It must have been Australian Open 2016. As players were warming up with their rallies and the camera panned on Federer’s box, the commentator argued if Ivan Ljubicic has the easiest job in the world. "Does Ivan", he said, "have anything to do as coach after all, when it’s The Great Roger Federer as his student?"
At one of these nondescript conferences I attended last year, I got into an informal discussion with students from prestigious engineering colleges of Bengaluru.. I am totally amazed by the mind-boggling clarity kids from today’s metros have, apart from that unmistakable street-smart quality. One of them came to me later and said: “I feel so inspired just talking to you. Could you please give me some career advice?” My very first instinct was to slap her. NOT kidding.
A couple of months ago, I was summoned to mediate an argument between a married couple. I am, normally, perfectly capable of a flat-out, in-your-face refusal in such matters but the situation came across as quite grim. Now, asking me relationship/marriage advice is like asking sex advice to a virgin. But for some weird reason best known to them, they trusted my ability to resolve the conflict in an unbiased manner. Did I say “resolve"? Because this wasn’t my first time doing such thing and I knew what I was signing up for.. These matters typically don’t have a beginning or an end. I was called up just after an early dinner and must have been there till wee hours of the morning.. But as I was sitting there, trying to hear out both sides, I felt like seasons changed outside the window. There were moments of deafening cries, shouts and even more deafening silences.. In the heat of those moments, things were said, that were not meant. And everything just kept getting worse and worse. Where/why/how it began had become irrelevant few minutes into the fight - all graveyards of all towns around the world were dug - repeatedly.
So many issues started coming to the fore, I lost track of how to reconcile and process this incomplete and asymmetric information. I say so — because (though getting into too many specifics would be wrong) as it turns out, the wife is a trained lawyer - particularly fierce, emotionally charged, brutally argumentative, also gifted with extraordinary memory and an innate ability to attend to minutest of details.. and the husband - an awkward, intuitive, shy, easy-going software engineer (a lot more to be read between just those two words: boring and easily bored, lazy.. you know this list.). It was quite a struggle to navigate his frame of mind and understand his side in the matter and then it was about connecting too many dots to make it a consistent, sensible view. And did I mention that — all this while, it all just felt WRONG on so many levels. I had no right to be there, in the first place. The wife definitely had a “case” but then - she is a closer friend of mine and more mature of the two. I knew I was being harsh on her while giving out my.. well, so-called "advice".
I couldn’t easily come to terms with what I did. I was a sleep-deprived zombie for the next few days.
Quite clearly, then -- Gone are my manipulative (yet coming from a genuine and caring place) ways of proactively discouraging people from inviting what seemed like a disaster for them. Not that I don’t care about near and dear ones anymore. I guess I must just be growing up from those days of blurting out unsolicited opinions with an easy air of overconfidence.
These days, on the contrary, I prefer the cozy warmth of my shell. But then people force me to come out of hibernation in an advisory capacity. And then it’s just plain grueling -- I doubt if I am not doing enough or doing too much. I wonder if I am helping the subjects involved or unknowingly harming them. If it all works out, I don’t feel like the credit belongs to me but if it doesn’t, the blame somehow feels all mine. I am constantly second-guessing myself and so an imposed responsibility with an unfounded and powerful trust like this is just a bit too burdensome. Call me selfish all you want, but taking part in a battle that isn’t yours is taxing, to say the least. You are pretty much handicapped and yet expected to pull off a win. I don’t know how people do it.
So, as he sits in that player’s box, Ivan would be thinking if he could, rather, enter the arena and face Djokovic all by himself.
My “advice" to him, you ask?: "Take up commentating."
Now, there, in fact, we have a real contender for the easiest job in the world.
At one of these nondescript conferences I attended last year, I got into an informal discussion with students from prestigious engineering colleges of Bengaluru.. I am totally amazed by the mind-boggling clarity kids from today’s metros have, apart from that unmistakable street-smart quality. One of them came to me later and said: “I feel so inspired just talking to you. Could you please give me some career advice?” My very first instinct was to slap her. NOT kidding.
A couple of months ago, I was summoned to mediate an argument between a married couple. I am, normally, perfectly capable of a flat-out, in-your-face refusal in such matters but the situation came across as quite grim. Now, asking me relationship/marriage advice is like asking sex advice to a virgin. But for some weird reason best known to them, they trusted my ability to resolve the conflict in an unbiased manner. Did I say “resolve"? Because this wasn’t my first time doing such thing and I knew what I was signing up for.. These matters typically don’t have a beginning or an end. I was called up just after an early dinner and must have been there till wee hours of the morning.. But as I was sitting there, trying to hear out both sides, I felt like seasons changed outside the window. There were moments of deafening cries, shouts and even more deafening silences.. In the heat of those moments, things were said, that were not meant. And everything just kept getting worse and worse. Where/why/how it began had become irrelevant few minutes into the fight - all graveyards of all towns around the world were dug - repeatedly.
So many issues started coming to the fore, I lost track of how to reconcile and process this incomplete and asymmetric information. I say so — because (though getting into too many specifics would be wrong) as it turns out, the wife is a trained lawyer - particularly fierce, emotionally charged, brutally argumentative, also gifted with extraordinary memory and an innate ability to attend to minutest of details.. and the husband - an awkward, intuitive, shy, easy-going software engineer (a lot more to be read between just those two words: boring and easily bored, lazy.. you know this list.). It was quite a struggle to navigate his frame of mind and understand his side in the matter and then it was about connecting too many dots to make it a consistent, sensible view. And did I mention that — all this while, it all just felt WRONG on so many levels. I had no right to be there, in the first place. The wife definitely had a “case” but then - she is a closer friend of mine and more mature of the two. I knew I was being harsh on her while giving out my.. well, so-called "advice".
I couldn’t easily come to terms with what I did. I was a sleep-deprived zombie for the next few days.
Quite clearly, then -- Gone are my manipulative (yet coming from a genuine and caring place) ways of proactively discouraging people from inviting what seemed like a disaster for them. Not that I don’t care about near and dear ones anymore. I guess I must just be growing up from those days of blurting out unsolicited opinions with an easy air of overconfidence.
These days, on the contrary, I prefer the cozy warmth of my shell. But then people force me to come out of hibernation in an advisory capacity. And then it’s just plain grueling -- I doubt if I am not doing enough or doing too much. I wonder if I am helping the subjects involved or unknowingly harming them. If it all works out, I don’t feel like the credit belongs to me but if it doesn’t, the blame somehow feels all mine. I am constantly second-guessing myself and so an imposed responsibility with an unfounded and powerful trust like this is just a bit too burdensome. Call me selfish all you want, but taking part in a battle that isn’t yours is taxing, to say the least. You are pretty much handicapped and yet expected to pull off a win. I don’t know how people do it.
So, as he sits in that player’s box, Ivan would be thinking if he could, rather, enter the arena and face Djokovic all by himself.
My “advice" to him, you ask?: "Take up commentating."
Now, there, in fact, we have a real contender for the easiest job in the world.
