On My Designation

Yesterday night five people asked my latest designation. Many often get confused about what exactly I do. Many friends on Facebook come to inbox to ask what do I do. During my travels too people ask me. The problem is that I do too many things , though many people may recognize my former and present UN tag of one or other kind. Since people get confused, this is a bit of an autobiographical note to avoid further confusion about my designation.

In fact I never do a job. I chose to do things I liked and was lucky to live life without the compulsions of doing one job or following a single track career option. I never studied for a job or to make a professional career. I did things that excited me at a given time.

When I was a teenager , it excited me to start a Malayalam little magazine. We friends got together and ran it for five years. And the one who did the illustrations is a very famous news paper designer in India. Another one is a well known Professor and one ended up a story writer.

The fact of the matter is that I never held one designation for more than five years and kept moving, though I am still associated and attached with all the organisations that I worked with, including the United Nations. I never applied for a job. I was lucky when Jobs followed me and I created my own job descriptions. I never followed money or for that matter positions of power or fame. Still I was fortunate to have a bit of all these.

My first paid job was that of the class teacher of class three of the New English Medium School at Aizwal in Mizoram. I got a monthly salary of Rs 850. I used to spent more time with friends from Thrissur at a tyre retreading shop at Chanmari Aizwal. They cooked excellent beef curry and rice for me. From there as an Assistant Professor of Linguistics in North East, Shillong and then in Mamit. Those years I wrote short stories for Kala Kaumudi and Kadha Magazine, apart from teaching 'Solitary Reaper' by Wordsworth. Did an interview with the then banned ULFA leaders and published a series in Kalakaumudi weekly as 'അശാന്തമായ ബ്രമ്മപുത്രാ തടങ്ങൾ'.

I made my first money by writing for the Times of India, Pune Edition in 1988 and then writing a cover story for the Indian Express. It was titled ' When Hamlet became a Mizo". I went to do doctoral research in North East India and simply enjoyed being there for couple of years. I did publish my first article in EPW when I was 24-25. I used to watch a lots of film at the film Institute Pune, and even considered the possibility of being a film maker. May be because of that I later on financed documentary films when I was the International Director of Actionaid and recently even made a significant contribution to the making of a feature film in Malayalam. May be I will end up making films. Who knows?!!!

I often wonder why some people don't get tired of doing the very same job for so many years and even decades. I get bored doing the same role or job for more than five years. Hence I reinvented every five years. I was lucky to be the Chief Executive at the age of 28 and did almost all roles and designations across the world that it now hardly matters.

Life is exciting when one tends to experiment, experience new sense of imagination, initiative, people and purposes and keep flowing like a river. What makes me renewed is this constant sense of exploration, wonder, experiment, creative urge and excitement.Hence I created institutions almost like planting a sapling and when it grew I hand it over and move to the next exciting venture.Whenever I am in a new city or a village, I go for morning walk to feel, sense and smell the habitat. I do go for heritage walks in the mornings whenever I am in a new city or village. I was lucky enough to sense life across the world, in big cities, small villages, in remote places and living with tribal communities in Africa, Asia and other parts of the world. I don't get excited about possessing anything other than the ten thousand books and many posters that I collected from all over the world which are now housed at the Bodhigram library.

I feel excited when I again started writing in Malayalam after 25 years, experimenting with different modes of expressions that I almost forgot living away from Kerala and excited about options available to express. I feel happy when I spent a week at Bodhigram doing entirely different things and next week in a global venue doing training for CEOs or facilitating a retreat for human rights activists or another one on corporate social responsibility, or writing a report for the UN and the next week doing a sathyagraha with Ekta Parshad colleagues in front of Kerala Secretariat, another week in a youth leadership camp somewhere or another week advising a Minister or Chief Minister or giving a lecture in Kottayam on this Saturday after an exciting week of facilitating a retreat in Bangkok. These are different parts of me, difficult to make in to a neat job description or single career option or a one designation.

Yesterday night a young friend asked me why I am not entering in to electoral politics. The answer is simple ; the return on creative investment is less in electoral politics. How many people will ever remember their MLA or MP or for that matter a minister after 10 years. And you have to invest at least 25 years of life to become someone with more than 10 years of shelf-life in conventional politics. Sashi Tharoor will eventually be remembered for the books he wrote, as after a decade people may not remember his tenure as a MP.

Among a series of 8 designations I hold currently , the latest I chose is the CEO of a Global Consulting Company that I promote, though I hardly tell anyone about my new tag. My designation is that I have gone beyond the designations. Designations or position of power no longer touches me or excites me. I have too many offices in too many places to call any office my own. I live in too many places to call any place my own. 'World within, around and beyond' is my place.

Life is still an exciting experiment; trying to make a difference; making change happen within and beyond. Keep learning and unlearning everyday, living every moment with a sense of wonder and beauty; getting angry when I see an injustice or getting sad when I see helplessness of many fellow human beings. Doing what I can when people seek help. Trying to make sense of life and people everywhere; trying to understand the flow of life in its millions of manifestations.

Life is happily anarchic beyond regular routines and predictability. I am immensely grateful to a creative partner and family who let me follow very unusual pathways, not confirming to routine career or predictable options.

Life is exciting when we choose to live with passion and with a sense of mission, much larger than you. Life becomes an art when we live creatively with a vision beyond you; feeling the world within, around and beyond. Life is a store house of creative possibilities when you dare to dream beyond yourself and when you dare to dream beyond time and space.
I am grateful and I still remain optimistic.