The other day, I met Hemant Shutterkhalikar. A chronic Mumbaikar and Saffron Brigade fanatic, he lives in Dadar and takes that fact very seriously. Dadar is to Mumbai’s Hindus what Jerusalem is to the Jews – you can strut your stuff anywhere, but this is simply the best place from where to do it. I’ve never been able to figure out why.

Anyway, you’d be hard put to find a more typical example of the illustrious Manus Marathicus genus than Hemant Shutterkhalikar… the man literally chews green and spits saffron. He hasn’t had much of an education – his father pulled him out of school after he flunked the seventh standard so that his precious male spawn would have more time to go and wave wooden poles at Shivaji Park.

No thoroughbred Brahmin male is considered worthy of the saffron flag if he hasn’t done this for an extended period of time. It has something to do with expressing one’s hypothetical willingness to do war against the ill-defined oppressive forces that would usurp the Maharashtrian Hindu from his rightful place on the top of the heap. (The top of the heap in Maharashtra, that is. Die-hard or not, this lot is realistic enough to know that they cannot trot that stuff beyond those sugar-caned borders.)

Hemant Shutterkhalikar spends most of his time hanging around the local barber’s shop, where he and his compatriots talk of their day’s ethnic purging exploits and slap each other on the backs. There is no shortage of non-Maharashtrian self-esteem to shatter in Dadar, so Hemant & Co. always have plenty of cannon fodder.

You’d think that Mumbai’s Gujaratis and North Indians would have savvied up by now and shifted their act to more convivial locations, but no – humans have this tendency to make their homes in the war zone. Maybe they feel that living so close to the source of infection stimulates their immune system into higher protection levels. The Jews didn’t shift out of Germany even when they could practically smell the Nazi concentration camp fire, either.

In the evenings, Hemant engages in the traditional neighborhood extortion game called ‘pygmy collection’ and repairs with the proceeds to the local hooch dive. There he and his pals drink deep of Government-approved rotgut and watch the sun go down over the slums of ‘Amchi’ Mumbai. He was there that evening when he saw me attempt to evade him and his sozzled cronies by crossing the road. He shot up drunkenly and hailed me.

“Oye! Where you going, yaar? Come here, come here. I am wanting to share with you somet’ing.”

There was no way out. Telling an inebriated saffronite that you have better things to do than listen to his self-aggrandizing frog-in-the-pond rantings is not on. You may not actually wind up battered and smeared with dogshit in the nearest gutter, but you can bet your last modak that your bike tires will be just about as flat and perforated as a rava dosa the next morning.

I walked over and sat down beside him on the barber’s hospitality bench. From the smell of it, Hemant already had at least a quarter of arrack under his belt.

“I saw de movie your told me to watch. ‘Borat’,” he said. “About dat Afghani asshole who goes to America?”

He was talking about the outrageously spoofy film ‘Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.’ In this film, the fictitious character Borat Sagdiyev uses his assumed Third World ignorance to poke fun at the American mindset. He is portrayed as a total bigot and MCP who hates Jews and considers women as only slightly better than cattle.

“Kazakhi,” I corrected. “Borat is supposed to be from Kazakhstan, but he’s actually an American Jew.

“Ya, ya, whatever,” said Hemant dismissively. “Anyway, he funny – but he also right, you know. I know how he feel about de Jews. We have so many same problems here in Mumbai wit’ people who not from Mumbai.”

I chose not to comment. I’m not an inbred Mumbaikar myself and therefore walk a tightrope every time I sully this Sacred City’s pavements with my contaminated footsteps.

“But I think he not right about women, yaar,” he continued. “Women are not good only just for the sex. Dey also needed for cleaning and washing de laundry. Dey also take good care of the kids. We (he flapped his sweaty saffron neckerchief) treat de women wit’ respec’.”

“Yes,” I agreed readily enough. “Women have their uses.”

“But he right about dis ‘sexual consent’ business, yaar,” he said, looking drunkenly wistful. “What bullshit, consent?”

I said nothing, but did wonder just how long this guy would be able to run from a lynch mob of Californian women libbers if some unfortunate twist of Fate would ever land him in Yankeeland.

“Women are good, but what is use of asking dem about de man business?” asked disgustedly. “Sex is de man business - they not enjoy anyway. Do dey take consent of de man before de cooking or de cleaning house? No! Dat is de woman business, and dey enjoy and we don’t enjoy. Do dey ask for our consent when dey are washing de laundry or cleaning de baby kaka? No! Dey much better at it and we give dem respec’ for it! Mother is like Goddess, no?”

It was a tricky moment. Did I agree with a “no” or a “yes”? Indian English can be complicated.

“Dere as so many things where de man just shut up and let woman do. Same way, why can’t woman just shut up and let de man do de sex? Anyways, dis Borat he good man. He actually Kazakh Maharashtrian,” concluded Hemant. “I spoken to de Boss and he say we should ask him to join our party. We can use him in de Mahim ward. So many non-Mumbaikars dere.”

He look out an oversized cell phone that had what looked like old chicken grease smeared all over the display window. “You have Borat’s mobile number in de Kazakhstan?”

Sometimes it all gets too much for me, and I have to withdraw. Yes, even from my family and friends. Mumbai’s frenetic pace can mesmerize you into thinking that manic activity is normal. That we have always lived this way. But I guess, deep down where we carry our legacy of freedom encoded in our being, we know that this is a lie. The truth is…

Mumbaiites have not always fought for every square inch of space. We have not always attached a monetary value to every aspect of our lives. We have not always had to feel the do-or-die rush of toxic adrenaline as we gear up each morning and evening to engage in choiceless battle with our fellowmen on Platform 2, or automotive anarchy in the rush-hour traffic.

We have not always had to walk our streets with wary caution, our bodies clenched like fists do reduce the space we occupy to a bare minimum. We have not always had to have mastered the skill of looking through others as if they don’t exist, hoping only that they will be considerate enough to return the favor. We have not always had to traverse this city with one hand on our wallets and the other one clutching a kerchief to our noses.

I have learned of a saner Mumbai at the feet of Dadasaheb Lohekar, who occasionally holds court at the local park where I live. The man is 91 years old and looks every day of it as he sits there with his decrepit Alsatian. However, his memory is as sharp as a Grant Road pickpocket’s blade and he has some stories to tell of this city.

Of course, he’s not old enough to actually remember some of the things he talks about, such as the days when Mumbai’s only inhabitants were the Koli fisher folk. Yeah, the people we resignedly make way for in the locals today, as they climb on with their noxious baskets, most of us unaware of the fact that Mumbai is named after their patron goddess Mumbadevi.

