Freedom to Be Yourself
Thank you David, and thank you everyone for, inviting me here. This is a huge privilege, not because I'm the chief guest. I think it's a privilege mainly because I'm one of the parents who have had the opportunity, and I'll take this opportunity on behalf of all of you to put my hands together and thank Dhirubhai Ambani International School for doing what they're doing to our children.
So I want to thank all the teachers, all the head of departments, Zarin, Farida. I mean, you are people I used to come to. When I have trouble, I come and look at their faces go away and I'm calm.
Everything will be sorted out. Kavas sir, who's fantastic at cricket matches, shouts louder than anyone else in the world can. All the staff members, the management, the gentleman who, man the security outside, so wonderful and so.
Even the guy who does the parking back there. Everyone, for the last 13 to 14 years that I've been here, and especially my friend, Mrs. Neeta Ambani, thank you so much for looking after our children. Really. Thank you very much.
Okay, so good evening, boys and girls. Exams are over. If I may say so, damn school is over. Which seemed an impossibility just a few years back.
That horrible math or physics or whoever your least favorite teacher is, you will never have to see again. That PE coach who was always out to get you is done and dusted. I know everybody's looking there.
You want to party now, relax, hang out with the beautiful friends you've made in the last 13 years, 14, or some less. The last thing you really want to do is sit here and listen to someone give you advice on life lessons and what the future holds for you. And to top it, my qualification to be doing this is zilch, nada.
Not at all. Nothing. Really, apart from the fact that Neeta and I are friends, and thus I have some benefits. My reason to be here is the same as that of your elder brother or your sister being allowed to do things that you're not allowed to do at home.
I'm like them, older. That's all. So if you think that I have had a successful career, as I was getting very embarrassed when David was recounting, because also it's been so many years since I've got an award now, yeah. This is like two.
Gotta work harder. So also, if you think I've had a successful career, a great past performance and my experiences of it are no assurance that it'll work in the future for you or work for you at all. And anyway, none of what I say today you will remember as soon as you're out of here. Or maybe even earlier, because you're still sleeping from the big party you guys had last night.
What I say may make sense to your mom or dad, who will remember it some years down the line, and they will also remember it for all the inappropriate things that I'm going to say tonight. But you are here, and so am I so I promise to keep this extremely crisp and sharp.
Twenty minutes, tops. But be rest assured, I understand if some of you walk out in the middle of my speech for bladder control reasons. Feel free to do that. Feel free, because that's what essentially my talk is about.
Feeling free. The freedom to be yourself. To listen to your inner voice and never let anyone tell you who you are or who you ought to be, including me. These are the only years of your life in which you will be allowed to make regret-free mistakes.
As you do so, you will chance upon your dreams and hopefully make a happy life out of their fulfillment. When you get to be 50, as some of your parents are. None of them are others.
They all look 35. They're all looking extremely hot. Some of your parents are, and like I am, you will know that the bulk of your regrets are from not having done what you wish to do.
So don't hold it against your over-diligent father who's telling you to study extra even post the exams. Your annoying mother, who's still depressed that your handwriting is bad. You know, she doesn't understand.
If it was bad five years ago, chances are that your handwriting is not going to improve for the rest of your life, ever. Ma'am, get that clear. It's not gonna happen.
But let me assure you squiggles and ants and mosquitoes on paper won't kill your career. Any doctor here will tell you indecipherable hieroglyphics may actually be a career booster. Don't be angry that your parents tell you that friend of yours is not good company.
He is spoiling you. And please don't hold it against them when they tell you, "He's a movie star's son. He'll become a hero.
What about you?" I mean, let me assure you movie stars' sons and daughters also have to work. Basically, just don't grudge the old man and the old bag ever. All us parents try to do is to make you happy with your choices by annoying you with ours that are actually your choices anyway.
But you just don't know it yet. Your hormone levels are too high for you to understand this confusing logic. All you want to be is yourselves, and you're quite sure you know what that is.
And I'm here tonight on your side only to confirm your conviction as you set forth into the big, bad world from the loving shelter of Mrs. Neeta Ambani and all these wonderful and beautiful and warm teachers and faculty who have nurtured you to embark on your own journey through life. I was talking about parents because I think tonight is about parents. So I'm gonna tell you something about my parents.
