Autobiography of a Duffer by Santosh Jha - HTML preview

Second, it can understand and accept just opposite and reverse to what is right and true.

Third, it can accept an imagination and visualization as true and right, which shall be different from reality and actuality.

Fourth, it can accept and understand that there is nothing to be understood and realized.

Fifth and last, it can accept as true and right, what it has acquired as life experience.

All five situations can lead one to the twin doors of pain and joy respectively. My grandpa told me that I should never react to any of life situations or positioning of mind disposition even when at times it may seem a prudent and right thing to do. This reaction business is only for animals and it works for them because they have a single mind disposition, unlike humans who have five. He told me to wait and watch patiently and keep away from the instinctive habit of judging and rushing to conclusions of mind. He asked me to let a situation settle down. Take the idea home and sit over it. With a calm mind, assess all five different possibilities of my mind disposition. Make sure that a life situation is assessed and valued from all five dimensions of mind disposition so that no single disposition could weigh more on the scale of decision-making. And then, choose an option and decision, which leads to long-term peace and joys of not only self but of larger section of people around me.

I am telling you all this because I have benefitted immensely from his advice. I was also a reaction-person. A life situation would present itself and I would jump to a conclusion and take a decision. This led me to loads of trouble. I did unimaginable stupidities in my life. When my grandpa made me learn this simple magic of life, I could see that this stupidity, which I did, was something most people did in their lives. If my dad would say that it was cold out there, my mother would immediately contradict and say, it is actually not something, which one could term as cold. For my mom and dad, there never was a reality, which they could see independent of their hatred for each other. Their minds were conditioned, as my grandpa told me about mind dispositions, people are in. I see it happening all around me. People are in different shades of their mind disposition. If you scan their behaviors, you can see how they are predominantly in any one of the above-mentioned five shades of mind disposition. This always leads them to a judgment, which is away from truth and reality. I am 23 now and I have begun to understand bit of politics, culture and markets. Everywhere, people clash and conflict with each other as they are in different mind dispositions and it is only natural that they see the reality differently. This is typical in humans; animals do not have this problem. Their trouble is that they are also very much reactive like humans. This is the only difference I admit I have to keep away from.

This dog of mine, which is otherwise so intelligent, will start barking stupidly when the doorbell rings. He does not feel the need to check his mouth and wait to see if there is someone known or unknown on the door. This stupid is always on a reactive mode and instinctively barks. This is not something I can do. My grandpa warned me against this. If I were a dog, I would believe in my strength, wait a while, walk up to the door and see, whether it is my wife or someone else. Why should I bark at my wife? I would preserve my energies and bark only at strangers. This stupid dog is not like me; he is a reactive fool. He knows only one thing. If there is a sound, he shall bark. Humans also do the same. They think later, act first instinctively. My mom would instinctively start abusing dad if anything goes wrong in the household. Like my stupid dog, she instinctively reacts and barks, not bothering to differentiate between a known face and a stranger.

You know, actually, it is such a huge advantage to be a duffer. People do not expect a duffer to react. Now that I am 23, I have seen so much of life and now that my grandpa is no more, I have taken on, where he left. He was cool, calm and never reactive. I have picked up from him. I almost feel like grandpa. I have brought grandpa�s large reclining chair to my living room and I spend hours on that swinging up and down. I have decided to give myself a time lag of 24 hours. When I sit on this chair, I pick up thoughts and situations of previous day and mull over them. I make sure that my dog is snoozing around me. He is my reminder that I have to be more like him and my grandpa�s chair ensures that I never go beyond his ideas. I have started where he left and now I am on my slow and relaxed journey of life.

Now I leave you with my wife. She has agreed to write the last chapter of my biography with a condition that she would write it and not show me back. So, I am happy and relaxed now. It is up to her to decide, whether I did a good work or not. My grandpa had told me to count only those as joys, which I can create and control. Like writers, I am not bothered about my book�s success as it depends on others. My joy is in writing it and I feel happy that I made my wife happy. She wished me to write it. Thank you.

