Simplicity

RJ had gone for a trip to Hampi and Gokarna…

Of course you don’t know RJ so I’ll tell you. RJ is one of my closest friends. He’s a geek for which I love him and because of which I can have these conversations with him… about the meaning of life and that the rest of it… And apart from that RJ is also quite cool and fun and takes amazing photographs.

But the reason I’m talking about RJ is because of his recent blog post Simplicity. I read it. Then I replied. Then I felt I should write my reply here, because its been on my mind for a while too.  I guess this is the extended version of where I left off on his blog.

The world is really big.. and lets face it I am very small (and so are you… really) and despite how much we like to believe that we can be big and all encompassing and can drive the world with our energy… the resistance is bigger than us.

And within this equation, I am the variable… not the constant. I can hold as many values and shed as many values as I want and the equation will hold… only yield different results. Sometimes all those results feel equally desirable… and sometimes, equally undesirable.

What decides when what is desirable and when its not? who knows… Maybe hormones, maybe media, maybe family and friends and maybe society at large… maybe even technology… and just how we feel at that time with a complete mixture of all of this… who knows… and really what does it matter?

Isn’t life about finding your own answers? Isn’t it more fun to be wrong sometimes than always be right and win only the wrath of all other humans (because, to err is human, remember!)? Isn’t it just satisfying that we make decisions for ourselves that we stick to for as long as we want to and then decide that we want to change?

I have been torn the past few weeks between versions of past me. Versions that all had their flaws and versions that all had something nice about them. Versions that all had both happy memories and sad. Versions that went through highs and lows and fought struggles and basked in the glory. All human, none divine and hence… all desirable.

Who am I today? I want to say a summation of past versions of me and my future dreams along with my present circumstances. I am a summation of all my mistakes and all the things I did right. Heck, I’m a summation of every decision I’ve made. And do I like myself – yes!

So then I should just trust myself with making decisions that will teach me something. Right, wrong, better, worse is all subjective. And if by the end of my decision.. if I’m a more interesting person with a broader horizon than the one I had before… its a job well done right?

So I may not know what I want or who I want to be.I may not have the answers and I may have too many questions. I may be contradictory and complicated when I agree its really simple… But isn’t it simpler just to be okay with not knowing than to know

Loving You Mumbai Local Train Ride…

Last night when I was leaving from daman I had this sinking feeling in my stomach – I’m going to Bombay. Since I was a kid, Daman meant weekend/vacation getaway and Bombay meant back to school and school was always a sinking feeling….

But then I got to Vapi railway station and felt happy. On digging into why I feel happy, I realized I haven’t travelled by trains in a while (4 months!) given that most my journeys to MP were bus barring the last one which was, well, flight.

That happiness continued this morning. I discovered that my ability to skillfully maneuver myself  around a rush of people, to get to the emptiest ladies compartment and to find my place at the door are still intact despite the lack of practice. Wind in my face on a cloudy morning passing by the ever so familiar tracks to south Bombay. The greenery of moss filled gutters and unwanted, stubborn weeks by their sides, the ruins of walls and houses fence the railway tracks… and music!

Sure waking up to foggy hills has its fun… but there are few mornings that make me smile like this one

Sweatshirt and Jeans

Life works in mysterious ways. Just when you think you have some part of life figured out… or just when you get used to one pace of life, life comes and says “buzzzzz,Wrong Answer, Try again!”.

Case in point, 9th January – Neha comes to Adharshila to do my mid term eval. We stay up long hours making plans for the next 3 months and all the rest. She leaves on the 10th and me and roomie go down to a new spot on the stream and have nice long conversation there… we decide to make it a sunday morning ritual. 11th – my fathers factory catches fire. 12th morning – I get a phone call at 9:10 am and I rush out of Adharshila at 9:45 am. 13th afternoon – I reach Daman, where my dad’s factory is and see that the fire – which by this time, had started 36 hours ago – is still not completely under control. I see that at 3/4ths of all that my dad and mom had worked for over the past 20 years is burning to ashes and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

The week that followed was obviously mad and 10 days on we’re still finding areas in the factory from where smoke is coming out. Obviously, I’m far away from a village type situation. Obviously I’m far away from what I anticipated I would be doing in the next 3 months. Obviously, I’m far away frm even knowing what I will do in a months time. Heck, I’m far away from knowing anything.

