My approach to life appears to be to make lemonade out of every lemon life throws at me. I have remarked about this in different ways over here in the past 2-3 years. Mind you, it's not an approach I am a fan of. I do it kicking and screaming literally. I would rather God gave me grapes or honey or something instead of leaving me with the onerous task of squeezing and squeezing till my arms hurt. My first response to a lemon is the refrain you are probably now familiar with, why God? Why me? ;)

But I suppose this constant position of being handed lemons has helped in 1. making me already prepared for the task, 2. developing strategic skills for the task. Every time I am in any situation I am interested in minimizing my energy spend. Because I have little energy for physical activities or activities/people who don't interest me. Obviously, I want to reserve the most for things/people that do. With the lemon squeezing situation, which for that reason too is inherently harder for me, I try to look at how to make myself spend less and less energy at every successive such situation. I suppose that's how I end up maximizing the lemons... if you know what I mean!

I wish

I could go back

To those days

Somewhere in the past

Relive those moments

Do them over

Experience them

All over again

If I had one wish

I would ask Him

The powerful one

Can you turn back the clock?

Just once?

And don't erase

My knowledge

Because if I knew then

What I know now

I would be

So much the better

I would make

Every moment count

I would, I swear

Stop complaining

Every damn time

Even when

They were kind

So kind

I would be

Better, gooder, nicer

Gentler, mellower

Not my

Fiery self

Spitting arguments

All the time

Like now

Like I try to be now

While my heart bursts

Because it hurts

To know

There's so little

Precious little

Time...

~Me

It's amusing and irritating when some people try to play a one-up game with me. I am not really into taking them on. I don't mean 'take on' as in put them down or anything. It's just that their game does not interest me nor is it something I aspire to win. It's a bit like them showing off they are going to be the CEO of Fluff and Vapid Co. when all I want to do is write poems at Books Ltd. It's fun to watch them preen at me as if I envy them their CEOship at the Fluff and Vapid. They will never understand my passion for writing poems as much as I will never understand their jubilation at their empty title. I don't expect them to 'get it' but the problem is when they expect me to bow to their (apparently) elevated status. That is what really riles them because I don't. They can't imagine why I am not enamoured by their power and why I don't grovel to gain their influence. It's no use pointing out that status does not impress me if it does not come with depth, dignity, intellect, excellence, or anything of intrinsic merit. Even a donkey can be given a crown (no offence to donkeys). Maybe it is knowing that they don't possess any internal remarkable qualities that triggers their insecurities and makes them clutch even more tightly at fancy titles. When people don’t recognize these, they must be forced to wonder if they appear as undazzling without as they are within!

There are days when just existing feels so hard. I don't want to write on such days because it could seem very morbid. It is morbid. Existence is morbid for anyone who thinks very deeply. The cure then is perhaps to numb thinking or not give yourself any time to think. If you think about it, everything ordinary people do takes them away from the trauma of thinking. Work, entertainment, food, sleep, play, social media... you name it. It's all to occupy one's mind with something, anything, but to not let it be empty. The chap who said an empty mind is the devil's workshop was onto something. Let your mind not be attached to any activity and next thing you know you are pondering on existence. And that my friend takes you to morbid territory. It hits you like a train head-on. What's the point of all of the stuff you are doing to get yourself out of thinking, it will ask. Nothing lasts. No one lasts. They are all speeding away really, bit by bit. You are speeding away too. Just the rate of speed differs so some are moving farther away and some are catching up with you. Imagine us all sitting in different buses looking out at each other. It might seem like we are in the same bus if we are sharing the journey for a bit or a while. But then suddenly their bus is zooming away. You are lucky if you get to wave out or call out. But whoosh, gone. Morbid, right? It's one of those days where I feel like holding tightly to some people so they don't just leave me staring into the distance. Tomorrow I will likely pop out of this mode and decide to revel in the journey again, albeit tentatively. It's a decision one has to make to survive the day to day... if one is the thinking sort.

