Working deep in the mines

Nowadays the majority of my working hours are in discussions, either passively listening or taking notes or explaining or negotiating things.

With the remote working nature, even the simplest discussions and interactions need to go through elaborate chaos of noise, dropped calls, and overlapping voices. Oh I almost forgot the great villians: Echo and Delay.

Also, it seems like everyone is almost always in discussions/meetings, so its hard to have quick drawing-on-the-board discussions or idea generations over a cup of tea.

I find the impacts to be mainly on topics which require convincing people, sending subtle reassuring messages using body language, and generally to capture everyone's attention. The people you want to convince are either busy doing something else when you are carefully articulated sentences are pronounced, or they have connection problems or worse they misunderstood your voice modulations.

Also working from home, with a small kid and spouse also employed, meetings sometimes become a nuisance as it disrupts the family ceremonies like lunch,dinner and conversations. This is also partly due to the lack of any fixed start or end timelines for a working day. At least when we used to commute to office, one could just be away from the seat ( be it sipping tea, or at restroom, taking a call, puff or even gone home for the day ), and others would let you be unless its urgent. Now, all this happens through meetings, especially with colleagues of different geographic regions competing to fit the schedules into those of others.

My son who has just started speaking already has words like Appa Amma Meeting, Aptop ( laptop ) in his vocabulary and imitates me typing with headphones on, sipping green tea.

With no boundaries between office life and personal life, there is no space for social life either. And there is nothing to blame the office life for that since the virus takes the primary blame for it anyway.

Now with all this chaos around us, when work requires one to think deeply and extract its gems, there is an interesting condition. When one is able to sink oneself into the deep workings of the mind, making connections, all the din outside fades away, replaced by quiet neurons at work. But as always the deep work sessions last but for a few minutes. Many a times the deep sessions happen by themselves like at loo or while doing something else which require mechanical repetitive actions. Also the time just before sleep invades at night and just before sleep retreats in the morning brings along with it various insights which enhance or correct the previous day's deep thoughts.

The meditative state of the mind is so satisfying and enriching that one yearns to keep going back there and it requires significant investment in isolation and time. So naturally, it keeps many shallow tasks aside, which requires others around you to pick them up or if it suits, they'll just wait for you to get back to it.

Reflections and Refractions - Part 2

With the ink flowing, one must quickly commit the thoughts to paper.
Otherwise the ability to think and judge would catch up with those words and dry up the ink as well.

1st June 2019:

In movies, before we jump into the new frame, new location and start the action, we need a break.
So did I and my family. So we set out to the very old frame, my hometown.

One might imagine a visit to ones hometown as a regular affair. But if the house is locked for almost a year, and visits are only 2-3 days long every year, one generates quite a lot of yearning for the old, dusted and capped memories and emotions.

Boooring...

Anyway, to not lose the focus of the story, I will just cut short by adding that it was a welcome break for my family. For me it was nothing but pure oxygen after surfacing from a deep dive. I needed it badly because I knew I had to go for another deep dive soon after.

With the razor sharp schedules of professional commitments and the house shifting, I didn't waste whatever time I got to recreate my life, one day at a time.

Once back to Bangalore, it took a couple of days filled with 12hrs of meetings at office, followed by packing to actually shift out. It actually took another month for some sort of relaxation and sense of settlement to arrive at our new doorsteps. In spite of such fluctuations, the new house gave a lot of joy due to the cleaner locality, better safety, conveniences, and presence of lots of open soil to work upon.

Maybe it is in the genes, but there is nothing like a walk among greenery to climb over any adversities in life. What else could one ask, if there was also a piece of soil to give life to? We all enjoyed the activities involved in cleaning up the yard and setting up a working garden in a matter of couple of months. Most hard at work was my father who saw this as a replacement for our now neglected garden back home, which he severely missed while being at Bangalore.

Before

 

Once the new schedules, routines and rigours were set in place, accompanied by crazy timings at the office, .. short pause.. there was still no time to relax. It was time to take life to the next level, and preparations were afoot at office and home on the professional and personal fronts respectively.