But now that I’m here, I can’t help but be reminded of  me that existed once upon a time. Sometime in JC. Sometime when I decided I wanted to run my dad’s company. Its like, life’s telling me – “Hey! You were the one that wanted to reconcile who you were over the years.. you can’t possibly ignore this part of your life.”  I feel like a different person. A person with different tastes. A person who reads different books and a person wh wears different clothes. The first thing that changed when I got here was that I started wearing Jeans with my kurtas. Not that I’m against salwars or anything and to be perfectly honest I love salwars. But dude, we’re talking about jeans here! Those comfortable live ins that need not be washed for days, that feel like second skin.

I wore  T shirt and Jeans today after I-can’t-even-remember-how-long. And all I can say is – It Fells Good!

I’m  at a very confusing threshold. Its not like I’m not always at a confusing threshold but this one in particlar is kinda hard. There are these 2 contradictory Mes spread across the universe. And everytime I think that I have 1 contradiction figured out… there comes another one – and thats bigger and even more confusing than the first.

And who knows if i’ll ever be able to reconsolidate my love for Ayn Rand with my love for Karl Marx. Or if I’ll ever consolidate how much I enjoy wearing jeans and a Tee with how much I enjoy wearing a salwaar kurta. Or My love for driving with my love for sitting in the middle of a forest/hill/terrain untouched by civilizaion. Or my sincere belief in employment generation as a way out of poverty with my sincere belief that people should not be forced into landlessness and labour to begin with.

So many questions. One little me

Dear 2009

Dear 2009,

The sun has set on the last day of you and soon you will be gone. As much as I’d like to hold you back because of how awesome you are and how I have come to believe you can do me no wrong, it isn’t to be. You must move on to the memory archives of my mind and make way for 2010. Hope fully when you meet it at my door for a few brief seconds, you’ll transfer to it all the niceness that you have brought along.

Because I’m archiving, we should start from the very beginning. From how I didn’t do anything but sleep last new years, like so many new years before that, to the fact that early enough into the year you brought along overwhelming emotions that didn’t let me sleep on other nights when I actually wanted to. Thank you for gifting me a closure from 2008 which I took a while to unwrap but when I did get it, it was totally worth it.

Thank you for bringing in friends that left very many years ago, and for eating up that time to make it feel like none had transpired in between.

Thank you for February. For the 2 wonderful weddings, for the cousin bonding, for the alcohol that I had outside of AIESEC, for the dances we did, for the clothes we wore and the madness that February was. I doubt any year will kick Feb 2009’s ass in being so awesome.

Thank you for making sure I stuck to study plans come March. Thank you for bringing me miraculously close to people that would inspire me to study and at the same time fill in for those who had left leaving behind space. Thank you for making me fall in love with Subway, Coffee, Tea, Butter Idli and somehow in the middle of all this,  Accounts and Corporate Finance.

Thank you for bringing the black beauty into my life! I truly love him… he drives like a dream

Thank you for letting me go through 3 months of examinations, of green tea and of Prem Joshua, Chinmaya Dunster and James Asher.

Thank you for June! For finally making exams end, for giving me the good sense to run away immediately for a month. For the workshop, For meeting Ankit and Mridu and Neha. For Landour. For Ambar and Raghu Dixit.

Thank you for Kashmir.

Thank you for Bangalore, Ooty, Kodai, Delhi, Pravah…

Although Delhi deserves special mention… Thank you for NFC Shawarma, Khan Chacha, Big Chill, getting to know the roads of south Delhi, for being able to get lost and hence love a city that was never mine.

Thank you for N to keep me company a fair amount of the time.

Thank you for Jalebee Cartel.

Thank you for Adharshila Shikshan Kendra.

Thank you for giving me the good sense, the brains, the guts or whatever the hell it was that I had to stick it through this long.

Thank you for the insane experience it has been. For making me stick to a plan I made a year ago such that its made me change the fabric on which I am made or at least understand it better and strengthen it.

Thank you for Kakrana.

Thank you for making me realize I still love mumbai.

Thank you for making me meet everyone that matters in the past 3 days, just for the awesome high before new years.

And lastly, Thank you for bringing me back here for saying my final good bye. This way, its you and me… and no one else

There are few years that have been as eventful and wonderful as you. And by implication, you’ve left big shoes for 2010 to fill in… But since this was my 1st year of “Real Life” (oh, I forgot to add, Thank you for making sure I graduated!) it means so much to know it doesn’t suck as bad as most people claim to make it sound… so long as the right choices are made. And thank you for making sure I made those and stuck to them.