My mother was top class. She was really cool. She loved me unconditionally, was beautiful, like all mothers are, and believed I will be the most famous man in the world, and I could do no wrong.
In Delhi, they say, "Hamara bachcha na is like the apple of my eye." Some Punjabi ladies make it bigger, like the pineapple of my eye. Sorry. I was, I was the pineapple of my mother's eye.
And my father was a gentleman. He was very educated, masters in law, extremely intelligent, knew seven languages, had traveled the world, knew his politics, fought for the freedom of our country, India, and excelled at sports like hockey, swimming, and polo. He could cook and recite poems and knew the capital of every country in the world.
My father was also very poor. He was unemployed and struggling to make ends meet for 15 years of my life that I had the privilege of knowing him. From when I was 10 to when I was 15, not being able to afford fancy gifts for me, he would wrap up something old that belonged to him in newspapers and declare it as a birthday gift when my birthday came along.
This, in the next 11 and a half minutes left that I have, is the story of the five gifts my father gave me and how they helped me become what I am today. When I was 10, my father gave me an old chess set. Chess is a reflection of life, they say, and as cliched as it sounds, it's probably true.
The first thing it teaches you is that every move has a consequence, whether you perceive that it does or does not. Nothing you do, not a single moment, is empty of living. So think of things through, not always, but often enough.
Often enough so your life does not feel as black and white and as uniform as the squares on a chessboard. Sometimes in order to move forward, you might need to take a few steps back, and there's no loss in doing something that hurts in the short run but proves worthwhile in time. Sometimes the queen might seem sexier.
They always do. But if she gets taken by your adversary straight after you save her, then you might be better off saving your castle or the bald bishop instead. So don't always choose that which seems more desirable if something tells you it's going to get you into a whole lot of trouble.
What I mean is also about tonight, drive home while your wits are about you instead of staying and getting stoned senseless after the party here. You can't get anywhere in chess if you don't look out for the little ones around you the small pawns. Life is like that, too.
If you forget the smallest of your people or become foolish enough to imagine that the little graces you are given are of no value, you end up nowhere. When you look around you learn to notice all the tiny little things that make your existence privileged and special.
Just the fact that you are here in this very moment at this fantastic school in the company of such adoring parents is the product of immense love, hard work, and sacrifice on the part of many people present here. Taking your blessings for granted is the most ungracious stupidity, both in chess and in life. Then there's what they call, I don't know how to pronounce it, but sounds very cool, the zugzwang.
The zugzwang. Yeah. It's a really cool word. It sounds like a Chinese aphrodisiac. Zugzwang. But it actually is German for.
Okay, I'll tone this down. Oh, fish, I gotta get out. I I got to get out of here.
Anyway, for those of you who've never played the game, it's when you get so stuck that whichever move you make is a bad move. It'll happen to each and every one of you at some point in your lives, for sure. A moment will come when it will look like there isn't anything going right and nothing you can do to prevent disaster.
Ask me, I just finished the ivalue, followed it up with Fan. So when you are in zugzwang, kids, don't panic. Whenever there is trouble and you know there is no way out of disaster, don't panic.
With a little embarrassment, you will survive it. Trust me. All you have to do is make a move. All you have to do is move on a bit.
As the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland said, when Alice came to the fork in the road, "If you don't know where you're going, it doesn't matter which road you take." I will add to it, as long as you take one road and don't keep standing in the middle of the fork until a truck runs you over. Often in zugzwang, your enemy wins that particular move, but mostly you end up winning the game.
There were no computers when I was a kid, nor were there iPhones for us to Google pornography on while our parents were busy checking their selfie likes on Instagram. One of the most precious gifts my father gave me was an Italian typewriter. I learned how to use it from him, how to roll paper into the roller and press the lever, you know, ksk.
I don't know if you guys have seen a typewriter. It's. Google it. Yeah. Yeah, the clicking sound of the letters as I pressed them with my fingers, chk, chk, forming words on blank pages, fascinated me.
