Chapter 2

Unhappy Me

‘There are two tragedies in life . . .’

—Oscar Wilde

One is not getting what you wanted, and the other is getting it.

In 2010, I was thirty. I wasn’t in Forbes 30 under 30, but I might as well have been. I was already living the Indian dream. I was settled in the United States and married to the love of my life, Shivani. My father was proud of me, finally. Shivani and I had similar tastes. We liked historic neighbourhoods and old houses. We liked taking strolls. Bohemian cafes. Late night drives. We had a normal amount of tiffs, usually due to a mismatch in moods and not being able to communicate in an emotionally mature way. Nothing out of the ordinary.

I was having a lot of fun. I could eat out all I wanted, travel, get high and play video games all day, every day. I didn’t have to work—at all. I was finally free.

The only problem? I wasn’t happy.

I want to talk about a tendency here that most of us have. When we are not happy, we blame anything in sight that might not be performing as expected. I’d say most Indian parents would say they are not happy as their kids are not performing as well in school as other kids. Or, because they aren’t married. Or, because they have married someone that wasn’t the parents’ first choice. Or, because the kids haven’t had kids of their own. On and on it goes without them ever acknowledging that they aren’t happy as they never learnt to be happy! No smart person will ever get in a car not knowing how to drive and start driving it with an expectation of doing it right. Yet, that’s our expectation from life. We never learn how to live, how to be happy, yet think we can live a good life and be happy. It’s easy to see how silly that is with external things—such as a car—but, like any other internal mental function (or dysfunction), we are just so blind to it.

Anyway.

I didn’t have anything I could blame! Not only had I checked all the checkboxes on the template that’s handed down to us, I was also free! There was nothing wrong with me physiologically. I wasn’t low on vitamin B12 or D3. I wasn’t chronically under-slept, dehydrated or malnourished. Yet, I was not happy. In fact, not being happy was making me more unhappy . . . which was incredibly sad indeed. This sadness was making me want to kill myself. I wasn’t emotionally overwhelmed to the point where I would be blinded to its impact on others around me though. So instead, I decided that I will try to learn how to become a happy person, for which I first had to learn how to become a person.

Chapter 3

A Small Breakthrough

‘Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.’

—Arthur Schopenhauer

We are trained to become a professional whatever, but not to become a proper person. Nobody teaches us about personhood. We get a manual for the gadgets and machines we buy, but none for ourselves. I needed an education in being a person. I started spending more time at the public library in Tucson. It was there that I got the education I never received at school.

Now, places like libraries—where there’s a lot of information or stimulation—can be overwhelming for me. I don’t know why I am like that. Maybe because I am curious and everything interests me.

I understand that all of us can get sucked into information and that probably has an evolutionary basis. Early on, people who had more information—where are most bushes with berries or where are the cleanest safest streams of water—fared better than others and got to pass down their genes. Which is why we—the modern version of berry hunting apes—get sucked into everything from celebrity gossip to infotainment provided by YouTube educators.

Anyway, my tendency to get sucked into an excess of information has always been dialled to the max, and a simple quote I’d read early on in my life by a poet, Jalaluddin Rumi, has helped me keep it under control: ‘The art of knowing is knowing what to ignore.’ Great statement, except to know what to ignore, you need to know what is not of utility, and for that you need to know the purpose.

  ***

Get your copy of Happiness Happens on Amazon or wherever books are sold.

Read on for a glimpse into the powerful ideas explored in More from Less for More—a book that redefines inclusive innovation.

Five words.

They hold the key to the world’s sustainable future.

They combine three compelling priorities.

Equitability. Profitability. Sustainability.

This unique platform is humankind’s response to enhancing prosperity for the largest number of people, increasing wealth for innovators and protecting environmental integrity.

These three attributes hold the key to a new world.

In our pursuit of innovation, two dominant paradigms have emerged, both of which exacerbate inequality:

More from More for Less (MML): This MML strategy focuses on creating high-end, feature-rich products that are only affordable to the wealthy. It breeds exclusivity, creating a world where the inequalities of access rise exponentially.

