Experience rules
Shaadaab S. Bakht
Shaadaab S. Bakht, who worked for famous Indian dailies The Telegraph, The Pioneer, The Sentinel and wrote political commentaries for Tehelka.com, is Gulf Today’s Executive Editor.
- 05 Sep 2019
ON SELF-HELP BOOKS
Some of us love self-help books because they tell us what we want to hear. But they are often far removed from reality. At least I have found them to be so, I told my friend (college teacher) who suggested one such book. I take her very seriously. Therefore, I decided to devote some hours to the popular publication.
The thick book has lines like “the best word is love” and “the best relationship is friendship.”
Let me tell you lines like these have really never turned me on because in my opinion, which is always humble, life is not a book on the shelf. I believe in writing it myself. And writing it means living it out. I prefer wisdom to knowledge.
“Love is the best word, friendship is the best relationship, profit is a dirty word, marriage is not all about sex, money is not everything ...”
By the way for me the greatest human beings are musicians and painters. Rest are dispensables
These observations now almost annoy me. When post-dinner or post-lunch conversation veers around something like that, I try and skirt the discussion and go for some soulful music.
Though I’m not a Dutch cow (she gives more milk when music is played in her shed) music for me is like the serene sea that helps me salt my dreams, the unseen crutch that has never let me down.
By the way for me the greatest human beings are musicians and painters. Rest are dispensables.
Well, now the lines.
“Love is the best word,” please talk to me after you have lost it. Call it, if you please, sentimental weakness, but that won’t change reality, which anyway never changes on demand. That’s why most of us shy away from reality.
“Friendship is the best relationship,” please talk to me after you have been taken for a ride in a business deal.
“Profit is a dirty word,” please talk to me after you have talked to a passionate stockbroker around you.
“Marriage is not all about sex,” agreed, but it has to give you a fair deal of its beddable components. You know we aren’t wide off the mark.
“Money is not everything,” please talk to me after your bank blocks your account.
She hit back saying I was being cynical. I smiled back saying it’s apt to talk through one’s experiences. Otherwise it’s intellectual dishonesty. Why sound idealistic just to be socially accepted or to sound pleasant, I told her.
She didn’t agree with me and still doesn’t. But I would like to tell her that books inform and are arms, and experience teaches and is ammunition. The union keeps life ticking.