Thank you for helping me rebuild myself, my faith, my values and my core. Thank you for giving me perspective I hadn’t had for all these years… in such a way that I was ready to take it all in, digest it and use it. Thank you for overwhelming me on enough occasions so that I could shake out of inertia.

Thank you for the patience that you have brought back to me after so many years. Thank you for the creativity you helped me find from within me. Thank you for waking up dreams that I had put to sleep so many years ago. Thank you for giving me the strength and belief to know I can follow them. Thank you for making me realize that the choice is really in my hands and no one elses.

And lastly. Thank you for breaking my streak of bad luck on the love life front. Thank you for being a year of singlehood, because clearly life is best enjoyed when .. And while still on the topic, thank you for letting me realize what (or rather who) is truly important to my life and shoving their importance down my throat so that I learnt how to fight for them… and then, win them. At the same time, thank you for helping me let go other unimportant people.

Thank you for the friendship, the laughs, the solitude, the thoughts. Thank you for the bus rides, the music, the steadiness and the silence. Thank you for courage and books, and thank you for making being able to accept my weaknesses, embrace them and move on.

Ending This… Thank you for being AWESOME 2009! I’ll definitely miss you and go back to you in my mind whenever I feel the need for peace, courage or just want to be with a happy memory.

I hope 2010 is as wonderful and as new as you were… And most importantly I hope its as much of a joy ride with its equal share of ups and downs

Lots of Love

Ma Rewa

The past 2 days was probably the biggest eye opener for me in a while! I was in this place called Kakrana, a village in the Alirajpur district of western Madhya Pradesh. Alirajpur was earlier a part of Jhabua which is one of the poorest districts of India. Hence, so is Alirajpur. Kakrana is one of the most untouched by modern civilization places that I have visited in my life. For about 50 KMs to Kakrana you will not find a proper road. Its either kachcha rasta or a very tattered version of a dambar rasta. The terrain is largely hilly.

After this ride which is a torment to the back, I reached the school that I was visiting. Rani Kajal Jeevan Shala made Adharshila Learning centre look like a posh upper class school and made Sakad, my village, look like the height of modern civilization. The most you could find in Kakrana is brick and cememt structures. No paint, chuna, nothing. The floor is pasted with gobar. There are 2 small halls which are room to 100+ kids in the day while school is on and about 70 odd kids at night when they sleep.

The kids all look healthy and happy… cheerful round and bright faces! Then we start interacting with them.. sing songs and all of that. Soon after the school time is over and we walk further down from the school to the Narmada. This is the 2nd time I’ve seen the Narmada (I think, apart from the one time in Jabalpur) and just one look and it makes perfect sense why so many people have spent so much time and effort trying to conserve the river and maintain its true beauty. Kakrana is one of the villages affected by the drowning due to the sardar sarovar. I saw land that earlier existed half sunk and markers on the current land that will sink soon.

This place – Most untouched by modern civilization, with only so much as a shop or 2 selling parle g and other such basic amenities – is probably one of the most scenic and serene places I’ve visited! True story!

When back to the school later that evening we had dinner and slept on the floor – because these guys don’t have much of a mattress to sleep on. Luckily we were equipped for the cold and me with my severe intolerance for cold had 3 layers on + a blanket and thats when I felt I could just about sleep well.

The next morning, after another visit to Ma Rewa, we worked with the kids  in 1 hour of Shramdaan that they do. All the kids are engaged in building another room for their school so more people can study and live there. Kids of all ages right from kg to 7th grade carry bricks from one side of the campus to the other and on the other side we help them disembark the bricks and pile them neatly at the construction site. This was one of the happier parts of my day… I actually felt after that that I had earned my lunch!

And of course thin (relatively) and crisp bajra ki roti is a true treat!

There were a lot of thoughts in my head while I was here that aren’t surfacing right now because of exhaustion so I’ll just leave you with pictures. The conversations later

Feeling Good

So… My latest trip to home was very very required! I’m glad I did it. I have some interesting revelations

1) I love Bombay… Its true… at the end of the day.. thats where home is, thats where mom and dad are, thats where I know the roads, that’s where I have memories and that is where the heart will be. This by no means implies that I want to live all my life in Bombay… I’m just saying I don’t hate the city the way I did 5 months ago.

