Widen the ring

The fifth edition of Kalakirti’s Goa Environmental Festival was held in Panaji over last three days. It included screening of films, talks, panel discussions as well as competitions for filmmakers, photographers, artists, cuisine, street plays and wealth out of waste. Coming Saturday, the festival goes to Ravindra Bhavan, Margao with films, photographs, paintings, cuisine contest and a workshop for teachers.

The partners had increased this time and so did the venues and the reach. Each associate hosted an activity that was their expertise. They brought in greater diversity that enhanced the influence and the impact on different sections of society. Indeed, it has underlined, once again, the importance of widening the ring.


There are many positive and progressive initiatives by individuals as well as organisations. But to widen the circle of influence and impact, we must connect with similar and parallel initiatives. We must involve and work together by joining hands with more partners to widen the ring.

There are different reasons why we are reluctant to widen the ring. We may worry about sharing stage. We may not want to share power. We may be poor in our skills of team working. We may feel we don’t require help. But, the most likely reason is that we focus on self-centredness instead of the larger purpose of our initiative.

It is pertinent to note that the choice to widen the ring is truly empowering for the results as well it makes the efforts easier. When we increase the role-players, it results in making a larger stage and a larger audience. We share not just opportunities but we also end up sharing responsibilities and the workload. Most importantly we have just made greater scope for our enterprise.

Together we can, together we shall
Widen the ring and further our call!

~ Pravin Sabnis

Not me

When I was in school, some friends would tease me by calling out my name as Parveen Babi, a popular Hindi film actress. I would not show my irritation as I knew that the teasing would get worse if they knew I was affected by it. However, internally I would be seething. 

One day I shared my indignation with my father. Calmly, he asked me, ‘Are you Parveen Babi?’ I shot back, ‘of course not!’ My father continued, ‘and what is your favourite drama?’ I told the name of the Marathi drama ‘Toh Mee Navech’ (That’s not me). He repeated his first question and I replied with a smile, ‘That’s not me!’


So often, we feel easily slighted by someone calling us names. We perceive it to be an unfair label or a spiteful abuse. We get worked up as we feel that we are targeted unfairly. We allow the indignation to simmer and eventually boil as offended outrage. We respond in self-righteous fury that can blur many realities… all because we can’t tell our own mind that ‘that’s not me!’

We take offence too easily and we resort to poor defense or retaliation. Instead we should choose tolerance combined with dignity and open mindedness. Character is all about refusing to be affected by petty issues. Our response to every stimulus should never be easy prey for barbs. If it is a case of ‘not me’ we should not allow it to become a case of ‘why me’ or ‘how me’.

Interestingly, years later when in college, I visited the Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai. Among the few visitors that afternoon was Parveen Babi! I introduced myself and started telling her of being called by her name. As I narrated the tale of learning to say, ‘not me’, she replied with an enigmatic smile, ‘not me, too!’

Heed, we are only what we choose to be
And if we seem otherwise, say ‘not me’!

~ Pravin Sabnis

Blind Faith

Last weekend, the establishment was attacked by rampaging supporters of a fraud-man convicted on cases of rape. The discussions centred on the same old stuff: the claim to be God, the legion of celebrity followers, political patronage, the fleet of cars, unimaginable wealth and, the sordid controversy about the guy’s brutal behaviour with his female devotees and a trail of murders.

The justification of the illogical indignation was described as a ‘matter of faith’. The blind faith was buttressed by arguments of the positive ‘social work’ by the fraud-man and his sect. The blind followers were using unrelated reasoning that no crime is possible by one whom they saw as having done a lot of good.

Obviously, some of the followers may be partners-in-crime but it is pertinent that the majority belongs to ones who have surrendered their ability to distinguish between right and wrong. They defend not only the indefensible; they are blinded by their misplaced faith in the fraud man.

The objection to any self-styled God-man’s ‘powers’ is fundamental. If they claim cosmic ability to change destiny and to heal the human body, then why don’t they just heal themselves, or change the script for suicidal farmers? The counter-argument he-does-so-much-charity does not condone the assumption of divinity. Surely, philanthropy is not novel.

There are committed citizens who are taking on challenges head-on, yet they don’t claim to be God. Blind faith is enchantingly deceptive as it makes us shift the onus of responsibility from ourselves to the mystic. But proactive action is the one that shall salvage our situation. Our country needs less of god-men who indulge in sham speech to offset their crimes and more of good men who initiate appropriate actions.

Don’t let blind faith choke ability to reason
open your mind to scrutinise every action!

~ Pravin Sabnis

Less Shame

‘Wow, my father an astronaut, I feel so full of …. what’s the opposite of shame?’ – Bart Simpson
‘Pride?’ – Marge Simpson
‘No, not that far from shame.’ – Bart Simpson
‘Less shame?’ – Homer Simpson
‘Yeah.’ – Bart Simpson

The above episode of the comic strip of the ‘Simpsons’ makes a pertinent point. We wrongly believe that the opposite of shame would be to have pride. In fact pride and its allied indignation and irrationality rise often from the feeling of shame.

