect example: Joker	Perfect example: Rahul Gandhi
Idea job: Research	Ideal job: Salesman	Ideal job: Professional Candy Crush player

Post Script

So how do you make a Finner to the core work with a Marketer? It's like building a road on a wave. You cannot do it. But it's essential for them to work together. And here comes the solution in the Indian way. Have an arranged marriage.

This does not mean actually get them married. No. What I mean is get them together first without assigning them work. And do it fast! Make them comfortable with each other. Break it to them that the only way they can possibly be allowed to exist is to get along with the other. Else they shall perish. Fucking bind them together! In all lost hope, the two shall learn to coexist, without responsibilities. They shall laugh, love, party, and get habituated to one another without any sense of responsibility while you, the mastermind, bide your time. Once you see that they are now realizing their mismatch and potential incompatibility, then and only then should you assign them the work of producing output from their association. And as before, do it fast. This situation if handled wrongly can lead to total disaster. So handle it delicately, and once they have produced a shoddy bloody mess of work, ask them to take care of it. Now you have a productive output with the blood of your minions attached to it. And they shall bleed to make it a success. Now, in the truest sense, you've joined them. And that's how an HR binds a Finner to a Marketer.

Drumroll

1

‘Hi! Tushar,’ said the young guy in a tuxedo stretching out his hand. He looked nice, not the kind of usual Delhi creeps she was used to. But in this city, you could never be too sure. So she thought of playing it safe.

‘Hi. Nishita,’ she replied with a smile and stretched out her own hand. She was beautiful in her purple dress.

‘So… I’m alone here. And I see you’re alone. And we’ve been smiling at each other for the last 15 minutes. So I thought it’s about time that I come up and say “hi” before being branded as the creepy guy stalking you at the wedding.’

She laughed. ‘So what do you suggest we do about it?’ she asked

‘Well, to establish that I’m not a creep, I suggest you get to know me. About being alone, I guess I’ve already fixed that for myself.’

His smile was charismatic. She couldn’t help but feel attracted towards him. ‘Alright but I need to say this upfront. I have a rule. I’m not looking to see someone.’

‘I’m guessing you used to,’ he replied.

‘Look here’s the thing. There are these big romantic moments, they fade away. And then you deal with the truth. That, my friend, is always ugly.’

‘I agree! I thought I’d compliment your hairdo as I was walking here, and to be honest, that was what made me notice it!’

‘Oh… you haven’t seen these open. You’ll be down on one knee,’ she said adjusting her hairnet.

‘Would like to see that happen,’ he winked. ‘Though if I do that, just know you might be the one jumping and shouting “yes” and that is why I’m not putting my A-game on you.’

‘You mean this isn’t the A-game?’

‘You think this is the A-game? Believe me if I brought my A-game, you would know. Girls fall head-over-heels when I bring my A-game.’

‘That’s bad. So I’ll never get to see your game.’

‘Your loss.’ He smiled.

After considering a thought, she spoke again, ‘I think I can propose a solution.’

‘Interested.’

‘Just to be clear, it doesn’t involve a kiss at the end of it.’

‘Less interested,’ and they both laughed. ‘Go ahead.’

‘So the thing that screws the date is the days after, right? So let’s skip that part. I’m here. You’re here. We’re both alone at a wedding. Let’s dance, have a great time, and when it’s over, never see each other again.’

‘Unless…’

‘No! No unless. No contact information. No emails. No WhatsApp. No Facebook. Tonight, we will create a memory that can never be tarnished. And then, when we are sad and lonely, we will look back on this night, and know that we have lived a perfect night in our lives.’

‘Wow,’ he said. ‘I’m in! One question. What if I want to see you again?’

‘Maybe then destiny will show us a way… if it is meant to be.’

‘This is exciting! So, Ms Nishitha, where do we go from here?’

2

They were sitting at the terrace of the reception venue, underneath the stars, with a bottle of wine, 2 glasses, and a bouquet stolen from the wedding.

‘I think it was a bit too much getting the flowers,’ she said.

‘I don’t think the bride will miss them or the groom cares,’ he responded.

‘Okay. So rules established, now let’s see the A-game I’ve heard so much about.’

‘Que, madame,’ he said and winked at her. He pulled off the screw of the bottle and poured two glasses. When he looked up, she had undid her hair and it came curling down, like silent waves in the sea. For a moment, he couldn’t move, mesmerized, words left his mind.

‘Tu che,’ she said, ‘and I believe this is for me. Thank you,’ as she took a glass from his hand.

He smiled back at her. They swirled their glasses for a bit in the most English manner possible, looking at each other. Finally, they took a sip.

‘How is it?’ she asked.

‘Very nice. Smooth and soft with a touch of… you know forget it. I don’t know wines.’

She laughed, ‘I couldn’t tell if you didn’t.’

‘So… feeling bad that you won’t be getting any action tonight?’

