One good thing that the COVID has taught us all is to live sustainably – to recycle, reduce and reuse. As the people took social distancing seriously, the start of the COVID lock-down has pooled the social media with all the variants of do it yourselves posts and videos right from making fancy food to home decors to what not. It is sad that pandemic has to teach us to live a sustainable and environment friendly life; to differentiate between the real essentials from luxuries; to teach the visionary corporate giants to switch to a echo-friendly, more productive, cost effective work from home model; While we are in the hopes of recovery with the vaccination drives, the COVID had other ideas, it came with variant after variant, with wave after wave moving from one part of the world to another ruthlessly. Remember, this shall also pass.
We still are the blessed ones, for we are living in this beautiful fragile blue planet, sharing it with millions of species of flora and fauna. We have been hearing a lot about global warming and drastic climate changes that could leave us with an uninhabitable planet sooner. If unattended, this is not going to by in the distant future but well within our lifespan leaving us witness drowning coastal cities and extinct species of birds and animals that are alive today. We all have our parts to play for building economic and administrative models to run our companies and the countries aligning to the goal of conserving the environment. I mentioned sustainable economic model only to remind that there is a huge economic gap created during the lockdown on various capacities starting from daily waged to the business moguls.
That being said, creating a more sustainable earth begins from within and begins with baby steps as we act responsibly, as we conserve water, as we reduce the use of air conditioners, as we prefer public transport, as we turn off the lights after use and as we consume responsibly. So, I am going to press some of my DIYs in this series of posts titled recycle, reduce and reuse to encourage myself and others to contribute towards the shared goal of creating a sustainable planet for the sake of us and our future generations.
Jumping to the fun part, the DIY. We all have those favourite pair of shoes that we love, this is an attempt to restore one such shoes. Those who are into leather goods definitively know that the leather can look new even after years with proper maintenance. But unfortunately not this time with my three year old Natualizer pumps that I love so much for the comfortable cushy leather sole that hardly bites your feet. While the exterior of the shoes look brand new even after hundreds of wears, and yet the interior is literally incorrigible. Just that untreated leather and water are like tom and jerry, a leather sole is a bad idea for a sweaty feet that is unavoidable for the weather in Chennai. To restore it to the past glory, all I needed were a pair of insoles that costed me 300 Indian rupees and a pair of scissors along with some 15 minutes of my time and patience. As every little contribution counts, I am satisfied not just with the outcome but also for taking my baby steps towards a goal of creating a sustainable earth. Let us all consume responsibly, recycle, reduce and reuse.
DIY# – restoring my leather pumps with a pair of scissors and insoles
As I pen down listening to the list of classical piano without attempting to understand the technicalities of music, leaving my refreshed thoughts to go on a stroll on the lazy Sunday morning. Yes if I am to rename Sunday as a Lazyday, I will happily do that, not that I raise up with the sun every other mornings except for Sundays. I was rolling on my bed giving a tough fight between my mind and body to get me out of it with no luck until 09:30 AM, my eyes were wide awake since 7:30 AM as the sun propagates through the screens of the window next to my bed. The previous night, I slept while listening to the narration of Kalki’s Ponniyin Selvan on YouTube, easily the only fiction series I have ever completed reading in any language so far when I was just starting to cultivate reading as a habit. The narration was bringing back the visuals in the mind and I decided to listen a little until my mind wins over my lazy body.
I made myself a cup of tea and had them along with Suji rusks. Yes I am a coffee person, and yet I have come in terms with myself to enjoy a nice cup of tea whenever I feel like. As I now understand, the unjustifiable allegiance is an unworthy cause. Going back to continue the series.
My periyappa is kind of too conventional and an orthodox practitioner of Hindu beliefs, he does not allow cooking non vegetarian food at home on the days that are termed auspicious. As I am a big fan of any meal that constitutes Fish, my cousins invited me for dinner last Thursday. If I had to call out one thing I miss the most when I am at my hometown, it is good fish – because in Chennai I will easily cook or take out fish meals every odd day of the week. My sister-in-law was telling me on a teasing tone, looks like Sharmili has gained weight, if only she stays here for few extra weeks she would end up gaining everything that she has lost over the past few years. This comment struck a bell, not that I was not noticing me gaining weight fast. There was a time I was happy when the scale was showing my current weight, but this time it alarmed me the same way I first got alerted that I should seriously work on my fitness. I made this as an excuse to boot myself up to take a return trip back to Chennai the next day evening. Yes, I reached Chennai this Saturday. Yes, it was lot of cleaning up to do in my room as i left home a couple of months ago in hurry leaving everything as is.
