You, Now

It is ironic that it is after I wrote an article about how life tests you, I am thrown one of its biggest trials. And like I had said in my write-up, it is not pleasant. I cannot begin to imagine what it feels like to be told you have an advanced stage of a deadly disease. I do know its horrific enough to hear it for someone you share your life with.

All of us know we are mortals. Actually everything, including the universe in all probability, comes with an expiry date! We all know we are, after all, born but to die. But when we are faced with a definite and specific likelihood of how life is ending, it is traumatic, and unbelievably, it is shocking.

It was not easy trying to make ourselves get to deal with my husband's advanced lung cancer. It seemed for a long while that everything was WRONG. But it is not wrong. It is just the way it is. It is human arrogance that makes one believe life is not going to get tougher for us. 'Not me' is as escapist solution, but it does work while it does. If we begin to think of all that could go awry, we would be immobilized by fear. I believe we need to concentrate only on what's right, right now. And then it is not that bad, after all.

We are dealt a hand we can deal with, or rather we learn to deal with because nothing prepares you for the worst trials. So how do we rise to meet something we are just not prepared to deal with in any way? Something we really do not WANT to have to deal with?

- Learn from others. I have a dear friend who has been struggling so quietly and so bravely with this goddamned disease, I felt stupid collapsing into despair or fear. Then there are those at the cancer center who joke about the weight of their health files. Men and women who dress their best, and smile as they walk in to take their infusions.

- Know it's not the end. The intimation of bad news is not bad in itself. You still have the same things you had before you knew. In my husband's case, things got so much better after a harrowing chemo week, that it was easy to see the positive.

- Have Faith. The one thing you CANNOT do without. Faith in God's goodness and His mercy, faith is the support of friends and doctors. It is the most important thing you can have. Faith that life never gives you what you cannot handle. Faith that things do turn around, you just have to get through them. 

- Learn. I think that is probably one benefit we really do not see, an advantage we do not add to ourselves. The cliches of misfortunes making you stronger is utter nonsense; nothing makes you stronger. It is how strong you are to begin with to take the chipping off of your soul. Your strength of character is something that you have always had. But what changes is that you learn life. Things become very clear once the trifling nonsensical little things are peeled away - time schedules, unnecessary, fawning people, things that you do because of others, things you tolerate out of politeness. And you also learn what is really important to you. The big painting that still gives you joy, the trinkets that give you solace, the family you could not have survived without, the friends who prayed for you. The people you reach out to at such times are your real 'family'. Period. You know where everyone stands in your life. Those you seek out in your hell are those that make up your heaven. I always knew my friends and their worth, but now I know how much more they are to me. And I know exactly which part of family was and is always there for me. The rest will never matter again. 

- Live. The most important. The only attitude children should be taught. Each day is one unto itself. Each moment precious.Do not put life on hold. Have that extra cupcake, take that trip. We are all terminal. All we have is now. I don't mean we should be grinning for ear to ear everyday, or jump around and all the time. But relish each moment, the thrills, the sorrows, the joys, the shocks of pain and of pleasure. It is what your life is, it is what you are while you are on this earth. Each thing you like or dislike is what makes up your consciousness, and that, according to all religions, and according to my own Higgs boson-propelled theories, is all that's there - you, now.

Enjoy that test

Every entity in this world goes through a test period - an individual, an organization and even relationships.

We may not recognize the 'tough time' that is a trial of our character for it is only in retrospect that we  see how it has defined our path, and sometimes the very structure of our life. It is a forging by fire.

The success of that forging, and annealing, lies not in the outcome of the situation but in how we come out of it. Is it a more bitter person or a more patient person? Is the new you more empathetic, or more judgmental? I have seen people who have only contempt for anyone going through pain because they have gone through 'worse'. But the  only reason it seems worse is because they look back from a lower level than when it hit them. If we rise above the situation, it becomes just that - an experience, a situation.You may loose the company, or break the relationship you were fighting for, but how you have grown, and what you have learnt and ingrained in the process measures the success of that test.

Unfortunately, the tests are usually unpleasant experiences. Ah if only we were all tested by a lottery win! But it will more likely be a job loss that will enable the soul-searching and, yes, the requisite soul-searing. Sometimes just carrying ourselves with dignity through a sudden change of fortune defines us. 

