Another year around the sun

Curtains getting drawn on another year, we go around the sun once more, and the proverbial time once again proves that it is flying so fast. Tempted to say that the rat race continues ... tempted more to assess whether I am in the race or watching from the fringes or better still enjoying the show sitting outside. One thing the year has successfully done - it has given many more occasions and acknowledgements for familiar ruminations - "there is no end", "why are we doing what we are doing", "what is the purpose", "this makes no sense" ... the best - "really?".

Having said that, one thing that perhaps changed, or at least seems to have changed, is the fact that life is no more on an auto pilot. Many things either getting delayed because of procrastination finally happened - like the long overdue family vacation abroad; or things actually taking place on time (or as someone said, it is now or never), and happening perfectly, like the thread ceremony of my younger son. Many acts never ever done before, like two theater movies on consecutive days, with the family, one of them in the front seat just to ensure that we have to do it come what may. Then you feel why the heck did the "first time" had to wait so long - but you immediately take a step back and repeat to yourself, again the cliched, better late than never.

The feeling of being blessed in the true sense made its presence felt, more so after the realization on so many occasions, but also once in a while when you end up being a typical human being and feel better when you compare yourself with others. You don't get the sense of entitlement - you sometime just feel you are blessed (or lucky, depends which frame of mind you are in). And if this becomes way of life, reasons to believe that life is beautiful.

Repeated assertions of gratitude over last so many years has meant that it has started becoming a part of the gene pool. Other than what I said above, this is the stage in life when you start valuing certain relations much more than others, you start "moving on", you have a clearer understanding of which relations deserve investment of your time, you start truly enjoying those small moments, your growing kids and their dreams, planning for life beyond a certain age ... life is beautiful and is worth living!

Top it all - a great ending for the year - I will be in my birthplace for the last three days of the year. Missus is not far behind - she was in her birthplace just a fortnight back.

Looking forward to the next year - more gratitude, more thankfulness, more family, more dreams - and a promise to take care of oneself, getting back to reading days, and yes, no more last-week-of-the-year blog posts 

Resolution time, once again

This has been the longest ever gap between two posts on this blog. Not that I have written multitudes of these ever since I started almost ten years back. And I am certainly not going to justify, or come up with any excuse. There are so many thoughts, so many actions, equal if not more number of reactions - it is plain and simple, good old lethargy. Frankly, I am back here only and only because I did not want this to be the first year when I didn't have a post. As always, thanks to dear missus, I will ensure this year doesn't go blank either.

Next few lines, however, are not a result of any kind of lethargy - many will still be tempted to call it so. But still ... When I was putting my thoughts together on what should go in here - knowing very well that as against my usual full week of thinking time before I post, I only have a couple of hours to come up with something - I kept on going back to what I wrote exactly fours years back. Even then it was towards the end of the year, and I wanted to avoid drawing a blank. But what I wrote then finds resonance even today, and it continues to be one area we need to come back to again and again. If I go back to my thoughts during the peak of the pandemic, what I wrote four years back should have become very obvious. However, looking at how we have gone back to good old days within 12 months of the peaks we saw last year makes me bring the three points back. They are what I called a set of realizations ...

... that ultimately what matters is your family, friends and dear ones ... those who really care for you ... the experiences that you would cherish ... those little (and large) adjustments you make

... that there is no end to any of this ... there will always be more money to be earned, more promotions to yearn for, more material pleasures, more of everything - you can never have enough

... and finally, that no attitude tops gratitude ... be thankful for everything that you have, and perhaps for so many things that you don't have ... you know not what those missing possessions entail

And hence all the more reason for these to be the focus of the resolutions for the coming year.

Daddy's school life

It was one of those days when one decides to do something different. And the 'great idea' struck me towards the end of my morning walk. I decided to invite my elder son to join me for my final lap of the day. In fact, let me put it this way ... among the multiple reach-out-to-engage-him activities I have been having with him, to get ready for his fast approaching teenage years, and of course instigated (rather, instructed) by Missus to do so, spiced up with statements like "If you don't 'connect' with him now, what will happen during his teenage?", I asked him if he would like to join me for one round around the apartment. Even if he hesitatingly agreed to join me, we had a brief stroll of say 30 minutes. Among other things, we ended up going down my memory lane where I gave him a glimpse of my schooling journey of 15 years.