I wanted to get myself a short haircut as my long hair was getting unmanageable. So I booked myself a Saloon appointment at a new place out of accident. The hair cut and hair colour turned out to be a an accident as well. After all, it will grow back 🙂
As I was writing this post from my desk, my flatmate next door greeted me with a warm smile and gifted a cute little bottle of Ballantines, a 50 ml miniature Scotch that she brought for me from Chandigarh on her trip to visit her parents-in-law. What a cool gesture it is? This time it is ok that a girl friend related me with alcohol, not otherwise. I have thrown tantrums before when someone came up with a similar gesture.
So, the workcation is over and this marks the end of this series of blog posts, “Write like nobody is reading”. I wrote so much about my private and professional struggles that I had been going through and my choice of indulging in my personal life around my closest family has paved my path to recovery. Sometimes i was sounding ambiguous because, the intention of this series is to be true to my own feelings. What is more surprising is the lovely gestures of someone I vaguely know, but have inspired me in the past have followed this series and had brief interactions with me, Thank you. I just want that person to know there were times I wanted to be so fearless and confident on the stage in front of hundreds of young minds just like he stood cool and solid.
The trip has helped me to reinvent and reprioritise myself, there were several learnings and most important of which is there may be passing acquaintances who come into your life and leave you to give something profound – a life lesson(s) you can cherish. And my heart break and my temporary career set back is to tell me that I always have my family in my back, to tell me that I should not be too invested in anyone emotionally and to tell me at work there is always someone who can replace you, to tell me that you are irreplaceable for the people who value you and be grateful for all those blessings you have. To tell me, I am born to outshine and just keep working on myself.
I happened to rise up with the sun today and it is especially refreshing when the morning winds are mildly chill. I walked a little in our backyard for some quick 20 minutes.Soon after he woke up, my little nephew came home remembering something I told him a couple of days ago. As he is into animals, our cow boy asked me whether I rode a horse before while he was browsing for various horse breeds in the world. I responded him briefly that I have ridden horses a few times as a child when we had one at home, and then in Kodaikanal around the lake during my college farewell trip, and once in Chennai beach – all under supervision. I also told him, I sometimes wish to join a horse riding club whenever I cross one during my commute to office, but somehow I did not make the right effort to join.
My nephew learned it is a holiday for Tamil New Year and wanted to throw me a surprise. It is easy for my nephew to make friends, and it is even more effortless for him to befriend anyone who are into animals, no matter what their age group is. My distant cousins are in the business of selling horses and they are our next door neighbours. Their stable is just next to ours only that they are always full with cows, calves, horses, country chicken and some times goats. My nephew convinced my cousins to loan their load horse for me to ride and to throw me a surprise.
I initially resisted when he brought up the idea. As we live in a small town, It is a rare sight to find women riding horses. I was wondering if people will make unpopular comments, but then my nephew encouraged me as he has arranged for me to ride the horse already and I usually do not mind the third person opinion. I decided to do it. We bucked and saddled the horse, then untied it from the stable to bring it to the street. Though I am not an animal person, I easily got acquainted with the horse and did not feel any fear when I hopped on from a raised podium for the first time in over eight years, and first time without much supervision.
I and my nephew took turns and rode the horse for about an hour to my heart’s content. When I was hopping on during one of my turn, from a grilled window slab instead of the raised podium, my nephew has moved the horse while I was still settling. I fell right from the horse back on the bare street, thankfully I was not that hurt. I told myself I should not use this as an excuse instead wanted to enjoy the moment. I managed to hope back on the horse with little bit of determination and was riding for few more minutes before we tied the horse back in the stable.
Thanks to my nephew for making my little wish come true, now I am more confident that I can do many more things, Things that I want to do but am hesitant doing.
We, the human beings want to change everything around us – We want to end wars, we want a sustainable earth, we want to improve the health quotient of people around the globe, we want to improve the livelihoods of impoverished and under-privileged, we want to eradicate hate crimes, we want to cultivate values in children, we want to empower women. But the sad part is – We forget to smile at strangers, we forget to turn off the lights after use, we over consume, we have double standards about caste and class, we forget to live by the values we learn as children, we take people who love us for granted and allow people to take us for granted. We want to change everything but us. So not to worry, this is not an attempt to change the world but an attempt to look inward.