Dignity in distress, and even in delight, is not easy to achieve. It is sometimes just a matter of  taking one day at a time, one moment at a time. I think it was Winston Churchill who said ' the only way through a difficult period is through it'. It is easier to pass through when you can cull some lovely moments and enjoy them. A stop for Starbucks coffee could be a big joy when you do not have the time or money. But I can promise you you will never enjoy it as much when you do get back on the wagon you are chasing. And every cup of coffee after that will remind you of the time when you did  that extra stretch to give yourself a cup. The best part is that it usually is going to be a memory for those you are sharing that coffee with too.

My point: enjoy that cuppa you are rewarding your self with. Whatever the slump you are going through, getting through it is the only way, and how you go through makes the slump a crest in itself.

People say life is not fair. It is not, and that is it's beauty. Can you actually imagine a smooth life, with no problems? There would be nothing to look forward to, and nothing to look back at! And then, without the tears how would we cherish the smiles?

Being Loyal

When Greg Smith exposed how his company was bolstering profits by giving clients wrong advice, everyone on that conscience-deficient Wall Street immediately denounced him as 'disloyal'.

How would you define loyalty? How important is loyalty on the landscape of life? Sure, it is great to be loyal to your country, but then even the Mafia demands unequivocal loyalty.That quality of being faithful is very restrictive. Loyalty to one entity by definition excludes others. When one chooses one value over another, it is then the mettle if a person shows up. Smith chose honesty. I am not surprised that it is Wall Street that is touting the 'loyalty line'. It takes a rampant kind of moral decrepitude that allows such a distorted versions of values. Loyalty over honesty? Certainly not copacetic.

Loyalty, by itself, may be the least honorable of the noble values. It is self- serving by it's very nature. Loyalty actually says 'me and mine are above you and yours'. And that cannot be acceptable. Loyalty is appropriate as long it does not infringe on an other values . It is an honorable value only if it is in conjunction with other higher ideals like love,honesty, kindness, or justice.

I cannot think of any other quality that engenders groupism as much as loyalty does. White collar groups, corporate executives, the police 'blue wall', feminism... the list goes on. Everyone thinks they are doing the right thing by banding in a  group they belong to. Great, but not at the cost of truth, or even openness. It bothers me when women band together for no other reason than that they have a different chromosome. I do not support Hillary Clinton because she is a woman, I support her because she is brilliant.  I do not cry for victims of acid-throwing because they are women, I cry because of the injustice and pain. And would shed the same tears if it was a man whose face was burnt. Women who add the cause of  feminism to issues like this are negating the horror of the crime itself.

I am sure Iranians are being loyal to their country by calling us the Great Satan but it is both untrue and mean. Dick Cheney was being loyal to his shareholder friends by sending young Americans to an unnecessary war, and that certainly is the opposite of every human ideal we can imagine! I am sure a lot of us have been a loyal friend by supporting or ignoring something wrong the friend is doing. Oppressors all over the world get away with their crimes because of teams of people who are simply being 'loyal' to them.

Being loyal to friends, family, and country is admirable of course, but eventually loyalty to your own moral propriety is all that matters .

The end or the means?

Today Shakespeare really irritated me. 'All is well that ends well'. He picked such an inane platitude as a title for his play. By that yardstick everything in the world is rendered meaningless because everything- and everyone - actually ends! The end should not be an issue at all for it is the path, the journey, the process, and how you go about it that matters. And just as it is the living that is important not the dying, so also it is the means to an end that is the all-in-all, and the aim is quite immaterial.

Ancient wisdom has always guided us to live in the moment and not think of what is to come. This does not mean 'live it up now' and everything else be damned. It simply means that one must live each moment in the best possible way. The Gita says that 'the fruits of work should not be your motive'. The end result should not be our concern, for it is the doing of our duty that defines us. Our duty as friend, spouse, sibling child, fellow human.

If it is the aim to be a doctor, it is a poor, sick choice. If it is the process of healing, the living as a doctor that matters, then you have got it right. If you are going through the grind of college for that degree, seriously, it is not worth it. The 'grind' of education is exactly what should have meaning for you, or there will never be any learning involved.

Finally, and completely, it is only the doing that matters. What and how it is done. Steve Jobs gave us some wonderful iPhones. Great goal, good result of course ( I am an Apple fan). A month before the launch of the first iPhone, he insisted on changing the cover from plastic to something 'unscratchable' . Wonderful idea, most certainly. But waking up scores of young Chinese workers in the middle of night and handing them a cup of coffee and a biscuit for a mandatory 12-hour shift is simply not the right way to go about it. Does it make getting the right product ready at the right time worth it? No one with a head that works will say yes. They say success comes naturally to those who do what they love doing. But that is not enough. I believe what you love doing should also be done right.

