My younger self believed that you could change people's minds with logical arguments. With age and wisdom, I do not believe this to be true anymore. There are of course people who can be rationally convinced to change their minds. You can see it happening in real time. Because I see it so rarely, I find it a bit unbelievable when it happens. It's a bit like when a person can't see and you switch on the lights. They can see now. It makes you happy too. But there is the other situation where the person is blind. No amount of turning on the lights or increasing the glare is going to help. They will not see because they lack vision. It's got nothing to do with light.

In a way I have become a lot more resigned towards the latter group of people. I don't make it my responsibility to convince people of anything anymore. I feel a lot lighter. I also hold the possibility of being wrong myself a bit more consciously. It's one thing to be wrong but at least I am not converting anybody. I want to be proved wrong if I am­­—with logic and evidence of course. A few people who know me sometimes tell me "jokingly" that I always seem to be right. But if I ask them to show me how I am wrong, in what instance, in what way, etc, they backtrack. They are not the ones who can turn on the light for me and they know it.

I make a distinction between those who are self-aware about their limited vision and those who lack even that reflexive capacity. With the self-aware there is an openness to the fact that they might not really be able to see quite that far though they are trying. It's like the blind man who goes to the doctor to check their sight and get help. They want to overcome the limitation. Their honesty inclines me to make an effort with them. The non-self-aware are smug in their ignorance because they do not even have the reflexive capacity to diagnose it as such. They can't be helped because they do not believe they need it. The conclusion I have come to is that it's best to leave them to their devices. The consequences are bound to catch up eventually. Whether they are able to recognize them for what they are, your guess is as good as mine.

"I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb and I also know I'm not blonde." ~ Dolly Parton

I love Dolly Parton. I love that I share my birthday with her. I do not know much about country music and mostly only familiar with the hugely popular 'Jolene' and 'I will always you'... but what I love is less the music and more the person. I have watched many of her interviews because it's hard not to listen when she's talking. The thing that strikes me most is her mix of wit and vulnerability, her openness, her honesty, her ability to not take herself too seriously, her humility, her intelligence which people do not seem to expect from the way she presents herself... in every interview where she's asked about her appearance, her wigs, her makeup, getup etc, it's clear that she sees them simply as her artistic tools, the things she has fun playing with... in one interview she admits she might even look 'ridiculous'... said in an honest self-deprecating, self-aware, and self-assured way... someone who knows exactly who she is and who is real under all the glam... it's almost as if other people do not know how to reconcile the image and reality, because they are too lost in the surface, but one can tell that Dolly isn't. There's another interview about her being asked if the Whitney Houston version of her own song 'I will always love you' is a better rendition. And she doesn't even blink before saying it of course is: Whitney took it to another level. That's so disarming of her! Though she cannot resist the witty: 'she can take the credit, I am taking the cash'! Love it! It's inspiring to hear her talk about her childhood in the back of beyond, growing up poor, 12 siblings, religious upbringing,... It's as if through all that fame and success, she kept in touch with the core of her... protected her talent and her values in the thick of the world. Chose to be herself right till the end. They don't make 'em like her anymore.

When you are very young, you can take your life in so many different directions. Of course, only if you are born into privilege or even relative comfort. If, like me, you are not, your possibilities are much more limited. Not everyone gets the same starting point. But you still have an important resource, time, even if you don't have an even more important one, money. You can couple it with hope, ambition, dreams, determination, grit... and so on. As time passes, the paths available to you become smaller and smaller. You have either achieved some of what you wanted or you haven't, depending on what is even possible with your meagre resources. At some point in time you know you cannot study to become a doctor or an astronaut even if you finally could afford to, though that's not to say that someone who is terribly determined and passionate cannot do it. There are stories of prisoners studying law and all that.  I am not referring to the exceptional but the mundane way in which possibilities reduce over time. Your body for instance makes some things impossible. I know I cannot start to learn swimming to compete at some global level at this point. Instead of looking ahead at the vast expanse of possible paths you can take, there comes a point I guess where you look back at the paths you already took. Take stock of where you have come and what paths you had to leave behind unexplored. Every path you took closed all the other paths at every turn until you arrived at where you are. You still have paths available in front of you now, but they are much more circumscribed and going back to take a different route is much more costly even if possible. The question maybe arises whether you have travelled well so far? What does it mean to travel well? And what is it that you want to do in the remaining part of your life to answer this question positively? 