2) Weeding out bad memories always helps… Now I have only good memories of Bombay…  The people and events that led to the not so nice ones are conveniently MIA

3) Raghu Dixit live is Fucking Awesome

4) My appetite in Bbay isn’t half of what it is here…its true… Pollution and lack of physical activity… but that proves one thing – Supply and Demand never meet

5) I create a mess for myself in my head for no real reason

6) My umbilical cord with my parents is still not broken… I hate being away from them despite how much they may get on my nerves while I’m there. While I’m in bombay… every minute outside the house has to be measured because its time away from mom dad!

7) I’m more tolerant of all the things I disliked in bombay… I actually find it easier to be pluralistic now than before

I have a new plan

9) I am confused as ever

10) I should stop thinking and start some doing….

11) Happiness is internal…

 

Okay thats it.

Its one of those days when the world feels wrong for no real reason… and I just want to argue till a point where it’s so personal and so close to defining who I am that it ends in me crying.These happen every too often and are probably hormonal.

As an introduction.. maybe I know too little to be angry.. about anything in the world… and then I know I know more than a lot of people in who are angrier or not angry at all and hence I should be angry. Maybe I’ve made my peace with the right vs left debate in my head and I think at this stage I’m neither a raring entrepreneur in my head who will wear the swanky suit and market things and crunch numbers and feel cool living the extremely posh lifestyle nor am i the strong leftist that would want to go back to a more primitive way of being. I think development is 2 things – one a process of historical change*(this history bit will be spoken about later) and 2 a process where in human kind becomes a better self. This is true for individuals as much as it is for society.

So they were talking about free loading earlier today and how everyone thats not in primary production is really a free loader. That got me thinking… historically was that so?

I’m thinking of a clan of homo sapiens sapiens just after private property and agriculture sunk in. Lets some how assume that when they came to this land and decided to set boundaries at least the 1^st group amongst them was able to equally distribute the land. So all of them had equal land that was equally good.

Now there were disputes.. there would always be disputes right? I mean some one fell in love with some one else’s mate person or something…I’m sure there were disputes in those days also. So how did they solve them… maybe one chick mated with more than 1 guy and they were unsure of the of spring and now that private property was decided there was an issue about that…

So they needed someone to settle the dispute… who would be that person… so they decide one person – lets say person x is decided because by common consensus they all think he’s a better decision maker than the rest… let’s think this human nature for a little while. Now lets say this person had too many disputes on hand so he had no time to go farm… and so he raised a problem to the rest of them saying – “Well hey – I’m sorry I need food” and because he was such an integral part of the peace maintainance in the community they all decided that they would produce surplus for him and pay him a tax so that he would solve disputes all day. Maybe that would be the most initial form of a democratically elected government.

Of course this is only an ideal. Because I’m sure there were other things that determined who got the power to be the guy who’s the leader of the clan… maybe because he got to the land 1^st and got the best land…. or maybe he actually did manage to get more land than the rest and somehow the rest couldnt eventually increase their land… or maybe he was just physically stronger and used force to get power where in which case he got his power out of fear. But if all these assumptions are kept aside for a bit – just to assume that what I mentioned  above happened then is there a possibility to assume that every role that originated/ every job that originated was not a good use of already available surplus but a reason to create surplus because adopting a certain way of life required that surplus…

Like law for private property-  the institution of marriage – education (by this I mean imparting knowledge from generation to generation) – finding new knowledge (given that with every passing generation certain knowledge becomes redundant and certain new thing is discovered… like how to keep yourself warm before fire vs after fire was discovered) (maybe it didn’t become redundant immediately.. but I’m sure by the time they discovered the stove it would have been redundant or at least highly recreated or should I use to word – reformed!)

Can one really say that all these emerged only because man found surplus in the fields? because barter happened? because trade happened? Maybe I should get people to tell me what they think… Heres where you guys fit in… bounce back ideas… or just think… it’ll do your brain some good. True Story!

Rehna Tu… Hai Jaise Tu….

Its been a while since I updated anything and truth be told there isn’t much to update. I’ve been having my own daily epiphanies but I really don’t think I can document them into a sensible paragraph.

I’ve settled here really well. A bit too well I think because the idea of going back home is now a little painstaking… which is why I’m making a million excuses not to go back home for this weekend and the major ass VSS family gathering (read: booze fest). Actually that’s not true. I’m not making excuses… I’m just saying I don’t want to come!