I tend to hold people very lightly these days. I used to hold them very tightly when I was younger but now it's very light. It's as if a part of me is unconsciously waiting for them to let me down. When it happens, I am prepared. Water down a duck's back. Doesn't matter because I was always seeing it coming. So it can't hurt me. I saw it coming. When you are a person who hurts very deeply, you have to protect yourself. People are very fickle, here today and gone tomorrow, say this today and something else tomorrow, they'll ask you to be yourself today and take offence tomorrow. They won't see all the little actions you do, efforts you make, loyalties you show. I don't even expect them to anymore. Maybe someday they will surprise me. But I don't hold my breath. Maybe they won't and that's okay. Because I hold people so lightly now, letting go comes easy. I anticipated the moment and sort of taught myself to live like it would come soon. Because it's a rare thing really. For people to stick around, measure up, take the bad days and good days, see where you are coming from. Probably a lot of hard work. I don't blame them. But you know what. They don't get the hard work from me either. That they have to earn. Otherwise, it's water down a duck's back. Easy come, easy go.

Recently I read this story of a Chinese farmer:

Once there was a Chinese farmer who worked his poor farm together with his son and their horse. When the horse ran off one day, neighbors came to say, “How unfortunate for you!” The farmer replied, “Maybe yes, maybe no.”

When the horse returned, followed by a herd of wild horses, the neighbors gathered around and exclaimed, “What good luck for you!” The farmer stayed calm and replied, “Maybe yes, maybe no.”

While trying to tame one of wild horses, the farmer’s son fell, and broke his leg. He had to rest up and couldn’t help with the farm chores. “How sad for you,” the neighbors cried. “Maybe yes, maybe no,” said the farmer.

Shortly thereafter, a neighboring army threatened the farmer’s village. All the young men in the village were drafted to fight the invaders. Many died. But the farmer’s son had been left out of the fighting because of his broken leg. People said to the farmer, “What a good thing your son couldn’t fight!” “Maybe yes, maybe no,” was all the farmer said.

I have a tendency to jump to the worst conclusions when any event occurs. Oh no, why this! Why now! Why me! That’s my reaction. But when I think about it a bit after my initial disappointment, I realize that the event was actually not so bad and might even lead to something much better. In other words, what I thought was a curse was actually a blessing in disguise! There is something for me to learn from this story of the farmer. What seems good might actually not be so good and what seems bad at first sight, might actually not be so terrible. I suppose then one must cultivate a bit of a stoic cum open-minded attitude? Or hope that even in what looks bad one might be able to find hidden opportunities? Maybe one must look at every event as a door that could lead in many directions rather than a dead end or the end of the story. The story continues… until the end… and we in many ways have the power to shape its trajectory until we can’t no more.

I had a very eventful day the day before.

It started off very well with a kind lady offering me a lift to the campus on a DiDi (Chinese Uber). In Hindi we say 'naeki aur puch puch', meaning if you are doing a good deed, why ask! And not being an enthusiastic walker myself, it is like giving water to a thirsty man in a desert, I guess! Hehe! So, I happily arrive and go to my lecture room with a chirpier air because I wasn't dampened by a walk and sweat. Soon after I get there and start to settle in, I realise that my watch is missing. Normally I might have thought that I have forgotten whether I wore it or not but, on this day, I specifically remembered wearing the watch. I wondered if it came off when I got out of the car. I wished I had walked because then there was hope of retracing my steps and finding it. All I could think of--though I knew I should really be thinking about my lecture due to start in half an hour--was the history of the watch. I remembered the exact day I bought it 10 years ago. It was the most expensive watch I have ever bought though not expensive for a watch by objective standards. I thought about how beautiful it still was though it had been so many years. I yearned to have it back. I looked everywhere in the hope it was right there somewhere. You might wonder why such nostalgia and emotion for a watch... I could easily buy a new one and a more expensive one too. I suppose I develop a very deep attachment to things that I have had over a long period of time, and in a way I have them by my side for so long because I am attached to them. It's not about the money or not finding a new one. I started and finished my lecture with a very heavy heart. I had another lecture in an hour, and it was starting to get a bit cold. As I was getting my shawl from the back of the chair where I had placed it, lo and behold, there lay my watch under the chair! I was so jubilant to find it! It was almost a miracle to me. I found it hard to focus on my next lecture now because I couldn't help but think about how we realize the value of things only when they are gone... not that I did not realize its value but it was one of those things that I was using every day without ever reflecting about its significance to me. And suddenly in the space of two hours I couldn't think of anything else...

