Day By Day, Day By Day!

Day by day, day by day

I was watching yesterday an old Tamil movie song of AR Rehman which goes like ‘Mustafa, Mustafa, don’t worry Mustafa’ The second line starts with the words ‘Day by day, day by day’. As usual, for want of anything to occupy myself with, I listened to the song seriously. The ‘day by day’ line too my mind back over to the last century. During my early ‘30s, I used to read a lot of self-improvement books though I was aware that it was just a time pass and nothing could really improve me. A friend even told me that instead of wasting time on these stupid books, I could concentrate on improving my career. I told him that he had a point there and assured him that when he saw me next, he would see me only with a ledger in my hand! You may ask me why I delivered him such a contemptuous retort. Banking became my career by accident and I had no interest in it. But for the doubloons that I got from it month after month, I would have called it a day as soon as I joined it. But people those days looked upon an officer’s job in the Bank with awe as if he was the owner of all the money safely locked up in the ‘currency chest’, as they called it. At my wedding reception, my father in law introduced me as a State Bank officer grinning from ear to ear! You may ask me why I hated a Bank job so much. It was the effect of my reading Psmith in the City by PG Wodehouse. Wodehouse himself was initially a Bank staff and his contempt for it came out clearly in that novel.

I was telling you how much the self-improvement books interested me. It was by sheer chance I bumped upon a book by Émile Coué. This guy was a French psychologist whom Wodehouse contemptuously termed as ‘Head shrinkers’! I chanced to get hold of ‘How to Practice Suggestion and Autosuggestion’, a book written by him in 1923 and reprinted over and over again. Shows you that I was not the only guy keen on self-improvement! The mantra for self improvement that Émile Coué popularized was the key phrase ‘Day by day, in every way, I am getting better and better’. Being a guy who always believed in sharing the goodies with others, I recommended this book to all my friends. Very soon, these guys started going round the town chanting this mantra all the time looking very religious, no matter to which religion they owed their allegiance.

The guys introduced quite a few variations to this mantra. Fat guys wanted to become thinner and thin guys wanted to become fatter and fatter. There were even guys who kept repeating ‘day by day, I am getting more and more handsome in her eyes’. For them, the phrase ‘in every way’ was too generalized to be considered even by the Almighty. They were of the firm view that we should make our requests more specific so that our sub conscience would not start scratching its head. Some switched to their native tongue saying that their sub conscience would be more comfortable with it.

A few days back, an old colleague of mine visited me. He was quite appalled to see me sitting in my comfortable chair and commented that his house did not have a single comfortable chair. ‘Lousy, uncomfortable chairs keep us moving all the time’, he told me. He added that due to my perpetual occupation of my sofa, I had acquired its shape! ‘You would be an excellent model to showcase this sofa’, he added. He further said that if he was devoid of fat and looked athletic enough for his age, he owed to his furniture. ‘It’s not the food that is making the modern guys bulging in the midriff but the furniture’ he added warming up to his theme. I could see the point in his animated statements.

His argument raised a question in my mind. Why should people keep on eating what they disliked most and occupy chairs meant for circus artists just for the sake of good health? Why can’t they switch over to the ‘day by day’ mantra of Émile Coué? If anyone wants to be thin and wiry, he just has to repeat this mantra instead of jogging for two hours a day!

 

@Viswamitra
Dear Viswa
Before responding to your FB here, I must touch upon your mind-boggling post and the equally scholarly responses. But I was really touched by the response of our dear Kamalji:

I echo the honest admission of Kamalji and I am in the same position here as I used to be when I was sitting and listening to Jiddu Krishnamurti in my youth. This may explain to you why I do not respond to your writings regularly.

During my younger days, I used to go to Tirupati every year climbing the seven hills by foot. The climb starts at the temple on the foothills where the padukas (slippers) of the Lord are kept. People traditionally pick up the padukas, place them on their head and do 'pradakshinam'. Those slippers are really huge.

Do you have to expose my ignorance so blatantly?

That's news to me. Never thought of my dreams in that perspective. This is very interesting. Looks like our mind is the storehouse of all our dreams.
Thanks awfully Viswa!
Sri

 

@Novalis
Hi Novalis! Long time, no see!

That's the beauty of human life. Like finger prints, no two lives are ever alike. 'What is it that he has that I don't have?' is the question that is commonly asked by the loser about the winner. I have often asked myself this question whenever I get a response from you. When I face such questions, I just shrug and move on.
Robert Twigger has been a stranger to me till you mentioned him. I got to know him better through Wikipedia. I find that he spends half his life in Egypt and that has aroused my curiosity about him. I love the title of his books like Angry White Pyjamas, Lost Oasis, Real Men Eat Puffer Fish and others. Will catch up with him without further ado.

A fat man can do all these with his little finger but not with his toes! I ask my grand daughter to cut my toe nails! I must add that a fat man encounters more challenges in life than the wiry ones but he is resourceful enough to handle them well. A giraffe never worries that it's head is too far away from its body.
Sri

 

@shyamala1234
My dear Syamala

We had a famous Tamil writer by name Tamil Vanan who wrote hundreds of books on various aspects of life. He wrote a book titled 'How to live for a hundred years?' and he passed away in his early fifties.

That's the best way to get rid of boring friends and relatives. The guest chairs must be so designed that it should be uncomfortable to sit in it for more than an hour.
Sri

 

@Afresh
Dear Afresh

I see from your bio that you have written one post per year on an average! You remind me of an ancient Tamil saint called Thirumoolar. He lived for over 3000 years. He wrote 3000 songs, one every year of his life.

Golden words! I often wonder if these self-help books were really tried by the writers before they put them on paper. If 'How to make a Million?' could make every reader a millionaire, we would be having millions of them. I don't know why people don't realise it.
Sri