But Dadasaheb is old enough to talk authoritatively of them, and the standards of coexistence they adhered to. He is old enough to remember the Parsi, Gujarati and South Indian Hindu families, that lived together peacefully here at one time, when property was not an issue of power, and the sharing of resources not restricted to partisan community pockets.

His eyes, already filmy with advancing cataracts, cloud over even further when he regales us with stories of a Mumbai we would never recognize today. I don’t blame him. I get sort of misty-eyed myself. And so, on some nights after the daily struggle to emerge intact from the teeming human anthill, I take off on my old Enfield and look for evidence of Mumbai in the urban apocalypse. I leave my suburb behind, aware of the fact that the bike’s exhaust is not doing much to improve the pollution I often complain about.

I see a different Mumbai emerge after midnight, though the city truly never sleeps. This Mumbai tosses uneasily in its half-awake somnolence, the relative quiet after a day of commercial convulsions probably allowing it to reach back into its memory and remember that another order once existed.

For some reason, I always end up staring at Haji Ali bathed in the moonlight, glowing an eerie, timeless green. Its aloofness from the madness of the mainland seems to tell me that one can be part of the chaos and yet be apart from it.

As its walkway disappears under the tide, I understand that I, too, need to occasionally deny the city access to the essential me. The rat race churns on less than a hundred yards away, but Haji Ali finds an island of detached peace just by drawing up the bridge once in a while.

I’m up by seven, my mind already strategizing the commute to work and the uncertain odds of another day in Mumbai. I’m bleary-eyed but ready. The most profound insights of a Mumbai night cannot match swords with the realities of the city by day….

There are days when my family and I are don’t see eye to eye on certain things – like the validity of my life. On such days, I generally do something spiritually uplifting. The guilt-trip scene has limited entertainment value and fails to fascinate me after the first three rounds.

Anyway, I had such a day a couple of weeks ago, so I went to a local church and lent my ear to the priest’s message. Yes, I do that sometimes. It’s not a religious thing – I go to any place of worship where I can possibly learn something of value to me – or at least get a couple of hours of quality time with someone other than me and mine. I’ve attended Muslim discourses, Hindu satsangs and Christian sermons in equal measure.

Well, this evening I was startled to see a rather prominent local Hindu octogenarian sitting in the meager congregation. I usually meet him only when I visit the local park, where he’s something of a permanent evening fixture. He’s a fascinating old man, full of the kind justly acquired wisdom we spend our lives trying to find shortcuts to. I nodded at him with a weary smile and sat down to listen to the sermon.

Not surprisingly, it was on sin. Sin is a very marketable commodity – the more painfully aware you are of yours, the more money some people seem to make. Sin never goes out of style. It keeps us in line, the awareness of sin does.

Anyway, the good priest quoted extensively from the Bible’s Old Testament and generally served up a generous helping of fire and brimstone. In particular, he belabored the various transgressions for which God flash-fried his people before society invented the judiciary, the Income Tax department and organized religion to do the job. I peered over to the old party to see how he was taking it. It was my guess that he did not go much for such stuff. He’s old enough to have outgrown religion and found God instead.

He was looking thoughtful and even nodded geriatrically at some points of the sermon. At other points he grinned toothlessly, the way a grandfather does when his grandson makes a foolish but cute juvenile statement.

After the sermon, I gathered my flayed senses and left the church, one virtual eye peeled for lightning bolts from heaven. My people back at home make it very clear that I will pay for my maddening non-conformism eventually, but they never mention a specific timeframe….

“So what did you think of the sermon?” I asked him as we stopped for tea outside the church gates. He also untied his fleabag Alsatian, who is at least as old as he is in doggie years.

“Oh, very nice,” he replied. I kept a good two feet between us as we talked - he tends to spray people with whatever he’s ingesting if they’re too close while he does sibilants. He doesn’t believe in dentures.

“I mean, did the priest have a point?” I pressed on. “I don’t think about it much, but my family and I have been discussing my failings over the last two days. If they’re right about them, I’ll be out of the reckoning soon. The Man Upstairs has me in His sights.”

He looked out at the thronging crowd on the main road long enough to convince me that he hadn’t heard me. I was about to repeat the question when he turned to me again.

“I agree with him that sin is what distances us from God,” he said. “What we perceive as our sin fills us with guilt. What we perceive as others’ sin fills us with self-righteous pride. In either case, God is kept at bay.”

I listened carefully, knowing that this was a very important moment in my life.

“The priest also says that God can save us from sin. All we need to do is turn to Him and call on him as a friend. Is it that simple?”

He laughed so hard he almost choked on his last sip of tea. His dog looked up at him worriedly.

“I’m sure it is. But then, how many of us consider God our friend? Sin leads to trouble for sure. When we’re in trouble, we turn to our friends, right?”

“Uh… yes, of course,” I replied.

“Well, who do we turn to first when we are in trouble? First to ourselves - we all consider ourselves our best friends. In our hearts of hearts, each of us believes that he or she is the ultimate standard of human virtue and excellence, and that our own resources are the best. When no solution is available within us, we turn to others – starting with our next-closest friend. When finally not even the last person we consider a friend can help, we do what our pride has prevented us from doing until then. We go to last person we’d ever consider approaching. Who is such a person?

“Hmmm, our enemy?”

He nodded sadly. “Yes, the one we obviously consider our enemy – as a last-ditch solution.”

“Who is that?”

He smiled affectionately at me.

“You tell me, my friend – but didn’t you come looking for Him in church today….?”

Religion has almost always been more about going through robotic motions than about lifting one’s soul to the One Above. The world over, we see people engage in pagan substitutions for true worship to Him.

Is He impressed? I don’t know, of course – and not just because the Bible states that God’s thoughts are as far from ours as the East is from the West. I don’t know because if I knew the mind of God, I wouldn’t fear Him. If I didn’t fear Him, it is a pretty safe bet that I’d do whatever the hell I please. Also, if I knew the mind of God, I wouldn’t ask Him for help. After all, knowing someone’s mind is on the same level with being an intellectual equal – and who takes help or advice from an intellectual equal?

So, no – I don’t know the mind of God. Nor does anyone else.

However, try telling that to the ritualistic religion freaks of this world. For them, God is some kind of half-witted alien entity into whose good books one can bribe oneself with puerile temporal offerings. They probably hope to lull the Man Upstairs into the same drone-like state of mindlessness that they work themselves into with their waving, chanting and head-nodding. God knows it has mesmerized ME into somnolence at many a church and temple event. ‘Sleeping Gods don’t bite’ seems to be the logic – so let’s all sing him a lullaby and give him some confectionary to chew on. Sugar improves OUR moods, so why not His?