Soon with the crab having its tummy filled with one victim and having decided to let go of another for the time being, we started having more bright days. This was in spite of the wet and bone-chilling season. We too having been hardened by the events, decided to move on. Some very old support roles were withdrawn and it was time for the real responsibles to take over without dependencies. It was time to grow up, spread the wings and jump out of the tall tree nest.

So far, so good. That's what I can say about things which are in progress, and can take years to get a proper hind sight. Rays are still in the process getting bounced around like crazy, creating reflections,refraction, mirages and sometimes even hallucinations. One shouldn't take a judgemental view at this stage of life.

I badly want to squeeze some more events in here, but the paragraph above filters out most of the content. But let me cryptically add my appreciation for myself for taking some right decisions based on some random whims, and keeping those habits alive to date.

Now I should be allowed to shift my focus to more abstract expectations for the upcoming year based on reflections of this year.

First of all, the hard events have hardened the expectations and one only needs to guide the mind into accepting new responsibilities. So those should be relatively easy to accept if pushed upon.

The next thing is that events have shown that whatever happens, there are certain things in my primary responsibility. I cannot hold any one or any event accountable for not doing what I myself expect of me. So clearly, I need to spare quite a lot of time, passion, efforts and attention to do my best in the upcoming year.

There might be some boomerangs for short cuts taken this year, but as long as the mind is ready to accept it and walk over, there is no use crying over a swollen temple.

Gonna be a fun year ahead.
15th Dec 2019

Have a couple of weeks ahead, but for me the year is actually over for some weird reason :)

Reflections and Refractions - Part 1

Even though hind sight is perfect, all sight is based on reflected rays.

Some are reflections of what happened, but most of them are refracted at multiple surfaces before it gets reflected back to the eye.

There is no real way to know which is the case.

2019- The year that began just like 2014; With a broken leg, bedridden, dependent on others, biting down the pain and humiliation.

Anyway, as months passed, the pain of lying down gave way to pain of attempting to learn to walk, whereas the humiliation of depending on others just reduced as self sufficiency crept in slowly. It was a mix of self-sufficiency, self-pity, new hope, forgiveness and gratitude.

Through the year, as life always promises, events weren't simply monotonous or predictable. They weren't even in shades of white,grey or black. Each revisit and reinterpretation could give new colours, hence making the activity useless if one is only interested in painting them statically. As mentioned in the Kannada movie "Lifu Ishtene", those are DVDs worth watching again and again, giving various aromas & tastes at various stages of life.

One judgemental aspect is that those days give me a good idea of people around me and how the relationships are structured. On the other side, it also cut me off social connections & activities, isolated me from the buzz of work place & sent me into a personal disarray.

I even managed to catch up on my reading with some crazy reading schedule, having nothing else to do for couple of months. I was able to squeeze in a couple of months worth of reading into a couple of days.

But overall, I could say that my pain subsided and limited itself to some weird set of nerves, strength regained, dignity rebuilt & overall outlook towards myself & people around me transformed. This feat required the constant support and patience of my parents, my wife, my son, the household help, my physiotherapist, my books, the doctor, some friends and my physical trainers later on at the gym. Anyway, with me able to do mundane activities without support, 'officially' I had recovered, though I knew there were miles to go before I really recovered or made up for the incident.

But,  short pause.. ,( there is a always a but and a short pause ) before the pain reduced and recovery started, whatever hopes I had that things could only get better, were shown to be misplaced. This was done by a series of inroads the great crab made into my family, coming uninvited as it always does. With my own flesh throbbing with pain each day, I could really not accept the full physical and mental agony of those whose flesh was being bitten off daily, bit by bit. Even more difficult to deal with was the inability to extend a helping hand or leg for that matter.

My family, who had accepted the task of patiently taking care of me while dealing with my absence from key responsibilities, were dealt a double and triple blow with these culinary habits of the crustacean. Those were tough times when the days looked gloomy, but most importantly that was also a reminder for me to speed up the recovery cycles and stand up to face the new invader.

Needless to say, weakened already by physical and mental agony, the new invasion led to many sleepless nights sunk in gloomy thoughts and dealing with apprehensions. It took quite a bit of distractions by office work, physical exercises, and social visits to break out of this labyrinth. Those were one of those moments where only action can generate enough break the chains that can restrict even a mighty elephant.