It brings me to a related saying 'the ends justify the means'. So, if the end is good, whatever the means are applied to that 'good end' are acceptable? In what kind of perverted universe would that be fair? Can you go about lashing people so that they learn how to behave? Can draconian laws be in place because they offer security? Or you can bribe your way to a public office because you will be doing more good in that position?

Going about things the wrong way, morally, ethically or legally, can never, ever be justified. Period. The world is not worth saving if even one person has be hurt intentionally for it. We have enough pain going about in the world without people starting to use silly phrases likes 'the ends justify the means' to add to it. For any noble end, the means have to be equally noble.

The conservatives in the US want to prevent abortions. Though personally I cannot fathom how anyone has the dimwitted meanness to make a public issue of such a personal decision, even the end of saving a "life" has been made into a disgusting joke because the means they are adopting. Forcing women to undergo invasive unnecessary procedures is just a little less bad than legislating away their right to choose to terminate a pregnancy.

 All is not well just because it ends well; all is only well when all is well- that means from beginning to end.

Who you are should be what you are

For once I could follow up on time on the tragedy of the plane crash in Russia that killed young hockey players. The investigation revealed pilot error. That was just a euphemistic way of saying that the pilot was cocky and overconfident, and the copilot was drunk. The cockpit recordings revealed that the copilot was actually egging the pilot to go ‘faster’, and the pilot obliged. Then they made the rash decision to land even though visibility was close to zero. A trained pilot and navigator making a peurile, immature choice. Making silly decisions is usually born out of arrogance. That brings us to my question – how far can training override personality?

I believe that when times are tough, and in stressful situations, it is only one’s character that matters. You either have the wherewithal to do it right, or you don’t. It is not training that inculcated that ability into you; it is a lifetime of learning, most of it being unconscious and involuntary. What a person learns specific to the job he or she is doing can be ingrained only as far as it is aligned with the principles the person already has. Of course the pilot was trained to fly, of course he had experience, of course he knew the warning signs of all defects in the craft. Of course he believed that he could go faster and be safe, that he could certainly land the plane. What he did not have is the sensitivity to realize that he had to be overly cautious because he was literally carrying 50 lives.

What kind of a person would take that lightly? That is precisely what I am trying to point out. It is eventually the only thing that defines our work – the kind of person we are.

I remember the captain of our British airways flight refusing to take off from Mumbai even though the mechanical glitch had been fixed and the plane certified to fly, because he was not comfortable taking off in the craft in a repaired condition. British airways put us all up in a hotel for the night till the new craft came in. That was a good pilot of course, and I am sure a great man too. He exhibited a simple, yet all-important, value called responsibility. Training and experience may make a good pilot out of an irresponsible person , but when that irresponsibility does show up, it does so, sadly, with deadly effect.

It strikes us viscerally when people lose lives because of simple character flaws of another, but we do see – and often ignore – this phenomenon in all walks of life. Professional ability rarely overcomes character. We know of doctors who do not care, we know of accountants who play the books, we know of Presidents who never had the brains or the heart to lead. Sometimes the world gets lucky, and these inadequate people finish their tenures and move on. However, when a crisis does strike, everyone involved suffers.

Whatever you are, a hot dog cart puller, or an ambassador, it is the ‘who’ you are that matters.
A woman who can override personal issues to help a friend will be the same woman who can be a great first responder, or a successful CEO. Silly girls will always be silly, whether they are rich housewives, working to support themselves, or studying to better themselves. We cannot change who we are by adding course work, or even a degree to our portfolio. We change when we experience, and learnimbibe life’s lessons.For better or for worse, sometimes life does not bother to test, and thereby teach, some of us.

It is said that ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’. Unfortunately when the required strength is not available, the going just goes tragic. India is what it is today because when the going was really tough, we had Gandhi to guide us (oh yes, it takes great moral strength to be non-violent!). However, at the other end of the spectrum we have many countries wallowing in chaos and oppression because the people who lead them are not leaders in any other way but in their position.

So, do we wait for good fortune to throw our way the right doctor, teacher or taxi driver?
What we really need to do is take into account a person’s emotional intelligence along with those degrees and certificates. A lot of major corporations in India used to give candidates aptitude tests. Maybe that was really a good idea. For high-stress jobs a talk with a psychologist would be a good idea.

I would definitely be comfortable with an airline that checks a pilot’s mental health along with the required physical! Of course my favorite spiel – let your children do what they want to! What draws them is their natural calling. An occupation they find fulfilling will be one that is a good fit to their personality. Do the world a favour and let them follow their hearts!!

