If I were not I

 

“If you were not you, who would you like to be?” This week’s Indispire asks. I find the question rather tickling. First of all, I don’t like me at all. Whenever I have been asked what my biggest disappointment in life was/is, my answer has invariably been, “My birth”. When I say that I am accused of negativity and pessimism and all sorts of wickedness. But the Buddha said very much the same thing when he defined life as pain. I think Jesus detested life even more than the Buddha so much so that he drove himself to the cross. I’m not placing myself on a par with these two great beings, of course. God forbid! But would I like to be one of them since I don’t like me myself? That’s the question, isn’t it? Being Jesus is no option at all. I am a hedonist and the cross is my bête noire. The kind of beggarliness that the Buddha practised would never appeal to me. So he’s out too. I admire them though.

Unlike them, I like abundance. Good food and drinks, beautiful surroundings, world tours, splendid welcomes… That sounds almost like our Prime Minister Narendra Modi who takes along a retinue of chefs and hoard of delicacies on his world tours which were brutally brought to an end by the pandemic. I would love world tours with my own chefs accompanying me to cook my choicest dishes. So would I be Narendra Modi? Not at all. The moment he starts his “Bhaiyon aur Bahanon” and “Pyare deshvasiyon” my gut rebels. I love chefs and mushrooms. But I can’t stomach chicanery. So this option is out too.

What about this guy with a 27-storey house in the heart of a metropolis? People say that he is the actual ruler of India, the Prime Minister being his Pradhan Sevak. Wouldn’t it be a nice thing to have a country of a billion plus people at your feet? You forge a billion destinies. You drive the markets. Drive people crazy. You can even have a few hundred thousand farmers fighting you on winter roads in the country’s capital for a few months and yet be as unmoved as the torpid Himalayas. Doesn’t appeal to me, however. Sounds rather beastly.

To cut the story short, I don’t want to be anybody at all. Not even me. If only that were possible. To be nobody. To be nil.