Looking back, one can always paint even the smallest of struggles with glorious adverbs and comparisons to give a self satisfaction. So I might be giving myself too much credit where undeserved, but maybe some credit is due, I let such statements be.

It was in this condition that I turned my focus to the minor yet irritating affairs of the rented house in which we were living. I could easily make a list of problems like dirty water, cockroach infestation, crowded & dusty surroundings, absence of clean parking space, regular spikes in maintenance costs, arguments between residents, a case of theft etc. These are just regular matters in life in affordable rented apartments in Bangalore, and I would have let it be. But given the many problems we were facing, this was one that was under my control to address. So I jumped at the opportunity to make a difference.

So we quickly, without much preparation set up a plan to shift the house to somewhere 'ideal'. It was stressful to negotiate with the owner who didn't like the idea of a breaking of the agreement along with with neighbours who had tentatively agreed to take over for a relative, and finding the ideal home in the ideal location with 10s of filters. But I must admit, those involved planning activities with my family were rewarding distractions from the otherwise gloomy days. We really enjoyed the activity with even my parents who built networks with elderly people in the locality were able to identify lots of key properties and localities.

Needless to say, within a month, under a hectic set of negotiations, we were able to make a withdrawal with minimal losses. What awaited us was a refreshing new location and a new way of life. I was and am still thankful for the decision to move from that muck ( actual & imagined being merged here for creative purposes ) at that critical point of time.

30th May 2019

*INTERMISSION*

Diwali musings

Lying on a dusty bench on the platform, with my eyes shut, I was trying to catch a few minutes of rest. Hardly a minute would have passed, when a loud rumbling noise woke me up, and I found a column of dust settling down on me. As I struggled to cup my eyes and mouth to prevent the dust from entering in, I caught a glance of the source of interruption.

The rumble of clanging wheels and screeching brakes turned into a cacophony of human voices as the passengers milled out of a multitude of exists - doors, windows and emergency exits as well. Rubbing my eyes, partly to clear the dust and partly to clear the sleepiness, I could see black forms of people carrying an odd assortment of bags and baskets, chattering loudly. Loud enough they were for this unearthly hour, and the language too I couldn't make out. But it sounded a bit like Odiya/Bengali and I tried to read the train's plate in the dim light. I could make out Howrah in the name and assumed these were migrants, and judging from their assorted luggage, mostly labourers.

They talked with high energy, and in my sleepy state I imagined them to be relatives coming to visit their kin working in Bangalore for the Diwali festival, but I realized I could be wrong by miles. Slowly this mass of people moved on to the railway station's exits and silence descended once again on the railway station. The cold wind had driven the passengers waiting for their trains and the vagabonds to seek refuge under their warm clothes/blankets. Many fully shrouded figures lay sprawled or hunched over the otherwise deserted railway station. Some were still moving about, mostly trying to find a good spot to keep them warm.

After a few more minutes of scanning the scene, I decided to get back to my pseudo nap. Hardly an hour had passed since the announcement was made about the train's delay and there were couple more to kill. I adjusted my backpack to get the softest parts right underneath my head and closed my eyes, telling myself to take a controlled nap. I must have dozed off for 10 minutes, before the buzz and bites of the blood suckers harrowed me out of my peaceful existence.

Unable to sleep, I lie there thinking of the exams I had and felt the tiredness grow within me. Having sent my wife ahead of me, I was supposed to write my exams and catch up with her at Chennai for out first Diwali. Suddenly, feeling the strong urge to jot down after a long time, I sat there keying with typos on my phone's notepad app. The last minute preparations, tiring journey to the exam centre, and the nerve racking exam itself. All these floated past my mind in those few minutes of reflection, slowly drawing away the tiredness.

Catching the shady figures moving around from the corner of my eye, I decided to stop the jottings and catch a final session of rest hoping not to fall into deep slumber before the train finally arrived. I was glad for this solo journey, having had taken a long break from it for over a year. Like the hundreds of life forms that take refuge in the crevice of a rock or a tree, such pockets of solitude offer much to the creative life forms within your head.

Adios.

Maduraikku pogathedee..

After pacing around in the scorching heat of Madurai, I finally find myself in the temple complex of the Madurai Meenakshi Amman Kovil.