Published earlier in www.theviewspaper.net

Back home

http://theviewspaper.net/back-home/

Written when we had 'decided' to move back to India. :/

I remember a British neighbour I had befriended when we moved to New Jersey. We were both feeling our way around in this country, getting licenses and discovering stores. She left within a year. She said it was “too different”, and that people here “do not even understand English”. I was amused. But I now realize how significant what she said was. Different cultures have different languages, however similar the script and words are. It seems disorienting when other people understand a thing differently because of what their cultural compass dictates. So here I am today, struggling to make sense of my own confused feelings. I really do enjoy the ease of life here in the developed hemisphere. But I am also aware of the thrill of sheer joy that courses through me every time I think that I have to start packing for India. I have been a weasel and have accepted the citizenship of USA. But happily that has had no effect on anything within me. I had always assumed that taking the oath would reset my DNA in some insidious way. I go back to India on a reduced status of PIO, or its glorified version of OCI (it does sound better with the word ‘citizen’ in it!).

However, what is confusing me is a sense of déjà vu, a feeling of distancing myself again from people I love; of starting anew again. I have no home to start off from, and it is a new city. I am leaving friends that have filled the void of family and leaving a country whose founding ideals I cherish (Freedom does ring here, not correctly all the time, but it does ring). But I am so content!

Is being born in a country enough to permanently make you its own? I doubt it because, I know of many who moved to the West in adulthood and have that disgusting, warped personality of a tree, that neither knows its roots nor its flowers. I cannot call them Indian, and I am sure they do all they can to avoid that association.

I have lived here like an outsider, which I am. I have enjoyed it, most certainly. I have learnt about different cultures. But most importantly, I have learnt about myself. I think every Indian should be sent abroad for sometime to develop patriotism! You realize what a phenomenal country we are, and how resilient and progressive we are. I have learnt more about what it is to be Indian than I did in India itself. I think if you are proud of your heritage you will put your best foot forward when you stand as its symbol, and then the best becomes a part of who you are. Also, I have made friends for life from all over the world. But all those friends, each and everyone, is loyal to the country they were born in. I think that has unconsciously been a make-or-break issue with me. My Indian friends, of course, envy me for going back home! My American friends think I am crazy to be going back because, to them this is the ideal place to be. My Egyptian friends think it would be understandable if I was going to Egypt because that is the best place in the world. And I admire them for that. They, in reality, in their own way, understand perfectly why I want to go back. Home is always the perfect place to live.

So what is it that I love in my country? There is dirt, power cuts, corruption, a severe lack of civic sense, language changes from state to state. But life is so much more than matter of convenience. It is living to be yourself, to live your hopes an ideals and work towards to your goals. It is living when your day has meaning for yourself, and for others. And you cannot come into your own unless you live somewhere you can call your own. A place is your own where you find that sense of belonging I spoke of in my blog. It is a place where people share one’s values. Who understand your jargon, who need no explanation for what you wear, or why you cry.

To be specific, what I love is that ability to stop the car and just ask anyone on the road for directions. What I love is the security of knowing you talk to the autowala or the driver next to you in a traffic jam. You can yell at them or ask to borrow the cell phone. What I love is that if my neighbour’s child is misbehaving I can be the ‘aunty’ and scold him without the fear of prosecution on weird charges.

That involvement in each other’s life is what a community is based on. Of course it is not a perfect community. And sometimes when it is manifested in nosy gossip it does get intolerable. But I would not trade that feeling of familiarity for anything in the world. And certainly not for what passes for ‘politeness’ here. I have lived with the silence of neighbours which is broken by that very artificial ‘Hi’. I fail to understand what kind of people crave this distant coldness. Psychopaths, maybe. A stranger is not a danger in my home; rather, someone to be helped or welcomed, unless proven otherwise. Here it is the other way around. Of course the Americans are lonely people. How can you make friends if you start off with mistrust?

So excuse me if I am not falling apart because I will have to deal with unruly traffic, or with someone selling me ‘fresh’ vegetables a few days old. I will have that unique, wonderful option of venting with my dhobi, or dropping by unannounced for ‘chai’ at a friend’s home. I cannot wait to be home!

Travails of travel

They say travelling opens the mind. I drove across northern USA from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific. And I know for sure it does nothing for the mind. It does a lot for the heart.

The drive, as it may be called for want of a better word, was not a vacation as much a celebration of a new start in a new place. We human beings do need to feel a 'new beginning' so many times in our lives, we tend to forget that each sunrise is a miraculous new beginning that heralds new experiences. How do we forget that no two days can ever be alike, unless we make it so?