Less from Less for More (LLM): This LLM approach caters to the masses but compromises quality, offering substandard products to the poor. While it increases accessibility, it denies dignity, aspiration and happiness to those who deserve better.

Both paradigms fail to address the fundamental need for equality—not just economic equality but the deeper, more profound equality of access, opportunity and respect.

On the other hand, the MLM strategy offers a transformative solution:

• More from Less: Leveraging technology, creativity and efficiency to reduce resource usage while enhancing quality.

• For More: Ensuring that the benefits of innovation reach the widest possible people, transcending economic and social boundaries.

This strategy is grounded in the belief that excellence should not be the privilege of a few but the right of all.

More from Less for More.

Reliance Digital Services Business—Jio: A Global MLM Next Practice

Jio is not just the best practice but the next practice of ‘More from Less for More’.

MLM has been most extensively showcased in the growth of Jio’s telecom network launched by Reliance Industries.

Within just a decade of its existence, Jio has demonstrated the unique combination of a large rollout scale, extensive influence and sustainable outcomes.

This challenging combination has been achieved through a strategic clarity of generating more from less—for more people, MLM for short.

This clarity has not just transformed Jio from scratch into one of the largest global digital services companies in compressed time; it has emerged as possibly the most visible MLM manifestation the world over. This single success has transformed MLM into a living reality with multi-decade implications for all stakeholders.

To get here, MLM at Jio climbed several walls of apprehension. More than a decade ago, there was a question about the sustainable profitability of the telecom service sector in India.

In the two decades leading to the Jio launch, several telecom companies had sold out, the industry had consolidated (fewer but larger players), and despite this—which should have made it easy for leading players to raise tariffs—competition had increased. Industry profitability had declined.

The perception was that voice telephony had been commoditized; WhatsApp calls had made voice-based services largely irrelevant; debt-driven telecom companies appeared to be driven to bankruptcy; and the share prices of most telecom companies had eroded.

There was no case for Reliance Industries to launch a new telecom service. Several analysts predicted that the group’s entry into this space would be marked by failure that could affect the parent’s cash flows. The surviving telecom companies were bleeding; there was no reason why the outcome would be different for Jio. The conclusion was that the more Reliance utilized its muscle—throwing good money after bad—the greater its loss and balance sheet embarrassment. The conclusion was that Reliance had mistimed.

Reliance held a contrarian position. The company believed that what most industry players had dismissed as a sunset certainty was a sunrise opportunity in disguise. Where most players perceived realities (grim), Reliance perceived possibilities (better). The Reliance perception difference was the way the company saw the world pan out: its entry into telecom through its Jio brand would not be about voice (which was dying anyway on account of free WhatsApp-based calls); it would be about data.

Data. The new oil. Consumers would want to watch movies on their smartphones; they would want to shop online; they would want to access social media through their phones; they would want to read off their personal device screens; they would want to be educated on their mobile phones; they would want to track, trade and transact.

Voice was so yesterday.

At Reliance, data was about tomorrow. The laptop would become secondary; the tablet would no longer be important; the mobile phone would slide into the centre of engagements. Besides, each time the consumer stepped onto the Internet, a digital trail would be created. Consumer preferences would be mapped. Purchase junctures would be studied. Price points would be analysed. The next time the consumer ventured onto the net, the mobile phone would be armed with insights to predict the nature of products likely to be consumed. The result was that the mobile phone was awaiting a reinvention.

Reliance recognized that doing the same thing with the same handset in the same way as everyone else would lead the company to the same outcome—obsolescence. The company needed to do something different using largely the same resources as everyone else. This insight represented the basis of Reliance’s entry into a space where it possessed no experience. What Reliance did not know was nominal; what it did know would prove game-changing. Voice had been commoditized; data had not been touched. This one insight represented the growth platform for a company seeking to transform a much-used electronic handset for a disruptive application.

Most felt there was nothing left to disrupt. The telecom industry had played out an entire cycle ending with bankruptcies, exits, declining revenues and suboptimal returns. There was a likelihood that the potential disruptor would be disrupted. Voice was finished. Data was unproven. Even if data was the next big opportunity, the data quantum the average Indian would consume would not justify an entry into the sector (assuming that voice would be non-surplus accretive).