The first thing that catches my attention is the blissful ecosystem with the peepals and the neems hanging over the ever clean tiled street surrounding the  Amman Kovil. I would consider myself a criminal if I ever understated the bliss and calm around. The soothing hymns floating along keeps the air even more rhythmic.

For those with an appetite there are many options. But right now I am after the famous Jigardanda alone. Waiting for some space to be made after the heavy lunch I had at the wedding, not to forget the extra load of soft drinks and tea that I had.

The experience becomes even more blissful after couple of hours of roaming along the streets under the hot sun, carrying a sizeable bag. The heat is slowly getting on me, and sweat flows down my face but I was strolling slowly.

I had been to the Madurai Meenakshi Amman Kovil a couple of times before this, and I still had around three hours before my train back to Bangalore. Having lots of time helped me observe many things around me. The hawkers selling  a variety of colourful bangles and cosmetics passed by with their wares, and were followed by a father holding his son's hands and telling him stories while walking around the compound. I wondered how many times my father would have held my hands and took me to umpteen places telling me fake stories to prevent me from running away ;) That moment, I wished to be home, to stop roaming and sit besides him and listen to the stories that he has to tell now.

Snapping out of my emotional whirlpool after a moment, I decided to take a good look at the gopuram. I think it was the South one I visited first. After a few attempts at clicking photos, I felt like an idiot and decided to examine the art work with my eyes. Roving my eyes over the large structure made my neck pain and I decided to take in the sight at ease. So, very much unlike my usual practice to stand and walk for long hours, I decided to sit down and enjoy the marvel in front of me. Nothing else was in my mind when I was immersed in the beauty of the ancient construction. Each demon, each God, every mythical figure in it seemed to weave stories in my head as the facts about Madurai's history kept rolling into my head from some storage. I might even have had a full blown historical and artistic conversation within my head before I decided to snap out of it and tweeted the pic of the beautiful tower :)

the towering beauty

Seeing me sitting on the footsteps of a closed shop, staring at the sky, a couple of roadside palmists approached me and tried to make me take the bait by offering to predict my career, matrimonial ventures and even going as far as claiming that from my face it was clear something big was coming :) I managed to break out of their circle and walked to the next tower. On the way, I found a hand loom showroom where I decided to check out sarees for Amma and found even more beautiful ones than the ones I had bought from Pothy's a while ago. But after getting a firm scolding from Amma for overpurchasing I managed to filter only two good sarees from that shop and moved on.

I didn't find the other towers to be as imposing as the Southern one, but they were pretty good as well. I soon found myself approaching the shopping areas and bagged some Amla and also managed to down a tasty cup of Jigardanda

 before I decided that I had eaten too much and started walking in the direction of the railway station, hoping I will take a couple of hours to reach. But it so happened that the railway station was too close :(

Tired after all the walk and all the food, I dropped my bag and sat down beside the platform, tweeting and whatsapping a bit even as my phone battery threatened to die out soon. All of sudden it started raining and I had to pick up everything and move to the first platform, grumbling all the way. My eager eyes soon found a notice which read "AC waiting room. Rs.10/- per hour. Tickets available at Platform I". It was pasted outside the waiting room, and so I guessed it meant I had to take the tickets from the ticket counter and went in search of it. Phew, it was a near 10 minute tired walk to get there and after another 5 minutes in the queue, the person at the ticket counter informed me that the tickets were available at the waiting room itself. I smiled a weak smile, thanked him and trudged back.

What followed was an hour of a repacking, recharging and telling the stories to all my friends. I stayed some extra time in the AC room until the train finally arranged and I had an uneventful journey besides a fully loaded

The murukkus, paan packets, kaaracheeva packet and couple of sarees bulged my bag as I put myself to a tough sleep among the chug-chug of the railgaadi :)

sayanora

stopover..

A sweet voice beckons me to the golden plates with mounds of mouth watering delights , as I get down from my bright and warm carriage. The journey had been long and wonderful but I am tired and irritated.

I recognize the greenest and freshest treasures from our garden, and my mouth resembles the suez canal.

My mother's preparations adorn this royal feast and I start picking up one after the other, commenting on how each one tastes and occasionally ignoring a bit of imperfection.

