The importance of simplicity in my life

It is said that simplicity is a virtue, and many of us also believe that we are living a simple life. People loved the simplicity of Mahatma Gandhi, the way he dressed, the way he lived, and the way he presented himself. He is perceived as one of the icons of simplicity in real life. I am personally not a big fan of lavish or exuberant lifestyles, I prefer simplicity, but I don't do it just for the sake of showing it off but I really like it as a way of life. Let me say in the beginning that this is going to be a very personal post, I will be talking a lot about myself, so, anyone who is not interested in reading about my life should feel free not to read this post. Simplicity can be defined by different people differently and here I am discussing my interpretation of it.

I remember reading a comment about Gandhi's lifestyle, "it costs a great deal of money to keep Gandhi living in poverty." This statement may or may not be true, and I am not very sure about the intention of the person who said it. But it is also a fact that simplicity is more appreciated or noticed more when it is practiced by people who can afford to live lavish or exuberant lives. So, the simple lifestyle of celebrities or business tycoons or any famous person is appreciated more than the simple life of some common person who is not well known. The simplicity of life which poor people are forced to practice is not something we talk about as we know that they don't have any other choice. I do recognize that Gandhi really believed in simplicity and his life is a great example of that, I am also one of the people who are greatly influenced by some of his thoughts. But in today's world, it is not easy to live that type of life unless you really believe in it. I am telling this from my personal experience. In today's world of consumerism and aggressive advertisement, where markets and corporations dictate almost everything in our lives, it is not easy to escape the force of consumerism. Today we live in a world where everything is judged by perception created by many alternate realities. Aggressive and attractive advertising creates many different perceptions about many things in people's minds. People are told what it means to be happy, how to live a perfect life, what it means to be beautiful, and so on. People all over the world are literally bombarded with messages where others tell them how to live their lives. This is how we get attached to a particular brand or crave only a particular model of phone, car, or clothing. It is not easy to escape this, these advertisements are designed to be very effective and are based on a lot of research about human psychology and data based on how the human mind works and responds to different stimuli. Slowly but steadily we start believing in these ideas. We start thinking about what these institutions want us to think. Having our own car becomes a need but not a luxury, going on a family vacation is considered a basic element of a happy family life, and owning our own home becomes a social necessity it is not enough just to have a reasonable comfortable accommodation. These are just a few examples I am citing to give an idea about the point of how we are slowly brainwashed by different elements of society. Many perceptions like these become an integral part of our lives and we start judging the world around us based on these standards prescribed to us by the market. 

I come from a very humble background, and my parents really worked hard to keep us afloat. They immigrated from their home state to a totally new state with a different culture and language in search of a better life. They tried their best to provide us with everything and I believe they did a great job within their own limitations. They wanted their kids not to face the same struggles and problems that they faced in their lives. For us, there was no other option than living a very simple life as we couldn't afford anything more, so, for us back then, simplicity didn't seem like a virtue but it felt like a forced thing, a bad joke by destiny on us. But slowly as I read more and as I matured as an adult I realized that it can be a virtue and can be a purposely chosen way of life, since then I decided to live as simple a life as possible, simple in terms of thinking and simple in terms of living within my own limits. It was a very conscious decision which was influenced by some great people about whom I read that time. I also understand that everyone can make their own definition of simplicity. Simplicity can differ from person to person. Therefore, let me make it clear that whatever I am talking about here is my interpretation of simplicity, my own definition of what I think is simple, others can define simplicity based on their own experiences. At the same time, I must also clarify that I don't judge people by their choice of lifestyle. According to me, everyone has the right to choose how to live their own life, it is a matter of personal choice. I totally understand that everyone's needs are different and we all have the right to pursue what we think is best for us. So, my advocacy of simple life should not be taken as criticism or condemnation for any other type of lifestyle. 

As I said, it is easy to live a simple life when you don't have any choice. Back in the days when I used to tell people that I liked this simple way of living and would try to live like this even if my financial situation changed, very few people believed me. Most of them thought that I was advocating simplicity just because I was forced to live that type of life because of our financial situation. It was the same when people didn't believe me when I talked about gender equality. They all said to me that I was talking about this just because I didn't have a daughter and that my thinking would change once I had a daughter of my own. Fortunately, our first child is a daughter and I still believe in gender equality. So far, I managed to hold on to my core beliefs but the truth is things can change any time. I am writing this based on where I stand today and what I believe today, one can argue that there is no guarantee that things will remain the same in the future and I totally acknowledge this concern. But things like equality, simplicity, freedom of expression, and kindness are very important to me and I value them immensely. People around me also help me by giving their continuous feedback which keeps me on track. I love my choice and I hope everyone gets to live the type of life they want, after all, happiness and success are all about the freedom to make our own choices. Simplicity is my choice, what is yours?