To use a typewriter well, you needed diligence. One wrong letter and the whole exercise had to be started all over again. We used something called Typex to erase our mistakes in those days, not to sniff at during math classes.
But too much Typex in math classes or in typewriting is unacceptable. So we had to learn how to move our fingers accurately, to make words out of thoughts with efficiency, and do it over and over again till we got it just right. As an adult, I have come to understand that there is nothing of more value than your capacity for diligence and your ability to work hard.
If you can outwork your adversaries and your employees. You can ensure your own success in whatever it is you choose to do. Whatever you're doing, do it once.
Then do it one more time, even more carefully. Practice will make everything seem easier. Be diligent. Be thorough.
Think of every job you do as the first one, so you have to get it right or you won't be able to impress everyone. And at the same time, do it as your last job, as if you will not get a chance to do it again ever. Don't just work. Outwork yourself.
Only parents clapping. In fact, you can outwork yourself. If you can outwork yourself, then pretty much nothing can prevent you from glowing. Then my father gave me a camera, and the most beautiful thing about it was that it did not work.
We all have those Leica ones, old ones, which don't work. Look really cool. I learned that things don't always have to be functional to fulfill a need, that sometimes when things are broken, the greatest creativity emanates from their fragments.
I found myself looking at my world magically through the unusable lens, and the fact that there was never any actual photograph to see taught me my most important lesson yet: that creativity is a process of the soul. It does not need an outcome or a product for the world to accept. It needs only the truth of its own expression.
It comes from within and makes of your world whatever you wish it to make. So don't be afraid of your own creativity. Honor it. It doesn't always have to be seen or approved by those around you.
It is an expression of your deepest self, and it belongs as much to you as it does to the universe that nurtures and inspires it. All creativity is not for everyone to like or understand. All art is not up for sale.
Some creativity has a bigger role to play. It is to keep you company when you're alone, when you need a friend, when the world doesn't seem to understand you your creativity, whatever that may be. You know, making. I know a friend of mine who makes, dolls out of bath bags from airplanes.
Whatever your creativity is, your creativity will be the only thing that will keep you inspired and satisfied. Honor it to the end, whatever it may be. Mine is poetry. I write rubbish poetry.
It's so bad that sometimes I cringe to read it myself. It's crap, but I write it. It is my secret place.
It is mine to make me feel free and happy. So you find yours, and if the world loves it, good. If it doesn't, even better, because now you will truly have a friend.
So keep your creativity intact. My father was a funny guy. He had the capacity to turn any kind of serious situation in a way that it seemed less stressful with a bit of humor.
Without a sense of humor, the world will always be a dull and dreary place. No darkness or despair should ever be beyond a good and a hearty laugh. I'm gonna tell you a few incidents, if you're not bored.
I have, what, seven and a half minutes left. We used to live on the third floor of an apartment building, and as people on third floor tend to do, my friends and I used to throw things down from the balcony. You know, wrappers, tidbits, dog shit wrapped in newspapers.
The usual stuff, yeah. One day, the old gentleman on the ground floor. There always is an old senile gentleman on the ground floor.
He had had enough of our daily droppings. He charged at us, yelling at the top of his voice, "Bhaisaab. "" And you know, the whole mohalla, the colony, emerged to witness the spectacle.
My father was there. I was mortified. And he kept screaming, "." And my father calmly looked at him and said, "."
"And it instantly diffused the situation. The old man smiled. We went into the apartment, worked out how dog shit needs to be disposed of properly over a cup of tea, and life was back to normal again.
And there was another incident I'm going to relate. I had been eyeing this attractive, dusky girl who lived in our building. As smooth as I have always been with ladies, for some reason, it occurred to me that if I blew up her letterbox with a Diwali cracker called Atom Bomb, she'd be very impressed with me.
I've always been good with girls like that, yeah. I know things girls like. In this insanely romantic belief of mine, her letterbox soon exploded before her eyes.
And I still don't know why the desired effect of running into my arms in slow motion was replaced with a screaming drama in which she flew up the stairs screaming, "Amma, come here. " She was a Tamilian lady, yeah. I took my chance, and as all macho men should do, I fled the scene.