No, I don’t know the mind of God, and I don’t know what turns Him on and what doesn’t. All I know is that I have this recurring vision that makes me squirm in mortification. It pops up on my mind’s screen every time I attend a church do, puja or, for that matter, any format of Upward-directed mass petition.

The vision is of a bearded Geneva psychiatrist, long in tooth in age and experience, responding to the call of a group of schizophrenic, bi-polarly disordered or otherwise fuse-blown inmates at his facility. This bunch has summoned him for any, all or a combination of the following reasons:

1. They want to tell him what a NICE doctor he is, because they feel that currying his favour will somehow get them out of the mess they’re in

(Do we really think that treating God like a snotty kid who will do his chores if we give Him a pat on the head is an option?)

2. They want him to pass on ‘Hi, how’re you, I’m just fine, sorry-for-pooping-in-your-soup-while-you-were-with-us’ messages to previous inmates who got discharged

(I think it’s logical to assume that the dead take no messages, forgive nobody, or do much of anything other than stay dead)

3. They want him to fix it so that the tummy/foot/tooth doesn’t ache so much anymore

(Can we agree on the premise that pain exists for a reason, and that we need to find that reason to ensure it doesn’t recur? If God would take our aches and pains away, we wouldn’t survive as a human race)

4. They want him to either discharge or lobotomize that punk down the hall who keeps stealing their rationed ciggies

(If He is God of all, what makes us assume that He will cook someone else’s goose just because we don’t like his/her looks? What if he/she made the same request about US?)

5. They want him to rearrange things so that they get more dessert in the lunch hall than any of the others

(Again – if He is God of all, what makes us assume that, on a planet with limited resources, He will hand us more than our fair share if it means taking them away from someone else?)

6. They want him to take them home – but not at the cost of all the benefits they’re enjoying in the nuthouse

(It’s the old conundrum that nobody’s found a satisfactory retort to – everyone wants to go to Heaven, but nobody wants to die)

7. They want him to know that they know how he runs his practice and that they approve of his methods, but that they have certain suggestions for improvement

(Yeah, right. The day God needs the approval or self-serving suggestions of a terminally flawed race is the day when He’s not worth worshipping anymore)

To manipulate him into giving in to their demands, they reverently hand him bits of leftover food and knickknacks they have made from stuff they don’t want anyway. They also sing him some droning madhouse ditties that feature him as a caring father who will NEVER let his kiddies down, no matter how out of their gourds they are.

I envision this seasoned observer of human lunacy nodding solemnly, agreeing to everything, clapping warmly to their nuthouse renditions, thanking them for their worthless gifts and encouraging them to share more – because sharing their twisted ideas of reality is so THERAPEUTIC, and what else can they and he do anyway?

They’re never going to be cured of their delusions, and he can’t give them what they want because what they want doesn’t factor in the Big Picture – the more-or-less smooth running of a mammoth mental institution literally crawling with similar cases…

Can we picture ourselves dispassionately in such a light when we light that votive taper, plunk that piece of ‘prasad’ down in front of a man-made idol that represents nothing more than another created being? Can we really LISTEN to ourselves as we mumble the rosary, chant a mantra or go ‘Ooooooooom’?

What makes us think that Someone worthy of being called God can be manipulated, cajoled or challenged into doing what we want? Folks, it’s just us – us trying to change our destiny with a hocuspocus routine that some half-witted clergy has approved as The Real Thing!

What are we left with if we abandon our mad rituals, self-serving and short-sighted beseechings and pathetic bribes to the One who made and owns everything? Again, I find the most profound answer to this question in the Bible – anonymously tucked away in entire chapters dedicated to rituals and more rituals. In the entire book, these are among the few words I can wholeheartedly believe as being God’s own -

“Be still – and know that I Am God….”

Shootout At “I’m O.K. – You’re Not O.K.” Corral

My valued friend, I am complete
Don’t add to me, or take away
You, who sit in judgment’s seat
On behalf of the moral elite
And think you know a better way.

There’ve been a thousand instances
I’ve faced the Critic’s Crew
I’ve heard each kind of remonstrance
And faced each disapproving glance
Now show me something new…

Don’t ask me what I think of you
I’d only spoil your day
It’s sad, of course - your hot wind blew
When I was trying to stay cool
But hot wind finally blows away.

Hell is full of folks like you
Each one has cursed and died
Go on and curse - there’re blessings too
Maybe you should learn a few
Invest a bit on Heaven’s side……

Let’s thank God for each point of view
This world would be a bore
If we resolved our differences
And united in our nothingness
To agree for evermore…

The Tacky World Of Full-time Victims

There is a certain class of people who have jinxed all possibilities of a fruitful and satisfying love life. There is no hope for them in terms of full-fledged relationships – they lack the necessary equipment and are limited to bouncing from one futile rebound caper to another – and to a series of breakups and one-night stands.

They are the victims – the ones whose loves lives are little more than self-fulfilling prophesies of doom. At a subconscious level, they have judged themselves to be flawed. For whatever reason, they do not see themselves as anything worth relating to, falling in love with and cherishing.

It may be because their parents told them they are useless; it may be because they have chronic sexual performance anxiety; it may be because they are the ignored younger siblings of a sexpot sister or hunky brother; it may be because they simply have no life. Whatever the reason is, they do not see a love relationship as a desirable destination – the only thing that fascinates them is the dubious pleasure of a perilous journey down a thorn-raddled road.

Such as state of self is, of course, an untenable thing to allow to percolate into complete awareness. One likes to believe, after all, that one is basically better than everyone else, only misunderstood – a gem consistently mistaken to be an ugly piece of rock. We can’t have ourselves owning up to the fact that we are somehow at FAULT, now can we? After all, we have to live with ourselves even if nobody else wants to. We have to look in that mirror and see someone we can respect, don’t we?

No, we can’t. And even though we know for a fact (deep down there where there’s no escape from the truth) that our current outlook on life has rendered us mangled goods, we got to go through the motions of getting into a relationship, now don’t we? After all, all life’s a stage, we’re all actors on it and EVERYONE’S WATCHING TO SEE HOW WE PERFORM, right? Nobody has anything better to do, right?

Also, there’s this yammering little aspect down there below the belt that won’t shut up no matter HOW much we tell it that it’s no use, that it’s just gonna have to starve to death ‘cause Daddy/Mommy doesn’t have what it takes to provide. Yessir, it’s the good old human sex drive – and no, it won’t shut up. The sex drive is a brainless thing and doesn’t care about any conflicts between what you are, your self-perception and the way people actually react to you. It just says “GIMME” and sure enough, there you go… looking for a relationship you have already condemned to death even before it is born.

