Author of the book: WHY I DID NOT DIE
Interview by: Neel Preet
About Author Roxana Jaffer
Roxana Jaffer, a passionate catalyst for positive change, leading with a heart, is devoted to making the world a better place. With a prestigious education from Harvard Business School and an MBA in leadership, she is a visionary in the hospitality industry, combining her expertise with heartfelt humanitarian efforts. Through her partnership with United Nation’s World Food Programme, Roxana has touched the lives of 517,325 undernourished children around the globe. Under her tutelage, her workplace hotel has earned the esteemed Arabia CSR Award for seven consecutive years. Roxana’s many achievements include being honoured with the “Most Influential Women Leader Award,” as she finds success in empowering underprivileged communities. As a founder of not-for-profit NGO: “abc: an advent for building human capital” (www.myabcfoundation.org), she has positively impacted the unemployed youth, resulting in helping over 70% of them find meaningful jobs. Her creative spirit shines through poetry, showcasing her resilience and spirituality. A Parallel World (Amazon: http://bit.ly/parallelworld). Roxana’s journey is one of determination and compassion, leaving a lasting mark on the world and inspiring others to join the cause of positive change. Her creativity outpours in her expression of words, perhaps a result of the eight instances when ‘she did not die’.
Neel Preet: The title of your book, “Why I Did Not Die” is incredibly intriguing. What inspired you to share these eight life-changing experiences with the world?
Roxana Jaffer: Throughout my life from age 3, I seemed to have been experiencing these powerful life or shall I say near-death experiences.
Each incident carrying their own individual physical pain and mental pain. As I would get over the physical pain of each incident – be they caused through burn injuries, man-handling distraught, or of being in a comma or breakage of bones, or even temporary paralysis and corrective surgeries – each taking between three to six months to recover from, I would rise up stronger then before. My family and friends showered their love, to help me eradicate the painful physical memories, but what remained was the mental trauma. The biting, caustic pain, often replaced by sharp smarting and tingling sensations would continue, which I made less and less of, to avoid my family sympathising with pity.
What no one saw, or really understood was the mental trauma, mental lacerations and lesions. The physical marks, gradually fading, but unseen was the increase in my mental anguish and agony, the shock strain and the stress suffering. In fact the burn injuries carried an under–appreciated trauma that I could not express and settled as a weight on my breast. This trauma just multiplied weighing me down even more, incident to incident. I dont know how I coped or managed this chronic pain – maybe through my positive self–statements or emotion-focused self learnt techniques and though a constant silent prayer of ‘Shukrana’? My prayers in the mind were totally discreet and inconspicuous, but simultaneously being replaced through positive actions, always ready to help others and going the extra mile in selfless acts.
But in 2012, when I was 58, the harrowing incident of being pulled by the Indian ocean,in the Maldives, being submerged under strong waves, with deafening sounds of ferocious water, when I nearly gave up and when my silent prayer of thankfullness (shukrana) became a prayer of forgiveness of self, for any hurt I may have caused, my situation reached a climax . Suddenly I stopped fighting the current – realising the undefeatable Gods power is no match to a humans power – the current ceased to take me to the deeper seas. It returned me back to shore and the rest is history.
I started to reflect on the trauma of each incident, still not understanding WHY I DID NOT DIE and immersed myself in my humanitarian endeavours. As I progressed with life, I started jotting down on paper each learning I had realised at the turn of each incident.
The enormity of the learning, understanding the gravity of each episode, the vastness of each experience, made all my trauma trivial. As I captured each learning on paper, my memory of each traumatic time came through to me in a vivid escalation of the experiences. I decided then that I needed to recount my stories and deeper understanding behind the trauma for the wider world for each of my reader to learn from. I had to recount with them my study from the scriptures and give quotes of the learned on life instances. And so this book was born!
Neel Preet: Your life journey is a remarkable blend of professional success and humanitarian work. How have these near-death experiences shaped your outlook on leadership and compassion?
Roxana Jaffer: Right from the outset, from as back as I can remember, I always led the way. If it was not too my siblings, it was with my friends, always a ring leader and always with a flock I wanted to impress. I realised I was a role-model too many. And as I progressed in life, I saw my style be in my dress or in my demeanour being adapted by several. I realised that the people were eager to learn what was not taught through school books but from people they admired. I adapted all the realisations I received from my near-death experiences and became a leader of the discerning discreetly. Obviosuly teaching through my acts of giving to others, sharing and being generous with my posessions, helping with problems altruistically became my daily habit. Compassion was always supermost in my psyche.
Today I officially mentor a few young individuals on the corporate ladder or those wanting to find success and get utmost satisfaction, when I see the mentees doing well.