Like all journeys,our odyssey (yes, in an Odyssey too!)began with pangs of separation. Leaving friends that have been the scaffolding of my sanity and the joy of my heart was more frightening than sorrowful. It was so heartening to hear each one of them tell me it was for the best, and remind me that distance is never an issue between friends. Because if even one had said 'Oh no , why are you going?' I might not have made it. Of course New Jersey was far from perfect, but my friends there are perfect by far.

Everyone does need a change, a break, a vacation. It could be a TV time-slot, it could be jog around with your pal, it could be a few month's hiatus from routine. A change recharges our mind and invigorates our soul.

I do not know of anything that could re-enliven you like a trip to a totally new place. Not with a tour guide, or with five star bookings, but on your own steam, and on your own time. What makes it refreshing is not the change of scene, it is the stripping of paraphernalia we collect and the provisions we deem essential. We really do not need the gold, the crystal, or the fancy crockery. What we need is food to fill us and water to quench and clean.

And of course petrol to fill the car! One of the most terrifying moments of my life was up in the mountains that we did not expect to climb, and realizing that we were out of gasoline,not knowing how far we had to go, and my husband rolling the car down the unfamiliar steep slopes on neutral gear to conserve gas. An experience like that redefines stress. Now if someone tells me they are 'stressed' because of their kids' extracurricular schedules I am going to choke laughing! Stress is not that rushed feeling when you have planned- well or otherwise- on things to happen. Stress is the feeling when you cannot take a breath in (or out) because you do not know if you can deal with that 'worst case scenario' if it does happen.

We managed to descend from the mountains without incident, and reached this adorable little store/ home /gas station in the middle of nowhere. (Town of Emmet- population 10). It was the quaintest, sweetest ramshackle cabin out of a fairytale. Had to have been angels. God does not test the unprepared.

Of course we were unprepared! We had the route mapped roughly, we had the iPad, we had overnight reservations in nice hotels and lodges. The rest we would take as it came. That, we thought would add to the experience. I do not much care for what it did add! A lot of nervous checking of signals on the cell phone,rechecking navigation, realizing that we were not mentally conditioned for long roads through deserted lands, and the nagging fear of what if the car..( God forbid, here!). Though it ensured our comfort, and did really, really well, the Honda Odyssey van is not made for cross country roughing it out. Small roads at edges of waterfalls, or after sunset drives across Grizzly country are not exactly comforting unless you are driving a humvee and have OnStar.

Of course I would rather drive across the US than any other country. The blessing of GPS on the iPad is worth more than words can express. The rest areas give a traveller not only a chance to get the blood moving into parts of the body that have lost feeling, but also gives the chance to interact with other people. Some states of course have a better hospitality: South Dakota had scenic rest stops, Idaho rest areas offer free coffee, Ohio has huge service areas; and Wyoming should not be called a civilized state. I cannot believe there can be such barren, uninspiring stretches of empty, depressing landscape that we encountered in Wyoming.It had green of course, and the undulating hills, but the feeling it gave was of a dull, dead place where life cannot blossom.The Exits that are pointers to settled life for highway travellers just end up in dirt roads that lead to nothing.Even the Badlands were not that bad. Barren rock has a magnetism all its own.

But inhospitable Wyoming also holds a part of the gorgeous Yellowstone National Park. We drove through quite a few protected areas, but the raw beauty of Yellowstone is hard to match. One can revel in the flawless lakes, and then walk a quarter of a mile to beds of boiling mud!

We drove on roads through grasslands, hills, mountains, volcanoes, glaciers, forests. It was glorious and awe-inspiring. But at the end of each day what we needed was to stop. Not just to rest and recharge, but to make connect with our fellowmen. To say hello to the friendly hotel receptionist, to sit down for dinner. And yes, to switch on the TV (and laptop!)

Like everything else in life, the travails, of course, came with treasures. The small towns we went through are unforgettable. The warm people we met gently reinforced my belief that we all are exactly the same. The memories we have are priceless. The splendour of virgin lands on this continent have to be seen to be believed.The joy one feels in renewing one's connection to the land does not diminish us as humans. Knowing we share a home of such beauty with flora and fauna of such diversity elevates us to being more than mankind. We become earthlings. I did not learn anything of practical importance. I saw, heard, and felt. My mind probably learnt the names of new places, but what my heart learnt was of more vital importance- that it is not the earth that belongs to us, it is we who will always belong to the earth.