Shame is the sentiment that there is something basically wrong with me. The emotion of guilt is about doing something wrong, whereas shame is about being wrong at the fundamentals. The feeling of shame rises from the belief of being basically flawed, inadequate, unimportant, undeserving or not good enough.

We become addicted to our core shame belief. It gives us a feeling of control over other people’s feelings and behaviour. It makes us believe that others are rejecting us, or behaving in unloving ways, because of our inadequacy. Secondly it shields us from other feelings that we are afraid to feel, and gives us a sense of control over our own feelings.

We find it difficult to move beyond shame because we are addicted to the feeling of control that our shame-based beliefs give us: control over others’ feelings and behaviour, and control over our own genuine feelings. We can heal our shame when we accept that others feelings and behaviour have nothing to do with us.

We camouflage our shame by anger towards self or others or we tend to raise the pride flag. For instance, if I have a sense of shame of being part of a community that discriminates against others, I may flaunt my pride of belonging to it. However, if I feel ‘less shame’ I will be less prone to irrational indignation. Eventually, ‘less shame’ comes from the realisation that we are not responsible for the harsh reality.

Change the script by moving to ‘less shame’
False beliefs lead to angry pride that’s lame!

~ Pravin Sabnis

Lesson Learnt

My friend, Shashidhar Byali has many anecdotes of his life as a sailor. The best ones to listen to are those of great challenges and ‘near or clear’ errors of judgement or delivery. Shashi tells often about a log book that had to be filled to record the happening. The most important detail was testing but important to be declared: lesson learnt!

'Lesson Learnt’ is a valuable tool used by various organizations. They are experiences extracted from an assignment that become guidelines for future assignments of same or similar nature. It is an effective evaluation of the occurrence with clear insights into the what, how and why of things that went right or wrong.

NASA defines ‘lesson learned’ as knowledge or understanding gained by experience. The experience may be positive, as in a successful test or mission, or negative, as in a mishap or failure. These lessons highlight strengths or weaknesses in preparation, design, and implementation that affect performance, outcome and impact.

Experience is a great teacher. However, we must remember that ‘lessons are not meant to be taught… lessons have to be learnt’. Hence we must define and declare the ‘lesson learnt’ from every experience. It will be the guideline for future initiatives and ensure effectiveness due to the learning gained from the understanding.

After each experience, whether success or failure
‘Lesson Learnt’ helps us be better for the future!

~ Pravin Sabnis

Reason eclipsed

Many years ago, during a training for an organisation, we were served lunch in their canteen. The person who accompanied us was courteous but did not partake in the meal. He sheepishly admitted that he would not eat as his mother had instructed him to abstain from food during the eclipse that was occurring that day.

He told us that during the eclipse, all water and cooked food would be thrown out as it would be contaminated. After the end of the eclipse, all would bathe and fresh water would be filled from the tap and used to cook fresh food. My colleague asked him, ‘Do you empty the overhead tank, the reservoirs and rivers as well? Surely they would be under great exposure to be contaminated.’

Even the educated succumb to the canard, because we think that it does no harm to follow a tradition with seems to do no harm. But our thinking is eclipsed in more ways than one. While fasting during an eclipse, or any other time, is not bad as long as our body can take it; surely throwing away edible food and water is not acceptable.

So often we base our actions on blind beliefs. Premises based on invalid references lead to the eclipse of reason. False notions and misplaced logic leads to wrong inferences. Most fallacies are propped up by the crutches of distorted scientific principles. After all, we so easily allow our reason to be eclipsed by blind belief.

Let’s keep unscientific blind belief at bay…
Reason should not be eclipsed on any day!

~ Pravin Sabnis

Core

A dog-meal company was holding its annual convention. The Advertising Director spoke of an interesting new retail scheme that would ‘revolutionize the industry’. The Marketing Director extolled the company’s decision to introduce the latest state-of-the-art refresher-training program for ‘the best damned sales force in the business.’

Finally, the CEO rose to make his remarks, ‘we heard from all our Departmental Heads about their wonderful plans. I have only one question. If we have the best advertising, the best marketing and the best damn sales force in the business, how the hell do we sell less dog food than everyone else?’

The silence in the Convention Hall was broken by a small voice from the back of the room: ‘Because the dogs hate it!’

While packaging, promotion, positioning and projection are crucial to ensure value to the product, the eminence of the produce cannot be ignored. But so often we forget the main thing and focus on the marketing only. It is important to ensure the surface wrapper does not hold within a hollow or lesser core.

The core is the foundational part which is primary over the secondary enveloping parts. For an individual, core character is more important than clothing and other drapes. For a team, core synergy remains higher than aesthetics and apparel. For a community project, core purpose is greater than public relations or publicity.

Of course, the envelope can empower the core. But it is pertinent to note that the surface packaging cannot override the core. Otherwise, we will focus only on the surface and ignore the fundamental forte. Hence, we should focus on values, vision and purpose so that we, and the casing, remain centrally aligned to a strong core.

Focus on the core first and then the casing…

Sans strong roots, shoots struggle in rising!

~ Pravin Sabnis