There is a saying in ancient Hindi, “Nindak Nyaare Raakhiye Jag Ujiyaro Hoie”.

It simply means, “Keep critics or people who criticise near you, and you will understand the world better.”

But while in childhood this proverb or saying was so easy to digest, when we grow up, it is far, far more difficult to practice.

My current understanding would be that our belief systems have already formed. Any thought that goes against that belief system, we can easily deflect or just create a hard boundary around it and stay in our comfort zone. Or, in one word: “EGO”.

Our ego stops us from listening to this criticism. And to my surprise, I think in today’s world I would simply push the “Nindak” away, as it is too harsh to listen to the truth.

The next line could be my ego typing: “That sometimes I think the person criticising me has some ulterior motives, something he/she wants from me, thus criticising me. Or is simply frustrated with my behaviour or my existence itself, which might be an inconvenience to them.”

My ego thinks that because I would have done the same, the reason being that most of the time I am an introvert. Though anyone who meets me in real life will judge me as an “EXTROVERT”. My own sister says, “I AM A SOCIAL BUTTERFLY”. But in reality, I switch to an extrovert as soon as I step outside the house, or in other words, when I am exposed to others. But really, I love and find excuses to have lots and lots of “me time”.

I have the habit of blaming my parents for most of my current behaviours, but recently I learned to start reflecting internally rather than on external forces. So my current viewpoint is that I must have been a very faint-hearted kid who used to switch or change my true feelings in childhood to please my parents, teachers, classmates, or anyone who had more dominance over me. And when I was alone, I did not have to be the person others wanted me to be, so even though I looked lonely, it felt happy when I was alone.

This formula of switching personality inside and outside the house kept me and my surroundings in some version of peace. Thus, I kept repeating it day after day, time after time, to avoid confrontation.

And you reading these words might have already guessed that this formula was wrong at its core, so either “Introvert me” or “Extrovert me” was one day going to get hurt very badly. And it did. But I did not have any new formula to re-enforce it, so I still keep juggling between the two personalities.

Wow, I skipped away from the original topic I wanted to discuss in this post, and it is rightly said, WRITING is like FEELING through fingers, and it’s a good feeling. A good feeling moves us away 😀

So the reason my ego thinks that I would do the same is because I would love to live alone for as much time as possible. And sometimes, annoying persons’ viewpoints would be a hurdle to accept, and I would wish that person could go away.

So coming back to NINDAK (the criticiser). Recently I had one, though only for a few weeks, but it was quite a difficult experience. Thus, I would like to bullet point it so that I can come back to this and re-edit this post with a calm mind or more mature answers. Some of the points the current Nindak said were:

• You speak so loud. “I am not deaf, so you need not scream.”
• Indians are good slaves but bad bosses.
• You are in a Tsukuyomi from the last 5 years.
• I should keep phones away from me when the hotspot is on.
• The current job you are doing is not important.

So in the past three weeks, I would go home and re-think the words that I heard from the Nindak. Is what he said true? If yes, what’s the reason? If no, what’s the reason? So let’s discuss these one by one.

“I am not deaf, so you need not scream.”
This, though, hit hard when I heard it for the first time, but this thought could easily penetrate my belief system. I reflected on the words said by Nindak and combined them with more data I got from my wife, that even when I whisper, I speak loudly. In college days, my loud voice was appreciated by teachers as a display of confidence. But now, the same loud voice sounds harsh or like screaming, and people don’t want that screaming noise when talking one-to-one.

More data I reflected upon was a scene from the series HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, where the characters come out of a club and talk to people who were not inside the club, but they speak louder. Then I also got the data that older people speak louder. The common denominator between the two is: “People who cannot hear properly speak louder.”

Is this true in my case? I need to get my ears checked; only then will I know. For the next few days, I tried to speak in a lower voice, but practice of so many years won’t go away within a few days. In a calm mind, I could have just asked the Nindak to stand away from me, and that would have solved the case. I need not lower my voice, and he need not listen to me screaming. That would have been a win-win solution.

But with the original statement, “I am not deaf, so you need not scream,” it hit differently, as if it was a derogatory statement. And this type of criticism is hard to digest.

“Indians are good slaves but bad bosses.”
This statement came as a continuation of a conversation when I denied something the Nindak requested. His request was simple: could he leave 15 minutes early as he started 15 minutes early? On a normal day, the answer should have been YES. But that day was a combination of multiple statements.

On the first day, Nindak wanted to not work at all and simply stated that he could start from the second day onwards. Though the first day had its own backstory, passing on a day’s work and asking to start from tomorrow looked disrespectful towards the job. It might be my middle-class mentality talking, but I mean to say we are so eager to start a job or even have the opportunity to get a job or a chance to earn, and someone pushing that away looked unfair.

