Dearest Baby bear,
Some time back, in a LinkedIn post, a startup founder, Shantanu Deshpande of Bombay Shaving Company wrote about how, when you are 22, you should put in an 18-hour day for the next 4-5 years without doing ‘random rona-dhona’ or worrying about work-life balance, spending time with family, and so on.
The post went viral and people, rightly, were upset at this startup bro behaviour and attitude. There was a public uproar resulting in Shantanu apologising and moving away from LinkedIn for some time. It is another matter that he remained unrepentant in interviews and even later, continued to interact and ‘Like’ posts defending him.
This letter is not only about him.
Later, many people wrote about how they agreed with him and how young people should put in a lot of hard work without being hypersensitive and easily deterred (advice that in itself presumed they are). Most of these were Shantanu’s peers and startup bros themselves. Some of them were people trying to say something controversial to be noticed. And some were plain assholes.
This letter is not only about them.
Recently, a dear friend who is himself an excellent writer and whose views I have learnt to read carefully for the depth of thought that has gone into them, even when I do not agree with a lot of them, Ninad Vengurlekar, posted about Zerodha’s Nikhil Kamath who, and I quote: ‘At 17, as a fresher…worked 13-1/2 hours a day for 3 straight years, before he found his calling. When asked about his work ethic today, Nikhil says that he still works all day, including holidays. During holidays, he sets up 4 computer screens in his hotel room to trade in the markets.’ This, Ninad writes, is the answer to the question, ‘What is the secret of Nikhil’s gargantuan success?’
But this letter is not even about this alone.
This letter is about the (very very) slow realisation I, your Baba bear, had long ago, starting when I was 31 (back in 2003) and at the absolute peak of my career (I know, it was premature, and it did not last, but that story is for another time) and ending at the age of 38-39 (around 2010-11) when everything around me had collapsed, I had lost all my wealth, I owed everyone and their uncle and their dog money, my (first) marriage had broken down irretrievably (I had got my divorce on my 39th birthday, on 28 August 2011, exactly 3 years before you were born; isn’t that such a coincidence how things keep happening to me on that day!), my assets were liquidated and used to pay off a portion of my debts (with much debt still remaining to be paid), me being reduced to penury, and staying at my parents’ house, drinking myself to death and cursing everyone: my friends, my colleagues, my then ex-wife, my customers, my investors, my bankers, my agents, my dogs, my employees, Lehman brothers, the US Fed, everyone but me, for the state I found myself in…until one day, I found myself waking up in my own urine, dressed in loose track-pants, lying on my parents’ carpet in their living room, with a half-finished glass of rum from last night next to me, and my father, your Ajoba (my Superman, and the one person I wish I could emulate and be more like with you) standing over me, waiting for me to open my bleary eyes, only to ask me one single question before turning on his heel and walking away to whatever he was doing that day: ‘Are you happy with this?’
The epiphany struck me then. Perhaps ‘epiphany’ isn’t the correct word. It had built up. It had taken 7 or 8 years to get to me. But it was still an epiphany, I’d insist. Because it came to me in an instant there, like lightning striking. It was a shocking realisation that I want to share with you today: Happiness has nothing to do with the privilege of birth, education, academic excellence, social life, wealth, income, love, sex, a six-pack, friends, freedom, assets, recognition, medals, certificates, applause, praise, a fancy car, a large house, or even something as basic as a full stomach, a warm place to sleep, a clean toilet, or whatever it is that you think defines that elusive dream you think you (and everybody else in this world) are chasing: a dream called ‘success’.
Wait, don’t get me wrong. All of these things are components of, and party to, it. They are probably (apart from the most basic roti, kapda, makaan, opportunity) linked to it in some tenuous sort of way. But they are not it. What I mean is that while they are necessary (in some long-winded way) conditions for happiness, they are not (by a long shot) sufficient.
Before we proceed, in case you are wondering what happened then (when my father walked away leaving me with that question), that’s a story for another day, another time. Tl;dr: I cleaned up, with a lot of help from my privilege (aka family, friends, social circle, education, experience, connections, etc) and heaps of luck (and some love). But that is not the point of this letter, as you must have figured out by now.
What I wished to say to you is this: No amount of hard work, whether done at 22 or 52, whether comprising 18-hour days with the absence of ‘random rona-dhona’ or 4-day weeks with lots of naps & vacations, whether involving a fitness regime and share trading while dropping out of school or completing your PhD and going on to win the Fields Medal or Nobel Prize, will guarantee you happiness. Because this thing, this happiness thing, depends on your definition of what you think success is. And that, my dear little bear, is such a different kettle of fish for each person that while yours could be a coal-blackened Samovar with Beluga whales swimming in it, mine could be an ash-scrubbed shiny brass pot with a spout inhabited by Hilsa, and everything & anything in between.