‘Oh I could get some action if I wanted to. I’m the girl.’

‘No you couldn’t.’

‘Couldn’t I?’ she said, in a deep husky voice as she got closer to him. He could feel her coming closer. She stopped and smiled.

‘Oh you could get some action any time you wanted.’ But they didn’t go apart. He leaned, and she proceeded. When they got closer, she retracted.

‘We won’t kiss. Not tonight. That’s the rule. If we kiss, we get emotionally involved and this becomes a hard reality, not the perfect memory.’ He was looking obviously dejected. ‘What if we kiss now and exchange phone numbers hoping to find each other again. But we might never get the time again? What if this one moment is all we have with each other? Why spoil it? What if I keep waiting for your text message, hoping you’d call me in the middle of the night asking to look down my window and there I’ll see you shivering in the cold, asking me to let you in? What if either of us is not able to fill the void in the other’s life?’

‘And what if we are meant to be?’ he said, leaning in again before she stopped him.

‘How about this. The best part of any first kiss is the lead-up to it. The moment right before when the lips touch. It’s like a big drumroll. How about, tonight, we just keep it till the drumroll?’

‘Okay.’

They leaned. They got close. She looked at him. He closed his eyes. They felt each other’s breath on theirs. Then, their muzzles touched. She could hear violins in the background, careful not to get too lost in them. He was already lost in a music of his own. And then, very slowly, she pulled back. She looked at him. He looked at her. He wanted to take her head in his hands and give her the biggest kiss he’s ever had. She wanted him to do that. But they didn’t. They just looked at each other. There were no words. There were no kisses. No names. Just 2 breaths, one after the other. 2 beating hearts. And the moonlight.

3

They came down to the reception to find the clean-up staff getting along. It was 3:30 AM in the morning. They didn’t realize how long they were up there.

‘I guess we were gone for a while,’ he said.

‘That’s bad. I hoped I could have a last dance with you.’

He smiled, took out his phone, and played a soft guitar music, opening his arms to invite her in. He spun her once and then drew her close.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he told her.

‘What am I thinking?’ she said.

‘He’s looking great in that tux.’

She smiled, ‘you caught me.’

‘You know I don’t look like this everyday. In my real life I wear a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, with bleach stains on it.’

‘I wish I could get to know the real you better. He sounds sexy.’

As the music progressed, so did they. Their faces got closer and farther, as if they weren’t able to decide how to end this.

‘Tell me your full name,’ he said.

‘No.’

‘So how are you going to go back?’

‘I’ll call an Ola.’

‘I’m dropping you home.’

‘No… this way only for tonight. Only for…’

He cut her in mid-sentence. ‘I’m dropping you home.’ She felt his hand on her waist drawing her close. ‘I am not going to lose out on these last moments with you.’ And he guided her to the exit and towards his car.

‘What makes you afraid?’ she asked him as were driving along the empty streets of New Delhi with the sound of early risers and faint sunrays drenching the foggy sky with colors of orange and gold.

‘The feeling that I’ll be alone. When all this ends, when everything is over, this night, every night, my job, careers, everything, I fear I’ll be left alone with no one to hug in the end days.’ There was silence for a while. ‘You know earlier I said I didn’t like your hair,’ he said to her softly.

‘You said you thought of complimenting them but go on…’

‘I really like them,’ he said and ran his fingers through them. She didn’t want to stop him, but didn’t want anything more either. This was perfect.

They reached her home and she got out.

‘So this was a good night,’ she said.

‘Yeah! But there’s one little flaw in your plan. I’m going to go home with a lot of great memories but one really sucky one. The memory of you walking into that door leaving me behind.’

‘Close your eyes Tushar.’ He did. Instantly. He heard footsteps, a door opening and closing, and then opening and closing again. She reached into his car and put something on the seat beside him.

‘Open them,’ he heard her say. She was standing at the door of his car, exactly where he last saw her. On the seat beside him, there was a copy of “The Gift” by Cecelia Ahern. ‘Something to remember me by. Now go.’

He smiled at her, blew her a kiss and then went away.

She hoped he’d find her number in the book with the message, “We write our own destiny.” As she undressed, she found a tissue paper with a phone number on it in her jacket. Below it said, ‘I’d like to see those curls again. Maybe I didn’t appreciate them enough.’ She immediately saved the number to her phone.

4

She willed herself to not check her phone to see if he had replied. It had been about three days now. She hated that she was constantly checking his 'last seen at' status and yes, he had logged in just five minutes ago. Yet she couldn't stop herself. This sinking feeling to find absolutely no communication from him was becoming unbearable, almost torturous.

And then, just as she sat down in her chair, her phone vibrated. With her heart thudding in her ear, she unlocked her phone and stared at the screen. Finally! It was his message.

But when she opened it and read it, she nearly stopped breathing. She didn't know if he was joking or not. What was this?

