Octavian the Guru

Octavian was one of my students in college. Being a student of English literature, he had reasons to establish a personal rapport with me. It took me months to realise that the rapport was fake. He was playing a role for the sake of Rev Machiavelli.

Octavian was about 20 years old and I was nearly double his age. Yet he could deceive me too easily. The plain truth is that anyone can deceive me as easily even today. I haven’t learnt certain basic lessons of life. Sheer inability. Some people are like that.

Levin would say that my egomania and the concomitant hubris prevented my learning of the essential lessons of life. That would have been true in those days when Octavian took me for a farcical ride. By the time that ride was over, I had learnt at least one thing: that my ego was pulped. More than 20 years have passed after that and I haven’t still learnt to manage affairs in the world of people. That’s why I admit my sheer inability to learn some fundamental lessons of life. That’s why I live like a practical recluse. I say this openly because some people around me seem to think that it is my ego which keeps me away from others. No, let me make it clear lest another Octavian trespasses into my heart with missionary zeal. My ego died long ago, painfully but for good, for all practical purposes.

Octavian was a student for priesthood. Where is he now? I don’t know. If he became a priest, by now he would have been Pope Octavianus. And he would have written an encyclical titled Misericordia Dominia Nostri. Shrewd, Octavian was, if nothing else.

It is that sort of shrewdness that I never succeeded in learning. Is it learned or is it in one’s genes? I don’t know. All I know is that I tried my best to acquire this ‘virtue’ of shrewdness which is known by better names such as ‘social intelligence’ and ‘emotional intelligence’. I still remain a novice in that area. So I conclude it can’t be learnt really. It should be there in your veins when the universe’s womb spits you out on to this hostile planet. If it isn’t there for whatever reason, you are doomed to be clowned by Octavians.

Maybe, I’m being harsh to Octavian. Maybe, he was making genuine efforts to teach me the world’s ways. For example, one day he invited me to his room in the seminary. I was rather curious to see his seminary and its ways. When I visited his washroom, a notebook of his that was left there didn’t escape my attention. I appreciated the young man’s dedication to his studies which extended even to his washroom. I mentioned it as an eminent example in one of my classes later. Octavian was quick to draw my attention privately to my breach of trust. How dared I mention his very private habits to the public?

I learnt many such things from Octavian, the last lesson being that I was not really fit for the world of Octavians. His very taking me to his room and his leaving of the notebook in the washroom were all part of a preplanned game. Testing me and teaching me certain lessons were two duties assigned to Octavian by Rev Machiavelli.

Psychologist Eric Berne taught us that when we interact with others we’re actually playing games –power games, sexual games, competitive games, and so on. Most of these games are destructive and are being played unconsciously. We need to understand these games if we are to be able to take control of our responses and develop more fulfilling and secure relationships. I was too much of a clown in that playground of life. Octavian was trying to help me. Under Rev Machiavelli’s guidance.

It all ended up as a big farce. I didn’t succeed in learning those lessons they were trying to teach me. Sheer inability, as I have said already. Both they and I failed. Yet another lose-lose game in the world of complex human affairs.

Since we dragged Eric Berne in here, let me take something more from him. I’m still a child in the sense of the three ego states specified by him. Every human being has three key ego states: Parent, Adult, Child. You can behave like a parent giving instructions to others. Octavian, my student, became my parent. I was his child. The objective was very noble: to make me behave like the adult that I was supposed to be.

A quarter of a century after I released myself from Octavian and other self-appointed ‘parents’ of mine, I still remain a child in too many ways. Some manufacturing defect, I guess. Let it be. All that I can do is to keep myself far away from you. To safeguard you from me and me from you.

Octavian too appears along with Rev Machiavelli in some of my nightmares even to this day. Some people won’t leave you alone. That’s how life’s games are. 

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