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

My chawl and its people

I spent most of my life living in a 'Chawl' (चाळ in Marathi). We still have our home in our chawl and I visit it on my every India trip. For people who don't know what does word "chawl" means, let me explain it a little bit to the best of my ability, chawl is a type of setup where many houses are aligned side by side like a train (it can be one or two or maximum three-story building). They are not like row houses or condos but more like trailers stacked one adjacent to another.. By the description it doesn't look like a very comfortable or attractive place to live with family, it comes with minimum privacy but with maximum fun (at kids have a lot of fun as kids, I don't know about adults). Culture in chawl was also used to be very unique. All members knew each other very well, there were no secrets, it was very easy to know what was going on in each home, absolutely no privacy. So, whether you wanted it or not all your friends knew if you had a bad day in your home Houses were crowded but there used to be a lot of open space around to play.

I can't capture the essence of that life in words but life was filled with a lot of fun and unpredictable but interesting things. I still remember our cricket matches where both teams used to play as if it was a World Cup final to win 25 paise (Indian quarter, which is less than a US penny). Every chawl used to have their own cricket team and some were bitter rivals of each other. Matches between those teams used to be full of high tension and a lot of drama and many times ended without any result because of a dispute over some runout decision. Having your own cricket bat was a big luxury that very few kids could afford and whoever used to have it used to feel like a king and really used to get royal treatment as everyone needed that bat to play. We never had a lot of toys or any video games at that time but there were many games we used to play which never required any sophisticated equipment but were very enjoyable. Most of them are almost extinct now but I still remember all of them. Most of the kids from our chawl used to go to the same school. We used to go to school with our bikes or company-provided school bus (by a company called Vanaz, where most men from our Chawl used to work, that's why our chawl was called Vanaz Chawl). That school bus was not like the one which you see nowadays, fancy and tailormade to be a school bus. It was a regular bus but used to carry schoolchildren. It used to be really overcrowded, to get a seat on that bus one really had to fight a war and some kids used to try to ride on the running bus just to get the seat, this resulted in one tragedy where one student got crushed under the bus. That bus was called the school bus only because it used to carry school children but there was no other feature of the school bus associated with it. I am glad that I survived those years without facing any major accident. Our life there was full of a lot of good stuff at the same time so many risks, which were very serious by today's safety standards.

For a long time, we never had individual water connections for each house. There used to be common taps from where everyone (including kids) used to carry water with buckets or different vessels to their homes and store it for daily use. We used to receive water for a few hours each day so there used to be tough competition to fill all our vessels before they shut down the water supply for the day. This used to create a lot of fights, some really ugly but bitterness never used to last long, the next day again fresh challenge, new war, and new fights. These fights or arguments were so common that other people hardly used to interfere or get bothered by these, except for people who were involved in these arguments all others used to continue with their routine as if nothing strange was happening, no one used to freak out over some argument going around them, sounds so strange when I look back to those incidents now.

Eating dinner together with friends was also a common practice. Kids used to take their plates outside and sit together to eat dinner, all used to share the dishes with each other, and one used to get a taste of different types of food. Slowly as people got more money they built more rooms and we lost our veranda so this practice slowly stopped, but it was fun as long it lasted. Keeping an eye on kids used to be the job of any elder from the neighborhood not just the parents of that kid. If anyone from our neighborhood caught us doing something wrong they had full right to punish us and normally no parent used to object to this. I think this practice of collaborative parenting made our neighborhoods safe and allowed many parents to carry out their day-to-day activities without being bothered about the safety of their children. This doesn't mean our parents were not careless, they cared about us as much as present-day parents care about their kids but this system worked very efficiently back then and made their job easy.

Life back then was filled with many incidents and situations that one can not even imagine today. The world has moved on and many of those things vanished with time. I don't regret that they are gone, change is important and is required but I do remember most of those incidents fondly. I still visit my chawl and know each and every individual from my chawl personally. My chawl has also changed a lot, it's not the same as it was 20 years ago but this change is natural no one can avoid it. Maybe in the future, there won't be any chawls, maybe they don't fit in the image of a modern city, and all people might prefer to live in nice apartments or beautiful single-family homes, but my chawl, its people and days which I spent there will always remain in my memory.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)