In which I get really Happy Happy

So it has finally rained in Delhi. Like I once prophesized, my mood is closely linked to Delhi Weather, and it was getting fouler by each passing day. The only reason kept me going to workplace was excellent cooling they provided in the premises, and the power cuts at home. Yes, all the reports of power cuts that you see on TV are not, for once, fabricated. ( Most of the time, all the nuisance makers start pelting stones etc on their object of scorn- Police station, Power station, Buses – only when they see a TV camera close by). Coming back to all things cool, it has become much cooler and humid. I don’t mind humidity as much as that searing heat which has tanned me in not a good way. I am thinking of de-tanning solutions. Any suggestions?

Since I last blogged almost a month back there is so much to post.

But before that let me just announce to the world that I feel happy.

Happy and content after a long time. And it’s just not the rains that have made me happy.

I like things sorted out. All the rationales, explanations each neatly applied into their right respective problem areas. I get my answers mostly from what I read, what I observe, who I meet etc.

This time I know there have been lots of triggers but it’s mostly the realization of how good life has been, or rather there are far more positives in life than negatives in my life.

Like I mentioned before, I have taken reading Marian Keys with a vengeance. I am on my second book ‘Last Chance Saloon’, though this is one guilty read, I enjoy her enormously. The book deals with friendships, love and cancer. Yes, chick lit is the least place one would expect Cancer to be written about.

I have never written about it earlier but reading about the disease and the various tests, chemo, radiotherapy affected me deeply since I have had a close encounter with the ghastly disease myself.

Three years back my mother succumbed to the disease. It was not the best time for any of us in our family. I know how it sounds when you say it was not best, but cancer was not the only thing that was going against our family. In the book, when I read about how the patient goes for bone marrow test, and how actually despite being given local anesthetic the needle has to prick the actual bone marrow which can’t be numbed for the sample. I remembered the day my mother went into that tiny room after a wait of two hours in the intolerable heat of that dingy hospital. She never told us back how painful it was. At that time, our only concern was to pray for test results to come negative.

But do things ever turn out the way we want? We got the bad news soon that cancer had spread to bone marrow too. In other words, she was on the last stage of cancer.

Before all this happened, cancer was a deadly word. It was something that happened to others. Something that only a few really unfortunate ones get. As is the human tendency, our first response was “why me?”.

Our visits to the hospital answered that question. There were young three year olds kids being treated for cancer and one has to have some nerves to speak to his mother asking his conditions.

There was a pretty young teenager girl who was not just tonsured because of chemo she had stitches on her head. Yes, her brain was operated for removing tumors.

While, we were not actually very lucky either.

There were many rounds of chemotherapy. Her low hemoglobin level before each chemo session required us to find blood donors for every round, and soon we exhausted our friends and acquaintances as potential blood donors because you need three months break before you can donate blood again. We got friends of friends and people who just heard about it and came to donate the blood in the hospital.

Before one session, her blood platelets count dropped abysmally low. If I remember correctly, 5-6 blood samples would make up for one platelet bag. I was too busy arranging for blood that I never had time to mourn her disease.

As I am writing these, I am reliving those horrors. I had read one of tendulkar’s interviews where he said a visit to a cancer ward in a hospital gave him new perspective on life.

My perspective changing moment came too. Perhaps all too soon.

I still remember the deafening cries at the time of one of our earlier chemo sessions when a patient died in the next room. Though, the wife was crying at least hundred meters away from our ward, there was nothing else you could hear in that ward. All other patients and their families had a look which spelt despair and death. Though we all knew that anyone among our loved ones can be the next one to go, we tried hard to look normal. I smiled and tried some normal banter to make it look like an ordinary thing, but I knew in my heart that it was our worst fears coming true.

There were so many moments when I actually thought if it was happening to me. One thing, I took from that experience and which I had forgotten about was the fact that “ why make all the fuss”. I know it’s a very fatalistic approach but perhaps I don’t push myself that hard for things which I know are very trivial when you compare them to cancer.

What if I don’t conoodle with my boss and impress him so he gives a big raise and sends me to an exotic locale for work (Yes, that happens in our company for some ‘lucky’ people). I don’t try that hard. I do my work and let my work speak.

I may not be going to Colombia (despite learning Spanish) or Greece, I have a well paying job. I am quite healthy, though I still have some way before I can de-lard myself completely; people still compliment me on my physique ( in a non sexual way)

I may not be the most intelligent guy on planet, but my colleagues respect me for my knowledge and opinion, and frankly I am trying to give a damn to what people think of me.

I mean if I start counting the things which are in my favor, they will far outnumber my whining list. So I have decided to do one thing. Throw that list to some corner of my head and tell everyone that life is really good.