In the afternoon as I was starting to walk back home with my music on as usual, it turns out that one of my earphones for my iPod had suddenly stopped working. It was perfectly fine the day before and suddenly out of the blue, it was dead! I thought I could order one from Taobao but the quality of products can be quite tricky, so I decided to check with my Admin if they had one lying around for staff use. I couldn't believe how helpful they were because though they didn't have it, they said they'd order it and I should have it soon. Again, I thought about the history of my iPod... It was 14 years since I had purchased it, a time when there was no Bluetooth or any of that jazz. When they asked me if I wanted Bluetooth, I had to actually explain I wanted something really basic! I remembered the really long journey I have had with this iPod... how it has made my life and more so walks so enjoyable! It has all the music I need, and I cannot think of parting with it. But as I was thinking these thoughts, I also thought about how the same sort of thoughts had run through my head just that morning. And this incident too involved a thing and a helpful person though in a different sequence...

It seemed like an odd turn of events to happen on the same day, but I didn't know yet there was one more turn to come. I intended to collect some of my items from the Taobao collection point near my house. This is a bit like the Amazon collection points though here it looks more like a busy post-office with loads of packages and 3-4 people helping to run the shop. I assume these people might be a family because I see a middle-aged man, middled-aged lady, a teenager, and a small boy hanging around usually. They look at the collection number on our phones, help search for the item in the whole shop the arrangement of which completely beats me, scan the item which registers the collection in my phone immediately, etc. They probably help me more because I can't make any sense of a lot of it whereas many others seem to magically find what they want, scan their thing, and go their way. When I got there the place was empty. I had quite a few things to collect. As I was waiting for my things inside the shop, a longer queue was forming outside, and I noticed one of my students come in! I was a bit embarrassed to see my student in this place but he was standing right in front of me so there was no choice but to greet him. We started making some pleasantries in English. People in the queue meanwhile are fascinated to see two people, one a foreigner, talking in English! It's not very common in this small little town. To my utter embarrassment, the shop folks are unable to find one of my items and start communicating with my student in Chinese to get him to explain to me the situation! Had he not been there I would have used my translator app to communicate but these folks saw us talking in English and decided to communicate with him about my stuff! The missing item was a pair of shoes and though they were saying I might have collected them earlier, I knew I hadn't. Some back-and-forth dialogue ensues with my student acting as translator. The icing on the cake was when he saw I was slightly anxious, and said reassuringly, 'We will sort this together!' I was quite touched really, though also inwardly dying of embarrassment about inadvertently embroiling him in this situation! At one point he said that this must be an unpleasant experience for me. I had to say it would be an interesting one once they find my shoes! hehe! Which they did in a while. So, there I had my third epiphany of the day... something going wrong with a product, some helpful person in the mix!

Made me wonder what the design was behind this day ;)

I have been mulling over the way people see loyalty. For some people being loyal to someone or something (country, for example) is about seeing it as perfect. They either do not see imperfections or they don't admit it to themselves or confront it in any way. For such people the concept of being critical of someone they are loyal to is alien. For me personally, criticism is not spared for people I love or admire; I do not have to see them as perfect. I will critique them upfront, not behind their backs. In a way I have weighed in on their imperfections and in spite of all of it, I feel loyal to them. I do not admire them or feel loyalty because they are perfect; it is because in spite of their imperfections they are still exemplary in my eyes. They are still worth admiring, looking up to, being loyal to.

It seems to me that people of the former type will find it hard to understand or will misunderstand my propensity for critiquing people whom I admire because they might assume that my critiques mean I do not really hold them in high regard. That is not true at all though. To me admiring someone in spite of their imperfections is a truer measure of admiration as opposed to admiring someone whom I imagine to be all perfect. I would think that when people create an imaginary perfect version of a person and admire it, their admiration or loyalty is contingent on the continuation of a myth. It's fragile in that sense. In my case admiration and loyalty is rarely given because it does follow from seeing someone/thing for what it really is, and few things will pass the check point. But once they pass, their position is more or less intact.

A Hindi metaphor comes to mind. They say "chaand mein bhi daag hote hain", which means that even the beautiful moon has spots on it. I would think that someone who loves the moon because they assume it to be flawless does not really love the moon... someone who loves the moon in spite of its minor flaws genuinely does...

