145;Happiness is about little things adding up146;

For many years, as I grew up in a very ritualistic environment, I used to equate spirituality with rituals. I would do them mostly out of fear...

What does spirituality mean to you?
For many years, as I grew up in a very ritualistic environment, I used to equate spirituality with rituals. I would do them mostly out of fear8212;thinking that unless I practised them, something bad would happen to my family or me. Gradually I grew out of it, and now spirituality means freedom from rituals. It is a personal anchor, an individual faith that entails tolerance, understanding, accepting people for who they are and not for who I would want them to be8212;being a liberal in all senses of the word.

Do you believe you are guided and protected by a superior force?
Absolutely, there is in life a guiding and protecting force. Nothing is random. I could never explain the trajectory of my life, its highs and lows, as a random sequence. There have been all sorts of encounters, events, circumstances that 8220;chance8221; alone could not explain. All of it helped me develop a sense of fate, that whatever is meant to happen will, and what isn8217;t, simply won8217;t.

Do you believe you have a special mission or purpose in this life?
I definitely think so. I remember watching this movie about General Patton in Germany, on one of the main battlefields of World War II, reflecting on this notion of destiny. I always felt I was destined to be in public life and have an impact on people. Back then I may have thought this impact would be on a larger canvas but I cannot complain about the results8212;I have maintained my sanity and a degree of consistency in thought and belief, I have expressed my views fairly openly, so I guess I have had a decent innings.nbsp;

What is spirituality for you in your day-to-day life?
I was such a prisoner of rituals and now I am free of them. So spirituality is very much about contemplation I stop working at times for a few minutes and sit back, listen to music, just think, recharge, about tolerance, but also about accommodation and resilience. Indeed, public life is mostly made of downs. So dealing with them is part of daily spirituality for me.

What is the role of spirituality in your public life?
It gives me a degree of detachment amidst intense involvement. Public life can be so challenging. In my case, I would say that 80 per cent of my life has been about taking knocks and 20 per cent about enjoying the fruits of my work. So the notion of detachment and disinterested action, so central to the Gita, has been fundamental for me.

Can you tell us about a unique experience that changed or shaped your spiritual beliefs?
There definitely has been a fundamental shift in me 8212;from a very ritualistic religiosity to a spirituality liberated from rituals 8212;but it was not a sudden transformation. It happened gradually, in particular from my twenties on, as I was discovering how this religiosity was used to sanctify a stratified social order. I used to be fascinated by Sanskrit but also progressively realized how it had been used as an instrument of repression and discrimination for centuries. So my knowledge of broader Indian social realities vastly influenced my spiritual evolution, from the classical south Indian Brahmin I used to be.

What are your spiritual inspirations?
From the extremely ritualistic environment I grew up in, I gradually opened up to other influences. I read the Gita almost every day from the age of nine, and of all the religious personalities, Buddha is one I would distinguish 8212;he was an empiricist who, along with compassion and logic, emphasised how much one should find God by oneself.

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If there were one question you could ask God, what would it be?
Why do so many good people suffer injustice and ignominy while thoroughly despicable characters advance in society? I see examples of it every single day and the traditional explanation of karma does not satisfy me.

What is your idea of happiness?
My notion of happiness is incremental: it is about little things adding up and a general positive outlook on life, despite the many lows and knocks on my path.