Those are some questions that pop in my head off and on. I have to admit, in spite of the maybe slightly pessimistic tone of this post, that I feel incredibly proud of myself :) Given the very limited paths open before me even when I just about started in life, it seems a bit amazing to me that I finally find myself at a spot that was not even in my broadest horizons then. I also feel proud of myself to have taken the turn I took almost 10 years ago around this very time. It required me to go back and start over, and the cost was indeed too high. Some of it I continue to pay. But I am glad I did... It sort of reminds me as my favourite quote by Rumi goes: "As you start to walk on the way, the way appears..." 

It’s that time of the year again. Almost time to travel. For the past few years, I feel like my year is not divided into seasons like it is for everybody else. It is divided into before travel, during travel, and after travel. Each of these seasons have their own texture and mood, mental state and feeling state. The current season, the preparing to travel or before travel, always feels like I have said in one of my older posts, the last episode of a season in a show. Where a lot of loose threads are tied up, unravelled, or left open. There is a sense of urgency in this episode, as if I need to get so many things done and time is running out. I don’t think it’s just my subjective feeling. Last year at this time I had to close my house purchase, and it almost didn’t happen before it happened. Right until the month of travel, I did not know if I was going to shift into my own home. There were a few other difficult developments in parallel too. Now, again, I am juggling multiple balls. Some as practically significant as last year. Put together they make me wonder whether this season is going to end in disaster, a cliffhanger, or with some decent resolutions. The political situation in the middle east is still pretty shaky and that means I might not even be able to travel my normal route or visit Dubai on the way back…

Over the last few months, every time I had a problem, I noticed that the problem paradoxically led me to something good, if that makes sense? Let me give an example. When I came back from my travels this time, as I wrote in one of my blogs, the painter who had promised to do the painting for my house kept stalling me for weeks on end and finally literally ghosted me. This was a big problem at the time because I was living in a makeshift type of house with zero furniture. The painting was meant to be the first step. I went back to another painter I had made brief contact with earlier. This painter turned out to be an angel. I am not exaggerating! He not only painted the house but went out of the way in so many ways to do stuff like hang my new curtains. Had I not met with an obstacle, I wouldn’t have found a path that was so much the better in so many ways. That is just one example, but I have been observing this pattern quite a bit. The more I have noticed it, the more I have started to feel a bit less anxious when something like a problem comes up. I have started to think that maybe it will pave the path to something good eventually.

My phone situation to some extent has been sorted only today. I say ‘some extent’ because I am not sure if this is the end. Will my phone work perfectly with a new battery? I am not sure… Should I get a backup phone because the idea of having no backup for something so important when I have backups of backups even for the most random things is a bit… uncomfortable. Still debating. The repair shop said they are giving me a 6-month guarantee. I asked if they’ll give me some document for that or I should keep the receipt safely. His response was it’s okay if you don’t have the receipt: ‘Everyone here will know you…’ Oops! ;)