 

Photo by Markus Spiske from Pexels

Since my father worked his entire professional life in a transferable job, it was imperative that my count of cities and schools would not be limited to a small, single-digit number like many of the privileged folks around me have had. As a matter of fact, my schooling life took me to 5 cities, 6 transfers and 10 schools.

Here are some more fun facts about my schooling days:

• My stays at a single school have ranged from just about 5 months (yes, unbelievable to a few folks I have told about it) to a maximum of 3 years.
• There was a particular span when I attended 3 different schools in 3 different cities over a period of 10 months.
• The classes I have been a part of ranged from a size of 2 students to 60 students.
• My schools have been housed in a first-floor flat of 600 sq. ft. area to a 49 acres campus.
• I have studied in a school which was established in the year 1892, and was also a part of the founding batch of a school established in the year 1981.
• I have attended a school which had the word "mandir" in its name, and at least a couple of schools having a church on campus.
• The modes of transport I used throughout my schooling life include my own cycle, the maid's husband's cycle (with me sitting on the horizontal rod in front, and my sister sitting as pillion), a horse-drawn tonga, my dad's scooter, school bus and of course all the way on foot.

While I have continued to share many anecdotes of my schooling life with him, a few specifics of a particular school that stand out (and instigated an are-you-kidding-me reaction from him) merit a special mention here just because the two years I spent in that school will always remain etched in my memory.

Photo by Dids from Pexels

• The school was 1 of the only English 2 medium schools in the district head-quarters we were staying in. The other school didn't cover education for my class.
• The school had 2 buildings - 1 for classes from Nursery to 3rd / 4th Standard, and the other, around a km down, where remaining classes were conducted in a 3-room flat.
• Other 'facilities' in the second building included a TV Training Institute on the same floor, and a Government office on the ground floor.
• I was 1 of the only 2 students in my class, and hence we shared the 'classroom' with another class across the partition, and an office table for the administrator.
• My 'class' was a Maruti Van seat, with the teacher sitting right across the long desk, just about 15 inches away from us, and of course no black-board.
• We were upset that our class strength went down by 33%, from 3 to 2, in the middle of the academic year, and then were delighted that it increased by 100% the following year.
• When all 4 of us used to be present on the same day, it used to be a logistical nightmare - most of those days, we got a "self-study", which we used to convert into "group-study", spent sprawled across the slides in the adjacent public park.
• The commendable part of the school was that our previous batch, having 5 students in Standard 8th, had as many as 3 merit holders at the state level.

P.S: To bloat the number of schools, I have taken the liberty of counting 1 school twice where I joined back after a gap of seven years. And have also counted another school twice which actually went through a name-change and an address-change while I was still a student. Mercifully, the school which changed its board affiliation from state board to C.B.S.E while I was a student has been counted just once 😈. The number also excludes the "engineering school" and the "business school" I attended. The other exclusion - When I was pursuing my engineering studies and later on my management studies, my father added 2 more new cities, with 3 more transfers in the list.

Bees come visiting

My apartment's proximity to an open army area has multiple positives. While the year-round greenery (well, almost!), accompanied with the myriad bird species (no, this is not limited to the pandemic induced lockdown period only) are certainly great to have, there is no risk of the excellent view of the horizon getting blocked because of any real estate construction. Of course, these positives become more prominent when you stay on the 18th floor of the apartment, as I do. However, one tends to forget all these when, every now and then, the same proximity to the greenery is held responsible for bee hives coming up in one of the buildings. And this gets exacerbated when the society office suddenly decides to get rid of the huge bee hive right below the neighbor's window, typically in the late evenings when you are just about taking the long awaited break. The society office apparently has a very different way of improving the quality of time we spend as a family - they make the bee family visit us.

Being a consultant for almost two decades now (yes, I know I am old), defining a standard operating procedure for anything and everything comes very naturally to me. Having a maturity assessment done for any of the activities comes equally naturally. Since the bee family visits me very frequently, having an SOP and maturity assessment in place to minimize their visit time helps us in extending a consistent level of hospitality to the guests. Well, we do believe in अतिथिदेवो भव, don't we?

 

There are certain variations we can expect to encounter - be it the size of the visiting family (we have seen a number from 1 all the way upto 6), their level of frustration, their plan to manifest their anger or for that matter, their reason for visiting us (it can be as simple as yearning for some artificial light) and the timing of the visit - we seem to have perfected the art of managing these. Their repeat visits, every fortnight or so in the peak season, is a testimony to the quality and consistency of our hospitality. Without further ado, let me share some snippets of our IP (well! don't expect me to share the complete procedure - isn't it a trade secret?).