When I started the blog series, I was almost in the verge of depression – struggling with personal and professional issues. I had a virtual counselling session, with the counsellor, I could briefly discuss the issues at work, as my instinct was repeatedly warning me that my hard work, accomplishment and skills are being taken for granted by my supervisors at work. It is no rocket science, when it is appraisal season, when suddenly all the client appreciation notes are hardly acknowledged, when suddenly the requests that usually require your attention and expertise stop coming to you until it is way too late (but they still come to you just before the ship sinks), when suddenly your supervisors route the request through your own subordinates – you clearly know they are trying to make your contributions insignificant. While I forced myself to take these instinctive warnings positively, I started feeling anxious, which sometimes held my breath. Staying alone never scared me until that point, I tried to console myself , but then I felt too low very often that I had to seek the advise of a counsellor. Luckily he called them symptoms of anxiety and prescribed some breathing exercises. While it helped me to feel a little better, I still took my fear physically. I spoke about this to my mom and to a friend.
While the counsellor asked me if there is anything that is triggering this anxiety other than work, I did not disclose anything to the counsellor about my insecurities and fears in personal life for multiple reasons. First, I could not call it a relationship as it is not mutual, second, I do not want anyone to ill mouth about him, and most importantly anybody who hear my story will ask me to remove all contacts with that special person. But this person needs my support more than ever, and I am not ready to let him struggle on his own especially when its apparent that he needs my support. But after that big fight towards the last week of February, I acknowledged that I have to move forward with my life. So I decided to stick to my support system – my family, and made my trip home. This definitely has paid off big time that I feel much better and grateful now.
I made this trip reluctantly with lots of questions in mind, but now I am way too reluctant to take my return trip back to Chennai to an extend that I made a last minute cancellation. I hope I do not get too comfortable here “While the woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep” as Robert Frost said in “Stopping by the woods on a snowy evening”.
Happened to watch this film called “Erin Brockovich” , inspired by a true story starring Julia Roberts in the lead. This is a story of a former beauty pageant turned single mother with three kids, but no proper job. While she struggles to have her ends met, she is guilty to leave her kids with a baby-sitter who hardly cares. She always wants the best for her kids, just like any other mother. Most of the times, she is not at fault that she could hardly keep her job due to her upright and unapologetic nature. While people of her own gender are greedy by her looks, she alienated her opposite gender given by her bad history with men – this makes her friendless, manless and often jobless. She drives an old car and her relationship with it is as good as her relationship with men. The unemployed Erin met with a Car accident, hit by a Jaguar driven by a doctor. She finds a law firm to sue the doctor, but then – for her, injustice prevailed!
The unemployed mother of three with pilled up bills and no financial support from her ex-husbands, hijacked herself a job at the same law firm playing the guilt card. Though she did not not get hired through a formal interview, she gives it all for the job. While she slowly learns the ways of her new office and gets to know her next door neighbour, she falls in love with both, just that she loves her job more.
She lands up in a real estate case against a large corporation, which turns out to have a huge environmental and hazardous impact on the whole community. She empathises with the parents and the kids who had multiple terminal health issues, making the cause so dear to her heart. She uncovers the hidden secrets of the corporation with extensive research and unconventional methods, the methods that the professional lawyers can remotely imagine. This grabs her the momentum at her workplace, where everybody starts to take her seriously and yet her love life and work-life balance starts to fall apart. When her boyfriend asked her to make a choice between him and her work, she chose her work. Her law firm won the case by gathering enough support from the community alongside the material evidences against the corporation gathered by her. As she grows up the career ladder, she earns everything – a good baby sitter, a nice pay check, a brand new car along with the most requested dental insurance benefit besides her satisfactory job that is close to her heart.
Now, if you are wondering why a film story in this blog series, it’s because it made me feel empowered, telling me figuratively how blessed and safe I am compared to the women around the globe who juggle with multiple priorities. She is someone who started small, and yet found her passion without loosing her core values; She always prioritised her kids and herself whenever she had to make a choice; She stood independent, audacious and upright especially during the low points of her life. I will be proud if I can be anything like her.
There is this fella, my cousin’s ten year old boy, whose visions are unbelievably grand and his empathy is on a whole new level. His EQ is something you can relate to with the kids from the neoliberal post word war dramas of Roberto Rossellini. While he still misses out on the fair play award, he is someone who knows when to negotiate and find his place in the game, time and again. He handles money like a pro, he can quote the prices of cattle, pets, fodder, the cattle maintenance cost, agricultural produces like a pro. He has this impeccable capability to filter out the noise from information that he collects from his sources – primarily listening to the adult conversations and secondarily from the Internet. His eyes and ears are everywhere for details, not just for his usual areas of interests – animals, but also while listening to the conversations around for he is hungry for information in general. He pays attention when people speaks and demands attention when he wants to be listened, for he process so much of information as input, he make sure he reiterates them to people as he knows well recollecting information will keep them glued to his memory.