What is it that makes us feel 'seen'? I don't know how to describe this feeling. Maybe I can describe the opposite first? I remember being in a room with a few people in it. There was somebody leading this room. This was during Covid and the room was an online one. The leader asked literally everybody in the room questions about how they were doing, what was going on with them, etc etc. I don't really care for this sort of small talk because it seems to me nobody is really expecting an honest answer and I cannot do performative answers. But since this was going on I was expecting to be asked too. It never came. I felt small, invisible... like I wasn't even there. Like for some reason I was deemed unworthy of being checked in with. I did not want to go to that online event after that session. But I wondered if it was just a one-off thing. Sometimes it could be that people simply don't realise they missed you in a sequence, particularly online. So I went again. And same thing. Again, and same thing. The funny thing is I started questioning myself as if I was to blame for my own non-recognition in some way. The funnier thing is that I grew quieter and quieter in these sessions until I was completely mute. I might have almost not been there. Something in me got smaller and smaller and smaller each time. The more the leader who basically did most of the talking and addressing acted like I was invisible, the more I started feeling and becoming invisible. I internalised the invisibility. I felt like nobody saw me. I was a phantom intruding where I wasn't welcome. My invisibility overpowered me... I remember pondering quite hard why that person acted this way towards me and I have a feeling it's not that they were deliberately targeting me—they didn't even know me. It's that for whatever reason they just did not notice my presence... I stopped going for those sessions after that. 

Coming from the other side then, to make somebody feel seen would be to do the exact opposite of what this person did. The effect is also exactly the opposite on me. Where you feel noticed, not as a nameless, faceless, random figure who could be interchanged with anybody else, but as you... they see you, recognize you, respond to you, are affected by you in some way...  you are present to them, your voice matters to them, how they make you feel matters to them. I am very fortunate to have been made to feel this... by some very wonderful people.

There's this Hindi movie Sadma that I remember watching as a child - maybe 5 or 6 years old. I know the story vaguely, but what I recollect most vividly is the last scene. I remember crying copiously as I watched through tears. I do not know why I had such a high emotional reaction to this grown-up movie at that tender age… but I have had this deeply emotional core ever since I can remember…

The story in broad strokes is that a young woman meets with a car accident and is taken to hospital. She loses her adult memory and mentally regresses to a small child. She is kidnapped from there but finally rescued by this small-town guy who takes her to his own village because she doesn't know who she is or where she used to live. He takes care of her and starts falling in love with her. Some time passes by and he takes her to a person who can cure her. Meanwhile her parents have been searching, putting ads in papers, and they get a whiff of her whereabouts. They manage to get to the place where she is being treated and at that point she has recovered her memory too. They happily set off with their daughter to go home. The small-town guy frantically follows them to the train station, falling in ditches and injuring himself in the torrential rain (dramatic Hindi movies!). This is the last scene. As the train is just preparing to leave, this guy tries to attract the girl's attention from among the crowd. He is badly bruised, battered, covered in mud. He makes strange expressions that she used to find amusing when she was this child-like person. But now as her former rich haughty city-bred self, is put off by the dirty man and his random facial gestures. I must have felt like crying because I was so sorry for him... seeing how he cared for her when she had no one, and now, she was looking at him as if he was a pathetic weirdo. The train then starts leaving and he runs behind it limping. He continues to make funny faces at her still hoping she'd recognize them, keeps calling out her name which isn't even her name, which makes her think he must surely be mad. The saddest part is when she whispers to her mom next to her that he must be a madman and throws something at him to eat. The train goes by just as the guy hits hard against a pillar...

Such deep emotion met by complete indifference was just too much for my little heart to bear, I guess. And funnily it is so even for my big one now. In so many ways I haven't changed at all...

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Watch this really lovely song from the movie featuring the main characters (where she's playing the childish self). I believe it's partly the music that gives this movie its exceptional emotional charge.

My saga of things going wrong one after another continues. My phone cover for example suddenly seemed to want to shed my phone. Not a big deal. But when I tried putting on a new cover, I realised it wasn't the cover... it was my phone :( It looks like the battery has started swelling up. I have been back and forth with a repair shop and yet to get it properly fixed. My phone, as perhaps anyone's in today times, is just too precious for me. I can't even begin to tell half the things I use my phone for and therefore detest the very idea of it dying or having to get a new one. The possibility of anything going wrong close to when I have a whole oceanload of travel to do for months is enough to trigger my famous anxiety... Well, let's see what happens. Every time I visit the repair shop, I feel like I am going to the dentist. When they say they still haven't got hold of the new battery, it's a bit like the dentist postponing an appointment. Happy for the moment but annoyed it's not over yet.

