What I Found When I Went Looking for Purpose

It takes an entire lifetime to make one chair

2009 was a difficult time at work. I was a regional manager for my company. I used to enter into revenue sharing deals with the local distributors in my region. And it was always approved by the national manager, though I was the one to sign on the dotted line. This was the practice across all the regional offices. During that time, things were also getting heated up at the top for the national manager. The finance head began scrutinizing some of the deals we were entering into. When some deals made in my region were questioned, the national manager claimed that he went by my judgement. Which was not entirely wrong as this is how it was done. But at that time, I was not fully settled in my role and I was heavily dependent on him for taking such decisions. So I was quite shocked and hugely disappointed that he was sacrificing me to save himself. Thankfully, I did not lose my job during that time. And the national manager moved on as soon as he found another opportunity.

When I went out drinking with a friend from my office, we tried to make sense of what had happened. The national manager was a likeable guy who had always treated us well. Instead of calling him names, we reasoned together about it. He had his mother to care for, a young family of his own, EMIs for the car and apartment, school fees to be paid and so on. When a person is in such a desperate situation, we realized that it was not unreasonable for him to go to any extent to save his job.

Something like that had happened with me at every place I worked in. These unsettling events got me thinking –

What will I do when I am in his place some years from now? Will I be able to survive such a crisis? Is this all there is to work and life? Can my life be something more?

Do I have a purpose of my own?

*

Some years later, I went on a solo trip to be by myself. I locked myself in a hotel room with a book and pen. I had been thinking about writing for so long. I thought I should start with penning my memoir. But I found everything I wrote to be lacking. I wept every day because I felt I was on the edge in some ways. On the third day, I overheard the staff talking about a cricket match that was going on. I had promised myself not to turn on the TV. I stared at the blank screen and saw the reflection of a person who badly needed some joy. I finally switched it on during the second half of the game and also called for a beer. India won against Bangladesh. That was not a game many would remember but me.

That night, I wrote in my journal: ‘I like what I like and I can't help it; No matter how much I deny myself this joy, it remains my joy!’

A rare heartwarming moment in the movie ‘Badlapur’ comes at the very end. It’s the little scene where Laiq, a prisoner serving a life-term and also suffering from cancer is at the jail’s carpentry workshop giving finishing touches to a chair that he is making. The social worker Shobha asks him why he is overworking himself instead of resting on a Sunday. Laiq is so involved in his work that he can hardly hear her.

He gives one or two more rubs on the arm of the chair and says, ‘I make one chair in 4 days and it sells for Rs 3,000 in the market’. For once, he is standing upright, not mumbling excuses and looking her in the eye. He promptly gets back to his chair even as Shobha requests him to keep this chair for her.

Realizing our limited time here is itself like a second chance

*

My neighbour is about 85 years old. He walks around with a limp and a severely bent back. I see him every day from my window when he is up on the terrace of his home. He has a terrace garden of over a hundred plants of many varieties. He has his son, daughter-in-law and a young granddaughter living with him but he takes care of the garden all by himself. Depending on the weather and his own well-being, he chooses a suitable time to come up to the terrace and do his work. He wears a white vest and a dhoti. He does not use a chair or a stool but plonks himself on the floor. He then drags himself from one pot to the next, attending to each plant with care. He does not break for a coffee or chit-chat when he is up here. He walks back downstairs only after he is done with his work.

I found out that he had a career in the public sector before this. He took care of his family, got his children educated, paid for their marriages etc. He got this home built and had space for a few plants and a papaya tree on one side of the house. When he retired from his job, he started the terrace garden with a few plants and it gradually grew in number. After the passing of his wife, he gives his attention to the plants.

There was more to purpose than what I understood

*

I am ending this piece with a virtual hug to Richie from the TV show ‘The Bear’. In a show full of true-to-life characters, Richie represents most of us.

Richie probably began working at the restaurant so that he could hang out with his pal, Mikey. He does not have any particular skill that he is aware of. Due to which he is seen to be meddling in everyone else’s job at the restaurant. It also makes him more agitated with the changes that Carmen (Mikey’s brother who is now running the restaurant) is trying to instill in that place.

As a new restaurant is finally taking shape, Carmen arranges for Richie to spend a week at a Michelin star restaurant to expose him to best practices.

Richie hates it there. People are going about their work like clockwork and it is intimidating to him. He learns how all those people are working there because they are highly passionate about something – the food, the service or the operational challenge or running a restaurant.

Richie is aware that he lacks any such purpose.

On his last day, he finally meets with the chef Terry, the founder-owner-head chef of the restaurant.

It is early in the morning and Chef Terry is carefully peeling the skin of mushrooms, preparing them for a dish.

‘So why do you do this?’ asks Richie.

‘Respect,’ Chef Terry says. ‘I think time spent doing this is time well spent.’

‘Time well spent. That’s what it’s all about?’ Richie asks.

‘Yeah I think so.’

Purpose is also an act

Postscript

27 October, 2024

This essay was written and published in August 2023. That was the first time readers reached out to me - through WhatsApp and email thanking me for writing this. I was just one month into sharing my writings on a public platform and I was overwhelmed and unsure of how to reply to the messages.

But then, in the most poetic way, those responses gave me clarity of my own purpose for writing what I write.

Thank you so much!