Lock, Stock and Barrel Down

We’ve just completed seven weeks in lockdown in Mumbai and while the first couple of weeks seemed surreal, I can’t quite remember what the original normal was anymore. I am trying to recollect what incessant honking sounds like or what it feels like to get pushed around against my will on a railway platform. How does a Margherita pizza taste? What was the name of my office building again? Is it my imagination or can I actually hear the wall clock ticking? Seeing sparrows and listening to Magpie Robins outside my window is no more a novelty. Neither is seeing myself transform from a well-groomed chap to Shaggy from Scooby-Doo (I miss my barber the most). I’m quite certain I heard that pigeon say “Look, son, the exhibit in this next window is a human being, or at least was. Now it looks like some sort of relic”.

I intend to make good use of my time while I’m away from the world, and while I do spend a fair portion of my week doing household chores and work related to my profession, I also want to engage in activities that are actually productive and meaningful. Here is a list of things I do and am considering doing. Maybe you want to try a thing or ten yourself.

• Perform household chores blindfolded just to ensure that I know the exact location of all the furniture and artifacts in all the rooms since I have rarely looked away from my phone and television screens when at home. And of course, since I don’t drive in traffic anymore on uneven roads, this provides the thrill of a bumpy ride.
• Jump out at people at home from behind the sofa or from top of the cupboard just to make sure they get their daily dose of exercise that drives their heart rate up.
• Hangout with my action figures. At least they don’t try to keep talking to me about the morbid situation that engulfs us. I might even do a photoshoot with them and send the results to Fashion TV.
• Play dumb charades on the balcony with the distant neighbor or the occasional pedestrian on the street below. The patrolling cops may get competitive and show me around their workplace.
• Create an orchestra with the stainless steel vessels in the kitchen and make the dog the lead singer. The cops might invite me again. Hey, at least I’m getting out of the apartment often.
• Try a new hairstyle where the first step would be to hope for some hair growth on my head. I know it’s a long process but we have time.
• Have a water gun fight where all the guns are filled with hand sanitizer.
• Compose and sing a song. Then send it to Simon Cowell. The reaction might keep me entertained for weeks until it starts affecting my confidence.
• Play dead or practice social distancing when called on for additional household chores.
• Put my daughter’s toy sea animals in the tub and go snorkeling.
• Put beer bottles in different rooms in the apartment, dress up, and go bar hopping.
• Direct a ‘home’ production.
• Turn off the lights, get onto my daughter’s tricycle, and inch towards the television. I’ve always wanted to experience a drive-in theatre.
• Break my piggy bank, have someone hide the contents, and go treasure hunting.
• Play monopoly in the building society with our actual apartments and use underhanded tactics to win every piece of real estate available. The lack of a regular flow of income has to be compensated somewhere.

I wish I could illustrate the numerous other ideas I have in my head but I don’t suppose the lockdown will go on for that long.

It’s easy to get frustrated and perturbed about how things are and how they might turn out going forward. It’s also easy to get swayed by all the negativity that has hit our senses these past few months because we won’t stop reading, thinking, seeing news reports and studies, and speaking about the current pandemic.

Why subject ourselves to this endless misery? It’s best to engage in some positive productivity and while I strongly recommend the actionable items in the list above, it won’t hurt to participate in some lesser but useful activities. Play with your kid, you won’t do it as much again (or hopefully you’ll create a life habit to do so). Learn a new skill through self-practice or online courses. Exercise, you already live in your gymnasium (where else will you go?). Pursue that hobby you have always given yourself excuses not to. Begin to eat healthy home-cooked food (are you really going to risk regular food delivery?). Read, let me say that again, READ!! (No, not the news. Please go read the previous paragraph again). Start a side hustle (or hustle your sibling). Look outside your window and actually observe. Slow down and breathe, you have time.

The current circumstances may last for a week, a month, or even a year. We can’t predict the future but we can certainly put our present to good use. If coronavirus can kill us, so can Tik Tok videos. If we have survived the latter, we can survive the former too.

Que Sera Sera. Just co-vid the flow.