While I just mentioned he is hungry for information, he is not much into academics, when I say ”not much” I am actually understating. It is really difficult to get him sit down to read from his text books and to get him do his homework, neither kind words nor stern face can get him sit down to read. I am not romanticising for he is not into studies but into animals. Our family tries hard to cultivate his interests in studies, especially my mom. He is extremely stubborn and adamant, for he know how to get things done by still keeping his innocence. Its quite common for the kids to throw tantrums and that’s what make the childhood memorable and beautiful. My Nephew, he is the hero of our today’s blog – the miniature business guru without a fancy management degree.
Few days ago, we had to sell our two crossbred jersey cows and the one week old calf as my periyappa (paternal uncle) and my father were finding it difficult to manage our stable, for we do not have the labour capacity like before and self maintenance costs huge in terms of energy and time apart from money. My periyappa’s day start as early as 6:30 AM in the morning and my dad to start the day at 7:00 AM in our stable, to clear the dung and to wash the stable, then to fodder and water the cows, followed by milking. This takes over an hour in the morning for them, and these chores are especially costing my periyappa’s aging joints. We also had to feed grass, four to six times during the day, which needs to be brought from our estates through a jeep every alternate day that itself costs over 700 INR. Though it is not an easy call to make for my periyappa to sell our cows, he has been considering for a two long years. While we still have a girl calf at our estate stable, I do not have a memory of seeing an empty stable at home.
My nephew’s maternal grandmother who demised a couple of days ago (RIP), was terminally ill over the last week, so he went to their village that lies about 20 kilometres from ours for a few days of stay. On his return back, the first thing he did was to check on his pets – an orphaned calf, a dog, a love bird pair and a betta fish, fed them all and ran straight to our house to check on our stable only to find it empty. While he is not happy at first that the cows were sold, He then enquired the selling price and expressed his unhappiness saying “They should have sold it for over a lakh and 20 thousand“, when the actual selling price for the two cows and a calf is only 75 thousand rupees. They are growing few cows in their estate, as he carefully listens to the adult’s business conversations and after listening to hundreds of cattle price enquiries on google, he came up with this estimate. My father explained that the cows could have been sold for an extra five to ten thousand, not for over a lakh and there will be transit charger to bring the cows from hills to plains which my nephew did not accounted for. He was consoled only after hearing that explanation.
When I said he is highly empathetic, I was not exaggerating. In the previous blog post of this series, I was mentioning him googling for Neopolitan mastiff, the Dog with the highest bite force, in his terms something relatable to the Lions. He has a habit of thoroughly researching the animal breeds on various parameters from the origin, cost, feed, maintenance, availability in India, their authenticity etc, he randomly popped this question what is the term Neopolitan means as it sounded strange for him to remember, I was just telling him that the produce from an Italian locality will have this name, quoting him the world famous Neopolitan pizza as an example. He suddenly asked me if we had to go there how much would it cost, mentioning he understands bringing the puppy home would be a lot of paper work and not so economical, he wanted to play with those puppies for a couple of days at Naples and have Neopolitan pizza there and go site-seeing. As a ballpark figure, I quoted it would cost a couple of lakhs per person. The boy replied without giving a second thought, as he cannot go alone, he want me and my younger brother to accompany him to Italy. He also wanted to know, how many months will it take for me to make six lakh rupees for us to make that trip happen. When I said I would need at least n months to earn that money if I do not spend my salary on any other things but to save up for the trip. The little genius then replied, “I do not want to you save up all the money you make for this trip, rather save half of your salary for the trip and spend the other half to meet your needs. That way, we can make the trip in n*2 months rather than n months”. That is the kind of empathy I am talking about.
Did I say his visions are surprisingly grand, I was not exaggerating that either. I understand it is not surprising enough to find a kid of 10 owning so many pets and taking care of them. But I am sure it surprises enough If I say he googles not just to find the prices of various breeds of cows, goats, dogs, fishes and horses, but also researches about domesticating Elephants – their costs, commercial significance, maintenance and the time he would require to own one. He really is a miniature management guru without a fancy business degree, isn’t he?