When a victim gets into a relationship, everything seems fine and dandy in the beginning. The unsuspecting partner often does sense something sinister squirming below the surface, but usually passes it off as a very understandable nervous reaction to his/her patented sex appeal (my dad used to tell me of the perfect business model – buy someone for what he’s worth and sell him for what he THINKS he’s worth, and you’ll ALWAYS make a profit.)

Two months down the line, both the victim and the victim’s victim have a situation. The victim has his/her true act onstage by then – the act of a self-perceived loser trying to justify yet another loss by putting the blame of the rapidly unraveling situation on the other. The victim’s victim is spending a large chunk off time fending of inexplicable arrows dispatched from inexplicable positions in true guerilla style. The victim’s victim has probably gone through a period of serious self-doubt by then – “Am I really such a bastard / bitch?”, “Were those really my intentions?”

More often than not, the victim’s victim has a better perception of himself/herself than the victim, and eventually tells the victim to take his/her pitiful martyr act and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine. Bingo, alone again. “The prophecy has been fulfilled once more, Lawd – how could I ever doubt you? I will NEVER question your will for me again – and I know your will is that I spend my life miserable and alone.”

For such people, repeatedly generated abstinence from everything that makes life worth living, finally becomes not only a necessity, but a virtue of some kind. “Here I am on my cross, crucified for the sins of than sonofabitch / bitch who doesn’t know how to treat a woman / man right. This is my purpose in life. This is what I born for. Look upon me, all you sinners – see how you made the innocent, blameless suffer.”

I am reminded of a phenomenon that the media have observed here in India – that of professional refugees. India is a largish piece of real estate that is prone to all sorts of natural disasters. In fact, because political greed eats into a large chunk of funds allotted to technological safeguards, it is prone to man-made disasters as well. Fairly spectacular shit hits the fan every now and then – tsunamis, earthquakes, gas leaks, communal riots, you name it, we have it on our calendar this year. Of course, whatever Government happens to be top dog at these times announces that it is dispensing relief to the victims.

Well, certain reporters have noted the fact that the many familiar faces seem to turn up at each disaster site, just in time to lap up the Government goodies. These are professional refugees who keep track of such events and make sure they’re there to stand up and be counted.

What has that got to do with our relationship victims, you ask? Plenty. There’s a payoff for being a doomed love martyr – you get to wallow in loads of self-pity, can absolve yourself of many of the activities of daily living because you are ‘depressed’, and have a ready catchment of like-minded wet ends who will gladly sit down to wail with you that all men are bastards / all women are bitches.

“Ashutosh, please change Smiti’s diaper. Ashutosh? Ashutosh? Oh, there you are. Get out from under that bed and be a man.”

“That’s precisely what I’m trying to me, dear. Men don’t change diapers. That is completely the woman’s domain.”

“Oh, really? And what do men do once they’ve had their fun and the result hollers for attention a few months later?”

“I’m glad you asked, dear. Men are hunter-gatherers. They go out and kill bison to bring meat on the table, and fight off barbarian intruders into the territory who want to ravish their women and steal their offspring. They prowl the steppes and prairie in times of famine and forage for water and food so that the family does not starve. They do NOT change diapers.”

Brief silence, rudely broken by another outburst of squalling from the cradle.

“That is a real eye-opener”

“It should be.”

“I’m trying to see my own husband in this light.”

“You should. It is the order that Nature has designed. You can’t fight it.”

“I’m trying to see my accountant husband as a hunter-gatherer.”

“Now you’re getting personal. It’s not my fault that my father insisted that I…”

“I’m trying to equate his being picked up by an air conditioned company car, and going to his air conditioned office to pore over registers, with hitting the hunting grounds and killing bison to feed his family.”

“You have a very poor sense of metaphor, dear. Rather than my exact words, you should focus on the SPIRIT of…. “

“I’m trying to equate his calling up the credit card and pleading for more time, so that the debt collector, who’s bothering his wife every morning after he leaves, doesn’t repossess the fridge, with fighting off barbarian intruders.”

“As I said…”

“I’m trying to equate his disgruntled face as he trudges off to replenish our exhausted milk supply at the corner store, with the valorous demeanor of the primeval provider who leaves the cave determined to find water for his parched mate and brood in time of drought.”

“You are missing the point here, dear. The details of the mandate have obviously been modified in the modern context, but the essential role is still the same.”

“Do tell.”

“Anyway, men do more than hunt, provide and protect. They also sit in councils that meet to confer on how to keep the community safe. THAT is definitely a man’s job – no man would expect his woman to assume such a weighty responsibility.”

“They do, do they?”

“Yes, they do. Can you imagine the burden of having to stand up and giving voice to words that can impact the well-being of the entire community? What if his judgment fails him? He would be at least partly responsible for plunging countless families into penury.”

“God forbid that he fails at this momentous task, then.”

“Absolutely! Imagine the focus it calls for. The sharpness of wit. The steeliness of nerves. The determination to prevail…”

“For some reason, I’m tempted to mention the fact that you haven’t shown up at any of the building society meetings ever since we took this flat.”

“Oh. Er…”

“I go each time, but the all-male panel refuses to acknowledge anyone but the legal flat owner – you.”

“Dear, you know how it has been at the office. All those accounts we inherited from Mr. Mehta, when he had a stroke two years ago have….”

“Had you shown up for at least the last two, you may have been able to prevent them from turning our legally allotted parking space into a gymnasium.”

“They did WHAT?!?”

“Turned it into a gymnasium.”

“How could they do that?”

“Oh, with about ten bags of cement, another ten of sand, twenty gallons of water and some workers – in two days flat. Some goondas from Grant Road supervised the process to make sure that the woman screaming her protests – me – doesn’t prove to be too much of a disruption.”

Silence. Renewed squalling from the cradle.

“But we were going to buy a car this year….”

No response.

“A Maruti 800 AC.”

Stony silence.

“Okay, where are the diapers?”

“In the cupboard next to Smiti’s cradle.”

A visit to Germany was nothing if not overdue, since I was born there and hadn’t been back for 37 years. This effectively meant that I knew nothing of the country, which had reportedly changed completely since I had my face ground in the schoolyard dust at age 8, by a blonde Aryan prototype called Torsten.