Reliance made a different conclusion. If the future did not exist, it would have to be created. If the process was not conducive, the means would need to be changed.

  ***

Get your copy of More From Less for More on Amazon or wherever books are sold.

Read the chilling excerpt from The Babel Murders—a thriller where every word could be fatal.

Neel tried walking but missed a step and fell on the woman, who helped him up with strong arms.

‘It’s all right, sir. Come with me. Careful. We’ll go slowly.’

The woman pulled one of Neel’s arms across her shoulders and held him up, walking down the stairs. In front of him, he saw the limp body of Dr Pankaj being taken away on the stretcher.

‘Is he alive?’

The policewoman yelled his question to the white-clad paramedics.

‘I think they found a faint pulse. Do you know him?’

Neel nodded, and then it dawned on him. ‘Was there a woman? American? I didn’t see her. Did you find a woman near me?’ Neel asked, suddenly remembering about Devin.

‘Many of the casualties are women. But American? No.’

‘No, no! She must have been near me, where I was lying, next to the professor.’

‘No, sir. We just found you, the professor, and three other bodies here. The three looked American, but not sure . . . but no woman. Do you remember if she was last with you before you lost consciousness?’ She remained patient, trying to support Neel.

‘No—or yes. She was. I think I saw her. I don’t know!’

They had reached the bottom of the staircase. The tube lights on the ceiling illuminated the hallway in a soothing white light, blocking out the red flashers from the emergency vehicles outside. Outside, Neel saw hordes of people, some paramedics, some police officers, some dressed in vests and carrying guns, looking a lot like commandos. All stood in front of scores of vans and trucks—from fire engines to ambulances to armoured police vehicles. Behind them, Neel saw modified vans with large dishes and mounted antennas—the press. Journalists were clamouring to get through, bristling with microphones and large video cameras, but were blocked by a wall of khaki-clad police officers.

The woman handed Neel over to two paramedics. ‘They’ll take you to one of the ambulances. They’ll check the bruise on your head. Don’t worry, we’ll find your friend. I’m sorry . . . you had to go through this.’ She pursed her lips. Then, she turned and went back into the university building.

#

The ambulance dampened the clamour and noise outside. The vibration of the engine was comforting, and he could track the almost inaudible sound of some pieces of equipment rattling in their brackets beneath the cot. Neel sat there, a saline drip in his arm, cocooned in a warm blanket. He clenched his fists, closed his eyes, and calmed his nerves. This was a rare moment, he realized, a brief period of quiet in the storm. He felt exhausted and clueless.

Did I dive into the deep end?

Cambridge, Venice, Hong Kong, somehow . . . his efforts hadn’t been enough. Somehow, whoever was behind this had always been two steps ahead. It weighed on him like corrosive rust on metal. Neel collected himself, breathing slowly. He had to calm down; worrying wouldn’t help his headache, or his pineal gland.

He assured himself that the answers would come in due time. Right now, he just wanted to go back home, curl up in his blankets, and sleep between his parents like he used to as a child. Everything was falling apart, and he didn’t know if he could save it—or if it was even up to him.

Thanatos . . .

What was Thanatos? Who was Thanatos? The Greek god of death? Neel remembered what Maggie Lau had told him, about her associating Thanatos with Freud. He remembered reading about Thanatos in that context, the self-destructive drive that Freud posited every human had. Thanatos was the death drive opposing Eros, the drive for sex or life. It could be that, but . . . had he seen it somewhere before? In Hong Kong? In Dubai? In Venice? In Cambridge? In . . .

‘I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read that.’

Cooper. The pile of books on his desk. Freud’s essays. Beyond the Pleasure Principle, one of his hallmark essays describing these drives.

‘Some of Freud’s essays I inherited from my father, the rest I collected over the years.’

Cooper even taught a class in psycholinguistics. Thanatos. Could it be related to him? How could it be possible? Were these the ruminations of a worked-up brain? Neel remembered Devin in Venice saying she suspected Cooper was hiding something, that until they found out the truth, they couldn’t cross off anybody from the list of potential moles in the Mertongue Project.