 

Baptism By Migration

Many of us have stayed in our home towns, and even with our parents our entire lives (except when we went on short trips or to the local mart to pick up some milk while holding daddy’s hand of course). This is particularly true in India and some of the other Eastern cultures. While I value the closeness and support of family as much as anything in the world, I have come across people that completely lack a sense of ability in their own independence to perform basic tasks and take everyday decisions (which include picking their own wardrobe, deciding on the brand of cereal they like, figuring what their favorite color is and determining if they need to participate in the local sack race). These examples may sound like exaggerations but I know of people that depend on parents, family members, and close friends to make some ridiculous decisions for them, as well as help them execute these terribly ‘burdensome’ acts. And many that can make decisions independently still turn out to be a bit soft and cower under the smallest of adversities. Until my late teens, I was certainly one of them.

I was always a ‘mama’s boy’ and to a great extent, I still am. ‘Mama’s boy’ is a term used to ridicule men that are still attached to their mothers after a certain age. Well, what’s wrong with that? Shouldn’t one be? Attachment does not indicate a lack of independence. However, while I was very comfortable in my skin (Mumbai is a hot place so we don’t get a chance to don clothing made of other species’ skins) and took decisions independently, I never felt ready to face the real world. And the thought of being away from home was scary as hell.

When I was 10, I was being sent away on a week-long Karate camp, less than 100 kilometers from home. I behaved like I was being sent to the Pakistan border to fight their cavalry with only a toothpick in hand. I whined about not wanting to go weeks before the camp and even tried coming up with a strategy of getting the camp canceled. All this for a week-long camp. Am I kidding you? I’m afraid not. I was an easy pushover in school too, especially during extracurricular activities. While I was confident about standing my ground at home even if I was on the wrong side of the fence, I couldn’t for the life of me even utter a word when my abilities were overlooked at times for other agendas. If I had to do anything outside my comfort zone or stand up for myself, I froze. In the school bus, at social events, at the local playground, during private tutoring, when confronted by rowdy strangers, and even during unsavory moments with friends and cousins.

You leave home to seek your fortune and, when you get it, you go home and share it with your family – Anita Baker

At age 18, I faced genuine terror. While it was my decision as much as my parent’s that I would go abroad to study, the reality of it hit me only a few weeks before I was to leave. I spent my last days in Mumbai like it was my last days on planet Earth (After which, I’m sure my parents would have wanted to ship me off to some godforsaken celestial blob outside the Milky Way to ensure they can’t hear me cry and complain). I felt heartbroken, burdened with anxiety, had sleepless nights, and turned from a talkative fellow to a mute in no time at all. How was I going to live in the absence of my parents, family, and my girlfriend at the time? In fact, it took me over a year to get over my homesickness and truly settle in the gorgeous Granville, OH (This is definitely some kind of record at Denison University). I felt like I had been transported from a metropolitan city to one of the towns from the Ladybird books I read as a child (I expected to see the three little pigs or Snow White at every turn).

I call this the ‘boo hoo’ syndrome. And many of us are infected by it. We can’t do without our loved ones even for a few days, we don’t know how to manage our homes, we wouldn’t know how to come up with a basic meal ourselves, if our televisions stop functioning our life comes to a standstill, if our maid takes off we get suicidal, and if we fall ill while we’re alone, we consider ourselves to be the unluckiest people on the planet.

I spent eight years away from home in the USA and they were indeed my formative and defining years. I learned to fight for myself and others, while in India I would think twice before taking on a mouse (Actually I still do. Mice are freaky). I learned to handle multiple responsibilities single-handedly. Where a 6-hour day of productivity in India would knock the wind out of me, I still felt fresh on most days after a 14-hour day in the USA. When I was home, a single rejection would destroy my spirit, but in the USA, I had no job for a few months and a dwindling bank balance, and I only felt positive with every passing day despite regular rejections. I learned to lead wherein earlier I only followed blindly. I even learned how to tie my shoelaces in one motion.

These years were challenging, they were unrelenting, they were rewarding, they were fun, they made me cry, they made me laugh, they toughened me, I became self-reliant, I made lifelong friends, I learned life lessons, I learned how to survive, and I matured rapidly over these years. And these are easily amongst the best few years of my life until this point. While I spent months regretting it, this turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life. It made me capable in many ways.

It’s important for us to get away from our flocks and get a taste of the world on our own. The experience challenges us, even beats us to the ground, but then that is the essence of life: to come back from hardship and reap its rewards. As hard as it seems at the beginning, you will always relish your time away from home, a lesson in mental and emotional maturity. And when we come back, we understand so much more about our homes through the perspective we have gained. Going away helps us appreciate our homes so much more than we ever could if we never left.