The way to go was obviously Economy Class. I mean, nobody was watching to see in what style I left India or arrived in Germany – Lufthansa could therefore take a wet hike. I picked FinnAir. The Mumbai-Berlin / Berlin-Mumbai ticket cost me 28,000 Indian rupees, and I was going to get to see Helsinki in Finland, too. That’s where I would be cooling my heels for six hours while I waited for my connecting flight to Berlin.

I was on my own, and not a little scared… I was leaving Indian soil for the first time since I’d arrived almost four decades ago, and had a serious case of atavistic heebie-jeebies about it all. Icy xenophobia had filled my spine and made itself at home there from the moment I arrived at Mumbai’s international airport. It was 11.30 p.m.

I had something like 300 Euros on me, and I wasn’t sure of my constitutional right about spending it ‘over there’. What if some pasty-faced ‘gora’ took one look at my Indian hands holding his country’s precious currency and called the cops, denouncing me as an infidel impostor? (I had yet to learn that money talks a universal language, and that people in Europe aren’t too choosy about whom they speak it with…)

I paid attention to the pre-takeoff drill as I’d never done before, expecting some drastically important additions to the usual ho-hum stuff because this was an international flight. I needn’t have bothered – same old drill, the performing Finnish stewardess looked as ready to chuck her job in mortification as any of the Indian ones I’d ever seen.

Once the flight took off, things became increasingly chilled out – many passengers stretched out over empty seat rows and went to sleep as though flying to another land was of no great import. It wasn’t, of course, but you’d have been telling that to the wrong guy if you’d told it to me.

Maybe an hour and a half later, we were flying over Afghanistan. I work in real estate, and seeing those huge expanses of craggy land going waste made my bowels hitch and my heart ache. Afghanistan from the air looks like the skin of a weathered old crone in the last stages of dehydration. It went on for miles… and miles, and miles. Finally, I dropped off to sleep and awoke to the sight of an amazing green carpet of brown-tipped pine trees, with occasional specks of civilization scattered there like debris. We were about to land in Helsinki, Finland.

The air outside was cold, bracing and disconcertingly clean. Aren’t human beings supposed to spread the stink of technology as soon as they descend on any hapless location? The Finns don’t seem to have understood the true message of progress as yet. Vantaa Airport is amazingly modern, yet outrageously spotless. Pedestrian conveyor belts whisk in-transit passengers from point to point within this mind-blowing microcosm of steel, chrome and glass. The overall accent, of course, is on retail. There’s stuff on sale all over, including food with names that make the most merciless South Indian cuisine sound like amateur nursery rhymes.

Timidly, I took out my wallet and handed over a five-Euro note to buy coffee and a sandwich that may have contained elk meat, I’m not sure. I was ready to defend the fact that Indians are bonafide human beings and have the right to wield foreign exchange. The waitress handed me my change and didn’t call the cops. I was officially an accepted member of the international tourist sucker tribe! My heart swelled with pride and my gait assumed a cocky cant as I ambled over to the lounge near my departure gate.

The connecting flight to Berlin would arrive in four hours. Did I choose to sleep for the duration? Well, let me ask you this – you’re in a Sci Fi airport in a strange land. Nobody knows you, you know nobody. You have 300 Euros and a passport. You’re brown, everyone else is white and occasionally yellow.

Would you sleep? I took out a novel and kidded myself that I was reading.

x x x

The flight to Berlin was over before I knew it - of course, the different time zones screw with one’s mind. One shouldn’t harp on that fact too much, though. Jet-lag is a very pretentious version of plain old disorientation, sort of like a migraine is a headache with attitude.

Flughafen (airport) Tegel glittered like a frosty diamond necklace in the night below. I was about to land in the country of my birth, but felt like a tawdry sightseer for all the difference it made deep in my guts, where it really matters…

The cold hit me like a runaway deep freezer. It suffused every pore and percolated down into my bones, proceeding to ice my marrow and then my soul. It was August… an Indian should never have to be confronted by such cold, and definitely not in August. Jet-lag? This was CLIMATE lag. My skin crawled but had nowhere to hide. And then, as I walked to the airport bus, something happened.

The Germanic barbarian (attuned to icy steppes, mammoths and opposing Hun factions) whose persona I’d shed thirty seven years before roused himself awake deep inside me a roared his defiance. He shed the impressions of thirty seven blazing Indian summers, kicked his long-somnolent metabolism into gear and laughed hoarsely at the cold.

I was in Germany – and while my brain had been on an extended tropical vacation, my body suddenly bristled with inner resources of warmth and coping once more. By the time my mother hugged me at the luggage carousel, I was 100% home again.

The first night at her home near Kurfuerstendamm (Berlin’ primary shopping district) went in a daze of en route gawping, with déjà vu yammering just below the surface. I awoke next morning to the sophisticated stillness of a typical German autumn morning. The streets below the third-floor apartment’s bay window were tranquil and impossibly clean.

I must say something here about German urban planning – it rocks. There are no eyesores of the stripe we know in India, where a suburb in any given city other than Jaipur and Chandigarh has a brain-numbing disassortment of architectural configurations. There are social classes in Germany, sure. They gather in their own pockets, sure. But it is only the pocket that are either grander or more modest than the others – not the individual buildings themselves. To see a neighborhood change in Germany, you have to travel at least two miles form the suburb center – and even then the change is so gradual that you’ll likely not notice it.

My re-acquaintance with Germany had to jammed into ten short days, of which we spent the first four simply ambling around Berlin and taking a cruise down the River Spree, with the starting point just outside the achingly beautiful Schloss Charlottenburg.

We visited the home we had occupied on Spiessweg in the suburb of Wittenau, spent an awesome afternoon in the park I and my brother used to play in and dropped in on relatives for whom I’d become part of some outré Indian jungle legend over the years.

We also took a bus to Hamburg, the city of my birth. The bus was totally amazing – central heating, zero vibrations, Rolls Royce hum and with a thermostat indicator inside announcing that it was dead-ass cold out there. German precision percolates down to every stratum of life in this country. I saw a couple of bikes pass us, literally mummified from head to toe against the elements out there. I thought of my own bike back in Indialand – the wind factor and how even tropical cold can seep into your bones after a few miles - and shuddered in sympathy. But one of the bikers waved cheerily to us as he passed.

I was six when we’d left Hamburg for good, and I didn’t have any great expectations from my memory cells. Sure enough, I didn’t remember much. It was an entirely new city to me – a spanking, sparkling city with awe-inspiring monuments, buildings whose sheer scale and splendor put even Singapore to shame, and a harbor city feel to it that puts a sailor-like swagger to one’s walk.