I eat to satisfaction and dunk myself into the refreshing juices from the orchards, while eyeing the mounds of ice cream made from the ice brought in from the Himalayas.

The same Himalayas, on the peaks of which I sang a hopeful song before returning home for the feast. No mountains can keep me away from the love of a handful of rice. Or was it just the growl of the tummy? Anyway here I am, and I would have regretted if I wasn't.

As the feast ends, I eye the clock and the voice in the head starts uttering strange things. It is time to leave and my carriage has arrived. The carriage painted in bright yellow, with green stripes seems hypnotizing and the voice in the head seems more and more distant as I get into the carriage and tuck myself in, into the comfort of the warm blankets, and continue my wild quest into the lands unknown.

Sayonara and happy lazy sunday evening :)

the lil champ

Last month my elder brother got married. A lot of my cousins had come for the marriage and we had a nice time after a long time.Some of my elder cousin sisters who were married placed official invitations to me to visit their cities. I reluctantly nodded to all of them at once.

Finally the Navarathri festival was upon us and I was wondering whose requests to address first. One of my cousins in Chennai had given birth to a baby boy a year ago, and I hadn't even visited them yet. Feeling bad about that, I decided that I would spend my Navarathri weekend with her. Also, there were already comments that the boy was of the same birth star as mine, and people were talking about how he would now follow my path. This was the fourth such instance in the family and so far the cousins and nieces of the same birth star were strikingly similar in nature. So, I too was curious to see this new avatar nephew of mine, wondering how he would fit the gang...

Dream nephews

I promptly booked tickets and made it to her home on the morning of the Saturday of Navarathri. I was spoke to my brother-in-law for a while. My cousin was nowhere to be seen, as she was bathing the baby. I decided to go inside and talk to her. One seeing me, she waved to me and talked while massaging the  baby who now lie on her feet, with some smelly oil from a red bottle. She seemed to be rubbing and massaging quite strongly. I was worried seeing that and asked her whether it was safe to handle a baby so roughly.

someone was enjoying it..

To that, she replied with a wink- "This will make him strong. How do you think he will be strong like you and climb mountains and ride up the Everest?". I nearly fell for that flattery but making a late detection of mockery, made my escape to the kitchen for a bite. I kept thinking of how a small baby could take such rough handling and what she had meant. I decided she was just pulling my legs, glancing at my 2 year old 'IT' tummy. Automatically my hands took the cue and dropped the biscuit packet, which I was half way through. My legs dragged me to the guest room and I went to get refreshed.

After a bath in the cold water and a hot breakfast of 'Infinite Dosa', I washed the plates and with a burp dragged myself to the drawing room for some TV. Karan, my nephew was now all freshened up too after his rough bath and a tummy full of cerelac(or whatever it is that babies eat these days). He started following me around on his knees. I ignored him for a while, walking at a normal pace that I was sure babies couldn't keep up with.

a jolt to bolt..

But soon I found him crawling between my legs or obstructing me again and again. To play around a bit, I started moving zig-zag making him play catch up. I was sure he wouldn't make it, so I moved around slowly, calling him to me. But I was surprised to see him catch me even before I could finish calling his name. Though it was a 25 yr old adult against a 1 year old baby, I decided I should win at least a round. But he didn't let me and I was tired after a while. Frustrated, I went out for a walk and on returning, I was glad to see him asleep. I somehow spent the rest of the day without going head-on against him. "This wasn't happening!!!". The Leo in me was clearly depressed.

My brother-in-law had the night shift and left for office by evening. The action movie we decided to watch on TV was quite boring. Karan was lying next to my sister who was beginning to doze off halfway through. I noticed that Karan was awake now and was playing with some stuffed toy. My phone rang suddenly and I jumped up startled to check it. My hand must have hit something heavy and it hurt. I pulled back my hand and looked around to see what I had hit. To my horror, the heavy cupboard was tipping over and it was gonna fall straight on top of Karan, who seemed busy kicking his toy out of his cradle. I wanted to scream, to kick my sister awake, and pull Karan out of the way. But my feet seemed frozen to the floor and I couldn't feel even a squeak come out of throat. I closed my eyes and tried not to think what would happen, praying to all the Gods whose pictures hung on the wall behind me. "Why Oh Gods??"