Parent's Trap

Currently, I am halfway thru reading the book ‘Go Kiss the World’ by Subroto bagchi. In this book, Subroto bagchi chronicles his life from a small town in tribal Orrisa to setting up Wipro’s American business to becoming an entrepreneur while he was still in his forties.The book is divided in three section. The first section deals with his early childhood and education. I am  still on second section where he has delineated his professional life from a Management trainee to selling software. 

I picked the book because, like Subroto bagchi, I too come from a very small town. However, I still have long to go in my career before I can recount my tale saying how such and such things influenced me. Oddly enough, the reason for this post is different.  Mr. Bagchi recalls how his parents, brothers have influenced him and shaped up his values.

If I ask myself how much if my parent I see in me, I would say a little. But if you ask me a different question, how much of my parents I want to see of in me; the answer would be none. Not because I hate them, or dislike them but because they have never been close to any role model I could have envisaged while I grew up, or even now for that matter.

I have been told that every one has an image or an idea of a person who they like to be like, emulate or just follow in his/her footsteps. Every MBA aspirant is asked to prepare this question before an interview. I had done it too, but we will come to that later. By the way, the favorite and most clichéd ( at least I find it clichéd ) role model for Indian students is Dhiru Bhai Ambani. What psychologists tell us is that our choice of role model tells a lot about our personality, especially the values which are closest to our heart. For instance, if someone has Kiran Bedi as their role model, this would signify they value honesty, bravery above all. Dhiru Bhai Ambani would stand for ‘wealth creation, Narayan Murthi would stand for ‘ethicaly making money’ and so forth.

I didn’t know this whole theory of values being hidden or rather manifested in the choice of role model one chooses. Therefore, I had done my selection based on whatever little I knew of the world by then. I had decided that my choice had to be not just politically correct, but also a little different. Zara hatke, you know.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to think that hard and I chose a role model who was not very well known but she was different and really represented what I wanted to embody. My role model was Aruna Roy. When I got to know about the values theory, it struck a big chord with me because I immediately knew what value I admire most.

Sacrifice: that was what I admired most. ( I am using past tenses because this was all happening five years back. I may or may not hold the same opinion now)

Now, after a rather long detour, the way I keep making, this book again made me think. Will there be anything about my parents that I would have to tell when I start chronicling my life. Things on how my parents were so great, how they instilled many great values, or what my mother told me as a ten year old kid had stayed with me all the life. The truth might be a little different. I was sure about it five years back, and after becoming saner and more mature in these last five years, I can confidently say that there has been no life lesson that I had imbibed from my parents. Except, yes there is a small matter, because I always like to give credit where it’s due, let me add I am thankful that my parents never harbored any communal feelings towards other religions which has made me quite pro muslim and tolerant. But this is more like the medical ethic: “Do no harm". So, I don’t give them much credit.

In India, especially, there is a tendency to hero worship our parents. I don’t know whether this stems from lack of objectivity or simple fact. But more often, I find the former case a bit stronger. We all as human beings don’t always remain rational, and see things thru a tinted glass when it comes to our personal lives. This might be true in the reverse case as well, where some one like me becomes excessively belligerent instead of becoming fond of his/ her parents. The point is it's difficult to have a balanced objective view point of two people we are closest to.

I always disliked when other kids talked about their parent in reverence. I used to believe everything they said about their parents at face value and compared that to my parents. My parents had too many weaknesses. Weaknesses that they never made any effort to conceal or even temporarily hide. It was all too open. Every one knew about it. They even started rejoicing in it. It was not as if they were distant or I didn’t love them. It’s just that I could never revere them. Because all their faults, weaknesses, pain and foibles were too obvious to me. I couldn’t start pretending that everything was normal in my household. But it was very normal to live in an abnormal house because you never knew the other way, the way I wrote about it here.

It was tough to be different. But western world is full of such stories where we don’t have to deduce a person’s success/ intelligence from his pedigree. Steve Jobs is a great example of that. I just hope that someday I also get in a position to advise people to get off their baggage.

Grandmother's tales

As a kid, every time the school reopened after summer vacation- each kid had some story or the other to tell involving his grandmother. Rather, for most of the children, a summer vacation was synonymous with a visit to their maternal grandparents home, the only time their mother ( all of them housewives without exception) could take a break , go to her parents home and do nothing for that period which in other words meant running havoc on their sister in law's who would do all the household chores). Anyways, now these trips were always filled with how their grandmother told them many stories, sent to mango orchards and got them new clothes etc etc. I would listen to all this intently and recount a few stories of my own. Though, my friends at that time were as ignorant about Kerala as an average adult Indian is about mizoram now, I never had to invent things. We had a surrogate grandparents. ( I know how it sounds but this, but as a kid I never cared as long as I was getting to listen to all the stories, eating raw mangoes and swimming in the village canal). However, whenever the subject veered towards grandmas I felt little cagey. I did not know how illustrious her life was at that young age, so I did not know what was making me feeling ashamed.