My Indian uncle, who runs a travel agency near the railway station, picked us up at the bus terminus. We’d met during his infrequent visits to India, but the last one had been over fifteen years ago. He looked old, all right – but also well preserved. The cold does that to you – it acts as a preservative. Tissue doesn’t degenerate as easily in cold countries as it does in sweltering ones like India… good for him.

x x x

The disconcerting uniformity of the German real estate landscape hit me twice as hard in Hamburg as we drove further and further to the extreme outskirts – to Ralstedt, therein to a small residential street called Aumuehlerweg. Our neighbors from back then still live there. Of course, their individual stories have lost the generic family tag and taken off on different tangents. The kids we used to play with are now all grown up and have kids of their own. Their mother is now retired. She folded me into a bear-like embrace that something in my memory finally remembered. Other old neighbors came over to say hello.

And the feeling I got there – that life never goes on without leaving some kind of discernible wake behind it – was really all I’d come to Hamburg for. We did some sightseeing after that, but my mission was really accomplished. I had seen my roots, found them firm and thriving, and could now go on with my life. We took the night bus back to Berlin and arrived there as exalted wrecks.

A lot of shopping went down before I left. So did a lot of rehashing of old ghosts with my mother – some good, some not so good. On the morning of my departure back to India and vile old Mumbai, I took a solitary saunter down Adenauer Platz and on to Kurfuerstendamm. I wore no jacket, preferring to let the delicious cold suffuse me. I wanted to take as much of it as possible home with me. I also wanted a last mental snapshot of the dignified, focused and self-assured faces that define Germany’s population. I needed to believe that some of that exists in me, and that I can choose to let it surface if I can just rise above the squalid version of quality life back home…

Four hours later, my mother bid me farewell at Security Check. My last glimpse of Germany was a diminishing speck of green land, probably no bigger than the Indian state of Maharashtra.

Such amazing progress packed into such a small surface area. It was unbelievable. What makes a nation great? The size of its borders, or what happens within those borders? Why are many large countries forever hankering for a break that will help them reach their mysteriously denied highest potential, while other, smaller ones don’t bother with such frivolities and simply get down to work? Is it the difference in climate? Does the tropical heat somehow stupefy the human spirit, or does the spirit somehow get diluted with the size of the country?

Back in Mumbai, I knew I could never again see the city with quite the same sense of pride and awe. I had seen what is possible when people take what resources they have, plan the way forward and forge ahead as one. I knew that Mumbai can never be a world-class city. It is simply a city of transients with no cause and no goal, except their own individual ones… and I am one of them.

We have no real desire to make this city – or this nation, for that matter – great. If we did, we’d be taking a leaf out of countries like Germany. We’d plan our cities, give flow and direction to the urban sprawl and ensure that life retains some semblance of dignity for all.

Finally, I could see the sheer cliff-wall give way to thunderous skies above me.

There was no doubt that I was an intruder here - the elements had made no bones about it ever since I had begun this climb. The wind had now redoubled its howling, freezing reproach, lashing at me with frost-laden whips as I dug in my gloved fingers and spiked boots to tackle the last ten meters to the top of the mountain.

x x x

How far will a parent go to find the answers that plague us every step of father/motherhood? Is the yen to be the perfect parent not a quest that beggars that of the Knights of the Round Table for the Holy Grail?

Back in my hometown on the other side of the globe, the surface of my study table had long since succumbed to the avalanche of ‘be-a-better-parent’ books. Instructional CDs on how to become the perfect dad/mom had ousted Chopin, Mozart and John Lennon from their rightful places of honor on our music rack, relegating them to dusty lower shelves.

Linda, always a die-hard seeker for new self-improvement avenues, had blown the budget for our Mauritius vacation on parenting workshops (bringing home more even printed research material) and long, rambling telephonic discussions with the other confounded parents she met there.

My bachelor friends had marked off my home on their weekend-visit maps in red Gothic letters that read ‘Here There Be Dragons’. This was definitely no place to drop in on if you wanted to discuss anything but advanced diaper management, the fine art of bonding with your kid and parent-induced trauma syndromes. Unsuspecting visitors to 10/4, Mapleville Drive were subjected to inquisitional inquiries into their parenting styles, berated for their lack of awareness of the latest techniques of wholesome child-rearing, and forced to look at every single photo in a three-foot stack of baby albums (with a running commentary on genesis and circumstantial background).

We had lost a lot of friends since little Brian had arrived four months ago.

However, there were some positive outcomes too. Watching Linda and me tackle our new roles as parents the way that Oxford toppers tackle their final exams, my parents had disengaged their stranglehold on our affairs, removed themselves from the landscape and begun serious work on their own marriage. They seemed to be having a lot of fun for the first time in thirty years…

x x x

“How’s little Brian?” asked my boss on that fateful day last week. Little had I suspected that this seemingly innocuous question would have me clinging to the sleet-covered side of a mountain three hundred and fifty feet above the Tibetan plains five days later.

My boss was one of the few people who could ask me the above question without endangering the next two hours of his life with a new father’s agonized monologue on the pitfalls of effective parenting. After all, he had asked it while I was on company time – and company (which he heads) takes a jaundiced view of employees frittering away potentially productive hours on such stuff.

“Fine, sir,” I replied, stifling the usual avalanche of angsty moaning about how I’m certain my uninformed Daddying approach is turning the four-month old blighter into a mass murderer or, even worse, condemning him to a call centre career.

“And how are you and Linda managing?” he asked. I was getting worried about this unprecedented level of interest. Had word gone round in the office about how ineptly we were bringing up our kid?

“Uh… we’re on top of it, sir,” I answered with an egg-sucking grin. My faux confidence wouldn’t have fooled a retarded donkey with Alzheimer’s.

He nodded good-naturedly, indicating that he had either not heard me, or that he had but was not swallowing it.

“You know, I met up with my brother the other day – he’d just returned from Tibet. He told me of a wise man who sits on some godforsaken mountaintop over there.”

I wondered what this had to do with Dr. Seuss, parenting-oriented rational emotive therapy, or the ‘quality time’ school of thought.

“This wise man has apparently got the Ultimate Handle on parenting,” he said. “My brother was a physical, emotional and mental wreck after his daughter was born… you know, he wanted to get everything right on the parenting front. He says that this wise dude had to say to him pulled him back from the brink of suicide.”

“I see you’ve lost about twenty pounds since Brian was born. Your efficiency levels have also dropped – I attribute this to loss of sleep and appetite.”

My heart sank – here came the pink slip.

