Ejected
The Winter of 2004 saw an unanticipated inaugural trip to India during my final year at King’s College London, taking me out of the mental momentum of years of intense academic study. After decades, being sucked out of this academic pressure cooker in London, where the name of the game was “competition”, whether you wanted it or not, where the big questions were, will you do justice to the educational investment made in you since your primal years? Where will you rank? How quickly will you “make it”? How bright can your achievements shine? The sudden family trip to India was not only unintended, but it was highly unwelcome for me. About to sit final year exams with the highest weighting in the degree, and being a creature of habit, with an affinity to surroundings that exude authority and stability, the prospect of the trip to India for three weeks filled me with anxiety. I had heard of run down living conditions, animals on the streets, and uncertainty on day-to-day basics like hot water supply. This was the last thing I needed as I went into my final semesters. The chaos at Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji airport, finding where the driver would be, was not something I was familiar with since my much earlier childhood trips to Africa. Seeing cows on the street side, and indeed on the main road too, wasn’t welcome in my mind, as I wanted stability and predictability at a time I had a lot on my mind. As the days went by, I became attuned to the expectation of food, the possibility that my stomach may get very upset, and the fact the place simply cannot meet my needs. Adopting a practical survival based mindset, I quickly began to count down the days. Without expounding on exactly what happened, subconsciously, there were things I appreciated within the chaos; the level of surrender to circumstance, destiny, whatever one likes to call it, was very evident in the people that lived there. The level of faith people had, which tied simplicity to devotion, found a special place in my subtle consciousness. I didn’t want to be like that, like them, but I valued it, I respected it, and I saw great potential in it.
Sides of London
Returning to the lecture theatres of London, a sense of “this isn’t the
only reality” permeated my mind having experienced India for the first time. Quickly
getting back into the exam routine, having found a deeper bond with the music I’d
listen to, my contemplations were becoming broader on a sub-conscious level.
Hurrying to a job offer as a natural progression after completing a masters
degree, I found myself on day one in London Bridge after the graduate training
programme. Standing outside the office on a brisk, sunny, summer morning in
August, I could feel the energy of the City of London in a different form to
the “academic London” I had grown so familiar with. Academic London was
historic, it comprised vintage old buildings next to beautiful old churches and towers. The final
exams were in the Royal Horticulture Halls in Westminster. Academia had a more
benevolent quest for knowledge, and excellence in this quest, it involved study
for not necessarily a selfish purpose. The corporate London was different, a
profit-driven quest attracted people of a different stature. My broader contemplations and questions of
conscience, weren’t so much at peace in corporate London. Always liking to be
punctual, waiting outside the office, catching the atmosphere as the rush hour was
about to begin, I felt more and more unease, which made me quite emotional and
dejected about joining “corporate London.” We had some fantastic teammates, who
really questioned the ethics behind certain things the firm did from a
completely blue-sky perspective. “What do you have to say about X?” and as soon
as the teammate would get an answer, he would immediately challenge again “Yes,
but that doesn’t justify Y, does it?” It was clear that the ethics of business
sometimes didn’t add up, especially back then. It reinforced my intuitive
feelings, and made me less and less comfortable.
Evolution
I needed to find something in the firm which would bring a “pacificatory”
touch to the sharp-edged razor corporate culture that permeated the district.
At the LSE, we had begun doing food distributions to the homeless that slept in
Lincoln’s Inn Fields just next door to the Supreme Court of Justice. If I could
engage in, and even lead collaborations in this space, it would be a concessionary
fulfilment of the more contemplative, broader part of my conscience. After meeting
some senior folks who saw my enthusiasm as a graduate for making it happen, over
the years much was mobilised. Driving it all was truly the need for this pacificatory
touch that stemmed from being popped out of the academic pressure cooker,
to India in 2004. The mental need to be regularly pulled out of a corporate-serving,
impersonal work environment will vary
from individual to individual; their thresholds will be different based on
their mental make-up, priorities, what period of life, or phase one is going
through, peoples’ understandings of benevolence and balance, and so on. People
are willing to engage at different levels, in different ways. Some are only mentally
committed but rarely make it happen, whilst some will almost literally discover
themselves in such causes beyond the call of domestic corporate duty. As I spend longer in the corporate environment,
more wonderful it is to see when people sincerely commit as seriously to causes
beyond themselves, as they do to their work. Great is the feeling of freedom
when we help others. Great is the feeling of expression when we put ourselves
aside for others who need it. And great is our self-discovery of truly reality
when we engage our minds in not putting ourselves in the centre.
Domesticity
Almost two decades on since the trip to India, and the embezzlement and confusion over whether to even engage with corporate London, having used years of experience in CSR initiatives to try to continually renew commitments to causes that are needed on the part of beneficiaries, but more importantly for the layers of the coming generations since they will be the ones whose consciousness shall shape the world. Towards the end of the Mahabharata, there is a dialogue over the relative merits of renunciation (or giving things up) through higher realisation, or to lead a life of domesticity (continuing the hard grind of daily work life). The conclusion the dialogue leads to is that the merits of domesticity outweigh those of renunciation, whilst not admonishing the role of renunciation. The rationale of this conclusion is that lives of domesticity, provide the lifeblood of society, they provide structure to the lives of people through which they can develop and learn in multiple vocational and spiritual paths. So to continue to stay engaged on all fronts, to excel in what we do, and to keep in mind benevolence in the bigger picture, becomes a prime governing factor in what we do and what we prioritise.
“Leading lives of domesticity and thoroughly devoted to their own duties, they behaved equally towards all creatures and were endued with perfect sincerity. Contentment was theirs.”
Kapila Muni, Section CCLXX, Shanti Parva, Mahabharata