But he had died, hadn’t he?

With everything he thought, he was reminded of Devin. He couldn’t lose her.

  ***

Get your copy of The Babel Murders on Amazon or wherever books are sold.

Can clearing a drawer really calm your nervous system? In this excerpt from The Calm Prescription by Luke Coutinho, discover how decluttering can lower stress and bring balance to your life.

Decluttering Your Space

Have you ever noticed how you feel when you walk into a clean, organized room as opposed to one filled with clutter? That sense of calm you experience in a tidy space is more than just an aesthetic preference; it’s a reflection of how our environment affects our nervous system. Clutter doesn’t just crowd our physical space—it can create mental chaos, triggering a stress response in our body.

The Accumulation of Clutter: Why We Hoard and Its Hidden Costs

It’s easy to accumulate things—clothes, gadgets, papers and trinkets—that we think we might need someday. These items often end up forgotten, collecting dust and taking up space. While buying new things isn’t inherently problematic, issues arise when we don’t let go of the old to make room for the new. Over time, our drawers, closets and shelves overflow with items that no longer serve a purpose but still demand our attention.

This clutter can be seen as ‘dead energy’—objects that no longer contribute to our lives but occupy mental and emotional space. Research shows that living in cluttered environments can lead to feelings of overwhelm and contribute to stress. Clutter acts as a constant visual reminder of unfinished tasks and decisions, which can become a source of anxiety, gradually overloading our nervous system. In fact, studies published on PubMed and by NCBI have found that individuals living in disorganized environments often experience higher levels of cortisol, a stress hormone known to activate the sympathetic nervous system.

How Clutter Affects Our Nervous System

The human brain constantly processes information from its environment. In a cluttered space, this influx of visual stimuli creates a form of sensory overload, requiring our brain to work harder to focus on tasks. Our attention becomes scattered, our ability to process information is compromised and we may experience mental fatigue. This phenomenon is supported by research from the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, which found that clutter competes for our attention, reducing performance and increasing stress.

When our surroundings are chaotic, our nervous system can shift into a sympathetic mode, releasing stress hormones that increase alertness, heart rate and muscle tension. Decluttering, on the other hand, allows us to shift back to the parasympathetic mode, promoting relaxation, better focus and overall well-being.

Decluttering is more than just cleaning up; it’s a practice of mindfulness that has physical and psychological benefits. Studies reveal that reducing clutter can alleviate symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress, as well as improve mood and cognition. The process of sorting and organizing can also be therapeutic. As we decide which items to keep and which to let go, we engage in reflection, acknowledging the emotional attachments we may have with certain objects. This can help us confront and release past memories, leading to emotional catharsis and growth.

Furthermore, the physical act of decluttering promotes mindful engagement with our environment. By focusing on one task at a time—whether organizing a drawer or clearing off a surface—we create space not only physically but mentally as well. This reduction in sensory input allows our brain to function more optimally, thereby reducing stress and improving our ability to concentrate.

Experts in psychology and neuroscience have noted the powerful effects of decluttering on our mental and emotional well-being. Dr Sherrie Bourg Carter, a psychologist who specializes in stress management, highlights that ‘clutter bombards our minds with excessive stimuli, causing our senses to work overtime on stimuli that aren’t necessary or important.’ This overload, she explains, ‘can lead to increased stress and difficulty focusing.’ Meanwhile, Dr Darby Saxbe, an expert on home psychology, has pointed out that ‘our homes are extensions of ourselves, and a cluttered home can create a cluttered mind, reflecting unresolved issues in our emotional lives.’

Marie Kondo, a well-known organizational consultant, also emphasizes that the process of decluttering can build joy and inner peace. By keeping only the items that ‘spark joy,’ Kondo suggests that we cultivate an environment that reflects our true selves, thus minimizing stress and bringing harmony into our lives.

Environment and Emotion: The Impact of Space on Mood and Behaviour

Our physical surroundings directly affect our emotional states. Studies show that organized environments contribute to positive emotions, while cluttered spaces are linked to negative feelings like frustration, guilt and even depression. This response can be attributed to how our brain interprets our surroundings. A clean, orderly space promotes a sense of control and stability, whereas cluttered spaces often create feelings of chaos and unpredictability.

