Sunday Snippets
By Venkatesh Raghavan
This is about how I learnt my first steps towards being still and inviting the inner voice to speak, allowing for thoughts to settle down and usher a feeling of comfort. Mind you this was not the experience that I learnt under any spiritual Guru. I was in St. Xavier’s Technical Institute, while enrolled for a course in microprocessors and peripherals. Francis Chettiar was our professor for the course and it was under his aegis that I learnt about cultivating mental comfort and facilitating the flow of logical thought.
Our classroom sessions were devoted to the study of peripheral devices that get attached to the microprocessor. Each peripheral device entailed the study of a datasheet. The datasheets we studied were about peripheral devices that were compatible with Intel microprocessors. There are two aspects on how I learnt to modulate the flow of thoughts that I wish to dwell on during the course of Francis’ lectures. There were frequent occasions when I used to come up with a question that made me feel I lacked clarity. Francis never answered these questions directly. His only instruction was, Feel mentally comfortable. ” All your questions will be answered.”
True to his word, by the end of the lecture, everything used to turn crystal clear and it made me realise that if I wait patiently for the explanation or presentation to follow, my questions will automatically stand answered. The second thing Francis taught us was of great value. He interspersed the classroom instructions with what he termed five minutes of silent sitting. Mind you, it was nothing about meditation or any religion. He just wanted the entire class to sit still, close their eyes and experience the feeling of silence from within for a five-minute span. I must say it worked wonders for me, when it came to understanding highly technical datasheets.
It was around that time that Francis informed our class, “Whatever efforts you make in life, it will never go waste. It will come in handy at some point of time in your career or say later years in life.” Though I did not take up any design-oriented engineering job post the completion of the course, Francis’ words have rung true on several counts in my journalistic career. For instance, when I felt somewhat uncomfortable handling a jargon-filled beat like SEBI (Securities Exchange Board of India) as I spent my time absorbing the details that kept pouring in, I was able to make sense of the discussion towards the end, with clarity pouring in on the nick of time. I then decided to instruct myself repeatedly to stay mentally comfortable on occasions in my reporting career when I was asked to cover some unfamiliar territory. It worked wonders.
As far as the silent sitting technique, it has proved to be a great stress buster. At the time of departing from the course after I had scored upward of 76%, I was seated in front of Francis along with my colleague Sliviera. Francis then instructed me, “If you pursue a particular act as a routine for 21 days, it turns into a habit. Try that with silent sitting. Once you make it a part of your routine, it will help you handle all the stress that a working life will throw up at you.”
Silent sitting soon turned into a part of my routine. Mind you, I am not claiming any magical effects. It’s just the feedback I received from multiple colleagues in various workplaces I have served in. They all keep wondering how do I manage to stay cheerful and calm under all circumstances. I must say Francis merits a special mention in my career graph having handled the vagaries of both journalistic work and life in the corporate world.
