The contrary view

It’s very trying to be different. Being a born rebel means a standing invitation to others to try to bulldoze you. But the trial by fire also makes one purer and stronger that gives one the supreme confidence with the license to give a damn to what other people say about him. Ironically, it also gives one the humility to understand that the principled positions and simplest but the best wisdoms are not the preserves of the people powerful enough to challenge his positions but inclusive of other people who are miles down below him. This provides the never-say-die attitude that comes from the knowledge that whatever you will face will be difficult and painful, not resistance alone but will include ridicule and checks. This is the attitude that talks of climbing the Everest not just for “it was there” but for “I was there”.

In the complicated Shatranz of living within a people network and the so-called society, my favorite strategy is of non-confrontation. I was a born rebel and have fought against all the people I have known in my whole life, and proportionally more with the more powerful ones. Without branding a T-shirt with a photo of Che in the front, this much I could do without any malice and personal enmity as I always took this as business. Beside my Pop, I have gone down in the history for fighting my Bosses the most in my career and still survived 15 years before I finally buried it with full state honors. I consider myself lucky beyond measures that I was still respected by all of them, if not exactly loved, and some of them kept excellent personal relations with me even while I was at the height of rebellion, probably because my behavior was always issue-based and I always tried to keep absolute and ridiculous standards of integrity, decorum and dignity of character.

When your thinking will be different from other people, it is as much as saying only you are right and all others are wrong. The conviction reflects only to a handful few who, ironically, do not matter in terms of survival strategy for non-existence of threats. This is unacceptable mainly for two types of people, one who have false and often empty prides about themselves and secondly the people who have higher authority over your actions. Strategy for the first type is mostly non-confrontation – ignoring their ridicule, sarcasms, insinuations and quietly waiting for your turn to cut them down with a single stroke of the sword – a masterstroke that they will never even have the time to watch in horror, they will be dead even before they know it. Strategy for the second type is absolute but dignified confrontations – with reasons. Always reason with people and keep an aura of honesty around you to starve them of any chance to challenge your positions on the logic of motives. One of the Bosses under whom I had worked for more than four years and even now has a very good relation with me was one I fought so much but always from a position where I had a very good reason, whatever be it, not only apparent but also concrete. But he was also the guy who never even glanced at the heads or the amounts when I put up with any reimbursement bill, after the initial year of our working, a thing he never did with all others. He knew, I am the type who forgets or misplaces most of the valid bills, or just does not care to put them, and the question of inflating bills does not arise at all.

One position that earns a lot of enemies but as well earns a tremendous respect from them is when you will be humble and friendly yet will absolutely refuse to accept any nonsense from anybody. You just cannot eat every shit life will dish out on a platter. A third type of the people will always come after you when they will think that you are weak. Some bums among them will always misread your aloofness and nonchalance as a sign of it but those people are easy to handle as these people can be cut down at ease, the others being far more dangerous as they will often stumble upon your actual weaknesses and use those even small aspects to make a guided missile hit at your much bigger and important pawn formations. I have never cared what people think about me but at any time I have heard them well and then secretly tried to find any actual holes in my position. If I ever found one, I immediately started on the steps to improve them, because even if you manage to get away the first or a few times, you will eventually be hit through those Achilles’ heels and that will take away the aura of invincibility that is the final objective of this strategy.

But, above all, the best strategy of all to fight the other people is to bear, and silently, till you can make an answer that will close the issue and their bloody mouths at one go. The answer may not be even in so many words, but they can be even better.

Beside the need for honesty, I repeat the importance of humility. I love to speak to all classes and types of people, even rusty farmers, notorious drug-peddlers, unassuming rickshaw-wallas and what not, sometimes to much consternation of my dear wife. But over the life, I have received the kind of simple but brilliant viewpoints of life that they were my almost invincible arms in many situations where I was trying to survive by crossing swords with people who could theoretically kill me in one slash but practically they could never do it. Remember that nobody could kill you unless you let them to. To quote Mike Corleone, "accidents do not happen to people who takes accidents as personal insults". Humility not only endears you to a small but beautiful section of the people who become the most important allies in your battles, they also give you the practical strategies that no book or famed institute can ever teach anybody. They are called philosophies, the ultimate nectar of life.