innocence is bliss

After a second, not hearing even a sound, I opened my eyes to see that the cupboard now rested on the cradle. I found my feet were stuck no longer and ran to Karan to check whether he was OK. He seemed to be perfectly OK and in fact was overjoyed and lay there giggling. A wave of relief passed over me. I didn't notice until then that his legs were held high. My eyes followed his legs to see what he was doing and I almost had my heart in my mouth seeing what he had done. The cupboard rested on his tiny feet and he seemed to hold its weight. I was busy rubbing my eyes several times to check if I was dreaming, when he kicked it aside and it landed with a loud THUD on the ground.

Next thing I know, I was wide awake staring at the TV which had started playing some Teleshopping programs and I looked up to see my sister standing above me with a rolled newspaper in her hand. Her expressions told me all that I needed to know. But feeling the dry throat, I craned my neck to check on Karan. I was glad to find him rolling in his cradle, giggling loudly. As I got up and examined the red bottle from which my sister had taken the oil for massaging him, I couldn't help feel something uncanny.

The 'Tail' expert

This post was written as a part of the Indiblogger contest "Traditional Knowledge, Natural Growth".

for whom the wedding bell tolls

I woke up to the loud voices talking over my head. I caught glimpses of familiar faces and voices through the blanket. I must have bore it for another 10 minutes before I decided to drag myself to the kitchen, where a hot cup of filter coffee was immediately thrust into my hands and I was summarily shooed away by the ladies.

With sleepy eyes I noted that I was holding my alumni coffee mug which I never allowed anyone to use. I wanted to protest, but realized that more and more coffee mugs in the cupboard were already being handed out.

Walking to the porch, I was greeted by many friendly faces. The sun was just coming up and the sky was turning light grey as it was already drizzling. I am not a coffee guy, but I had a strange satisfaction gulping the hot brown drink and cupping my palms around the hot cup for some warmth. I wonder how long I sat there lost in my own thoughts.

I recalled the faint memories I have about the events that unfolded nearly 20 years back, but mostly relying on narrations of the saga. It was the occasion of our eldest cousin's wedding. I remember only the white jasmines and the orange marigolds lying in a heap, and I was probably standing beside it staring at the crowd.That was the first act of fame that elevated us to our notoriety that lasted for a good 15 years to follow. I was a toddler and still was held accomplice to the systematic dismantling of the fully decorated 'mantapam'. It was fully orchestrated by my brother and cousin who owing to the same age, were close buddies and schemers. I usually was either a liability, or a tool for them. And this was the first in the series of various exploits through which I even earned individual notoriety :-)

And I can imagine now the number of guests who would have come from the farthest ends of our rather wide spread family network. It now made sense to me  how even after more than a decade, some relative
whom I wouldn't have ever met would mention us and our exploits and guffaw loudly, much to my chagrin.
If present on the spot, my brother would slyly pass the buck onto me stating my naivety as the cause of all disasters. I had to use my standard grin to escape from danger at such situations.

I was awaken from my thoughts by the voice of my father, calling for me. I laughed off these memories and grabbed the car keys and walked to the porch. Even with  more than a month's heads up, I couldn't believe that my rascal brother was getting married and soon to take the title of a responsible and mature husband. The thought itself made me chuckle. I could still count the scars of the many battles we fought side-by-side and against each other for God-knows-what reasons.

There would be lot of fun as it is the first marriage after a long time in the family and a lot of cousins would come flowing in. But no gangs in the current generation would even come close to the notorious ones that me and my brother controlled. Every family that invited our parents to marriages used to make sure that we were happily fed and taken care, to avoid any untoward incidents. I kind of missed all that attention and felt bad that my brother won't get a fitting turmoil for his wedding.  I had made many attempts in the recent days to unite the cousins for trouble, but my sly brother, seeing red had broken up the 'mutiny' with grace. But that also meant that the fame of our gang would last quite long.

I watched the sky turn dark grey and waited until the huge drops started bombarding the windshield, before I put the foot on the gas. A bit of rain should only cheer up the old war horse probably lost in dreams and staring through the window of a jet approaching Kochi...