Pearls of Wisdom!

It's not often that you hear an elderly person talk candidly about artificial intelligence, its potential to improve our lives, and its probable impact on humans in the coming decades. Sitting in the audience, I felt as if we were listening to a tech tycoon or a CEO of an AI company. His words 'Digital transformation' and 'growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) ' felt straight out of an Information Technology (IT) conference. I was mindful that many of such words might be new or less heard of by the audience. However, given my IT background, such conversations are a regular occurrence at work and conferences. Here, the highlight was how people outside of the IT industry perceive such topics. The fascinating part was the speaker, the very knowledgeable, creative, kind, and most loved - 'Javed Akhtar' sahab, screenwriter, lyricist, and poet. I was grateful to be part of the audience to listen to this distinguished guest converse on a wide variety of subjects, of course, his writings.

I was fortunate to hear him at the JLF, 2025, for a talk on 'Bollywood of today'. He talked at length about script-writing. And how, in the past, imagination replaced reality to take the audience away from mundane life events. The current challenges of writing, movies, and life in general. I was impressed by his knowledge of AI and how it might replace script writing in the future. And how it can't replace expressing feelings or empathizing with society and situations, and portraying them on screen. Interestingly, he fluently switched between Hindi, Urdu, and English.

There were various other topics from his childhood, his journey so far, and the challenges he faced. With utmost humility, he shared the lessons life taught him. I loved his use of words, the deep pauses that led the thoughts to sink in, and his witty jokes that kept the audience glued. There was hardly a dull moment in the entire session. Like many, he shared his dismay about the current generation losing touch with our culture, heritage, and values. However, he was hopeful that growing technology might help us spread the knowledge far and wide. There are many questions from the audience. I admired how calmly he tackled hard-hitting questions, how his responses were at times serious and other times in the form of 'dohe' - a concise and insightful couplet of verses. It's rare to listen to dohas these days. And when someone as laurate as Javed sahab is reciting them, it's icing on the cake. The audience was enthralled, giving a standing ovation at the end.

While leaving the hall, I managed to click a few pics of him. I rushed to queue for the book signing. Earlier in the day, I had bought his new book ' Seepiyan' - seashells that carry pearls. It is my first-ever Hindi book on dohe. It's a collection of Javed Sahab's most loved dohas, originally written and narrated by Kabir, Tulsidas, Rahim, and Vrind. Looking at the cover, I was fascinated that he knows so many dohas and took time to pen them with their meaning in simple Hindi-English for today's generation. He wanted to make them easy to learn, understand, and imbibe the deep meanings in our lives.

When he signed my copy, I could see his hands trembling with age. However, his brain was sharp enough to ask for my name while signing. I was over the moon when he explained that there are English words in the explanation of dohe to make it understandable. I thanked him from the bottom of my heart. Earlier in the day at the same place, Shashi Tharoor left me enchanted, and now it was Javed Sahab; the whole experience felt surreal. I was drenched in literature, ideas, knowledge, and, importantly, wisdom. Wisdom that comes from experience, from life's learnings, from failures, from not taking success for granted. He titled the book - 'Seepiyan', thinking that these dohas are like pearls in the seashells of life.

I started the book a few weeks later and found it challenging. I was reading a Hindi book after many years. I don't remember reading anything in Hindi or Marathi after school. Many of the dohe are written in Awadhi, which is new for me. Language is not an issue as such, but the vocabulary, the hidden meanings of words, and context are a challenge. Luckily, the explanations and examples were very relevant and easy as promised. In the past, I had come across a few dohes, but reading the others was enlightening. I loved that, I could open any page, read the doha and its meaning, and close it, unlike other books where we have to read a chapter to understand something. My favorite so far is by Kabir -

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"Jaat na poocho sadhu ki, pooch lijiye gyan

Mol karo talwar ki, padi rehen jo maayan"

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I continue to read a few dohas every other time and realised that the poets and saints were trying to explain to the masses what life is, how to live it well with compassion and humility. Surprisingly, most of them talk about communication, the use of words, our conduct with others, and mindfulness in everyday life. I felt as if nothing had changed over the centuries when the original dohas were written. Sometimes it felt that we had grown and come a long way. With the growing use of AI, we will move faster, hopefully in the correct direction. We still have the responsibility to live well with some sense and sensibility. We can choose to use this past wisdom for our betterment. As I continue to read these one at a time, I feel like gathering pearls of wisdom that will help to make a better life. Only time will tell how many of these I could imbibe in my life.