First and foremost, you need to be adept at confirming the arrival of the guests. The distinct sound of either the guests hitting the glass door, in an identifiable pattern, or if they have already entered, then the obvious buzzing sound coming from even the remotest corner of the house - it needs experience and minute observation to develop this skill. Key here is to get in an action mode before the guests start hitting the tube-light in the room you are sitting in, and of course much before the guests decide to leave a mark of their love on one of the family members. You will be considered having reached the expert level of maturity when you have anticipated their arrival a couple of minutes in advance. Your family is defining industry leading practices if the kids have noticed some 'untoward movement' in the society in the evening, and have informed you well on time.

Once the status of the arriving party is confirmed, the next course of action is to stop them from entering, in case of higher levels of expertise on the previous step, or stop further additions to the visiting party, if you are not as good. In the former case, the next step is very obvious - close all the slightly open (or the widely open) doors and windows. A minor variation to this is when there is a visiting marriage party, with scores of members - you just need to switch off all the lights and sit tight! If the guests have still managed to enter, making fun of your ineptitude, the first reaction is to curse the family member for keeping something open (the culprit usually is yours truly or the elder son), then plug the gap. Following the sequence - curse, then plug - is critical, else a favorable outcome of the exercise cannot be guaranteed because of the inefficiency induced by the remaining "pressure in the system" (read - Missus' disappointment). This gap is usually the window in my work room, remaining open "accidentally" (well there have been instances when Missus left the kitchen window open, after finishing her hour long conversation with her friend whose kitchen window is right in front of ours - but you know, the bees don't like to take the kitchen route to enter, right?).

 

After you have successfully limited the size of the visiting party, you need to identify the exact location of the guests and restrict further movement. The location will define whether you restrict the movement by closing the door of the room, or switching off the lights in the nearby rooms, so that the merry making of the guests is restricted to the one source of light they are closest to.

 

Current location of the guests and the size of the visiting party, along with the current location and ongoing activity of the family members, decides the final action - a mortal combat or a simple chasing away of the visitors. The former option works well when the size of the visiting party is small and the location is deep inside our fortress. Movement of the location towards the outer periphery of the rooms shifts the preference to the chase. If it is dinner time, and the younger one has somehow sensed the urgency of the situation (which most of the time, he does), he would have already ensconced deep inside the farthest room, knowing very well how even a minor error will lead to a sting, either from the visiting bee or from the "resident bee". If this has happened, the combat party is free to use both the options. If not, the much gentler, and slower, second option needs to be executed.

 

It has taken many hosting experiences over last several years to identify the best weapon of bee destruction to be used in the mortal combat. A rolled up newspaper, while effective in most of the cases, is not very helpful when the target decides to leverage the height of its resting place. Further points are lost when the size of the visiting party is slightly big. The distance is too less for the combat party's comfort level. The easiest and nearest available weapon is the footwear - but to use this, one needs to have a very accurate aim and also needs to ensure that the throw doesn't leave a mark on the wall. Since both are highly unlikely in my family, with past instances of beautiful designs on the wall, this weapon is no longer used. The height problem gets easily resolved if one decides to use the broom - the ease of locating it in exactly the same location every time helps the cause immensely. This was the most preferred weapon till April 2020, when the only broom in the house was used for this purpose, with the end result being all the fibers irretrievably coming out of the clutch. Subsequent repercussions need no imagination - a stopgap arrangement to clean the house, right in the middle of the lockdown since you cannot venture out to get a new one. A badminton racket was used on a couple of occasions, but to no avail for obvious reasons. But we have finally found THE weapon - by far the most effective option, with no repercussions, the owner having no interest whatsoever in preserving it, allowing the best angle to hit, with the right speed, from a right distance - everything so perfect, and made for each other. It is none other than the all-so-humble plastic cricket bat. In cases where the bee party has decided to rest behind the tube light frame, the broom (old one) comes handy in forcing some movement, followed deftly by THE weapon. This also comes handy as a temporary weapon, when THE weapon has mysteriously found its way towards the bottom of the container which has 4 wooden cricket bats, 6 wooden stumps, 2 badminton rackets, the rolled up yoga mat, and a couple of long-handle umbrellas.