For example, in the story of Nikhil Kamath, do you think his lowest-paid employee, say his office peon, who comes before anyone else, opens his office every day, fetches tea for everyone, carries files from one department to another (I am just speculating, because his office is probably far more modern than this, but this is just to drive home a point; so, bear with me), and leaves at the end, locking up after himself, then goes home and cooks for himself and his old mother, has dinner, then goes out with his friends for a paan-bidi, and chats with them till the wee hours before returning to sleep in his one-room tenement where the power goes off all night, before waking up, making tea and breakfast, getting ready for office, and then get to office using three separate changes of public transport, to repeat his day is someone less happy than Mr Kamath? Or do you think Zerodha’s laziest employee who works the least but enjoys coming to the office as much as, say going to the movies with their family, eating out, and shopping is sadder because they work less hard? Or do you think their least-educated oldest employee, say a 55-year-old chacha whose job is simply to sleep outside the office overnight as a ‘security guard’ is somehow not as happy with their life as someone who worked 18-hour (or even 13-1/2-hour) days in their youth, ‘took it on their chin’ and was ‘relentless’?
Here’s the answer: There is absolutely no way to tell.
You see, when we are young and restless, when we are impatient and in a hurry to get to the elusive ‘success’ whichever way we define it, we tend to forget that what we think is ‘success’ (any one or more of the above-mentioned list of material things like education, wealth, career etc.) is not the end. They are merely means to a happy, fulfilling life. The happiness and fulfilment in life are the ends. Some find it in 18-hour days, exciting projects that change every quarter, challenges that push you to your edge, and shots of adrenaline (as I had written about in my previous post) till the day you pop it, some find it in going through the most basic of education, getting a job, holding on to the same routine day in and day out, marrying someone arranged for them by their family, having two children, and retiring to watch Republic TV and write Good Morning WhatsApp messages, to die of multiple organ failure due to old age in an apartment complex in the suburb of a metro.
My point is, however condescending it may seem my tone is about the latter (and that part was just in jest), there is literally no way of saying with absolute certainty that one of the above two is happier or sadder than the other.
So, why does it seem to the world that you, Kymaia, are putting in 13-1/2-hour days while the rest of your peers are traipsing around school and having a blast even as you run 10km before sunrise, play chess with someone in Singapore in the morning, study science, maths, social studies, and English, Hindi, and Marathi before lunch, practice your Mandarin in the afternoon, then solve a Rubik’s cube, play the piano, and write a blog or mail before finally going down and playing with your building-mates or attending a Taekwondo class, coming up early, having a healthy dinner, and hitting the sack with a good book even as your friends are somehow staggering home, dirty from the playground and wanting to see some mindless tv and play video games before automatically falling asleep near midnight, when you are fast asleep, only to wake up early the next day and repeat?
It seems like that because Baba bear writes about it like that. Only you (and your parents) know how much fun you are having. How you are getting more done in less time than your school-going friends. How you get to try everything for 3 months before deciding whether you want to do it, or not. How you are a grade behind in some subjects you are slow to grasp and a grade ahead in those you are quick, something that would not have been possible in school. How you are completely free of any homework. How you have zero activity planned on weekends, except to meet interesting people, have fun, get bored, and invent games. How you have more time, and more energy, than most of your friends who go to regular school. But more, indeed most, importantly, how you are happy. For happiness is something that is the desired end result, and if we are happy, it does not matter how hard we are working, or not.
For all you know, your friends, who wake up early, get ready, get into a bus, go to school, take the bus back, do their homework, have their snack, and come down to play, only doing their extracurricular activities and hobbies over the weekend, and watch far more tv and play far more video games than you could even imagine are as, or even more, happy.
For all you know, there are many more ways to be happy than how you or your friends lead your lives. We can never presume either a lack of or an abundance of happiness in anyone’s life based on our definition of ‘success’.
So, what’s the lesson in this? It is this: You should focus on what makes you happy and not let anyone else dictate to you the preconditions of this happiness based on their perspective about, experiences of, or approach to life. Let them do what they wish to do to gain and maintain happiness. You do what you want to. There is no objectively right, leave alone perfect, method of getting there and being happy. Whatever makes you happy, makes you happy. All you have to ensure that if and when you are asked this question, ‘Are you happy with this?’ your answer must be a resounding, and instantaneous, ‘Yes’.
In short, you do you, gurl!
P.S.: You won’t get a lot of this today, or indeed for some time. But when the time is ripe, you will discover it yourself. And then, you can come back here to read it. Just to validate your feelings. Baba bear may or may not be around then. But he shall always be, as promised to you on the day you were born, on Team Kymaia.
With the greatest of love a human can feel for another,
Your Baba
