As I saw it

Along with the Ubuntu, I am also guided by the words of the late American football coach Bill McCartney: “We are not here to compete with one another. We are here to complete one another.” Recently I was in a session where, I guided the fractured group through various experiential processes to reach a place where they became willing to walk up to at least 3 people, greet them and ask: “What would you like me to know about you and what would you like me to wish for you?” I also requested them to be open to receiving as much as they were expected to give. Having done this scores of times beforehand I knew what all emerges in such situations and I was prepared. One of them turned to me midway and said, “Hey Sree, they are asking for things that are not possible for me to give them right now.” And that’s when I pointed out once more that the question is not “What would you like me to buy for you” but rather “What would you like me to wish for you?” The difference and impact is always simpl...

I am sure hard core Hindi movie fans would remember this image of Amitabh Bachhan and his line from the movie Mohabattein. Well, some time back I was conducting a 2 day session for a client and at the end of the first day a young girl came to me and said: "Sir, when I saw you in the morning before the start of the session, it looked like you are a very distant, kadak person like Amitabh Bachhan from the movie Mohabattein." Even as she struggled to remember his key words, I chipped in and spelt those words for her: "Parampara, Pratishtha and Anushasan". Her spectacled face nodded with a wide smile on her face. The 49 year old me couldn't suppress my own smile. The initially-hesitant, reserved, ambivert me tends to sometimes unwittingly radiate that impression. "But at the end of the day today, you turned out to be amiable, approachable and fun to be around. We had some great learning." Till she mentioned it, I had never thought of those words in a way t...

The late Mr. ‘KTC’ Abdullah was a great actor and I loved him in his movie - Sudani from Nigeria. This is a scene from that film with a master class in acting where he tells Samuel from Nigeria that he is Majeed’s father. After a pause, he repeats in a whisper - Father. You can watch the movie with subtitles to understand the significance of that scene and why he says that twice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHyaTJGmN4k&ab_channel=HappyHoursEntertainments Sometimes I hope for a face like his. A face that has a permanent smile on it; as if the person cannot do anything but smile in peace, wisdom, clarity and contentment; a person who smiles through calamity, heart break, setbacks, disappointments and the lows of life. My father had a senior colleague like that - one Khurana uncle as we called him. His congenitally smiling face hid the fact that as a teenager he fled the partition riots in Pakistan carrying his mother on his back and then started working in Delhi, got a government...

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Shammiji, as I call him is a special person for me who clarified lot of things for me which helped learn a bit more about non-violent communication and begin the life long journey of training myself in the ways of NVC. The two most memorable things for me what he he shared are: -1. NVC is training in sainthood. -2. An enemy is a person whose story you don't know yet. I attended two workshops with him in Gudgaon in 2012 and then at Zorba, The Buddha sometime in 2013 where he took me deeper into understanding the meaning of needs behind behaviours. He facilitated a role-play for me with mother whereafter I had a profound laugh. I laughed hard because I had an epiphanic and profound understanding of the needs my mother was trying to meet each time she would push me away when I tried to help her in the kitchen and each time I tried to introduce waste segregation in the kitchen. He has a great gentle way of being and doing; the impact of which has stayed with me since then and the impor...