Imagine stepping into a room filled with disorganized stacks of papers, clothing scattered around and dishes left unwashed. Compare that experience to walking into a clean, organized room where everything has its place. The latter instantly feels more calming and inviting, allowing the nervous system to settle. This soothing effect is not only psychological but physiological as well—an uncluttered environment can help lower blood pressure and slow heart rate, all of which engage the parasympathetic nervous system.

Decluttering doesn’t have to be an overwhelming task. Start small, with one drawer or a single surface. Consider this an ongoing practice rather than a one-time event. Here are a few tips to help you incorporate mindful decluttering into your life:

1. Start with a purpose: Identify why you want to declutter. Are you looking to reduce stress, improve focus or simply create more space for the things you love? Defining a purpose helps make the process intentional.

2. Work in small steps: Begin with a manageable area—a drawer, a shelf or your workspace. Small successes build momentum and make larger projects feel achievable.

3. Sort into categories: Use categories, like ‘keep’, ‘donate’ and ‘discard’, to streamline your process.

4. Consider each item’s purpose: Reflect on whether each item serves a current purpose or brings you joy. Letting go of items that no longer serve you can be liberating.

5. Practise gratitude: As you declutter, practise gratitude for the items you choose to keep and for the opportunity to create a more peaceful space. 6. Maintain the routine: Regularly set aside time to tidy and organize. Decluttering doesn’t have to be an exhausting event; it can be a calming routine that brings ongoing peace.

When we let go of things that no longer serve us, we make room for clarity, focus and growth. So, the next time you feel overwhelmed or stuck, look around your space. Decluttering may be the key to unlocking a calmer mind and a more balanced nervous system.

  ***

Get your copy of Rhythmic Parenting on Amazon or wherever books are sold.

How does rhythm shape a child’s growth? Discover this excerpt from ‘Rhythmic Parenting’.

Chapter 2
Rhythm: A Cradle for Healthy Growth

A young child is like a sponge, soaking up their environment continuously during their waking hours. The child’s inner forces, like a sculptor’s hands, receive impressions from the environment to form the physical body. Everything in the environment, eating a juicy strawberry, playing with a remote-controlled car, listening to a story, the touch of a wool sweater, the chirping of birds, conversations between adults, the flash of traffic lights, stimulates these inner forces. Just like a sculpture, if something suddenly pushes the sculptor’s hands, the sculpture will flatten. If something moves the hands gently, the sculpture will receive a soft impression. The quality of a child’s environment creates soft or hard, slow or sudden impressions on the physical body. What happens when the child receives very strong or too many impressions?

Today, young children are increasingly encountering experiences that are new on the human stage and questionable in terms of their impact on child development. Little children in strollers glued to smartphones in a shopping mall. Threeyear- olds expected to write the alphabet at an age when their wrist bones have not developed yet. Four-year-olds being asked to choose the school they want to go to. Hitech creep, premature academic expectations and children being treated like little adults are burdensome on a young child. Such experiences demand the child to exercise their feelings and thoughts, which is a premature expectation. (The capacity of feeling starts developing only around seven years of age and of thinking around puberty.) As a result, their formative forces are pulled away from physical growth, which is the actual task of early childhood, and diverted towards dealing with these advanced impressions. Physical development is neglected, formative forces are depleted and the child is saddled with undigested impressions. The result is ‘difficult children’ when the child is simply expressing their discomfort.

The rhythmic environment of Ukti’s kindergarten worked therapeutically on such children. Initially, they found the calm, harmonious mood unsettling. With no intense impressions to drown their unease, they did not know what to do with themselves. They didn’t know how to listen to a story without interrupting. They could not enter into free play so they kept moving, talking and disrupting other children’s game. They would get cranky easily and cling to the teacher.

When they received the right environment that prioritized their physical development, they started to heal. The process took time—several weeks, even months. Bit by bit, they were freed from the shackles that had been holding them back. They were able to eat well, play by themselves and with other children, sleep well at night and be energetic and joyful during the day. Because they felt at ease with themselves, they were able to take an interest in the world: explore, interact, engage and learn from it.