We had guests at home yesterday – a learned couple, who are very kind and down to earth. While we share a cordial and warm friendly relationship, she posted a plain and simple question on a casual note, if I used to cook at home as I have been staying home for over a month’s time. All this happened quickly after my mom was talking to her about my work schedule, which usually goes up to 12 hours. Somehow the question itself offended me, and I being tired of similar questions from different people in the past, I answered without processing the question and gave her a shock for an answer from the top of my head, “I am busy chasing my big dreams and I do not have time to spend on insignificant things”, with a stern voice and face as described by my mom later. I did not know she got offended by answer then.
As my ten year old nephew came home for supper as my mom invited him to have “Madakku Kozhukattai”, a steamed sweet dumpling made of rice flour stuffed with boiled Chana dhall, coconut, jaggery and cardamom powder. He asked me to come and sit with him in our backyard as he wants to do his usual research about animals while having supper, and this time about “Neapolitan Mastiff” and its biting force.
I heard the guests were leaving, after finishing their lite supper and so I told my nephew to wait in the backyard stairs while I give them a send off. My cousin-in-law seems to have taken my comment about me busy chasing my dreams personally, as she herself is a woking woman, a professor raising two young adults. She, with a similar loud tone, in English tied to make her point “Sharmi, nobody is perfect, you are being selfish when you say you are not helping your mom in cooking, you think all of us who cook are not chasing our dreams? You are missing out on enjoying your life”, While I understand, why my statement have struck her badly now, I gave room for temper and not to my rational thought then. My feminist side popped out with the response to that argument, “I never said I am perfect, and I especially not say those who cook are not chasing their dreams, I only said I do not have time as I do not see cooking as my priority as I have larger goals to chase. I am enjoying my life in ways that make me happy”. When she tried to make me feel guilty saying I am being selfish for not sharing the load with my mom, it struck me hard and was not ready to let it go and responded, “Just because I do not want them(my family) feel burdened for feeding me, I hardly come home. And if you want me to grab the spoons, I can do it happily the same day my brothers accompany me”. While my rationality momentarily returned I saw where it is going and so does she. She replied me saying, “While I can argue on this matter for hours, I do not have that kind of time today, and hey no offence intended”. I replied, “That is ok, I do not want to argue further anyway”. The heated argument ended.
While I now understand, both of us stand on different grounds – different age groups, different beliefs, and most importantly we are people with different priorities, I really hope either of us should not be in a position to justify our stand, but to coexist and tolerate our differences and priorities. I am feeling sorry for the tone I had used at first, I am feeling guilty actually and this is something I need to seriously work on.
While I do not have a habit of setting a boundary to separate my work and life, when my job demands extra hours on certain days, I work until my brain and body get tired. And I am perfectly fine with it, as it gives me the fullest satisfaction and a feeling of accomplishment, as much as cooking a perfect meal for your special ones and receive complements does.
P.S. I would love to cook a hearty meal for the people I love and win compliments, trust me I know that feeling, but then Its only when I have time in hands. I am not apologetic for my stand but apologetic for the tone I have used. I really wish to live in a world where I need not justify my stand to someone for the umpteenth time.
Like most other software engineers around the globe, one of my significant career goals is to live the American dream and I see the H1B VISA as a ticket to live that dream. Turns out, my employer nominated H1B petition was not picked up in the lottery even this year. I took a long sigh wishing it was not driven by sheer luck. Having said that, congratulations to the 68000 lottery winners.
This added to the existing commotion with my managers over an unfair year end appraisal quoting my recent promotion and the Visa nomination, I am thinking if I got too comfortable at a place where my skills and hard-work are taken for granted And undervalued. I felt low after back to back blows at work, obvious place I leaned in to find solace is that special person. While I am keeping my stern fighting face with my supervisors at work, I could not keep my pride to him but wrote him an email about my lamentations, for he is the most positive person I know only second to my mom and he is someone who know how much I was looking forward to this Visa as I missed multiple travel opportunities in the past two years. Just like I knew, he responded back with words of comfort to console me like a good friend – just like he promised. Hope I did not make him uncomfortable with my email, like I promised.
Every cloud has a silver lining, and in my case the silver lining turns out to be my realisation towards the importance for work life balance. As I mentioned earlier in one of the posts in the series, this time is my longest stay at home since I started working. Yes, it is not very easy for someone who prefer being aloof and keep an extremely private profile; and yes, it is not very easy for someone to live in a place with extremely contrasting ideologies in various matters from theology to feminism. But my family made it easy for me – they are tolerant to my differences and I respect their roots.
The life in suburbs is always surrounded by communions and celebrations where the barter system still exists where people exchange the local produce for love, hope and smiles. And it is especially refreshing and therapeutic in the company of my little nephew, niece and their friends. P.S. More of their story in later posts 🙂
Sharmili unplugged....... 