Handling Admiration !

However stupid or moronic a person could be, he will have admirers for sure. However practical or disinterested the person could be, he will get affected by admiration and respect he receives, period !

Our social behavior depends on how seriously we take admiration shown by others, how emotionally we connect with our admirers and how grounded we can be despite positive attention. This makes a hell lot of difference in public perception and self confidence too. So handling admiration is as important, if not more than handling criticism (handling criticism will be addressed in my next blog post).

Admiration - taken seriously:

Admiration or liking is often unilateral or one dimensioned. Except immediate family members and close loved ones, nobody likes us for whatever we are. So if others express their admiration, its only because they like certain talent, behavior or physicality in us. Such admiration should be wholeheartedly thanked, appreciated but can't be construed as unconditional love because if those admirers are exposed to us as a package, their admiration may (!) turn into resentment :) The best way to handle such situations is to enhance, develop, project traits or talents which are admired without letting the success affect our behavior in other areas.

Perfect example for this is political entry of Chiranjeevi. People flocked to his movies because they liked him onscreen. But he took the popularity way too seriously and rest is history ;) Most of the celebrities undergo this syndrome and unintentionally become susceptible to their ego and over-confidence.

Some people may genuinely like us but that can be due to misinterpretation or false projection. Virtual world including internet, facebook, twitter, instant messengers made easy for people to selectively and subconsciously present themselves to the world and there is ample scope for online buddies to misinterpret what is said, written, shown or projected. Any admiration based on such misinterpretation is always short-lived.

(BTW, there is a popular joke gone viral that nobody is as good looking as their facebook display picture and as ugly as their drivers license. LOL. Don't know about others, but that's apt in my case :P)

Time changes. So do opinions and tastes. Those who like us today may not really have the same feeling tomorrow. So unless and until the admiration is consistent, it can't be taken to head. Some people say good things out of courtesy which doesn't mean we should go overboard and start imagining ourselves to be on the top of the world. And not to mention, there will always be people who admire us with a preset agenda / hypocrisy. So always take flamboyant praises and lavish paeans with a pinch of salt before succumbing.

Connecting with admirers:

The first thing to do is not to take anybody for granted just because they expressed their liking towards us. Their liking or admiration can be temporary but the respect we can earn by reciprocating love by some genuine affection by smile, hug and other gestures will be permanent.

World is brutal and finding people who like us is not always easy. We may or may not always get close to those we like, but we always have an option of becoming friends and build relationship with those who like us. No two ways about it. We can't choose blood relations, but we can definitely choose friends, soulmates, 3-am-buddies and whats better than building up such relationships with those who like us. huh ?

But another aspect of connecting with our admirers is to project ourselves as a complete package so that they can decide if they can really tolerate us or not ;) And invariably we will see a lot of them drifting away which is healthy because we can understand whom to take seriously and whom not to.

I posted this status on FB few days back "Life is long enough to meet people who genuinely like us. Experiencing love from them is boon ! World is big enough to find people whom we genuinely like. Expressing love towards them is bliss !" and I meant every word. Just that we should identify who like us and whom we can like. Its not easy, but its worth !

Letting go of people who don't share positive feelings anymore is equally important. As mentioned earlier, times do change and subsequently people do change; circumstances and situations change. We may have to face days when somebody who admired us the most drift away; we should be large hearted to let go because they may have a lot of reasons to revisit their opinion and in that case cringing to retain the "impression" or opinion is futile and meaningless. Don't take it too personally. If some go away, new people come into your life (remember: life is long enough and world is big enough)

Being Grounded:

The direct and immediate consequence of being admired is steep rise in confidence levels in a positive way and ego in a negative way.

Whenever somebody expresses their admiration, try to think about all our negative traits and then analyse if that person can like us despite knowing those traits or not. This exercise will invariably keep us grounded even in case of the most mellifluous and liberal praises. Arrogance would give way to channelizing and streamlining the admiration into building confidence and maturity.

Though I don't receive a lot of admiration myself, all those who consistently liked me ended up being my favorites too and I treasure them and the bonding I share with those special people;

Slaves to Accent !

Just imagine yourself mispronouncing any english word or a white guy's name or speaking english in a desi accent; what would be the impression bestowed upon you ? You would be unanimously seen as a yokel.

Now imagine an english guy pronouncing your (desi) name or any hindi or telugu or Indian word. or even worse your fellow desi mispronouncing or "trying to" mispronounce desi names and words; now what would be the impression conferred upon him ? A westernized, modern, stylish etc.

I don't disrespect English language. Infact I love the language; my whole life, like most of my peers', revolves around english and most often I think in english. I know the importance of the language in contemporary communication, presentation and I completely subscribe to the idea of enhancing english skills out of love and necessity of the language. But does that mean that all those who are good at english are intelligent and all those who can't are mindless creatures ?