“I’ve also heard that you and Linda are buying every parenting book and DVD in sight at the local bookstore. I want to you to go see this wise man in Tibet and see what he has to say. The company will pay for this. I hate to see a good employee kill himself this young.”

x x x

At last I reached the top of the mountain. The wind screamed its protest and tried to yank me over the edge again, but I was here to ask The Question and get The Answer and wasn’t about to let it do that.

I looked around, wondering how anyone could survive the numbing cold up here. At last I spotted him.

He was a shriveled, ancient and extremely weathered specimen, sitting cross-legged on a tacky prayer mat under a sturdy bamboo-thatch roof that did nothing to keep the elements out. The old party was bundled up in one of those fancy Nepali coats that they try to sell to you at every street-corner in Khatmandu. He was about eighty years old and maybe five feet in height, with a few stray wisps of hair still sticking to his otherwise wind-bleached scalp. He was reading something and paid no attention at all to me.

I stumbled across to where he sat and fell to my knees on the cold mountain rock before him.

“Master! I have come to seek The Answer.” I cried abjectly.

He looked up from what I was startled to see was a fairly dated copy of Playboy.

“Another one,” he said, sounding quite disgruntled. “What’s wrong with you people anyway?”

“Master, I am the father of a four-month-old boy,” I continued. “He’s…”

“… the sweetest, smartest, most promising child in the whole, wide world,” he finished for me. I was amazed. This man was truly gifted – he had read my mind!!

“Yes!!” I said, “Yes!! And I…”

“… want to be the perfect father to him, and your wife wants to be the perfect mother. You do not want to take a single wrong step, because you will get only one chance at bringing him up right and you don’t want to goof up. Goofing up will mean traumatizing him, and that would mean a warped child, and it would all be your fault,” he finished for me, perusing the Playboy’s centerfold with a gleam of approval in his eyes. “So, we go on to The Question that haunts every new father and mother – How Can I Be The Perfect Parent?”

I fell silent. There was nothing more to be said. Playboy or not, this dried-up relic had just said it all.

He put the magazine aside and looked at me through the weary eyes of aged wisdom. It was a compassionate look, but there was also impatience in it.

“Here’s the answer, son,” he said. “Get a life and LEAVE YOUR KID ALONE.”

x x x

“WHAT?!?” I gasped. “Leave… leave him alone? But he depends on us for nurturing, for guidance, for the right values in life. We have to show him how much we love him by….”

“… giving him what he really needs, not what your guilt makes you BELIEVE he needs,” he finished for me. “What he needs from you is the basic essentialities of life – food, shelter, education and undemanding affection. Damn it, every animal knows better than to follow their offspring around, catering to every imagined need and being a pain in the neck. Why can’t humans learn to do the same?”

“Because… because humans are DEEP!” I said. “We are intelligent. Our offspring has a broader spectrum of needs, and…”

“You, my dear misguided friend, are just another victim of so-called progressive thought,” he said disdainfully. “You can’t leave good enough alone. You HAVE to fix what isn’t broken. No – you have to BREAK what isn’t broken and then try to put it together in a way that your insane feelings of inadequacy tell you is the RIGHT way! Your son is doomed.”

I was beginning to have enough of his primitive outlook on life’s realities.

“Listen, Monk Man – children aren’t animals. They are extremely sensitive beings,” I said.

“You mean animals aren’t?” he spat at me. “Fellow, beasts don’t write book on parenting, have all-night discussion sessions on the subject or tear themselves up over a wrong move here or there – but they do a really fine job of bringing up their offspring. They are there for their little ones when they are needed – not when they need to be there. They feed them, protect them from predators, house them till they’re old enough to strike out on their own, and let them go. It works!! Have you ever heard of a yak, cockatoo or antelope traumatized by anything other than human mischief?”

I shut up.

“Have you ever heard of an Australian aborigine child who felt he didn’t get enough approval from Dad? Or of a maladjusted Sioux papoose turned juvenile delinquent because Mommy didn’t spend enough quality time with him?” he asked me, a bit more kindly now. “Have you ever heard of an Eskimo child who can’t take the peer pressure? Fellow – in Nature, everything finds its own perfect level. It is when you screw around with the natural order of things that you have problems.”

He got up and handed me the Playboy. I accepted it with cold-numbed hands, not really knowing what I was doing.

“Go home,” he said. “You and your wife must have fun in your lives, and you must let your son have it too. There are only so many years each of us has to experience the gift of life. How many of them do you want to waste on trying to find some mythical Right Equation? The Right Equation is whatever existed before humans decided they are smarter, more compassionate or more innovative than the very Nature according to whose rules they were born in the first place.”

Resentfully, I realized that I had nothing further to ask him. In less than ten minutes, this man had reduced the whole issue from exquisite complexity to grassroots simplicity. If what he said was true, then Linda and I had to excuse left for twisting ourselves into worried, frustrated wrecks. There would be no further expeditions to the Non Fiction section of the local bookstore to get our next fix of parenting acumen.

Then I realized I had one last ace in the hole to play! One last question that would surely flummox him and cause him to dissolve into a helpless pile of confused grey cells – just like it did everybody else on earth!!

x x x

“Before I go, please answer one last question,” I said with forced humility.

He grunted dustily, rummaged under his prayer mat and produced a fairly recent issue of Penthouse.

“Ask your question,” he said, going straight for the centerfold.

I drew in a trembling breath, stunned as always by the magnitude and sheer magnificence of The Final Parenting Question as I geared up to utter it.

“What is Quality Time?” I asked, my eyes filling up with tears of awed reverence. Never mind dumb animals – only intelligent humans were capable of asking such a profound question. In fact, our ability to ask it literally PROVED the existence of God…

He guffawed toothlessly. “Quality time, you dolt, is the time you spend with your child in which you:

• DON’T tweak your own or your child’s sensibilities
• DON’T try to find meaning in every nuance of body language
• DON’T adjust to the moment while nevertheless praying that you’ll somehow get it right
• DON’T anticipate favourable or unfavourable present or future reactions
• DON’T either compensate for or further build on your own or your own parents’ inadequacies

Quality Time is time you spend with your child without any kind of agenda, forgetting that you’re a parent. You throw away the rule book. You become human, not superhuman. You let your hair down, relax and let your child do the same. Quality time is whenever you don’t try to be the Perfect Parent.”

He pointed to the edge of the cliff and waved me to it.

“Now get out of here,” he said. “I have more interesting stuff than this to occupy myself with. Mind your step on the way down – there’s sleet on the slope at this time of the day….”

It’s amazing – and frightening – how many relationships break over clashes of relating ‘styles’. You don’t have a style, you say? Think again.