They say love can cross language barriers. I don’t know about love but you know what else can cross language barriers? Shopping. Yes! I have on this day been initiated into the world of ‘Taobao’. It was quite a feat to get entry I should say, I mean enter into using it. Firstly I needed an Alipay account. Which is another story, and which is why it has taken me awhile to get here. Taobao is a Chinese site with no English language option but when you open the browser on your PC in Google Chrome, you can use the built-in Translate feature. It translates the site into English but not perfectly obviously. It is a bit funny to find the word ‘baby’ all over the site for ‘product’. More funny that I am now thinking of buying this baby or that baby… hehe. Then it happens that certain things like tracking your package and so on works better on the phone app. But there is no way to get the app to translate into English. The app itself seems to be much better designed and configured to browse products – or babies! – but you have to make sense of it in Chinese. It’s not that hard to figure out  that you are looking at a purse or a dress or a bag of course… and even the women demo’ing some of this stuff in Chinese can be understood to an extent if you watch their posing and gesturing. That’s what I mean. Not having a word of Chinese has not stopped me from making it into Taobao. I managed to buy a few things today with the help of a Chinese colleague in this first instance. I couldn’t help telling him that I can see myself getting progressively poorer, now that I am onto this ;)

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

~ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

I feel a bit of a sombre mood on me. As if a dark cloud is slowly gathering over the world… everything is getting swept under it. If I look around me or if I look farther afield it’s as if we are just cautiously taking it one day at a time, trying not to topple the apple cart but also aware that the cart is balanced quite precariously. And it’s only a matter of time. I wish things were different, everyone was happy, everyone was healthy, we were all going to work chirpily and looking forward to the impending holidays, just a lot of fun and food and then back to doing things we enjoyed,… wish it was that kind of world, if you know what I mean. But instead, it feels like we do not know what tomorrow will bring and all we have is today. That too in short stock. I have never been much of a today person and maybe that’s why it affects me more. I look at the past and I look into the future. If I had to put my finger on when the world’s mood changed and things started going downhill, I would probably say Covid… it’s as if after Covid nothing’s really been going right. Nothing’s quite the same. But as Tolkein said, maybe there is no use wishing all this hadn’t happened and things could go back to how they were and take a better turn from there. Things could go back to that point and follow a different route altogether. No point wishing… All we can do is make the best use of what is in front of us. I don’t know what that is in my present mood. Maybe it will come…

There is an uncle I see as I walk back from the campus to my temporary apartment (where I am based now in China). I say ‘uncle’ because though he might not be tremendously old (given that I am not all that young now!), he kind of gives me the vibe I have associated with ‘uncles’ growing up. His job seems to be to sweep the long paved footpath on my way where loads of leaves fall, sometimes rain, sometimes snow. Depending on what time of the day I am walking back, I see him a little bit earlier on the path or a little further down. What I found really striking about this uncle and perhaps why I thought of him as ‘uncle’, is that he always stops his sweeping when he notices me and gives me a very wide smile. He seems to gesture something with his expression which I assume is a greeting. This is quite out of the ordinary for me because the Chinese as a rule seem to have very static expressions for passers-by. I have passed many people on my way but he is the only one who actually smiles and that too so widely and warmly. Sometimes if I interact with a person a bit like a shopkeeper they may smile but it doesn’t seem to be something they do with strangers on the street. I thought it was quite nice to be smiled at like that especially after a workday. This happened a few times. Yesterday I left work a bit late. The thought came to me as I was walking back that I must have missed uncle. And lo and behold, as I was taking a turn on the street, he was there sitting in the driver’s seat of what resembles a rickshaw in India (or tuk-tuk in some other places). Over here people from lower-income backgrounds (farmers, small shop owners etc.) seem to be using this mode of transport for carting goods around. They are not available for transport to regular people as they are in India (sadly!). So as I was passing by, uncle gestured to me to sit in his rickshaw – I assume to drop me wherever I was going. That’s what the gesture looked like to me as he pointed to the passenger seat with his customary smile. Now, having grown up in Mumbai, and even otherwise being a very cautious person by nature, I am just not someone who spontaneously gets into a stranger’s vehicle. I did not doubt he is a good and kind person but somehow I did not feel it would be appropriate. Not to mention the fact that there was a language barrier. I later reflected that the way I found it quite charming to be greeted by a Chinese person in this way every other day, who knows he might have found it quite refreshing to be greeted too… by a foreign looking person? Anyway, I just waved my hand to him as a thank you gesture as well as a gesture that I am happy walking…