IV

I am busy as hell; still I have to write this. I am not a writer. I am just a literary agent and I have a rather easy task to do. The writers take all the trouble and I just have to find out why they cannot make it to the markets. Finding fault with anything and anyone is so easy. We all always know how to figure out issues to take them as causes for failure. I even do not have to do this. I simply say, I pass. It is always better not to risk a success. And I can tell you, in today�s precarious markets and public mood, everything is a risk, if it is not backed by a brand power. Nobody buys costly tickets to a multiplex for a movie, which does not have a super star in it. Nobody buys a book if it is not already in bestseller list with loads of reviews. Moneys are precious and they are better positioned when placed on a winning horse in the race. Success is expensive and worshipped only because they come rarely and when loads of factors get pulled in at one singularity, by luck or by masterly orchestration.

I asked my dear husband to write his biography to make him feel connected to things around him. I am writing this to make him happy. He is my hero but I do not see him of any worth to people. I am not a writer and that is why, when I am required to tell you about my husband, I shall give you plain and simple words. It is a fact that I know most things about him because we have been together for over 20 years. Our fathers were business partners for 15 years and he visited us since he was three and I was six.

We lived as neighbors and he would be left in my care, whenever our parents came together for dinner or weekend outings. He was a calm kid and I was a tornado. He would always be with me and smile whenever I would do a silly thing. He would never share it with my parents or his. Very early, I could know that he was a keen observer. He became my good friend when my first boyfriend dumped me. I was 13 and my boyfriend was a 19-year-old stupid, whom I later discovered was on a spree to make a record of sorts by kissing more girls than his friends in his group. I was so upset and my future husband observed it. By then, his parents had already declared him a duffer and he had started seeing the psychologist.

My sweet duffer has his own way of doing things. He saw me in bad mood and went away. An hour later, he came to me with chips, bottle of soft drinks and a piece of paper. He silently placed them near me and went away. Later, when I read the paper, there was a sorry written on it and signed by my boyfriend. I called him and asked him about the sorry thing and he calmly told me that he knew the guy and his home. So he went to his house and told him that a good boy should never hurt a girl. He asked the boy to write a sorry and he did it for me. He also stupidly told me that he gave him his new mobile phone to get a sorry from him.

He is not normal and I truly love him for that. I have seen enough of normal people in my life and I am so happy and proud that he is my dear husband. I am not saying that all husbands should be like that; but surely, I find him best for me. It is tough life for all of us. The world you live puts you in a perpetual drift. The normal life, household issues, jobs, the markets, society and culture; everything is so replete with fakeness and fudged realisms. There is little option for you. You have to be deep into it to survive and excel. Success in contemporary world is very high priced, as it takes away a lot from your life. It lands you in an uprooted consciousness. This is especially true for women today. They have to make a mark in this tough world and that is why, they are in infinite battle with society, markets and culture. In such a world, you can be lucky if you have a husband like mine. He is very rooted and completely out of sync with contemporary culture and society. He lives in his own made world and smiles all the time. He is my pillar, my beautifully profitable wellness support system.

After I married him, I got sure that every woman should have a husband at least ten years older to her. A husband has to be your wellness milieu after you come home to sanity and serenity. My husband is actually three years younger to me but mentally, he is 60. He says, he has taken over from his dear grandpa and at 23, he needs to be at 70. He is ideally suited to my needs and my personality. I am a drifter and he is like old and rusted anchor on the sea. The whole world can crash on his feet but he is unaffected and still hugely settled. Death is his dear friend. He has been so close to death so many times that no fatality or fear can now touch him. I really love his anchored worldview and outlook towards life.

What a wife wants from a husband? I do not know and surely cannot say for others but I can tell you what I want. When I am back home, after a grueling day at work, braving the troubles of life, he is there for me. I do not even have to press the doorbell. I cannot tell you in words, how brilliantly satisfying is the feeling that never ever in my married life, I had to come home and pull out my keys from my bag to enter an empty house, with no one saying, how are you. For years, I would come back from school and college to find the door of my house locked and use my keys to open it. My parents would be away and there would be stale food waiting for me in the fridge. I hated the microwave and my husband has never insisted on buying it in our household.

When we are in bed, he would always ask me how I was feeling. If I am not in good mood or otherwise unsettled, he would start treating me like a kid and do all sorts of beautifully silly things to make me comfortable and get me to sleep. It is something, people may label as �abnormal� and probably why he is called a duffer. The fact remains that this is something I consider best about him. He never counts himself. He always counts others. His first instinct is to look for what other person might be feeling or what other person might be going through. He has brilliant sixth sense of deep observance. Someday, even when I am not in good shape but still kiss him in the bed to make sure he is not bothered about me; he would sense that. I have had many boyfriends and I have kissed so many men but nobody had the sensitivity of a woman, my duffer husband has. This stupid can smell your intent and inner state of mind like a dog. God knows whether he learnt it from his dog or what!