It said, ‘Look down your window.’

She did. It was him, shivering in the cold. Her phone buzzed again, ‘Let me in?’

Déjà vu

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she said.

‘Like what?’ he asked.

‘You know. Like there’s something more between us than what there really is,’ she answered.

‘What then, is really between us?’ he prodded further.

‘Nothing. There’s nothing between us,’ she said adamantly.

‘That’s not true,’ he said, digging a fork into a roasted ball of vegetable. ‘If it were so, we wouldn’t have been having this conversation here today.’

She considered that for a moment. ‘Even if there is something betwee n us, you still have no right to look at me like that,’ she said looking down at her own plate, playing with her food.

‘It’s impolite.’

‘No,’ he said.

‘No what?’

‘It’s not impolite. It’s…’ he paused, unable to decide whether to say the next word out loud or not. ‘Romantic,’ he said finally.

She looked as if she wanted to be taken aback, but couldn’t. As if she almost expected him to say that. ‘You have no right to look at me romantically either,’ she said shuffling in her seat.

‘I can’t help it,’ he said. After a brief pause he continued, ‘as can’t you.’

She was surprised this time. She realized her own eyes had been deceiving her. Ironically, his hadn’t. They conveyed perfectly what he wanted them to convey. Somehow, even her eyes conveyed what he wanted them to, she thought.

‘I don’t love you,’ she said.

‘You do,’ he said. ‘You always have. You always will. You can bury the lovers, but you can’t bury the love. It lives on… What we had was true love. Can’t be taken back at will.’

‘Why can’t it?’ she asked. ‘This is just wrong.’

She still looked beautiful when annoyed. It had been 7 months since he had last seen her. 7 months since he realized that the paths of their lives weren’t magically going to converge. 7 months since he had last heard her voice until today when she called to say that she was in the city. 7 months since he had slept well.

‘That’s how love is. It doesn’t die. We’re cursed to live with the pleasant memories till the end of our days.’ The touch of her last kiss still lingered on his lips. He had woken up in the middle of many a night in anxiety unable to find her next to him.

‘How do you know that? You don’t understand love any better than I do,’ she said.

‘I don’t. True. What I understand about love is simply my theory. We all have our own theories of love,’ he replied.

‘I don’t,’ she said.

‘You should,’ his reply came swiftly. ‘You’re what? 24? If you still don’t have a theory of love, you might have missed out on something in life.’

She held that thought for a moment. Somehow, he had managed to hold her at every word of his tonight. ‘Whatever it may be, but we can’t be together. You know that. Whatever we do, we won’t be together.’

‘We’re together now,’ he said. ‘In this moment. In the great web of space, in this vast expans e of time, in this one moment, tonight, over this lovely dinner, we’re together.’

‘Yes…’ she said. ‘But tomorrow, you won’t be here. Tomorrow when I miss you, you won’t be here with me.’

‘So should the fear of something  not being  there tomorrow refrain us  from cherishing it today?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said as a silent lonely tear fell from her eye.

He got up to come next to her and held her in his arms. The arms she knew so well. She came in and held him as if he was the pillar he needed to hold on to her own life.

‘I’ll tell you something,’ he said. ‘Most people are unable to face grief. They’d rather choose to become indifferent to the pain and switch their emotions off. They run away. Over time, the grief eats them from within. They become different people, hollow, unable to experience emotion at all. You’re different. You don’t run away. You suffer through it. That’s what makes you braver than all of them. You choose pain over numbness.’

She said nothing, just kept her head buried in his chest. After a while, he heard her voice. ‘This is not how I’d imagined this evening would end. I thought I’d give you a peck on the cheek and that’ll be it. And we’d take our own separate ways as we’re meant to do.’

Who’s to decide what we’re meant to do, he thought, but kept it to himself. Instead, he kissed the top of her head.

She looked up at him. Somewhere in the hug, she drew him closer.

‘No,’ he resisted. ‘If we do this now, I don’t know what you’ll feel about it tomorrow. You may choose never to see me again. You may choose to never see my face fearing what it does to you. I can afford not kissing you. But I can’t afford to never see you again.’

She stayed silent, but kept drawing him closer. He seemed to have given in and leaned in towards her. As their lips were about to touch, he heard her say, ‘better to do something and regret it, than not experiencing it at all.’ At her last word, he felt her lips  touch his. He remembered saying this to her the first time he’d kissed her – a memory from another life. He felt her so-familiar hair in her fingers once again. He hugged her closer to him and tighter. He wanted her, in that moment. He wanted nothing but her. He couldn’t afford to lose her.

He loved her.

---

The dream broke and he found himself back to reality, staring at hi s Facebook feed.

‘Priya is in Mumbai,’ it proclaimed next to the picture of the Gateway of India. He texted her, 

“Dinner this Sunday?”

7 minutes passed before blue ticks appeared on his message.

“Of course,” came the immediate reply.