So get out of your comfort zone people. Take a shot at going solo. Get away from home for a bit and trust yourself to hold your own. After all, not everyone is lucky enough to get a two-day crash course at home in growing up and taking responsibility like Macaulay Culkin did in Home Alone.

The Burden Of Silence

When do we tend to open our mouths the most without hesitation (Apart from the time we are gorging ourselves with food and drink every few minutes)? Is it when we are confident of what we’re saying (The levels of which go from high to low as we move from a relaxed personal setting to a more intimidating professional one)? Is it when we feel our egos have been challenged and we want to scathe someone with our words (Because they stated that Jack Ma has better business acumen than us)? Is it when we just want to yell at someone without any semblance of meaning or direction to what we’re saying (To get our daily dose of frustration out)? Or is it when we want our ideas to be heard (Which usually happens only when we are confident of being the brightest and most experienced in that given room)?

What determines our participation in an event? What factors does our mind consider innately before we decide to express ourselves in any situation? Why do we hoot or whistle in a crowded cinema hall during a movie, but are apprehensive about the slightest contribution in an equally crowded seminar? Why do we question others during their presentations in college, but are tongue-tied during our own? Why do we find it easier to demean someone rather than appreciate them? Why do we lash out immediately at someone for causing us the slightest irritation but behave like large iron clamps are keeping our lips together when we need to apologize for the grief we have caused? Why do we speak when we should really be listening and shut our trap when we really need to speak? Fear? Lack of confidence? Ego? Convenience? The lack of intent in pushing ourselves outside our comfort zone? Lack of care? Or even the old age civilized human’s adage of ‘chalta hai’ (big deal, it’s okay)?

How many situations do we find ourselves in where we know we can do better with our speech, but refuse to do so? There are innumerable but here are just a few examples.

• We are ready with admonishing words for our subordinates or colleagues at work (sometimes just for the heck of it because we believe it keeps them in line), but rarely with words of comfort and encouragement
• We leave our homes every morning with scathing words fired at our spouse (because we had a nightmare, woke up in a bad mood, and now need to get it out of our system), but seldom feel the need to understand her perspective and empathize
• We tussle with our family members regularly but refuse to have a calm and mature conversation (Unless the elders decide they want to distribute the family wealth)
• We speak condescendingly to the street food vendor for taking two minutes too long to prepare our sandwich, but seldom appreciate the quality of his work (despite devouring the sandwich at a rate that is always threatening to break the world record)
• We spoil our clients but don’t feel the need to speak nicely to our employees (Doling out fat paychecks will only work for so long)
• We crib endlessly to our loved ones about our problems (which could be as trivial as the cook not having shown up that day), but rarely care to ask them about their issues.
• We even glare and mumble at the pavement, when we trip (Obviously, the pavement schemed against us, changed dimension, took us by surprise, and was hell-bent on breaking our nose)

We always seem to be embroiled in our problems, our feelings, our perspective, and constantly expect support from those around us. We will yell at someone’s mistake, demand an apology, and happily put someone in a spot, especially if we feel we have been wronged. However, when we have to walk the hard miles (have the tough talks to be precise) and drag ourselves outside our comfort zone, we look the other way. We either convince ourselves that we have no reason to have a particular conversation, pretend like the situation doesn’t exist, or want to believe that we can’t do anything to help. At times our ego disallows us to do so, at times it’s the fear of facing a certain situation or backlash, and at times we just don’t care enough.

And then we rue missed chances to make amends, help someone, and boost a life, well into the future, and at times only in our fading light of life, leaving behind a trail of misery and ‘could have beens’. Ailing parents, disturbed spouses, insecure children, unappreciated employees, heartbroken friends, disgruntled business partners, and even ignored pets could use our words as much as a listening ear.

All of us listen. But how many of us hear? How many of us truly understand what we hear? And how many of us can eventually sympathize with the speaker. Good listeners are rare but then so are good speakers. And by good speakers, I do not imply oratory excellence and the ability to enthrall a crowd. But I mean the ability to touch, enthrall, and rejuvenate someone’s heart and soul.

So go have those much-needed conversations, for I can assure you that the joy and relief experienced by us and others upon doing so far outweighs our nonchalance, egos, and fear. Silence may be golden in situations, but the right speech, at the right time, delivered with earnestness and heart, is platinum.