The Gandhian Philosophy Almost A Century Later.

There are many excellent ideologies which can be so wonderfully interpreted that you’d find yourself mystified trying to figure out the way the human mind works. Now most of you know about Gandhi and his philosophy of non-violence. One of the stellar chapters of Indian History is the civil disobedience movement and the non-cooperation movement. Now they were great concepts, about making a point, or rather punching home a point without violence. They contributed greatly to the Independent India.

Now almost a century later, how is this theory applied in daily life? Well, on close observation the theory has been wonderfully stripped to its basics, which is, ‘If You Are A Pain In The Backside People Will Just Leave You Alone, To Do Your Own Thing’ I don’t know if Gandhi visualised it the same way but the essence of the concept is this. Now my brother practices it rather well, tell him to do something, he doesn’t like, he’ll never say No. No protest, no complaints, no grumbling. Just the plain ol’ Gandhian philosophy at work, he’ll do such an awful job of it that you’ll get a headache seeing the end result. The work done shall be perfect, but the area where he worked would be a comprehensive mess.

Tell him to get something, he won’t say no, he’ll go there, look for it and say it isn’t there; even if you give precise location like, “look in the refrigerator, middle shelf, blue packaging, right behind the box of strawberries” still he’ll return back empty handed and say it isn’t there. Of course it shall be there. Remove it from there and show it to him, waving it like a conclusive proof of his crime, he’d shrug his shoulders and say it wasn’t there when I looked. While you battle between exasperation and having a stomping fit, he’d leave and you know he’s mentally whistling a nice tune.

Of course, I gradually learnt to not call on him for any help, over the years I struggled to get him to help but once I cracked his Gandhian code, there has been no looking back, he wasn’t just resisting my attempts of get him to work, he was cleverly training me to not assign him a task he’d rather not care to do. Before you think he’s mean, let me clarify, he’s the best brother. He’s amazingly helpful, forever ready to take care, there for me in an instant if I’m blue, he’d even cook my favourites to get me out of the blues, but try to push him to anything he doesn’t care for and you have the recipe for disaster. He’ll be such a pain, that the next time you won’t even consider him for the task, in fact you’ll wince with pain at the remembered memory, if anyone suggests him.

The more I think about it, I realise more people have figured the essence of the Gandhian code, I swear in my last office, there were a couple of workers who’d never be assigned pretty much any additional responsibility for the boss would be sure of their messing it up. These guys definitely weren’t ambitious blokes; they never were fired with the vision of achieving the organisational goal. They just wanted to do their assigned work, not one thing more; leave at the close of official hours, not a minute later than 6 you’d find them around, and they’d never do one thing more than necessary, they’d figured they were just hired for so much; and rewards etc cut no ice with them, it just never motivated them, they were happy with the regular salary. No starry dreams of heading the department etc, for them. You try your best to motivate them and eventually you throw up your hands and just learn not to consider them for the extra bit.

They were happy in their word and you learn to let them live there. This of course brings me to my profiling the employees idea but I’ll take it up later, I’ll stick to just interpretation of the Gandhian Ideology. This trick is employed by peaceful souls, who abhor violence, and disagreements, so they settle issues before they become disputes. Now I’ve also managed to incorporate the Gandhian philosophy in my life. Instead of throwing in the towel, I have figured how to be a greater pain by making my brother clean-up, the mess, while I supervise, and it works like a charm. Off-late he’s stopped messing up stuff. Gandhi rocks I must say!