What was special about this environment that gave children what they needed for their healthy development? It offered them impressions that they could use for their growth and rest that allowed them to digest these impressions.

We make a vessel from a lump of clay; it is the empty space within that makes it useful. We make doors and windows for a room; But it is these empty spaces that make the room liveable. Thus, while the tangible has advantages, it is the intangible that makes it useful.

The intangible aspect of growth is rest. The sculptor’s hands must pause after stretching. Rest is essential for growth to happen. This is seen most easily with an infant. Drinking milk, the main growth experience, is such intense work for them that they doze off soon after and sometimes even during it. Upon waking, they are energized and ready for the next meal. Activity and rest alternate to create a rhythm of growth.

When we sow a seed, it doesn’t turn into a plant overnight. The seed needs to go through the rhythms of the sun, rain and soil, as well as the absence of these forces which allows for their absorption. Then it begins to sprout. This alternating process of activity and rest must continue for the sapling to turn into a blossoming plant that bears fruit.

All nature moves and transforms itself in rhythm: the alternation of day and night, the transition from winter to spring, the disappearance and return of comets in the night sky. It is no different for human beings.

Until not very long ago, our lives pulsated to the rhythms of nature. People woke up at the break of dawn and went to sleep after sunset. Spring and summer were active seasons, and things slowed down in autumn and winter. Children played and rested according to these natural rhythms. They rolled about in the dirt, climbed trees and splashed in streams. Their toys were sticks and stones, wooden animals, and simple dolls made of cotton, wool or straw. The child’s physical being imbibed impressions from the natural world and grew and developed out of them. Because the natural world moves in predictable rhythms, the child did too. The first sign appeared around three months of age, when babies started sleeping for longer stretches during the night. This was the beginning of the twenty-fourhour circadian rhythm of light and dark—our internal rhythm that is responsible for the healthy functioning of life processes, from digestion to memory consolidation to hormone release and more.

What started with the invention of the light bulb a hundred years ago has metamorphosed into a high-speed train with no brakes. With our technological achievements, we are no longer dependent on nature. The rising and setting of the sun have little bearing on our schedules. We have the freedom to eat, bathe, exercise, work, socialize and sleep at our will. Nature no longer exclusively determines when we are active and when we are at rest. So we can spend hours in our cars, on the phone and in front of our screens, and not even realize. And our children are right there with us. Can they assimilate all these myriad, new experiences for growth?

A child fashions their growth instinctively out of their environment with no control over the environment itself. Today, parents have the unique responsibility of creating the environment and crafting the cradle for their child’s healthy growth. This cradle is rhythm.

Crafting the Cradle
When the child’s environment is imbued with rhythm, their growth will have the same quality. Parents can create this environment by working with four questions.

1. How does your child experience a typical day?
Any experience has one of two qualities: stretching or releasing. The first experience is asking the child to stretch in order to take something in from the world. We call it an inbreath. These experiences press upon the child’s physical organism and stimulate it, and the child grows by assimilating them.

Inbreath
From the time the child wakes up, they begin to breathe in the world: the chirping of birds, the bark of the dog, the aroma of breakfast being cooked, the sight of parents drinking tea, morning hugs and conversations.

Take a moment to reflect on your morning today. Can you identify all the different things that were going on? Start with the obvious ones and list them. Recall anything that you perceived with your senses of sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. They are tangible and easier to remember. Now try and recall how you felt. Did you have any strong emotions? What about your partner? What was the general mood? Was there an unexpected phone call or work email? Something in the news?

If your child goes to day care or kindergarten, they will breathe in more impressions: obvious ones like snacks and meals, rhymes and stories, and less obvious ones like the colours of the classroom, the teacher’s tone of voice. All instructions are inbreaths. These could be academic instructions about letters and numbers or instructions for a crafting activity. Then there are impressions a child receives from their peers: ‘I will get a kitten for my birthday’; ‘My father went to London. He is coming back today, and I will pick him up from the airport’; ‘My dog runs away with all the shoes in our house’.