What else a wife can want from her husband. If you know, you have a person with you in your bed, who does not fake himself and who knows you as good as yourself; you are relaxed and feel secure, assured and relaxed to be naked. It is such a relaxed feeling of wellness to know, there is this duffer close to you, to whom you have safely and profitably surrendered all fears and troubles of your heart and mind. He knows every bit of my troubled past, my misadventures with my life and my current life struggles. As I sleep hugged to him in night, I am happily sure, his special mind is scanning every heartbeat of mine to know anything, which I may never myself understand and accept.

I however have to be cautious about what I tell him. As he never counts himself, you have to be very careful about what you say to him. There is a way to get things done from him. As we have been together since long, I know him and he knows me inside out. If you ask him that he should shave, as he would look good, you can be sure he would never do it. He does not count himself. You have to say to him, �get a shave as I want to tell it to the world that how happy I am to have such a beautiful hubby like him.� He would immediately move to bathroom and come out shaved within minutes. There has to be a factor of other�s joy in it for him to accept a worth and utility in doing anything. You do not and cannot give him joys; he has his auto mechanism to get it without your help. He would love his leisure and comfort, if there is nothing, which he has to do for other�s joys and wellness.

You have to be cautious about it. He does not think twice doing anything for others. This almost killed him first time he attempted suicide. He was 12 and his parents had a huge fight. His father told her mother to give him divorce and his mother said in a fit of anger that she would have been the happiest giving it to him had there not been this small stupid between them. She said she had to bear a huge nonsense of trouble like him only because there is a duffer breathing between them. This duffer was calmly listening to all this and his stupid genius could decipher that he was the cause of her mother being unhappy and in trouble. He searched Google for easy way to kill oneself and then gulped the toilet cleaner. Poor thing could not hide it as his noisy vomiting alerted his parents. He does not count himself and that is why, if there is something, he thinks is there for him to do, he shall do it.

For me, this has been a boon. I got him as my husband because of this. Last year, I was shattered and felt very low. I was in a steady relationship for two years and this guy I found cheating on me. When I queried him on that, he openly admitted it and told me that everyone had the right to experiment till one gets the right person to settle with. For him, I was only one of the many he was experimenting with. He also told me to be a good sport and continue with it to give time to each other. I am not sure, whether I reacted the way I should have but surely, I felt bad and violated. This is something, you can call hypocrisy but I could not handle it. If this word is something, which we can accept, I too have been experimenting with guys. I have had four boyfriends and I was intimate with all of them. Two left me and I dumped the other two. So, it was a level score. But, the last one I could not handle, as I was probably ahead than my boyfriend in life plans. I realized my hypocrisy and I was hugely upset. This beautiful duffer knew everything and he silently remained all the time with me, when I was feeling low and was confined to my room.

One day, he came to me, handed me a large chocolate bar and waited beside me for a while. As I did not say anything to him, he asked me, �what I can do to make you happy again?� I was irritated and not in a mood to handle his crap. I shot back, �what the hell you can do, can�t you see that the person with whom I wanted to be happy is happy with other girl?� This duffer has his own sensitivities and his strange sense of judgment. He thought for a while and said, �does this mean that your boyfriend shall be sad like you when you are happy with other guy?� I could not figure out what he meant. He looked at me and said very calmly and sincerely, �He is happy because he is not with you but with other girl. If this is the way, you too can be happy once again if you are not with him but other guy. If that is the rule of the game, I think, you can take me to him and there you can kiss me to show that you are with other guy and then surely, you shall be happy.�

I looked at him. I may be a drifting fool but I am also a woman. I looked in his eyes and could see that what his brain could think of a quick solution to my current trouble was actually a lifetime opportunity for me to be happy and satisfied. I kissed this duffer for first time in my life. He is such a big stupid; he did not kiss me back. He instead put the chocolate in my mouth. He then turned to get his car to go to the boy�s house and do it there. This duffer counts the utility of things his own way. He thought the kiss I planted on his lips was surely a practice as how I would be expected to do when I shall go with him to my boyfriend and do it in front of him. I pulled him, hugged him tight and kissed him like a mad girl. Only after ten minutes, he could realize that it was something different from what he was thinking. He asked me softly, �if you are happy now, I can make a sandwich for you. I know, people are sad when they are empty stomach.�

It took me less than 24 hours to decide, I am marrying this duffer. It however took me another 24 hours to decide on my lines, which I would need to tell him to agree to marrying me without telling his or my parents. I knew, I would need to tell him that marrying him would make me happiest and as I wanted to be happy without any delay, we must marry the same day. As I was expecting, he listened to me carefully and then turned towards the door, without any expressions on his face, telling me that he would be back by evening after arranging a house and necessary utensils for the new household. Late in the evening, he looked very troubled telling me that in such short notice, he could find a house but it had no balcony. He was apologetic but kept assuring me that he would find a better house within days.

You know, actually, it is never a man�s problem, what he should be like. If you ask me, men are essentially a confused lot just because we women are never sure how they should be like. How you would like your dad to be? �What you expect your mom, your brother or for that matter, anyone in this world to be? The simple answer is; any person should be a good human being. It is as simple as this. But women have bizarre benchmarks for their husbands. They want rich husbands, smart husbands, humorous husbands, presentable husbands, tall-dark-handsome husbands, witty, famous and flamboyant husbands and so on. I think, all women just need simple and good husbands and my sweet duffer is just that. I do not expect him to be anyway different. He too does not want me anyway different. Just being affectionate and compassionate about each other in any relationship does wonders and this is also true with wife and husband. My duffer is very much this way. Why should I want him to be like what most women want their husbands to be!

It is surely not my biography still, I cannot resist to say this, that essentially, almost all men and women; from the bottom of their hearts, want a stupidly simple and duffer life partner. In intimate personal relationship, we never need the energy of intelligence. We just need simplicity and innocence. It is essentially an intelligent idea to extend the utility of intelligence in personal relationships, because we all unconsciously see this intelligence fetching success to us in business and societal relationships. I do not subscribe to this idea. I do not want my home to be like my office and markets. My home is where I am relaxed and assured. I do not wish to fetch in the fakeness, brutal competitiveness and inventively fabricated milieu in my home. My loving duffer ensures that this I have in my home. Everything about my stupid husband is real and innocently honest.

That is why I like him being at home and never venture into this sham world of corporate and markets. His grandpa bequeathed all his property to him and it is more than enough for us to have a simple but stable living. I just ensured that he invested it in right places. Actually, this duffer is not a duffer with his finances. Moreover, even as his father and mother are damn angry with him for marrying me as my dad is no more his partner; they shall ultimately pass on their fortune to this stupid. My husband tells me, �their money shall finally come to us as they do not have the heart to give to any charity or others.� I think he is right. Even if he did not have money, I would never have asked him to go and work outside. Actually, he already adds good monetary value to household by staying home. I had read a researched survey somewhere that if a woman works outside, she earns less than she could save if she stays home. My duffer husband surely saves loads of money by staying home. Moreover, the precious home milieu he creates and manages for me is priceless.

There are billionaires in this world who can stay in seven star hotels and in the islands of their own for life but they still come back home and love to spend their nights at home. I am no billionaire but surely, my duffer husband has a home for me, which I value more than any heaven in the world. The moment I enter my home, I instantly feel the air of simplicity and innocence, which this duffer has in loads in his heart and mind. Even his intelligent dog has taken on him and pampers me like him.

Finally, before I end my writing, I wish to tell you something, which I am not sure I should tell you all or not. Still, I tell you because I liked this idea. If you don�t like, I extend my unconditional apologies. I am not a writer and that is why I cannot tell this thing in any high-sounding terms and words. What I feel is; most people deep within wish to be like a duffer. I personally feel, it is very tiring, cumbersome and frustrating to carry my intelligence upfront all the time. I think, at the end of the day, everyone feels and accepts the utility of simplicity and innocence, because it lets you breathe peacefully and enjoy life as it comes to you. My duffer husband is able to smile always and live in peace because he accepts himself as a duffer and never counts the utility of his silly attainment in terms of what others say. I am unable to accept myself as a duffer and to me it really matters how people take me and find me as. I end my day with loads of uneasiness and conflicts. And when I come home, I realize, I am happy at home because here I can be naked � dropping my intelligence and be a duffer like him. That is why I am confident of my conclusion that everyone wants to be a duffer like my husband but they do not have the courage and conviction to be one. I too do not have this right now but every other day, I find the utility of this life positioning. May be, in a few years, as I spend more time hugged to my duffer hubby, his abnormality shall finally be transfused in me and I shall become as happy and at peace with myself as this duffer is.