My first memory of her was when I was very sick at very young age, may be as a two or three year old. We had gone for our once in a blue moon kerala trip and I fell terribly sick, which my mother told me later was a regular thing at that time of year. In fact, my first memory of my life is that incident when my mother with my naani took me to a doctor in a white ambassador. I must have recovered, or so I think. But, that memory has lingered on.


My maternal grandmother had a shop, and she was called 'Kadeamma' by all the people in the town. 'Kade' means a shop in malayalam, and I was told it was a small shanty- thatched with coconut leaves, mud floor, a few banana bunches hanging. I am not too sure what she actually sold in this shop but my mother told me it was a tea shop- where people would gather to have a sip of tea or 'kaapi', and lustfully look at the woman in her mundu and blouse covered with a thin cotton cloth ( All malayalees are lechers, including me). Another factor, perhaps, that brought more visitors to her shop was her infamous toddy which she used to brew illegally and sold at evening to midnight to keep her 'real' clientèle happy.

My grandma had a young paramour of hers, who used to visit her often. I must have been some seven or eight years old when I visited her, and her romance was in full swing with this young lad. ( not so young though, must be some 15 years younger than her). My grandmother had a separate house to herself which was around 5o feet away from the house we stayed in. I used to listen to all the talk about her ongoing love affair, but sadly couldn't make much of it because it was all in malyalam. It appeared, all our neighbours and relatives disproved of this relationship however mutually satisfying it was for them.

The next thing I know is that my mother got hold of the news that my naani and her young lover are ensconced in the cottage away from home- in broad day light- a not so secret meeting perhaps. They all started shouting, and threating to burn the house if he doesn't come out. ( I don't think they were serious about it). But the poor fellow had to come out at some point or the other, and had to face those bullies-- chief among them my Mom who if I remember correctly was wielding a stone in her hand to throw. Great commotion followed the moment the guy came out and all I remember now is that he was severely beaten by everyone. I might also have kicked him as it was all part of fun where one got beaten if one did. I had no idea then what the fuss was all about ( In retrospect, I feel it was a clever decision on my mother's part not to teach us malyalam-- we would have absorbed much more than she wished for on our Kerala trips). The funniest moment came when his clothes were torn. Not much of clothes there as he was wearing a lungi and shirt.

In our family, we often used to joke about my naani's whereabouts. She had spent some two three years in jail - on and off- on charges of illegal liqueur making. I wanted to learn the art so that I can pass as an authentic sommelier myself, but sadly her tenure didn't let me. Though, I must add, no one ever died after consuming her alcohol.

Recently I was watching the movie "Talk to Her" by Pedro Almodovar where the protagonist spends twenty years of his life taking care of his mother. And these twenty years were his formative years when he did his home schooling; and later on enrolled for private schools and completed his studies. On being asked, whether he felt he lived a normal life he answers in affirmative. What is abnormal for most people becomes very normal for whom it is their life.

I have somewhere heard that a family which does not embarrass you is not worth having. I don't know if I could ever talk about these things in public or with my friends. I don't know how many of friends had their naani serving in jail, cavorting with young guys and selling kaapi in a road side stall, but I find it more amusing than abnormal. because when you live your life everything becomes your own, very normal and mundane.

Shall I say Home Truths?

I am trying to write about my father, who is right now sitting in the next room trying to watch third India Australia ODI with undiminished enthusiasm, inspite of constant wicket fall on Indian side. I had promised Fortunata that I will write about my father in my next post, but later on I realized that it will be so much difficult to even give a snapshot of his personality in some 800 words. But, surely, I will try.

He was the person who married my mom and brought me and my sister to this earth. The reason I am stating this fact is that it was no ordinary arrangement. The marriage was his second and first for my mother. There are different versions of the story told by different people on why they got married. Different reasons and rationalization were handed out to explain this unlikely match. I still have not been able to collate all versions together and form an arc. I think Love Marriage is what people used to call this arrangement in places I grew up, and it was sacrilegious and forbidden for most of them. I was so much embarrassed by this word: love marriage. Everybody felt, at the time of their liaison, that it was nothing out of place. Many others have done this in the past and many will do, and it is just a matter of time before he leaves her for his 'legitimate' wife.

Our lives were in a constant state of paranoia, what if he actually does it, leaving two children with a woman with no income or fortune or a home to return to.

But, he never did it. And yes, I am thankful to him for that.