If you have a father and mother or an overbearing or underdog brother or sister, you have a relationship style based on your family baggage. By that, I mean that your entire LIFE - including your relationships – is likely to be modeled on trying to either extend or negate those influences.

If you have either a highly successful career or a record for getting consistently kicked off jobs, you probably have a style based on either an unrealistically high self-image, or the typical frustration of a loser. And a style in relationships is always bad news, because it’s also a rut.

The Rise And Fall Of A Relationship

That’s sort of sad, because most relationships start of well. Let’s take the man-woman angle, for instance. The initial attraction in such a relationship is based entirely on visual attraction and a corresponding sexual response. I’m here to say that this is probably the purest state, and that the relationship world would be in much better shape if the whole ballgame stayed there from beginning to end.

It doesn’t, of course. The relationship ascends from the genitals to the heart after that. Beside the fact that this ascension is necessary if the relationship is to be worth more than a few weeks of wrestling in the hay, this is basically where the trouble begins.

Hearts connect, and the partners start connecting their futures and emotional well-being to each others’. The initial rush of mush is thick enough to camouflage most other considerations.

Would relationships survive if everything stayed at this stage? Probably. Don’t take my word for it, but it’s possible. Mush takes two, just like the tango – one to shovel it out and another to swallow it. If both partners are your basic imbeciles, this sticky transaction can continue indefinitely. I know of some pretty resilient low IQ/EQ marriages that are based completely on treacle.

But it doesn’t end there either, of course. Once the relationship has devoured the heart, it rises further to the brain. The problem here is that the brain is the seat of the mind, and the human mind is at best a society-mangled doggie that sees the little street corner it does its business on as something worthy of fierce and uncompromising protection. And the mind, like the doggie, has teeth to do this with. The teeth are the Ego.

Ego – The Haunted Monkey On Your Back

What has love got to do with the ego? Everything. We wouldn’t fall in love if we didn’t need the egoistical gratification of being in love. We pursue (and allow ourselves to be pursued) because the ego wants to either conquer or prove to itself and the world at large that it figures pretty high in the market demand sweepstakes.

The ego DOES figure in the initial sexual yammerings that bring men and women together in the first place, but only marginally. Getting laid without anyone knowing of it is still better than not getting laid at all, but being in a (drum-roll and fanfare, please) RELATIONSHIP can never be something we want to keep off Page 3 – and the bargaining table - altogether.

What has all this to do with styles? Everything.

The ego is the home of all relationship styles. Our ego is the mutilated bastard child of our past experiences. It spends its entire shelf life either dragging gathered impressions along with it or running away from them. The result? A style.

This style dictates how we relate to our lovers, kids, bosses, friends, the beggar on the street and the doggie baring its fangs at us over its rightful garbage can. Nature being what it is, our style will first attract others who share that particular can of worms, and then repel them when they start seeing too much of themselves in it. The result? A nuked relationship.

Kiaiiii!!

Is there a way out of this? I think there is. I’m reminded of Bruce Lee’s last movie – The Game of Death. It was a pathetic effort, but it did have a neat message hidden in the mess. Lee finds himself in a building where every floor is dominated by a master of one particular martial art style. You have your fundamental judo master, then your karate master, then your Tae-kwon-do master and happy stuff like that… all the way to the top.

Lee takes a brief moment to figure out each master’s chosen style before proceeding to turn them into chop suey. It’s just a matter of identifying the style in question, finding its loopholes (EVERY style has a slew of those) and wading in there. His problems begin when he reaches the top floor. This one is presided over the Man With No Styles (for some strange reason played by yesteryear basketball champ, Abdul Kareem Jabbar). This man keeps Lee at bay easily, because the fact that he has no style offers no loopholes. Old Lee is soon at his wits’ end, but finally does manage to get some key kicks and punches in, to cut Jabbar down to size.

The point is – if you have a style, you’re vulnerable (not to mention predictable). If you base your relationships on a style, those relationships are as screwed as the hides of two equally hungry and savage doggies, who have decided that they’re going to lunch off the same heap of offal. They’re going to jib, jab, feint and attack, and finally one will find the fatal flaw in the others’ style and lay his guts out for general inspection on the pavement.

Ridding Yourself Of Relationship Styles

If you know your fatal relationship style, sit down with pen and paper one weekend and figure out how you got it. Your ego will scream and whimper in protest. Put it in the garbage can where it belongs, sit on the lid and keep working.

Once you’ve figured out whom in your past you’re getting back at when you tell your boyfriend that he should stop invading your space, or your daughter that she should stop trying to manipulate you, you can drag your style out of its lair and beat it to the death.

How do you relate to others without a style? By the seat of your pants – and that’s always the best way. You take each moment and situation as it comes, tell your natural reactions to take a long hike and instead react in a matter that is appropriate to the moment and the situation.

For instance, your girlfriend will eventually tell you that you aren’t attentive enough to her (they all do at some point in time). When you hear her say the words, something will crawl out from the baggage room where you store your past experiences and impressions.

It may be your long-dead father, reiterating his axiom that women should always be reminded of their humble place in the scheme of things. It may be your sister, reminding you of how she’s always said that you’re a self-centered dork – need any more proof? It may be your childhood buddy, telling you that not paying attention to your girl is the only way of keeping her interested in you – worked fine for him back then. It may be your first flame, telling you that you’re incapable of caring for a woman, and that you’re a pathetic excuse for a man.

Well, your girlfriend doesn’t know you’ve had all those inputs along the way. All she’s said is that you’re being inattentive to her. But there you go, rising up in righteous wrath against the whispering ghosts of your past. You turn on your GF and let fly at her every arrow that you’ve ever wanted to shoot your dad, sister or first flame. Or you reach back and shake the hand of your childhood buddy (who’s probably all alone in the world right now, thanks to his exemplary attitude towards women) and say, “Thanks for the advice, Sam – here’s where I use it.”

You shove all those ghosts right back down there and listen to what your girl is saying. And you react from the present moment. YOU react, not some shyster specter from the past. You, without a style based on past impressions, are a fresh, new man… and you will surprise yourself with unsuspected depths of maturity, empathy and genuine caring when you’ve managed to become that.

Because this process takes a while, a person without relationship styles must necessarily wait a long moment before opening his or her mouth before responding to dicey relationship situations. But the end result is pretty good. The mouth doesn’t fly off the handle so easily. Pride doesn’t yelp like a kicked cur every time the partner criticizes. The hand doesn’t jump as easily to the wallet in an automatic reflex of past guilt or ongoing approval-seeking issues.

Believe me, it’s worth trying out…