Mahtoub

Last week ended with two rejections, both international and each at the final stage. If Indian gatekeepers demand revenues or at least projections of billions of dollars in profit, the Europeans probably needed someone younger with a PhD and a series of postdoctoral theses behind their name, maybe a female of colour, with STEM qualifications as a co-founder thrown in… But frankly, I have no idea why we weren't selected. Both were met with nonchalance, and I went back to laying tiles around the “Fountain of Youth,” the replacement of the cracked 50-year-old wash basin in my mother’s bathroom. “The Toilet of Doom” has been completed for a month now, with everything from sewage lines to plumbing, installing the potty and floor tiles, done by own hands, and is since in regular use - thank you!

The only thing these two rejection love letters, as I call them, achieved, was that I am no longer planning to participate in the third European event to which I have been invited. Considering the huge travel expenses along with the ritual humiliation involved in getting the Schengen visa, it may have been worthwhile if participating in all three or at least two events. Attending just one, that too with no foreseeable or tangible benefits, the juice is hardly worth the squeeze. Unless counting the subsequent “I am honoured and humbled” LinkedIn and other social media posts while trying to hoodwink people into believing that I am punching far above my weight. And talking of weight, it will also save me some money and the anguish of joining a gym, or the angst of dieting that I would have had to do in order to squeeze into my business suit.

Though, what truly surprised me, was how relieved I was at not qualifying for these programs. Was it my being hardened from years of rejections, both as a man, romantically and sexually and for my ideas and work, professionally? Stuck in my comfort zone, or finally embracing the essence of “Mahtoub"(Arabic for thus it is written)? Well, it's mostly a combination of the first and the last. Besides, I have a fair idea where to spend the scarce resources to upscale my project next year, which otherwise would have been blown on travel.

Yes, still running very short on funds, but providence provides.

And talking of Mahtoub, I have to thank Paulo Coelho for introducing me to the term, not that it was very mind-altering. Naseeb(fate) and Kismat(luck) serve almost the same meaning in speech, especially while complaining about life. Mahtoub is more impersonal, in the sense that one doesn’t blame it for his or her misfortune.

I must also confess that I ran through The Alchemist like a bulldozer, regarding it more of a psychedelic trip than literature. Whereby it joined the company of other life-view-altering novellas like Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, Ayn Rand’s Anthem, Huxley’s The Doors of Perception and Brave New World, and Sheldon Kopp’s The End of Innocence. And yet, like all trips, real, psychedelic, or literary, just like a river, it's never the same when you revisit them.

Once, hoping to recreate a coming-of-age jaunt (albeit a little late in life, but still with a bang) in Manali, with bikes, snow-peaked mountains, copious smoky substances, and someone to cuddle up with to keep the cold away, I repeated the same journey a couple of years later. Except this time it rained constantly, the place was deserted. A near curfew with cops patrolling the streets, as just a week earlier a bunch of Israelis had been thrashed black and blue by the locals. A regular event there, by the way.

Similarly, completely blown away by Siddhartha during my teens, I tossed it off as an adult, muttering something about the pretentious old German. Nonetheless, I am eyeing Huxley’s tomes to reread for some time now.

If they leave me disappointed, or worse, bored, I guess I would know what to say - Mahtoub!

The Fountain of Youth

Comments

Anonymous said…

Such a fun read with insights to draw nevertheless. The impersonal nature of Mahtoub though saved it from misuse or rather abuse, will remember the term in days to come

December 23, 2025 at 1:13 PM

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