One last word. The price of living on one's own terms and viewpoints is tremendous. I have practiced all my life and got bruised and wounded for as long, before I got up again and be back for another fight. Being a true survivor and a relentless fighter, I have hanged on to the rear mudguard of the villains car whenever they were on the run after kidnapping my heroin, just the hindi films - never letting go - and I still rose inch by inch, without ever bowing my head to anything or anyone for any reward or any punishment. At the end of it all, I am happy and content. To be as proud and as happy, be ready to sacrifice as much or more.

Be very sympathetic to people. They live with so much of hopes, dreams, nightmares, pains and broken faiths that they need an empathetic listening. Also think how their words can be used to improve your formation on the chessboard, but outside that, really give a damn to what they say about you. Every business is, at the end of the day, personal, very personal.

The price of freedom

Life is an endless battle, it is a half-truth, but truth nevertheless. It is the curse of human that they are born with slavery. Life is really an endless battle, and most of the time it will be with yourself. You just can’t throw the towel, you can only lose when you will accept the defeat. Only one sound rings up in the air, “RUN, it’s your life”. Life is being on a tightrope. Never accept a defeat, there is nothing called a defeat, only at death, you submit to the almighty at the final bell, for the last time. You can never be dead, until you are. I respect death enough to never even talk about it or think about it but I always stay prepared for it to come at the gong. This is the ultimate secret of my fearlessness. I battle with everyone including myself and with everything, even and particularly with my natural tendencies, when I think I’m right. It is really unbelievable what a man can do. They can go on pushing their frontiers, when they really wish to do it. I’ve seen people fight and come back from the verge many times, come back with a bang after everybody wrote him off, just left there for dead. Strength of a real man comes from the indomitable will rather than the biceps. So I try to push myself to the limit, and beyond. I only accept that this is my life. Like Jesus, like all others around me, I have been carrying my cross all my life but have fought continuously not to let them hang me on that. Take heart, even those who were born with those lovely spoons, also fight, maybe in a different way, but they also have the same fate. Only I consider myself better armed and tuned, because there is nothing to lose. Part of the fight is to save that for my children, after a time, everyone lives for them. I fight every day, for myself and my principles, my life, my beloved ones and I fight for this world. The fight is not to lower the head in front of anything that does not truly deserve it. This is one of the hardest battle and the endless one. I have a rule that I simply do not want to do it for any fear or greed and then the war starts, to protect the rule itself. I do make strategic retreat sometimes, but that is only to come back to the battlefield at the crack of dawn with double the ferocity and arms. Being a child of the earth, I stay rooted to the ground and always get up with double the force when I fall. Sometimes you have to wait for your turn. When at war, at every battle with the dark forces, you should try to take the nature in your side. When sailing to the enemy area, your direction should be enforced by the strong wind. Willpower of the nature is the source of strength of the Jedi knights. When you will be a dog, the mother nature will endow you with that biting power and will give you the day to use it. Often, an overnight success is bought by 20 years of toil and blood and pain and trial by the Kafkaesque faceless executioners. I have gone through years of pain, uncertainty and ridicule of people with less than half of the caliber, when I was trying something new. Like the Mexican – I always saw the ten thousand rifles in place of those dumb Gringos, the vision pulled me thro’ countless nights that felt like they will never end. After years of silent bearing, when the results started pouring in, I killed them and only their smiles roamed in the air long after they were gone. One must believe in himself, one must be liberated, one must stay liberated. Freedom is the greatest treasure a man can have. The function of a man is to live, not to exist. A slave is a person who waits for someone else to set him free. A slave is somebody who does not fight for himself. A slave is someone without a respect of his life. So, fight. Fight to break the shackles of slavery – with every tooth and nail, with every breadth, with every bullet you've got. While running for you dreams and your life, fight. Jump every wall, break every barrier, climb every mountain, cross every ocean, fight every war, charge every gun, shoot every man who will dare. When it’s the Light Brigade, their’s not to make reply, not to reason why, just to do and die. Swords drawn, full gallop at the saddle, no hostages taken, no quarters given nor asked - the Crown Prince of the Mohicans must fight till the last man standing. With the red flag’s flutter -it is a fight to the finish. Then, when it will be the jaws of death, the mouth of hell, with one last cut and slash of your dearest samurai sword, ride well in the gentle wind to the glory of a free man.