 

When it comes to chasing the party away, it is very important to define the path of movement. Here, we leverage our superior understanding of our enemy's reaction to light, and use it against them. Depending upon the location of the party, the path helps us determine the sequence in which the lights need to be switched off and the multitudes of screens (TV, laptop, cellphone, iPad) need to be turned down or away, as the case may be. Once this is in place, and the soldiers have taken their positions, the plan is executed, with the final step being the door opening ceremony. The visitor making its way towards the light in the lift lobby means the final frontier has been conquered. Before the victory bugle is blown, one final visit to the first step of the exercise is conducted to check and confirm there are no signs of any left over companions of the visiting party.

 

Decluttering during pandemic

Decluttering has been one of the many trending concepts during the pandemic. While most of it has centered around removing the clutter from the house - those unused artifacts gathering layers of dust on them due to limited use all these years, those long forgotten pairs of jeans (and umpteen number of such unused garments) which you always wanted to wear after shedding those extra pounds of oh-so-loyal weight, those books you have so carefully stacked up in your closet and never bothered to use - there's a long list of such items as potential targets for decluttering. Those who prefer a little serious mode of thinking, got into decluttering the mind - cleanse the thoughts, forgive and forget, prioritize positive thoughts, let bygones be bygones and so on.

 

Yours truly got down to a different kind of decluttering - target being the 45,000+ unread mails (or for that matter, the 200,000+ mails) in my Yahoo inbox. While I have developed this habit of not giving a lot of importance to this number, and do not dread missing out on any important mail for the simple reason that if it is important, I will be bluntly reminded of its importance on a phone call. But still, the thought of having a "clean" inbox is too tempting, when people around have been doing all sorts of cleaning and boasting about the same on social media.

 

Having successfully brought down the number of unread mails to ~35,000, I accidentally opened the SPAM folder and, lo and behold, I was mesmerized to see all the unsolicited love and affection showered on me by so many leading brands of the day. I mean it is touching to see five different brands showing their concern for my health by trying to sell me a glucometer, with a 100% cashback. They seem to have somehow figured out that my family medical history and personal eating habits have destined me to acquire one of these. Going one step ahead, there were three others forcing me to avail the 50-80% discount on a full body health checkup - what with all the excessive work I have been clocking for last ten months (unfortunately, the right person, read "the boss", doesn't see that), and the excessive calories Missus has made me consume through the innumerable dishes she has experimented on me during the lockdown. And, as if they came to know about the drop in my fixed take home salary because of the ingenious adjustment and variabilization done by my organization, there are so many remote working job opportunities, assuring me INR 10,000 of extra monthly income just sitting at home. The job sites perhaps got the estimate of variabilization as well as my skills level a bit wrong - I have actually received offers for interesting roles like Entry-level Software Engineer, Insurance Agent, Junior Process Executive, Direct Selling Agent and so on - I swear I have not mentioned any of these skills anywhere on my LinkedIn profile (if that is the source of their "targeted campaigns"). I almost felt like "commenting for better reach" on these mails, but there was no such option available.

 

Similarly, Tata AIG perhaps picked up my 15 years old Facebook feed and hence has been offering me an immediate renewal of my expiring bike insurance policy. FYKI, I last owned a bike in the first half of the last decade, and with the fantastic job being done by the local administration on maintaining the roads, I have no intention of owning one in the near future. And thank God for small mercies that Missus doesn't spy on my SPAM folder - with the number of mails from Kalyan Matrimony and Shaadi.com, giving me a sneak peek into the profiles of brides on their portals - enough to give someone an idea that I am still active on these sites, to stalk or for some voyeuristic pleasures. Another interesting frequent visitor is someone offering me UPSC coaching or a scholarship for a UGC-recognized online BBA degree from Manipal University. They somehow caught hold of my responses in the latest HR Pulse Survey and understood that I am not quite happy with the job I have got after doing my Engineering and MBA, am looking out for alternate career opportunities and am busy reskilling myself, like so many others. Dude, if you are reading this, which I know you are for sure, please note that I have already crossed the eligibility age for UPSC entrance. And more importantly, there is no fun putting these degrees on my LinkedIn profile - I would rather have my Udemy and Coursera certificates up on my profile. That is the pandemic trend, isn't it?

 

In all this mad rush of helping me set my life right, I really appreciate the efforts put by this group of spammers hell bent on selling me a car insurance without any paperwork, or BAJAJ FINSERV asking me to avail a zero documentation personal loan. I respect you for all you are doing to save the environment, by not using paper in conducting your business. Also thanks to "HDFC Life - no reply" for reminding me to be aware of spurious calls and fraudulent offers.