Outbreath
Along with all this stretching activity, the child also receives outbreaths. The outbreath is when the sculptor’s hands can be still because no external impression is pushing them, allowing the child’s body to process previous stretching experiences and giving the ‘hands’ a break so they can rest and rejuvenate. Any time the child is moving (running about the house, walking to the car, running about in the playground, playing tag with friends), the child is able to breathe out. The extent of outbreath depends on how long and how freely the child is engaged in movement. Indoor free play also offers the child an opportunity to exhale. If the child has time to be in nature, they have the fullest opportunity to exhale. A nap or quiet time during the day helps digest experiences from the morning. And finally night-time sleep is the ultimate outbreath. All that the child explores and learns during the day is digested in sleep, making it possible for them to resume their task—growing and inhabiting their physical body—the next day.

Both the work of taking in the world during the day and the movement and rest to assimilate it develop the physical body and the senses. Growth happens in a twenty-four-hour continuum. If a child has too much inbreath, they will have a greater need to move and rest. If this need is not met, they will find it difficult to fall asleep at night, making them tired the next day and compromising their ability to take up the task of growth.

  ***

Get your copy of Rhythmic Parenting on Amazon or wherever books are sold.

ACT ONE

Royal Hotel Shimla

If I attempt to go back to the beginning of it all, to understand how the tide of our undoing swept us along headfirst into the calamitous sea, perhaps I would arrive at our father’s love for stories. He loved telling stories, and maybe that’s also what made him such a good trader, besides, of course, the fact that he traded in opium. He had a way of talking that would turn the mundane into the dramatic, that could make one forget the immediate world and move the person to tears—‘baaton mein ras ghol dete hai, Mistryji!’ It was a compliment we often heard about him—that he could sway people with his words.

He often used to say that stories are between you and I, making them seem like a personal, special secret, relating them with penchant and charm. He knew when to raise his tone with a smattering of exclamations, and when to pause and build suspense. He knew how to hold attention, and how to laugh and diffuse it. Even as a child, I realized this magnetic power he had. More than anything else, he knew human nature—what made people smile and cry.

Every week, our relatives would gather over salli boti and steaming dal, and our father, the all-important storyteller, would regale us with stories of the follies of great kings, the loyalties of loving friends, and the treacheries of seeminglyinnocent partners. Stories about statecraft and politics, cleverness and retributions, love and death. Eventually, he would ask the guests to participate by sharing tales fictional and real, tragic and comic, gloomy and hopeful.

It was the highlight of our time spent with him, as our father had many important businesses to attend to other than just take care of three little girls. Our charge was passed among ayahs, under the watchful eye of an aunt here or there. While most times he remained a distant, strict and awe-inspiring figure, the stories abolished hierarchies and treated all of us equally in their wonderful and mysterious world.

My favourite story, the one I remembered as a hymn late into the hours of troubling nights, was a story from the Jataka tales, of the little quail Latukika who laid her eggs on the feeding ground of elephants. My sisters—Noor, Afreen—and I would be spellbound as we imagined Latukika’s tiny eggs in the path of hundreds of bumbling elephants. One elephant, a form of the Bodhisatta, protected Latukika and her eggs from the parade of elephants but, before leaving, he warned Latukika of one wild elephant whom he could not control.

The rogue elephant came and destroyed Latukika’s eggs, although she begged him to show mercy. With shattered dreams, Latukika flew away, weighed down by a life that would never be the same again. Yet, a fire of vengeance burnt in Latukika’s belly, and she vowed to avenge her hatchlings. Over time, she made friends with a crow, a fly and a frog, and convinced them to join her in her mission to destroy the wild elephant. After days of planning, the crow pecked at the elephant’s eyeballs until they oozed blood. The fly then entered and laid eggs inside his eye sockets. When the eggs hatched into maggots, the elephant was in a pain so fierce that the croaking frog, promising a refreshing dunk in a pond of water, was able to mislead the blind elephant off the edge of a cliff. And so, Latukika had her revenge.

‘It matters not who has the most strength,’ father would say, ‘it matters how you use that strength, what friends you have and what cause you fight for.’ In the difficult times of life, I remembered Latukika and her courage in the face of horrifying odds, and over time, my sisters and I became Latukika and her friends, sticking together in the face of all that had happened to us.

