What am I talking?
No, this is not a political post.
It is a life lesson I have learnt and which I wish to share in the hope that those that I leave behind will use this in their lives. It is a lesson I have learnt from BaiSahab (my late brother, God bless his soul) who practically fathered me in my formative years. He had to do that since the age gap between me and Daddy Ji was rather quite wide and thus my communication with my father, particularly in my boyhood and teen age days, was limited.
It is no secret that BaiSahab was a leader in the whole family even long before Daddy Ji left us. He was listened to, even when he put his foot down and even when someone felt his decision was not totally correct. I am not talking only about the direct family members who normally would listen as a matter of family discipline and obedience. I am talking of the entire extended families and their extended families. I am talking of his social circles and their families. I am talking of his friends and their families.
What was it that made him the leader whose advice was sought and listened to even if at times he could be called almost autocratic? Let me explain and do excuse me if it goes a bit longer than you can bear through.
Turning Point
It was the winter of 1965 when, while on way back from a short walk, Daddy Ji had a fall on the road, fainted and was brought home by some passersby. It was nerve shattering news for all of us and we really didn’t know how to respond. I was 9 years and BaiSahab was around 15. Looking at it in hindsight, I would reckon that was the first stroke Daddy Ji got. He was on bed for more than 2 weeks but this post is not about him.
This is the first time I think the leader inside BaiSahab got unearthed. Suddenly life had forced a responsibility on him as the eldest male inside the door. I will not get in details of how he took that responsibility and delivered it. But over the years I tried to really understand as to what was it that would not make him the Leader that he became. What was the exact differential? I will spell that a little later.
Let me tell you what he did and how.
Besides heeding the health care needs, which was obviously best left to doctor and some elders, he put a lot of focus on meeting all those friends and relations that Daddy Ji would meet on a regular basis. All members of our entire tribe will know that Daddy Ji was an extremely social person who would pull every passerby to ‘come in and have tea’ on one hand and on the other hand he was an intellectual in his own right and was respected by all for that, and he was consulted even by those who were far bigger experts on those subjects. It is these aspects of the responsibility that BaiSahab emulated.
Daddy Ji recovered over months and was back to normal life in some months. But the leader inside BaiSahab was not to be stopped now. In fact he added to the list. Besides keeping and continuing the high social contact, an important aspect he added was the compassion and engaging in the problems faced by not just the family but the extended families as well.
He worked like a leader does and which means that besides assuming authority and power –a leader must also take ownership of mentoring in solving what are ‘their’ (not his problems) and that alone earns him their trust, respect and confidence.
As I said earlier, this was not limited to just the closed family members. He extended this to the extended family and the closer social circles. Be it our cousins, our second cousins or friends.
“Depend On Me” - his unsaid title
I will fast forward by around 25 years and come to the nineties and how over the years this leadership trait in him had only grown over the years. One the reasons why people would Listen and Share things with him was that fact that he was always AVAILABLE when you were in trouble – Big or Small, whether you called him or you didn’t.
I recall when one of his old friends lost his father, he pulled me out of some work which he had given me and said “come we have to go and give a bath to the departed body”. We got back past mid night. He had this natural tendency to get engaged in your problems and offer his solutions, whether it was extending a business address in Pune to our cousin operating from Delhi or making fullest marriage arrangements for the daughter of a neighbor and close friend of 30 years back.
No wonder then that BaiPyara our brother like cousin sat like a watchman outside the ICU for days without food and without sleep. No wonder Mongha Sahab travelled by bus for more than 800 Kms to be with us in those days. Little wonder then at the time of his tragic end – we had more people at the funeral than in a marriage, even in a remote village in Bangalore. No wonder then recently when I met Suhas a common friend after about 10 years and he enquired about BaiSahab and I said what anyone would hate to say, he slapped me hard in shock – saying how can you say this non sense!!
Why am I telling all this?
No, I don’t mean to hog any lime light over glorifying my brother, nor take credit for being his brother but only a hope that all of us learn from his example that whenever life forces a responsibility on us, we can just assume the authority and power and get distanced from those around us or we can assume leadership and ownership that comes with the responsibility and be depended upon. That is something I wish to keep telling myself often and those that I will leave behind for them to tell it those that they will leave behind.
Ravinder Bhan
Riyadh Saudi Arabia
PS: Quite interestingly though this post is NOT supposed to be political leadership, there is such striking similarity in that as well.