Against all this backdrop, I had been meaning to ask uncle if I could take a photo of him. Reason being I thought it would be a nice moment to capture on my trip and I could share it on my FB as an everyday moment too. But something about doing this made me uneasy. I couldn’t put a finger on it. And today I read something that gave me clarity about my discomfort. It was about how we tend to take pictures or videos of people around us these days and post them to the wider public without either taking their permission to do so or even if we do, they probably do not understand the ramifications in terms of how large an audience it was going to. Such pictures could always travel more widely once they are put out. And also, there are some people, people like us, whom we would be sensitive to about what pictures we take, where we post them etc., but with people like this uncle, it was almost like I was treating him like a token rather than a person…? Was I doing that? Why did I think it was okay to do that? And I assume it would be the same if it was say a rickshaw-walla or a flower vendor in India? I mean, in my defense, I would probably be capturing these pics to show a slice of life or a flavour of a place and not because I did not care about them as humans. But it still kind of makes me feel that there is an element of disrespect in that, if I do it without their full understanding or consent of what I am doing. After thinking through all this I do not feel it is right to take a pic of uncle. Perhaps my memories will have to serve… and of course this post :)

A roof over my head

Food in my belly

Books to read

Things to write

Music to listen

Warm bed to lay down

Pleasant walks

Clothes to indulge

My love of taste

Loving souls and brilliant minds

Sweet and kind presences

Surround me

All seems more

Much more

Than I could ask...

When I count my blessings

It would be foolish

To sigh

For the few missing things

I might have really liked

I started from little

Almost nothing

And have so much

More than I

Could have ever dreamt of...

My lesson is to cherish

The little and big things

That make life

Worth living

If there is more to come

I shall meet it gladly

If not

I have enough

With the hand

Fate dealt me

I have come a long way

Oh how long...

To become who I am

And still becoming

I must always remember

I am

Enough

More than

Enough...

~Me

Some time ago I was in a group situation with 5-6 other people where we all had to do a certain activity for the purpose of a discussion. Initially when 1-2 people did not do the activity, I brought it up. I felt that it did not allow us to have a meaningful discussion. I did not like having to bring it up because obviously no one likes to be ‘that guy’ but none of the others seemed to care to raise it. I am very deeply moved by questions of fairness and justice, and one of the things that motivated me to bring it up is the question of why anyone should do the activity if it’s okay for 1-2 people to not do it and get away with it? Those 1-2 people muttered some reasons for not being able to do the activity, but then again, what about the rest of us who struggled to stay up late or worked over the weekends to do it…? I just brought it up and didn’t push the matter further when they generally muttered some reasons. I thought it would discourage them from short-cutting in the future. But after a gap of few weeks, it turns out that the same 1-2 people were back at it. I actually like one of them, but it doesn’t make this irresponsible attitude any less annoying to me. This time, however, I reflected about my own feelings and stance towards all this and decided that I am going to keep quiet.

It’s not just because I don’t want to be the bad guy—though part of my reflection is about how the people who are more responsible paradoxically get the blame for being the bad guy. Sometimes I feel that if God had made me more happy-go-lucky, more laidback, more lax, more relaxed, more indisciplined, more irresponsible, less intellectually rigorous… that would have made me a more ‘popular’ person. Such a person is given a lot of leeway, a lot of benefit of doubt, a lot of rope, a lot of consideration… but funnily, if you are responsible, disciplined, committed, care about what you do, go the distance, you will be measured against a stricter standard! Or even a different invisible standard! Increasingly I feel like I cannot fight with the way of this world. And what am I to gain by fighting against it…? I lose a lot of energy, I lose a lot of emotion… and I lose my own motivation. I even start questioning if I am a good person?! Which seems like the height of the irony to me really! That people who are actually conscientious and push themselves to keep commitments have to feel this way… I mean, it would be something if people at least appreciated you for it. It would seem worth all the trouble for at least that reason. But without it, it just sometimes seems like a world I’d rather not have anything to do with… but that’s not possible so I have to find a way that works for me, that does not take too much energy out of me, too much emotion out of me, too much of my spirit out of me. If someone were to meet me where I am, I will care… But otherwise, I will let go…

When I met with the group this time, I did not bring up the fact that others hadn’t done the activity. Not surprisingly, more people hadn’t done it this time round. I did my thing and that’s what mattered to me. I had learnt something in the process of that and I had learnt something in reflecting from that. I had earned something, and I decided to focus only on that. I had also earned peace this way. And there’s a lot to be said for that…