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Accept My Gratitude

Writing something is a daunting task as there is always a lurking apprehension of it not being in utility for some readers. I however feel at ease, because of my faith in magnanimity of readers. I am happily sure; you shall forgive if my efforts could not be up to your expectations. Thank you so much for being with me and allowing me to share with you. Wish you an empowered life; with the prosperity of the consciousness.

Santosh Jha

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About The Author

People say, what conspire to make you what you finally become are always behind the veil of intangibility. Someone called it �Intangible-Affectors�. Inquisitiveness was the soil, I was born with and the seeds, these intangible-affectors planted in me made me somewhat analytical. My long stint in media, in different capacities as journalist, as brand professional and strategic planning, conspired too! However, I must say it with all innocence at my behest that the chief conspirators of my making have been the loads of beautiful and multi-dimensional people, who traversed along me, in my life journey so far.

The mutuality and innocence of love and compassion always prevailed and magically worked as the catalyst in my learning and most importantly, unlearning from these people. Unconsciously, these amazing people also worked out to be the live theatres of my experiments with my life�s scripts. I, sharing with you as a writer, is essentially my very modest way to express my gratitude for all of them. In my stupidities is my innocence of love for all my beautifully worthy conspirators!

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Other Titles By Santosh Jha

Onlyness

Literary Fiction: A novella about life-living choices from the perspective of a very successful contemporary woman: Word- 38,000 approx: Language-English

(Available at Amazon KDP select)

Short Description:

Dumped by her billionaire fianc�, a resplendently beautiful woman, the reigning royalty of Hollywood�s dream factory, lands herself in all sorts of woes � hospitalization for slipping pill overdose, bad Press, peer group backstabbing and paparazzi. She escapes to anonymity at India's Yoga capital but the threat of paparazzi follows. A young yogi bails her out and detours her to an unusual world where he introduces her to the super consciousness of �Onlyness� within her. The redeemed empress unconsciously discovers her true elements being in linearity with that of the yogi and believes, she may be second time lucky. However, more shocks await her.

The singularities of life have elemental eccentricities of happening and un-happening; almost as weird and randomized as love. The elements of one�s own life and that of the equally precarious milieus are both patterned as well as un-patterned. The juxtaposition of symmetrical possibilities amid the larger probabilistic asymmetry of arbitrary milieus engender such beautiful marvels of life-living experiences, which people can accept only in one way � the destiny! The true and lasting relationship can happen only between similar and generic elements. Destinies shape this way.

What destiny has in store for Melissa, the empress, who finds a yogi in her new and metamorphosed life, shall be decided not by factors outside in her near and far milieus, rather by what she finally accepts as something, which is her own internal positioning of consciousness. The moment, she accepts, love shall happen and destiny shall be signed in.

Tags: women fiction, life-living choices, personal wellness, yogic philosophy, elemental intimacy, higher consciousness, man-woman relationship.

**

Back To Bliss: A Journey To Zero

Literary Fiction: Novel: A Love Story In Contemporary Culture Of Conflicts and confusion: Word- 78,000 approx: Language-English

Short Description

Battling against hypocrisies, sadomasochism and perfunctory pursuits of pop benchmarks of successes, he refuses the passion-oriented male worldview of karma and life�s purposes. Metamorphosed by compassion, that love�s innocence fills him with, he opts for a journey that takes him far away from the stupidity of self-worth, calculated in terms of personal utility, individualistic possession and unfettered consumption. Does he arrive?

**

Naked Solutions Of Dressed Up Life Woes

Non-Fiction: Empowering Consciousness, Life Wellness, Personal Excellence: word- 23,000 approx: Language-English

Short Description

The world we live in; is what it is, neither good nor bad. It is people, who are the �Theatre� of all pains as well as joys. The human mind is the most capable and instinctively galvanized mechanism to solve big problems. Still, the same human consciousness is the most potent trou