A few hours later, the doorbell rang. I looked through the magic eye, and the mother of the love of my life was standing outside looking incensed. I found a place to hide.
My father opened the door. The lady began to rattle off a complaint. "Your son this, your son that.
" Sorry, my Tamil's not good, but it sounded like that. And he listened patiently and then responded, "You know, ma'am, as you were speaking, I was getting angry with my son, but then suddenly I realized how beautiful you are. And I can't imagine if your daughter looks anything like you.
How can my son be blamed for falling in love with her and behaving so stupidly?" The lady went silent as my father continued telling her how beautiful she was. And then she became a little coy.
Another cup of tea was had, and she said to me sweetly, "Beta, just because my daughter is so beautiful, you shouldn't behave badly with her. You should come home, sit with us, and be friends." So not only did my dad get me off the hook for blowing up the girl's letterbox, he actually got me inroads to a long, satisfying relationship with the love of my life that lasted six days.
Because then I realized that dating beautiful girls has its downside. Every boy in the colony made advances at her, so I was regularly beaten up in my attempts to offer her some boyfriendly protection. But that's another story.
The point being, learn to laugh at yourselves every chance you get. If you can manage not to take yourself too seriously, no matter how big a shot you become or how low, how lowly, useless, trivial you feel, you will instantly disarm life's power to beat you down. It makes you braver to face ugliness because it changes your perspective.
Humor is actually the deftness to see the world, the reality, for the transient farce it really is. It's like a talisman for survival. Cultivate it and allow it to lighten every heavy moment.
Wear it like a vulgar tattoo if you don't already have one. Don't ever let it get washed away in the turbulently beautiful seas of life. It's your ticket to staying young and childlike forever.
And you'll realize why it matters to stay childlike when you're my age and you watch this speech on YouTube with your children. I'll probably have kicked the bucket by then, having smoked enough cigarettes to light up a forest. But I certainly hope that you will have understood what I understand now.
No, not that smoking kills. That part is. Okay. What I'm referring to is what counts as the most beautiful and final gift that my father gave me.
I only realized it was a gift on the day he died when I was 15 years old. A gift your parents have given to you already. Yes, the singularly most exquisite gift you and I have been given is the gift of life itself.
There is nothing that marks a man or a woman out from the ordinary more perfectly than grace. Grace is the consciousness that life is bigger than we are, and therefore, our gratitude for it must match its vastness. It is the understanding that everyone we encounter, whether they're loving towards us or offensively abrasive, is a human like we are.
It is knowing that experiences shapes human beings, and no matter how good we are at something or how successful we may become, we are never better than the other person. If you can live your life with grace towards those around you'll accomplish more than you could if you became the president of America. That came out wrong, knowing that Donald Trump is so close to becoming the president of America.
I didn't mean that. I'll rephrase that, guys. If you can live your life with grace towards those around you.
Okay, actually, what the hell? Because I came here and told you a secret that I write rubbish poetry, I'm gonna read out a poem and end this. This is the most rubbish poem you'll hear, but keep it in your heart because I'm the damn chief guest tonight.
If your after-party EDM. I was. I assume this is the music. I thought I'd be very cool if I used the word EDM.
Is EDM cool still? Class of 2016, is it cool? No? Okay. If your after-party EDM stone sunrise has found you with dark ship wrappings and friends that will not confound you and you start on this journey with a brave heart about you if you live life with grace towards those around you'll get where you have to, and it won't astound you.
If it isn't Ferraris and a white house that downed you won't need an entourage to always surround you. It's your truth you will have that will shelter and ground you and you'll remember this day as the day that unbound you. From the walls of this beautiful school and the teachers, exams, and all the rules that sometimes seem to hound you and let me tell you all will be successful, let me remound you.
Now, it was remind, but because it's not rhyming so I. So boys and girls, go forth, be free, have fun, make wrong choices, make mistakes. You will still succeed because the gift of education you have from this wonderful institution called Dhirubhai Ambani International School, the love Nita has given you and the genes that your parents have provided you with will always look after you.
And when you succeed, don't forget to thank your least favorite teacher, because he or she actually cared for you the most. Love you all, and be happy. Thank you.