When our father died, our eldest sister, Noor, was compelled to save Afreen and I from our relatives, lest they relegate us to a torrid, shameful future. Noor had bravely borne two huge tragedies of life—first when her husband died of tuberculosis and then when we lost our father. She had been forced to grow up more each time and hold life tighter in her hands, and yet, she fought her husband’s family to be with us. She left behind her world in Lahore to take her younger sisters to our inheritance: Royal Hotel Shimla.

In a land of heat and dust, Royal Hotel Shimla was an oasis of dreams perched on top of Sunset Hill in Shimla. When our father’s opium business stalled, he put his energies into developing the four-storeyed stone establishment. But he did not want to offer just another inn for passersby. He wanted Royal Hotel Shimla to be a stunning cultural centre, a place that hosted soirées for all the beautiful and distinguished people who set foot in Shimla.

The opium was going to be his key to make Royal Hotel Shimla a success, the gateway to his entry in the world of the British and an opportunity for consorting with the Rajahs and Maharajahs. Word spread that our father, Jamshedji Mistry, offered the best opium in all of Hindustan in his hotel. It attracted the influential Nawabs, the dainty princesses, the anglicized civil servants. Our father made gifts of this opium to high-ranking officials, and soon the place was teeming with English officers out to enjoy the summer season. Within months, the who’s who were at Royal Hotel Shimla: the Maharaja of Kapurthala, the Maharani of Cooch Behar, Lords and Marquesses, Governors of various Presidencies, fallen-from-glory Sultans, French explorers and Swiss diplomats—all eager to meet with the cream of society.

Every summer, the town came alive with balls, parties, picnics, country fairs and the revelries of the British as well as India’s rich. It was the perfect time for single women, accompanied by their mothers, on the lookout for an appropriate husband. Gossip and scandal flowed as freely as champagne and wine, with dances to aid the meeting of eligible single adults.

In the hotel, I often pretended to be someone else; a desperate Maharani out to negotiate with the evil White men to save her kingdom, an out-of-favour Nawab giving in to intoxicants and falling in love with a courtesan, a little girl locked in the hotel alone to fight the ghosts of its past owners. The fabulous lives of our guests took my imagination to far-off worlds. Surrounded by these important people, I was keen to be someone more exciting and live their life, even if only in fantasy.

While Noor took over the complicated tasks of running the hotel, I was trained in English and taught to welcome the guests and arrange for their needs. I was on call to bring them their towels, show them to the ballroom, make sure the tea arrived and ensure that every room had hot water for their baths. I also kept the fires burning. Afreen, on the other hand, was placed in the kitchen, to oversee the cooking. With her loud mouth, keen sense of justice and resentment, which prevented her from being practical, the kitchen was the only place she could remain out of trouble.

There was always work to do, always things to take care of and always someone to help. I was happy being there, it took our minds away from the past. Yet, as I grew up, the hotel’s walls, elaborate though they might have been, weren’t enough, and I started getting restless.

I was young and beautiful, I knew as much, but it seemed as though my life had come to a standstill within the four walls of this hotel. Chained to our inheritance, I longed for the world outside that seemed out of reach. In my dreams, I dared to venture far and away to America, to a life of Hollywood glamour, while I was resigned to await the marriage fate had in store for me.

I knew that the hotel was our lifeline. Outside of these four walls, we would be lost, and our self-made house of graces would crumble. I helped my sisters in the running of this place to maintain our semblance of respectability—so that good Parsi men could be found for us, so we may dedicate the rest of our lives to them and give them beautiful, well-behaved children who would go on to glorify their Parsi name.

In the management of the everyday—the rooms that had to be cleaned, the delicacies that had to be laid out, the small talk that had to be kept up, I somehow forgot my small indignances. I erased my hope for a purpose to make sure my life amounted to something, that I was held in worth, but mostly, my insatiable desire to live and dream of all the lives in the realm of possibility.

Yet, the hypocrisy of our position and the limits of our physical reality frustrated me. I ached for something that would help me understand why it must be so and what I could be.

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