Late Alyque Padamsee’s book ‘Let Me Hijack Your Mind’ tells readers to debunk societal beliefs

Theatre and advertising doyen, the late Alyque Padamsee in his last book ‘Let Me Hijack Your Mind’ tells readers to debunk many deep-rooted societal beliefs and think afresh about so many extremely serious matters such as love and marriage, money, gender, leadership, and faith. Co-authored by Vandana Saxena Poria, and published by Penguin India, in the words of proud daughter Raell Padamsee, this work is Alyque ’s legacy for the future—it teaches people how to question their innermost thoughts and follow only those that lead to a flourishing life. Alyque was affected when people around him were unhappy and this book is his heartfelt attempt to commandeer one from what makes one unhappy and journey with them by way of finding new ways to solve old problems in his patent racy, non-preachy manner. The book is deliberately designed to throw one off-balance and then help one find a new, more relevant centre with the help of notes on how to dream, live and love afresh. If Alyque wanted anything it was that he wanted the youth to have a shot at creating the India that they want and deserve to live in.  If any of the ideas in the book come to fruition and the book becomes relevant, he would be the happiest person in the universe above.  Because it would mean that we would have succeeded in taking out a huge inequity in the world, like poverty or prejudice.  And wouldn’t that just be amazing? In conversation with Vandana Saxena Poria on the late Alyque Padamsee book, ‘Let Me Hijack Your Mind’, the process of co-authoring. Excerpts from the interview: What does ‘Let me Hijack Your Mind’ talk about? Alyque saw that young people in India are following the laws made by 1,000 old people in Parliament.  And he looked at what social norms our young people were following.  From his experience in both theatre and advertising, he could see that many of them were following unwritten rules that were holding them back.  He felt everyone had outsourced their thinking to society, government, the media etc.  So Let Me Hijack Your Mind talks about how to critically question everything you do in life (a super-skill for the future), so you can make choices that will help you live life in a happier way.  This book is an insight into the thinking process of one of India’s greatest non-linear thinkers – as Ronnie Screwvala comments in the foreword to the book. And how anyone can learn to think like him. How can it change people’s lives? It will get people to think differently about a challenge they have been facing.  He gets you to face societal truths in an edutaining way (that’s an Alyqueism for educational and yet in an entertaining way).  He talks of how his youngest daughter Shazahn disliked Hindi as a subject. When he found out that the other mothers despaired that their children didn’t like Hindi either, Alyque hired an actor to come home and teach them a song, a joke and a skit.  Very soon they were enjoying Hindi again, mainly because their Hindi speaking school friends loved their new repertoire! What does it say about love, marriage, money and terrorism? Alyque argues that love, sex and marriage are different emotional attachments and serve different purposes.  He discusses how we don’t fall in love but fall in chemistry.  He then goes on to say that if we have to renew all these other areas in life (qualifications, driving licence, appraisals at work), then why not marriage?  Wouldn’t that bring greater sustainability and mutual contentment to the relationship?  So, he argues that wouldn’t a renewable five-year marriage license to remain married to your partner? When it comes to money, Alyque recounts meeting a wealthy man.  Alyque asked him what he wanted to do with all the money he had accumulated.  The man replied, surprised, ‘Why make more money of course.’  When Alyque pressed him further on what he would do with that more money, the man had no answer.  Alyque presses us to figure out why we do what we do, in a thought-provoking way. Most of us are living with one foot in the past, holding onto thoughts made up by people we never knew. …What does this message convey? Let’s go back to the idea of outsourcing.  If you think about it, in the first five minutes on the planet, we are given our name, our religion and our nationality.  So many things are decided for us.  As we get older, we are constantly told that we have to be the best, graduate, get a good job, get married etc.  It is never ending.  And we end up complying with it even though we are unhappy – this is what he means by outsourcing our thinking.  We have outsourced our thinking to the rules and are blindly following them.  But who decided this is the way we should be living?  Alyque argues that you need to look at all the norms you are following in your life and decide which ones are serving you and which ones are not.  He feels that many of those social norms should be really questioned again, because they were made up by people who had no idea the world would turn out the way it has and that the norms themselves need to be updated. What made you co-author the book? I have always been interested in why people take the actions they take, and the domino impact those actions have.  I have had the privilege of interviewing the likes of Deepak Parekh, Ishaat Hussain, Keki Dadiseth and some other stalwarts for privately commissioned books and I have been amazed at their critical thinking prowess.  They would take decisions based on a really holistic look of what was happening, way before ESG and other measures became popular.  I had, however, never had the chance to examine the mind of a creative genius and what made them tick.  So, when Alyque said to me, ‘Vandana I have a book in me, but it is not a biography.  But I don’t know what the hell it is about.  Will you write it with me?’  Without a blink of an eye, I said, ‘Of course!’ We had over 53 conversations lasting over 170 hours.  Those were transcribed and pouring over the transcripts I could see a theme emerge.  Alyque just knew how to hijack people’s minds and get them to think differently.  And he did that with his entertaining story-telling way. So, I was excited to be along for the process, as much as the end result.  I have been well and truly hijacked! Co-authoring the book with Alyque; how long was the process of writing? After amassing the transcripts and pulling out the themes, it has taken a few years to come to fruition.  After Alyque passed, I was devastated.  He was like a fairy godfather to me – he mentored me on so many levels.  So, for 6 months, the book languished.  Then his children asked me to find a way to bring it to life.  Because we had already agreed on the major chapters and the approach, it was relatively easy to put it all together.  The whole family pitched in and supported me, bringing to life Alyque’s concept of the new joint family (where ex-wives and step-kids see each other as one big joint family).  After the final edits with Penguin, the family gave the book to Shashi Tharoor, Ronnie Screwvala, Tushar Gandhi, Gurcharan Das and others, who wrote some amazing reviews. 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