On the third day, Nindak wanted to start one hour early and leave one hour early. The next whole week, he worked two hours late start and two hours late finish, which pushed my timelines, as Nindak kept asking for favours every day, from moving items from his old house to taking him to a house inspection. So giving those 15 minutes away felt very heavy, and I denied it.

And just by denial, when I got the reply “Indians are good slaves but bad bosses,” I thought: why is the whole community being targeted just because of one action or decision I took as a response to multiple failures to adhere to set times by Nindak? I don’t even defend the Indian community blindly, as there are worse examples of terrible Indian bosses, but there are examples of good ones as well.

I am not sure which one I would be, but with that trigger statement, I was happy to get the introvert Tapish out on the road, even though it was for such a small amount of time. Quoting another comedy series, Friends, it’s better to be Chandler Bing “the boss” rather than Chandler Bing who is “the employer’s friend,” if we really need the work to be done. (Internally, I still wish people would work in a disciplined way even with the friendly Chandler Bing, but that’s just a hopeful Tapish speaking.)

“You are in Tsukuyomi from the last 5 years.”
For non-Naruto fans, I have to explain what Tsukuyomi is. But if Naruto fans are reading this post, please don’t get offended, as for the continuity of this post I am over-simplifying the GREAT TSUKUYOMI, which I am sure can be explained better as a separate post.

Taking the liberty of over-simplification, Tsukuyomi is a state of hypnosis. In Naruto, the Infinite Tsukuyomi was tailored to each and every individual of the series. Each person was so tailored to be in a hypnosis state that they accepted whatever version the villain cast as reality, and the one inside the Tsukuyomi was happy inside the hypnosis.

But in reality, we deserve more. We deserve the freedom of choice that was denied.

The reason this was said was that I did a Master’s in Biotechnology, and pre-COVID I was about to start my academic career, which had better pay and better scope of life than the current pay and work conditions I am in. But even with lower pay, I have very supportive colleagues, and though sometimes the work is painful, colleague support is what kept me going.

Okay, colleague support, along with sometimes the “KICK” we get in solving a complex issue at work, is also very satisfying. Sometimes jobs get resolved in hours, sometimes days, and sometimes months, but the day you put your mind together with all the data you collected over time and coordinate with multiple brains to finally crack the solution gives an amazing dopamine boost. Thus, I kept continuing my job, and thus the statement that I am in a Tsukuyomi and need to get out of it to reach my potential. This criticism was a bit hard to take, and it pushed me out of my comfort zone.

“I should keep phones away from me when the hotspot is on.”
This statement came while I was training the Nindak on how to do a certain task. Instead of learning the task and moving on, he kept explaining to me that keeping the phone in my pocket is harmful, or that I should keep it here or there. I know keeping the phone near you is harmful; so is heating food in a microwave, eating unhealthy food, lack of exercise, and if we start reading religious scriptures, there will be another hundred examples of what sins we are committing every moment.

But at that particular moment, the task was just to take internet from the mobile phone, pass it to the laptop, and continue a small transition I wanted to teach him. I just wanted to get the task done and move on to the next one instead of creating ideal scenarios. And it is famously said, “We first earn money by sacrificing health, and then spend all the money to gain back the health we sacrificed.” But someone pointing that out to you in a live work situation is quite difficult to absorb.

“The current job you are doing is not important.”
This was the most triggered statement, as it came after a sarcastic laugh saying, “If you have time to talk about Naruto or games at the job, then the job is not important.” According to the Nindak, jobs done in hospitals to save lives are important. Jobs done to keep the transport system running are important. But making sure a car park system is running is not important.

I went home with heavy thoughts, trying to understand if what the Nindak was saying was true. Logically, what he was saying is true. But I am not running a hospital, nor am I running a public transport system. At this stage of life, I don’t even know end-to-end how both function. But I know about PARCS (Parking Access Revenue Control Systems), and I know how to fix them. (What we know is a drop, and what we don’t know is an ocean.)

My point is, I am not running a hospital, a city, a transport system, sewage, or any other essential system. So in comparison, my job may not be important. But I can’t compare all these jobs, as I am not doing them. But then the final criticism made me think: “WHY?” Why am I not doing an important job? And who decides which job is important and which is not? And who decides who will do these important or non-important jobs?

The only solution keeping my mind silent is a line from the movie HUGO, where a boy closely examines a clock and says:
“Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured, if the entire world was one big machine, I couldn’t be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too.”

So the only thing remaining is to find my life’s purpose and then do it with all the effort and sincerity that is humanly possible.

As always, see you in the next post or next life, whichever comes earliest.

Signing off for now.

Tapish Dongre