All About 'Give & Take'

Here are some questions for you.

During school days, were you enjoying reading your textbooks as much as you enjoyed reading storybooks?

What do you remember for a long time and what can you recall quickly? Is it multiplication table of 19? Or the ‘Ek-do-teen’ song from the movie Tezaab?

What touches your heart more and what remains a sweet memory? Is it your marriage? Or is it your first crush and love?

I’m sure, most of you, if not all, would vote for the second options. Just observe the common elements in all of them – there is no ‘give n take’ there. We enjoyed reading storybooks and lived the characters because there was no fear of need for writing about those stories in any exam. We hummed along the original ek-do-teen song and it remained a part of our memory permanently as we never worried about reproducing it when someone asked. Love in you sprouted just because it wanted to sprout; not because you would be accepted and respected by the society if you were in love.

We have converted our working into jobs, learning into schooling, love into marriages, study into project, living into religion, eating into dieting, friendship into partnership, devotion into prayer.. the list goes on.

In some cases, the moment our actions become transactional, they cannot reach the fullest height or achieve the best quality. We read our textbooks with a thought running in our mind that we would be tested on all this in the exam and we should reproduce it well. This anxiety about your

performance in the exams and need for getting good marks for a better future make our textbook reading transactional. Our tricky mind remembers the textbook content as long as the purpose is served. Once the exams are complete, the knowledge we accumulated from textbooks start fading away.

Similarly, it was all good until the man needed a reason for the creation and running of the universe. He called it God. From a common man’s perspective, perhaps, it’s fair to assume there should be some ‘power’ controlling the nature. Unfortunately, man didn’t stop there. He started transactions with God. “If there is a ‘power’, why can’t we ask it (him) to give us what we want?” – This very question destroyed entire humanity. We started asking God for money, education, courage, health, jobs, visa and the worst of all, marriage. But how can God start ‘Giving’ anything without ‘Taking’ something from you? (because the God is just your brainchild and he thinks and behaves exactly like you do).

Then we started offering fruits, sweets, money, clothes, gold and even liquor. Religions were born, priests were born and scriptures were born. They gave you prescriptions and taught you procedures on how to worship, how to pray, what to offer, when to eat, when to make love and what not! We stood, we bent, we rolled, we joined palms, we kneeled down, we shouted, we murmured – we did all that we can – just to ‘get’ something from god. We believed we should ‘give’ something to ‘get’ something without asking a simple question ‘If God has CREATED everything (and has authority over it), isn’t whatever we give is not ours?’.

We reduced god to the level of a clerk in a government office. Indeed lower than that, because we steal from his own pocket and bribe him to get your work done. How many of us can worship without asking for anything, either for ourselves or for our loved ones? Transactions keep us mediocre.

Then come love, marriage and relationships. We lowered them to the level of transactions again. Saying ‘I love you’ to anyone is no fault, but waiting for ‘I too’ (not me too) is! I love you because I love you, I love the way you speak, think, respond, look, smile, support, console, cheer up, behave and not because I expect these to myself from you. If I expect so, I’m not just loving you. I’m asking you to boost my ego. The moment you seek ego boosting, your mind works like an ego bucket with holes; it never gets filled. We lose the joy of loving because we get busy in filling the bucket with holes.

Marriages and other relationships get down to business level with lot of ‘give and take’. The core idea of human relationship should be sharing of joys and sorrows. But most of the marriages begin with negotiations on ‘give & take’ of money and the dirty yellow metal. We have even taken marriage to the next level by making this an ONLINE transaction. We have matrimonial websites where we can shortlist men and women applying filters like caste, age, profession, height, weight, annual income, colour and so on. Boy has a job in a reputed company – let’s ‘TAKE’ more. Girl is educationally well qualified and working(!) – let’s BARGAIN to ‘GIVE’ less. Where are we heading to! I wish there were filters for level of ‘understanding’ and ‘love’ in the matrimonial websites, which is unlikely to happen.

The greatest education happens when marks are not sought. Newton didn’t discover gravitation as a part of his college project. We remember Juliet because she expected no gift from Archies by Romeo (luckily, there wasn’t one at that time) and we remember Romeo because he never checked her WhatsApp and call log.

Does it mean we should never set a goal, expect results and work towards achieving them? We should; but not in every aspect. Don’t mistake business for passion. Don’t call a course as entire learning. Don’t set success as an end point to your effort and keep looking for it. Let your passion continue working until the success wakes you up shaking your shoulder.