When my friend Lipika Bhushan insisted that I review a book on Parables of Growth – I expressed an initial hesitation. She prodded me to look beyond the world of political economy and historical fiction – genres I am most comfortable with. Taking a dig at the books I read, write and review, she said, with a chuckle: books can also be written without end notes and long bibliographies!
And so, the new year weekend was spent with Aritra Sarkar’s Stress to Zest: Stories and Lessons for Personal Transformation. The dedication page held my attention: Aritra Sarkar describes his parents- Mama and Baba- as My origin, My ocean, My bridge, My achievement.
Now let’s delve into the parables contained in this book. While at one level, stress is a generic term – but then each of the seven common stress factors – financial, relationship, job, health, competition, social and parental- are also unique. But each of them also has an inbuilt opportunity to surmount them
So, let's begin with these ‘millennial’ stories. Biryani Band is about Sonny Kapoor and Ankita who loved each other passionately while doing their MBA, but were drifting apart when living together – for they did not - or could not help each other’s passions – his for dance, and hers for music. They were becoming extremely negative towards each other - because of mismatched expectations – but once they started investing in each other’s life – it was a miracle all over again. Sonny’s father comes to him in a vision and says ‘I left your world because you’d banished me from your heart. I left your world because I died in your dreams. Nonetheless, I am still present in the universe. I am here, everywhere and nowhere’. There is a happy ending with Ankita’s Biryani Band winning the Filmfare Musical award, and the couple are blessed with their first son, who stops crying on hearing…Ek ladki ko dekha...
Parental pressure is the theme for the next parable, The Daisy Land Murders. This is the story of a dysfunctional relationship between Birgitte Larsen, a law enforcement officer and her rebellious teenaged daughter Freya, who is all set to decamp with her college fees with her junkie boyfriend RM ( Richard Mustafa) to Los Angeles. But RMs murder changes everything. Mother and daughter understand each other’s loss and, in their quest for those whom they loved, they come together as a team. As Sarkar says ‘in the long run, the identity divide can be bridged if parents and children have an open conversation about the deeper facets of life, and during these two-way exchanges, both parties may realise that they all want the same thing, but in different packaging.
Forgotten Wings is the struggle of Valentina Perez, an aspiring woman wrestler, who is torn between her long-term goal of helming the wrestling league with the immediate temptation of being accepted in the hot and happening circle of party girls – all dolled up and ready to roll in a rave party sponsored by tycoons, where rich and famous men in their fifties preyed on young girls from universities. She is drugged and raped, and is about to be expelled from the college, but her mother Florentine launches the rescue effort by accessing the video recordings in that building. One may say that this was indeed fortuitous, but then parables have to juxtapose situations to drive home the intended message. Sarkar tells us that social pressure is a force akin to the screw driver... it compels us to fit into circles, and prevents us from expressing our individuality.
We Can be Legends is a story set in Flint, Michigan where new technology had disrupted the traditional manufacturing economy - causing the decline of many towns and cities, such that water supply, sanitation, hospitals and infrastructure was in dumps. This was the setting for many ex-employees of GM struggling to eke out an existence, by following the route of sleaze, drugs, liquor and some shady auto repair workshops. They were, in a manner of speaking, pushed into it, for GM had closed shop, and no other options were available. But then, at a time when most felt disenfranchised, Daisy, a former lead engineer working on the Thunderbolt Engine decided to throw the gauntlet – when she realized that her son was about to follow the same path - she got all her ex-colleagues to give up the life of guns and crime, and pool their money to help her to produce a state of the art flying - car in a brand-new factory at Autoville.
The next parable is about yoga, meditation, holistic healing and forming a network of positive relationships. The protagonist is Esmeralda Foster, a holistic health practitioner and a naturopath, who decided after her chauffeur’s death that she had a duty to those who could not afford her treatment. She reached out to the most vulnerable: people who were in the pits of death, but could not afford a safety harness. Over time, members of this group not only recovered their physical health, but also joined hands to create a new venture – that of providing affordable wellness solutions to all. Initially the company - The Daylight Program- focused on healthy snacks, natural juices, daily essentials, wellness programmes, but over time, took up training in various fitness fields - yoga, pilates, organic farming and osteopathy. The message here is that the true measure of one’s passion for a healthy lifestyle is to replicate it for others as well!
The penultimate parable is about Job Stress. We often end up doing what comes our way because of circumstances beyond our control, but if we keep our core interest alive, there will always be an opportunity to leverage them - and one does not know when the tide will turn, as it did for Agata Kowalski when Covid 99, a virus far more potent than Covid 19, struck London with a ferocity unheard of before. This is closest to a Biblical parable with a happy ending for everyone – for the homeless Roman gypsy Lavinia to Agata, her brother Filip, her mother and the scientist Peter Lungdren, the world’s topmost authority on Covid and its variants.
The lesson here is that it is not enough to feel passionate about your job, but to ask – ‘Is my job my passion, and if the answer is no, one must step back and ask ‘why am I not following my passion ? How can I do it?
Last but not the least we have the Redemption station to understand what competitive pressure can do to us. This often leads to a situation where an individual strives for a singular outcome: victory at any cost as if nothing else matters. But sometimes this comes at a very high cost: that of giving up what one always wanted to do. This is the case with Asahi Saito who realizes that he has won the race he never wanted to pursue. Joining the engineering course at the Tokyo university would have meant the end of his passion as a Harajuku artist! Sarkar of course makes this parable very innovative by bringing in the legless, homeless Buddhist monk who delivers a sermon about living and dying and about how our past lives are never really past – but continue with us in our current endeavours.
Let me close by this takeaway: recognize that stress is not your destiny. The path to breaking out of your rut, and finding meaning in life begins with a pursuit of your passion. When you follow your passion, you bring something new into the world.... this helps you to look within and understand yourself.
Thereby your stress gives way to zest!
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