R Gopalakrishnan shows how to look at life and career from a different perspective
PlU — People like us
The life stories of celebrities are highly readable and inspirational. Celebrities are written about a lot, and their stories are commented about a lot; some aspects about them also suffer exaggeration and distortion. These stories do bear interest for the reader because celebrity stories are about people who are widely accepted to be successful. They are thus presented like fairy tales which romanticise more than depict stark realities.
This book is based on PlUs people like us. PlUs inspire as well as instruct readers in different ways compared to the stories of celebrities. It is comforting for ordinary people to know that PlUs, like themselves, struggle to think through dilemmas, do not know precisely what they want out of their lives and careers or struggle to live a life of fulfillment despite possessing all the trappings of success. This may perhaps be one of few such books that is based on chronicling PlUs.
PlUs are unable to recall the magical moment when ‘eureka’ clicked in their brain. It happens often, but they don’t recognise it as a eureka moment and there is no thunder and lightning that blinds their mind!
These realities caused me to want to write a book from an experiential perspective-about the stories I have encountered and how they helped me think about things. I did not want to be prescriptive with pat answers and solutions to the issues of success, career and relationships. The stories involve people whom I have known, from business and society.
Why should the reader be interested in the lives of PlUs, ordinary charactersIJ As integrated human beings, like the reader, the PlUs have three life influences: First, their genetic personality; second, their inner journey of experiences (self-awareness, mental complexity, childhood character influences); third, their outer influences (education, parents, job and friends). These three merge into one track to influence how they think and act. This integrated track defines who they are as human beings. So when you read about other people or interact with friends and work colleagues, if you wish to understand that person as an integrated human being (as you should be interested), then you need to understand that person’s inner and outer life influences.
The biography and experiences of Nihal Kaviratne, Geeta and Jamshed Irani are integral to elucidating the ideas in this book.
A gap shaped like you
When a child is born, it can be likened to a smooth pebble of a certain size and colour; both are determined by the genetics. As the child grows, and throughout the life of the person, experiences leave an impact on the smooth pebble-chips, marks and incisions, so that each pebble develops a unique shape of its own. A France-based American writer, Ms Pamela Druckerman, expressed an imaginative view by suggesting that each person has a shape that must fit into the jigsaw of the world. ‘Somewhere in the world, there is a gap shaped just like you. Once you find it, you will slide right in.’
To illustrate this point about finding a gap that is shaped just like you, I recall the story of how leela Chitnis, India’s top film star of the 1940s, found the gap shaped like her.
leela was the skinny and gawky daughter of a professor; she wore thick glasses. She fell in love with an urbane gentleman who was 14 years her senior, Dr Gajanand Chitnis, who was involved with the Marathi stage as a writer and director of plays. Dr Chitnis was not economically successful, so the shy and self-conscious leela started accompanying her husband to the rehearsals; she earned a bit by helping with the costumes and the sets.
Every evening she watched and observed the goings on; something must have been lodging in her brain all the time. One day, the heroine of the play failed to turn up. leela was thrust on the stage only because she had attended the endless rehearsals. She felt hugely challenged, but she performed with a natural elan-and brilliantly. Very soon roles poured in. Then she signed for her first film.
Until 1940, lux soap was always advertised with foreign film stars because Indians thought it poor character to model for advertisements. In 1940, when lux sought Indian models, leela was the first to be chosen. Soon thereafter, she became a leading Hindi film star. In her quest for a gap she could fit into, she viewed events and things differently from other people. As leela’s story of apparent coincidences demonstrates, leela found the gap that was shaped like her.
Excerpt from Six lenses: Vignettes of Success, Career and Relationship by R Gopalakrishnan, Rupa Publications, Rs 395