Basically I am now in the business of Building Human Capital. (check out www.myacfoundation.com) – a not-for-profit NGO that I am the founder of operating in Delhi and Hunza – aiding young unemployed individuals with a 86% success rate who today are in employment, entrepreneurship or exploring higher education.
Neel Preet: The book presents your life experiences as leading to “ever-higher levels of consciousness.” Could you elaborate on how each of these incidents elevated your understanding of life?
Roxana Jaffer: I read somewhere that :”Life is just not a random series of events. It is a highly intelligent unfolding.” And I can truly say that, that it has indeed been true for me.
Through each of my lessons that I call ‘Realisations’ in the book WHY I DID NOT DIE, one can understand that I was getting a heightened awareness and perception to the nature of reality.and spiritual aspects of life, that now I can understand to have helped in my personal evolution and psyhcological development.
At age 3, when I came out of a 10-day coma caused by a collission with a burning hot cauldron slipping on a hot oil spill, I learnt a few pognant lessons that have been the cornerstones of my life and how I lived it. Here I mention just a few:
- Life is a gift – I was lucky to have come through from this life ending accident!
- Beauty is skin-deep. There,I was a haughty pretty, fair skinned individual perhaps on the edge of arragonce, being prayed for by these beatiful but very dark skinned ‘discarded’ girls. I learnt at that early age that skin colur is of no consequence!
- Power of collective prayer
- Value of serving others
- Being socially responsible – today the fever of Sustainability is high on everyones agenda. I started the learning of the same, some 60 years earlier, in praying and helping others.
I feel my life has been a journey from unconsciousness to a pure higher consciousness. Other lessons with other life ending situations that can be found in the book are, like an intelligent unfolding, that were revealed through my life, bringing step-by-step understanding from unconsciousness to a state of higher consciousness.
Neel Preet: In your book, you discuss the concept of “dying before we die.” How did this realisation transform your approach to living life?
Roxana Jaffer: So what is the concept of “dying before we die”?
The concept requires a lot of reflection on life, a lot of introspection on self and adaption to the way, daily life is conducted. This can take many years of learning and adapting for one to become purer.
My book – my labour of love, is a culmination of study from several scriptures and gurus – quoted where applicable – substantiating my lessons from romancing with death and made easy for the reader to see how one can adapt in their lives. Having ethical underpinnings for all our dealings of life, meditating to the loftiness of our creator are some important ways of reaching our goal of a conscious life.
However, it’s not about praying alone and negating responsibilities of life. Neither is it about leading a life with an absence of prayer, just continuing with rituals without understanding or reflecting on their deeper meanings. It’s about embracing duality of life – the physical and the spiritual, that holds one in his stead.
My adaptation of both, through the learning’s I attained; have held me in my stead to be successful in all dealings of both my work projects and life dealings and have made me ready to meet my creator.
Neel Preet: How do you think your background in leadership and education from Harvard Business School influenced the writing of this deeply personal book?
Roxana Jaffer: When we go from grade to grade, school to a higher school to a university taking several degrees, one does so to better ones level of understanding and increase ones knowledge.
Whilst the seed of writing my story was sowed after my fall in Werfen in the Alps, returning alive but damaged, the seed started to take shape after my Indian Ocean escapade (check the first question) in the Maldives.
My background in leadership culminating from my early life to an MBA with merit from University of Leadership helped me to assess myself as a leader and introduce sound and ethical strategies at work.
My Harvard Business Schooling taught me how to negotiate correctly for a competitive advantage and has held me in my stead in my business dealings to be an upright leader.
So I can’t say where my writing style originated – but reading for all my studies, writing stage plays and indeed participating in drama and debates in school have all had a desired effect.
Neel Preet: Your book delves deep into the human spirit. Which story in the collection do you feel best captures the essence of trauma, and why?
Roxana Jaffer: You are putting me in a spot.
The trauma suffered at age three suffered in Rajkot in Gujarat, is most superimposed in my mind and hence the memory came vividly gushing onto the paper as I started to write.
But the trauma I felt during my car accident, when the car whilst a write-off wielded me to come out of the debris walking without any major injury; to being adopted, not understanding why I was in court at 8 years of age – of losing one’s identity to other parents were all harrowing to say the least.
However the one incident that has caused me the highest trauma, hurting me physically and indeed mentally is my incident of being kidnapped.
Not kidnapped for a ransom of material gain, but taking me at the tender age of just over 3 years to be sold off to a house of ill repute and being manhandled sexually by people who were neither men, neither women but trans genders! That is the most troubling memory that has lasted a lifetime.
