Husain Journal

I gripped the glossy parapet and climbed up to hang on the other side which opened into a fear-provoking gorge – running hundreds of feet deep. Down on the slanting grass-carpeted hills, trees crookedly grew from different places as if telling that they’re stubborn and can grow up from anywhere. Had I slipped from such a blood-tingling height, my bones would have scattered in 40 different places. Whew! I was in the beautiful Nainital, at a mountain peak inside a shade where other tourists too were making picnic in the pure mountain air. Chatting with each other, they crushed fuming coffee and munched snacks, while some took pictures and played all around. And birds, white and red and green, some big and some small, flew and chirped beneath the sheets of clouds in the wide blue sky. Anyway, back to my foolishness: I was in my teenage then. I kept myself on the cliff of death because I fancied myself a Bollywood hero – a risk-lover. I wanted to signa...

“When you feel afraid or nervous of doing a thing then do it because the real harm you may thus receive is less poignant than its expectation and fear.” Imam Ali As the train engine whistled and the screeching wheals rolled forward, my heart pounded violently against my chest. The carriages swung side to side – making me feel giddy. I said to Brijesh, my travelling companion, that I don’t want to go further, that I want to step off the speeding train. It was a humid night of July. I was leaving Lucknow to pursue a 1-year computer course in Delhi. I felt horrified to leave my home because my fears, provoked by my blindness, had imprisoned me in the company of my family and friends. I’m embarrassed to confess that so nervous I felt then that venturing out even from my home chilled my soul. Yet I decided, with the help of my encouraging friends, that I’ll have to make a leap and so I haired off to the Delhi course. I heard the thudding and slamming sounds with the shaking ca...

The Government feels threatened and has to bring a hair-raising law to crush the astounding success of these people. Natal, South Africa It’s 1860s. The British government wants revenue from sugarcane farming in South Africa, and it's not possible without an outside support. So it tempts the poor, caste-crippled people of India by offering them the South African citizenship and full ownership of their farmland provided that they work there for 5 years. Poor Indians, far from their homeland and deprived of basic facilities, can’t pose a threat to the powerful, right? So the British Government thought. “But the Indians gave more than had been expected…” Mahatma Gandhi wrote in his autobiography. “They grew large quantities of vegetables. They introduced a number of Indian varieties and made it possible to grow the local varieties cheaper.” And, according to the conditions of the agreement, after 5 years these farmers became wealthy landowners. Alarmed, the British Gove...

Even in prison Nelson Mandela stuck to his physical exercise as he revealed in many interviews. We, on the other hand, spin up excuses to skip exercising: There’re no tools The environment is unsuitable Stress already fills our hours And you know you can add. But if we compare our circumstances with that which stood against Mandela in that prison? Our excuses aren't even flimsy. Turns out, all our excuses for not exercising are due mainly to our laziness, our lack of commitment. Yeah, I know it hits you on your face. But nothing can be truer than this statement: 9 times out of 10, we forge unreal excuses to run away from physical workouts. You might say that Mandela took to exercise because in the prison one hardly has a hectic to-do list to go about. Even if this was true for Mandela, then the emotional trauma heaped upon him quite outweighed the ease of free time. If we know that exercise is of prime consequence, then we have to make space for it. This m...

Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious. Rumi You can’t predict what work will get popular like crazy and what work is going to wither away unnoticed. So isn’t it a smarter approach to work thoroughly and then be brave enough to go ahead with its release? Apple's Steve Jobs said, “Real artists ship.” We can find the wisdom of this sentiment in the works of Michael Angelo. Angelo composed hundreds of paintings of which only a handful earned great popularity. It was those few paintings that forced Angelo rise to those meteoric heights. There’re folks who want to write their dream book or blog, and they even make efforts in that direction: Gathering relevant data and sifting through the pile of technical details. But when it comes to actually organising all that information and keeping it forth for public scrutiny? They invent clever excuses to put it off. Having wandered in the same territories, I know that these excu...

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.” JK Rowling, Harvard Commencement Address, 2008 Imagine you’re the head of a top mobile company. You’re selling thousands of mobiles a day. But boom. A technical hitch has started triggering explosions in the phones manufactured by your company. Your choices? A: You can gather all the employees and go on a rage and do little to think about the ways that can keep your company on the rails. B: Or instead of ruminating over the problem you can lift your head up to discuss about the different problem-solving options. The only difference? Option A isn’t going to undo the damage while the option B can minimise it and keep your company in business. The same option-oriented approach is equally vital when it comes to overcoming the hiccups that you undergo on your academic and career course. You have the ch...

I miss the 2 pigeons that perched themselves on my window in the mild evening sun. When I returned from work, the day’s cares and noises got lightened in their soft cooing. While I sipped tea, my little daughter fed them with crumbs from her own hands. The pigeons gracefully flapped their fair wings and cooed as if to thank my daughter. I watched this scene from a distance. For the pigeons my daughter was a friend and I stranger, so I feared their flying away by infringing their safe area. If any day an unavoidable commitment took us somewhere else at the appointed hour, we placed the crumbs for our revered and innocent guests. But sadly this holy practice of ours broke when the traffic of daily cares made us busy, even forcing us to leave home for several days. During that time, those holy doves would have waited upon my daughter. Evening upon evening thus going by, in disappointment they would have left frequenting my window. So sweet, so pure, the pigeons that visit m...

Firstly, I didn't know the craft of separating the wheat from the chaff and shed equal importance to everything. But the Pareto Principle dictates that in all the fields, 20% is responsible for the 80% of the result. Less than 20% clothes in our wardrobe we wear more than 80% of the times. Less than 20% apps of our phones we use more than 80% of the times. Less than 20% of our acquaintances we talk to more than 80% of the times and so on. I’ll quickly brief you about the origin of this principle: in 19th century an economist named Vilfredo Pareto discovered that less than 20% peapods in his garden produce more than 80% of the peas. He further found the same 80/20 pattern applying on other fields: less than 20% people own more than 80% of the world’s wealth, less than 20% of the employees do more than 80% of the work, less than 20% of people make the decisions for more than 80% people and so on. The same 80/20 pattern reigns when it comes to preparing for our exams. If yo...

It’s a bright and fair morning, and sunshine seems to fill everything with life. I’m feeling cheerful, for today I’m going to deliver a presentation – an opportunity I was seeking since long. It poses a risk of being ridiculed or failing. I’m rising up to this risk, and even if things don’t turn out as hoped, I’ll learn a great deal in the process. I ought to praise myself for making this opportunity for myself. It’s by the means of these small comfort-breaching steps that I would gather more courage and take up bolder projects. I’m surprised to note my bravery and boldness because it hadn’t been long that I used to be a nervous guy. But due to the oft-repeated wisdom that our fears are unreal, and they often make us lose the good we might win, I have become risk-loving. Charles Dickens said, “We forge the chains we wear in life.” Still, though, there’s a lot of ground to be traversed, and I mustn’t feel overconfident. I’m trying to exert my slender powers at pruning my cha...