This episode with the phone and some other products/services which could potentially require me to come up with unexpected amounts of cash led me to realise something profound about how very differently life might be experienced by those who can spontaneously come up with extra money vs. those who can't. Growing up I remember many occasions when every time money was needed for some unanticipated thing or for some exigency or urgency or to fix something, it used to be a mini catastrophe. It made life feel inherently very difficult, even as a child, as if at every turn we might be ambushed by something out of our control. One got used to treading very carefully, though it had nothing to do with our tread. We did not know what could be the next thing that would pull the rug from under our feet.

I suppose I have finally been experiencing what it's like when you do not need to worry too much about any situation that can be solved with money. Phone broke? No problem. Fix it or change it. A certain problem can be solved quicker by paying xyz extra? No problem, let's get it quick. Need this and that to save energy and time for other things? Get them, no second thoughts. You see how different life can feel?! In my case it's an odd feeling because I am not used to feeling this 'easiness', for want of a better word. I almost find it suspicious. It must be harder than this surely? Am I missing something, is it just around the corner? And then I think, is this how a lot of people (of course not the majority) experience life from the day they are born? This easy movement? This plain sailing? Unlike me, they do not find anything strange or suspicious about it. It's just how it's supposed to be for them... Interesting lines of thought that I might come back to later!

I have been having one of those 'if something can go wrong, it will, and if it cannot, it still will' week or so. There must be a mercury retrograde or some such thing hovering in my chart. I will present an Exhibit A, and you decide.

I was expecting to receive my passport back after a visa stamp on Thursday morning, via tracked Royal Mail delivery. Around the expected time, I got a buzz on my intercom. The muffled voice seemed to be that of the delivery person. I couldn't hear much of what they said but just pressed the button to let them in. After a few minutes, no one knocked my door. I started wondering if they expected me to collect the parcel downstairs. I wasn't sure of protocol for this signed document because my normal parcels are all left in the common area or personal mailbox downstairs to collect at my convenience. I was just about to leave my flat when I get a mail that the parcel was delivered. I half-panicked but then thought it might have been placed in the mailbox? It seemed a bit odd, but went to check the mailbox. The second I realised it wasn't there I was in a full-blown panic! I started wondering if he's on his way to my flat while I am here. So I run back towards my flat and there's no one, no sign of deliverer anywhere, no sign of package anywhere. Imagine my state of mind for the kind of person I am! I went through a million scenarios of all the stupid trouble I would be in if I did not find my passport! I emailed the agency who'd posted it to me to catch hold of Royal Mail and figure out what happened. That's when I noticed my delivery mail said there was a signature proof of delivery! I was mind-boggled and opened the link. Not only was there a signature (not mine), there was a pic of someone from waist down (not me) taking the package! That person looked like a woman wearing red capris. I had lost my wits at this point, but I couldn't fathom why somebody would sign for my package? Was it a cleaner who was going to give it to me? Very unlikely. In any case something told me the clue must be somewhere downstairs, so I go back down again. I start frantically writing a mail to the property management folks to circulate a mail among flat owners... when... lo and behold... I see a woman with red capris come down the stairs!!

Well, imagine my feelings at this point. I ask this lady point blank if she's got my package? She says, 'come with me', goes around to pick a box which I assumed is her package, and then gets me to accompany her to her flat. To cut a long story short, this woman does not speak English well and has only been in this apartment block for a week. She couldn't explain to me the exact chain of events that led to her taking my parcel. What I could gather is she was expecting her own package and thought this was hers. I am assuming that in the 10-minute window that the delivery person was waiting for me to come downstairs and I was wondering if he was coming up, this lady got a notification her parcel was delivered (unsigned ones are just placed in the common area), came to collect it, was accosted by delivery person with my name, which she didn't understand, and just took it! Once she figured it wasn't hers, it looks like she came downstairs again to get hers... completely unbothered by the fact that she had a stranger's parcel which she had signed for!

I was too relieved to get my passport back... ‘all's well that ends well’ was how I felt, after the utter distress of the last many minutes!