Mani Shankar Iyer, Indian cabinet minister recently ridiculed his cabinet colleague Ajay Maken that the letter written by him (Maken) contains complex english words and hence the letter could not have been written by him as he studied in so and so college (!!!). This is heights of snobbery and psecudo-elitism. English speaking or pronunciation is never a yardstick for intelligence or success. Did Anna Hazare speak sophisticated english to capture the imagination of India ?

Blood boils when some telugu anchors of Gemini TV, Maa TV shows talk telugu in "accent". I don't really understand the influence under which they were brought up, but even if they were completely westernized (which I don't think so anyway), nobody in India gets a firangi accent even if they talked in English at home, period ! But these chicks try to emulate that accent while speaking vernacular languages. That's BULLSHIT and stooping down to the shoes of English masters !

Pronunciation, grammatical accuracy, phonetics make the language sound good, not accent. Accent or slang is something which is developed by social influence especially during childhood. And Indian residents never had/have such society. Celebrated Indian english scholars and authors like JL Nehru too didn't have that. Accent needs a mixture of idioms and slang to sound authentic.

Among NRI's the perceptive discrimination is striking. For immigrants, its a vogue to "sound" like localites and since they can't bleach their skin, they try doing that with their tongue. But the hidden truth that can be applied to most of these neo-firangs is that they desperately want to conceal their inferiority complex of being an "Indian English" speaker.

Heights of inferiority complex: Some NRI parents never let their children learn their mother tongue and take pride in telling their relatives and friends back home that their kids are completely angrez and don't know their mother tongue. Pity on them !

The fact that most new immigrants don't realize is that white guy's accent is not uniform. In US alone there are almost ten accents and people of one region often find difficulty understanding others'. There is a brooklyn accent, south accent etc. Canadian accent is different, British accent is so much different. All these people take digs at each other's accent and we guys try to copy them, but we don't know whom we are copying among so many tribes :D

Italian-english is well acknowledged, east-european english too has its flavor. Unless and until italians or east europeans were born in US, they don't really change their accent or way of speech. Indian- english is unique too and is well acknowledged. There are certain words only Indian english speakers use, for example: doing the needful etc. But that's perfectly fine boss, every dialect has its flavor ! Nobody is a shakespeare !

English is important, but so are other languages. So when a white guy pronounces my name as "Shraawt" or "Churot" (yes, they even wrote this, once) instead of "Sharath", I don't really take offence because I know they are not made to pronounce Indian words, that's how they were raised in their society and that's perfectly normal. I would be confused and puzzled if he addresses me like my Indian friends. We should also share the same equation. We are not made to speak english (or hindi or telugu) in westerner's accent and that's normal and hence any artificiality only reflects desperation. I just agree that our pronunciation and phonetics should be right so that others can follow our speech, nothing else !

I've been an NRI for last 5 years and I didn't get a bit of accent and neither will I in another 50 years. Because that's something I can't get and don't want to get either. But I take pride in the fact that my english is better than 90% of those who try to ridicule desi accent-ed english and also many indigenious english speakers. I take EQUAL pride in my knowledge of my mother tongue (telugu), it's grammatical nuances like sandhulu, samasalu, chandassu, alankaralu and also in my conversance with my national language (hindi). I'm not ROOTLESS !

From Boyhood to Manhood

When I was in my teens and early 20's. I thought anybody who crossed 25 was an oldie and now am 31 but I feel this is my prime-time :) Amidst all hectic schedules, hullabaloo and struggle for existence thingy, I found some time to ruminate over gradual transition and development of "me", my thought process, values and attitude towards life. This post is just a reflection of what I understood as my transition from boyhood to manhood.

At my current phase, I can clearly and unambiguously categorize my post teenage years as 19-23, 24-28, 29- present, as my opinion about world and myself witnessed a paradigm shift with age.

19-23 for me was, like in anybody's case, wild, volatile and unstable phase. I was a boy subconsciously trying to behave like a man. With newly found freedom, exposure to the world, situations demanding and teasing my decision making prowess - that was an age which forced me to defy all rules and norms of society; ironically that was the age when I didn't know much but aimed at taking over the world. It was sheer ambition and rage of fire in the belly.

Superficial knowledge and limited exposure combined with unlimited arrogance is a lethal combo but that combo conferred upon me this attitude which some people refer to as devil-may-care-attitude. The obvious set of traits like carelessness, negligence, headweight, irreverence, idiosyncrasy crept into my head. Though I don't like this kind of attitude in others, I unknowingly fell into the same bracket at that age. When I see kids of that age group behave similarly, I see my old self in them :)

With age comes knowledge and a tinge of knowledge was bestowed upon me in the next phase i.e., 24-28. This is usually an age of revelation and confusion and I see people belonging to this age group consider their younger lot as confused and ignorant while they themselves fall in those traits :) and that's quite normal; I was no exception.