Whilst I don’t think I was raped – to young to know the meaning – the trauma of being taken away, of being manhandled sexually, left me shattered and totally scarred emotionally. I remember having nightmares for a very, very long time. I stopped trusting anyone everyone including my grandmother whom I held responsible for bringing me to this god forsaken train station. I was plagued with flashbacks and other unpleasant memories and as I grew up and went to school, I did not, could not, adjust to people’s touch.
For several years this memory became something I could not discuss with anyone as I felt ashamed and did not want anyone to know. Slowly my mother forgot about my turmoil, the incident until she read my account of it in my book.
I on the other hand, have had to deal with this trauma on my own, building a wall round my heart lest someone saw what I was hiding. The trauma was only released when I wrote the chapter in the book crying uncontrollably,
On hindsight I can see why I became such a good leader for my siblings, trying to shield them from any untoward incidents and characters they may ever face.
Trauma of this particular incident has been an indelible part of my life since childhood. I thought the way I felt was a normality of life. I realize now, that this made me resilient to other traumatic incidents I have had in my life, but just did not know it was trauma
Neel Preet: Your book links life experiences to your leadership philosophy. Could you explain how your “Servant Leadership Style” was influenced by your personal journey?
Roxana Jaffer: Learning from my adoptive Mums level of responsibility; in caring for a child not borne by her; is indeed an attribute we should adapt. Loving her selfless care for me – there are several examples, I talk about in the book – I researched for this special responsible love and came across several examples. Mainly of good leaders who were responsible for a flock rather than just a child that they adopted.
The first was of Mahatma Gandhi. This famous line had great impact on me: “The best way to find oneself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” What did he mean? In service of others? To look after others?
Therefore my leadership style took a basis based on both my Mum and Gandhiji.
I went on to take a degree in leadership culminating in my dissertation “Servant Leadership: A Must for the 21st Century Leader” that attained a merit. (I can share a copy of the dissertation, if anyone is interested. Please send me a mail)
The base of this leadership philosophy is an understanding that states that “It is not about I, nor is it about we – it is about them,”
Today I have learnt that 33% of Fortune Magazine’s 100 Best Companies, practice this leadership philosophy including Marriot International, South west Airlines and Starbucks.
It was not a surprise that I too followed this style for Holiday Inn Al Barsha, Dubai and made the company as successful as the other institutions I have quoted.
Neel Preet: Many readers find your reflections deeply inspirational. How do you think this book serves as a “toolkit” for those seeking lifelong learning and personal growth?
Roxana Jaffer: Indeed this book has been written as a self-help diary for all discerning readers to see how they can adapt the 50 lessons that I have catalogued to be adapted in their personal lives, for assistance on the corporate ladder and on their personal life both physical and spiritual, to breed success in whatever path they are on.
It is my altruistic endeavor to impact as many discerning readers that I can, and in turn, hope they can help and impact those dearest and nearest to them. Surely we are only making it easy, helping each of the persons we know, so they may grow spiritually and become successful?
With the increasing readership, I am chuffed to know that my book has been nominated for a literary award in the Philosophy category. I am truly humbled.
With this work I am passing on messages learnt from my incidents when I romanced with death and returned to tell my story.
Neel Preet: You have achieved so much in both your professional and humanitarian endeavours. How did these life-altering moments impact your career and personal mission to serve others?
Roxana Jaffer: Indeed these life- altering moments have impacted my personal career and my personal life very positively as I inculcated the realizations in my personal psyche and professional conduct.
Below are some poignant examples that have helped me a lot.
- Do not play with the Unknown: Make what we don’t know, the Known
- Brave the Blues
- Overcome internal demons first.
- Nothing is born nothing dies
The best one I had difficulty to introduce but freed me from bad energy is
- Delete Toxicity
I learnt to differentiate with people who are not sincere – even family and good friends. I learnt to let them go from my daily life and kept them as casual acquaintances.
I learnt to embrace each breath with positivity and got ready to lose, people who were only pulling me down.
My advice is understand this quote – “Negate those who stop clapping for you” Along the way, I found that women who had time were my biggest enemy as they had a lot of phone time and did clap at my success.
Neel Preet:What do you hope, the readers shall take away from “Why I Did Not Die” Are there plans for some other literary projects that further explores your life’s extraordinary moments?
Roxana Jaffer: I am hoping that after reading “Why I Did Not Die” readers will explore my first book -:”A Parallel World” which is an anthology of poetry, the genre of which is spirituality and philosophy. This book gives in a way of how to reflect on life and become aware of Gods greatness. The poem “Sari Palu’’ is my personal favorite as it defines the way to the Almighty, even through this familiar garment we wear every day, if only we could become intuitive.
My next book is called ‘Healthy Happenings’ and is half completed. I will tell you about it when I have completed the writing.
Thank you Neel for asking me questions that had to be explored deep down in the cavities of my heart and brain.