I was expected to be more mature, responsible and take decisions which shape my life forever. Diplomacy, machiavellianism, chutzpah took the place of innocent arrogance. I thought I could manipulate anything in the world and impress anybody with my smartass attitude; Always tried to impress everybody around with whatever I could, tried to take undue credit for every damn thing that happened around me, resisted any kind of value addition or pieces of advice from elders and more experienced. That's where confusion started, but the other side of the coin is that transition in mindset was initiated.

24-28 is also an age where people get settled in terms of life partner and career. These are the biggest factors that could / can affect any damn person to get back on the right track and understand what "life" is. Anybody who has not settled in either of these will remain confused for sure and if it doesn't happen till late 20's, the situation will become psychologically and socially worse and the worst thing is they never realize the effects.

Life before marriage is like a flight on runway. Until it takes off, flight can't be considered operational. Marriage makes a person more responsible, wise and stable in every way possible. Balancing life, balancing feelings and respect towards parents, life partner, understanding their insecurities and providing the much needed support to loved ones will throw any person into altogether a different world. But this transition doesn't happen in a day. It takes months and years to completely get into the idea and understand technicalities. It only comes with experience and once you are a pro in this, life seems to be totally under control. This happened to me and I feel so much lucky that my parents and my wife made this transition smoother than what it would have been for most of the people. Read: Whom to choose between parents and life partner

24-28 is also the phase when we tend to understand the difference between a job and a career, money and job satisfaction, vulnerability and stability, importance to professional and personal lives and a lot more. The kind of exposure and situations around will make a person more mature and thoughtful. Again, I'm no exception.

In this way my 24-28 helped me, exposed me to lot more situations, pulled me out of my boyhood and kept me in a staging or transition stage before I could become a man. It was a confusing stage as I had to come out of the shell created in my early phase and understand the reality of the world.

29 - present for me is a golden age, perse. As mentioned earlier anybody above 25 was an oldie for me but I believe I got my senses and controls back only after 28 :) By then I knew what the world was, faced many dire situations, knew how to handle stress, pressure, could handle any kind of offensive. I am now mentally and emotionally stronger.

With age also comes wisdom and I believe am much wiser now. I again broke the shackles of manipulative attitude and understood how important it is to be loved and respected. Human values, principles, social responsibility have become vivid. Everything in life is as clear as crystal.

The difference in attitude was that in early 20's I didn't care what others thought about me, in mid 20's I tried to impress others with smartass knowledge and kickass attitude but now I realize that we just need to be ourselves and be expressive and people will automatically love you. Life has mellowed down and eccentricity has given way to thoughtfulness.

This is also a phase where for the first time, I got close to a lot of people who are either much elder to me or younger to me. This gave me a 360 degree view of how life is perceived by people of all ages at the same time. I could see how people 10-15 years elder to me defied all rules of age and are living a life of their comfort. They never took their age seriously and behaved the way their heart wanted. They now do everything which a 22 year old guy can do (except flirting and courting though :p). And guys and girls younger to me showed me how world is getting faster and ruthless. I see teenagers and young adults with awe and feel good when they share their knowledge, ideas, treat me with respect which I never did in their age :) I know the times are changing and it has encouraged me to keep up to the world.

Most of my hobbies, travel, extreme sports happened in this age. I started interacting with more people now than I did in my mid 20's. I'm getting more compliments and appreciation for what I do; I'm garnering more respect when I'm not trying hard. I am clear as how to deal with negativity and worthless people (Read: Dealing with Negativity), deal with failure (Read: Dealing with Failure), how to be happy (Read: Rules to be Happy). My family life has been blissful (touchwood) with the only concern that my parents are not with me (which will be addressed very soon though). My parents, wife, sister, brother in law, parents in law, sister in law love me unconditionally. My word is well respected among all my family members and they all know I love them and care for them. 

This phase of age witnessed my complete settlement in career. I have no insecurities or qualms about making money. I'm in a stage where I have gained knowledge, experience and right attitude to sustain myself; I'm more than satisfied with my work, I'm happy with the kind of educational background I have and the way I'm putting it to use as well. Am the happiest when more than 200 people approach me and say I'm in someway responsible for their career. Bliss !

So I'm wiser, more intelligent, more enterprising, happier, richer, respected, more secure than I ever was. In short I'm happy with how my life is going on and can definitely say that this is the best phase of my life compared to younger days. This is the reason I don't miss being a teenager or younger.  I know I'm a MAN now, not a boy anymore and I'M LOVING IT. I believe my life in coming years will change further and am all game to take it into my stride.