This hasn’t really gone down well with the mother who claims to be concerned about my health and hygiene but is really being just really over protective for no real good reason. This is after I’ve put on 1 kg here! (Weight update: I lost 2 KGs when I got here in October after which, after some effort and things, I’ve put on 1 KG… net loss = 1 Kg)

Anyhow, that aside, work is starting to catch pace. At some levels I’m really enjoying what I’m doing, on other levels I will make do with it just because I love it here so much. The equations with the roomies is good too…although the Lez couple is starting to push me to nauseous conditions. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about… well… don’t bother.

Its been raining here past few days and that makes where I am look like lonavala or panchghani and makes me miss the family and the cards and the endless games of judgement with pakodas and the endless conversations with Coffee.. Its one of those days…

We’re going to make some version of the worlds-most-awesome-khichdi today.

Heres how that goes:

Ingredients:

Half a glass of rice for every person that’s going to eat

Chopped onions, tomatoes, potatoes (that can work in an and/or manner depending on what you have in your kitchen)

Chopped Garlic ( an essential ingredient. please put enough of it for good measure, it hides all other F ups)

Masala (Heres what you do – get your mom to make you an awesome “Masala Ka Dibba” When making khichdi open dibba and add as many arbit things that you feel like adding)

Jeera

Lots and Lots of Chilli

Dal if you have any available with you

Oil

Procedure:

Its really simple. Heat oil in a vessel, add all the masala and all that you’ve chopped and fry for a while, then add the rice and fry that for a bit too… add water – double the qty of rice + a few glassed depending on what other things you’ve added. Stir. Cover the vessel. Wait with baited breath for the worlds most awesome khichdi.

Cooking time : about Half and Hour

Tastes best with Sour Dahi. Also is most fun to eat when you are racing with room mates to finish the most-first!

So that’s that from the Chef’s Kitchen today!

More later

 

Voila!

Today is one of those days that needs to go down in the history of my internship and largely as an incident worth remembering in larger life situations.

So here’s what happened.

Somehow (its another long story how and why and such, which I’m done venting about so we shall not get into) I landed myself with the honorable task of taking 18 secondary school kids to Mogri ( a town by a river both with the same name) and back because they insisted on going “Ghumne”!

Now we left in the moonlight of 11:30 AM and got back by 5:00 pm. On the way I got talking to some of the kids and had some interesting revelations about my place of work, its perception and history which are truly valuable. I also sat by the river under a tree and facilitated my first so called  “class”. So that stuff was quite fun. The other fun thing was the lift we got in the open rickshaw-truck-type thing carrying cowdung and hay… for about 2 KMs!

Since I am still alive and am done being annoyed about how I got conned into going in the first place… I am now being extremely excited and proud about the fact that I reached home and managed to clean the dishes and make myself some awesome risotto. Today I felt like I deserved any luxury of comfort food/comfort activities that I cared to provide myself with and for once could not be less bothered about what people here would have to say or think… because its kind of like their un-asked-for redemption. So I am now going to watch Californication, talk to the peeps on gtalk and leave you guys with the recipe to anytime anywhere risotto.

Risotto a La Me in a village in remote Madhya Pradesh, India.

Apparatus:

1 Pressure cooker

1 Laddle

1 Thingie you use to make buttermilk with … the long stick with the spikes at the end.

Ingredients:

Half cupful of Thick Rice (available abundantly anywhere in Italy/North, Central India)

1 Onion

A few cloves of garlic

2 Tomatoes

3 Spoonfuls of Ghee

Some Oregano and Chilli Flakes to taste

1 Cheese cube.

Procedure:

Put the ghee in the pressure cooker, saute’ finely chopped onions and garlic along with oregano and chilli flakes, add to that the finely chopped tomatoes and saute’ those for a bit also. Then add some water and bring to boil. Get the butter milk maker thingie and puree the mixer you have in front of you in the cooker. Add pepper and salt to taste and then add the rice. Put the pressure cooker lid on and go do other things for a while.

3 Whistles down, shut the gas (which you should have started before you started any other procedure!) and let the steam out. Remove all the rice in a plate, grate the cheese cube and mix well.

Tastes Best when starved and having walked 16Kms!

Fifteen days into my internship (almost) I have to confess that I’ve had things at a level higher than the average comfort. The last weekend went in mom dad’s visit to Adharshila as a surprise for my birthday and this weekend I’m in Bombay, in the comfort of my bedroom and bathroom and thin rotis, in the comfort of being with mom dad and all loved ones on Diwali. I don’t think I could have asked for a more smooth first fortnight of my internship.

Of course despite this, and despite the fact that in hindsight all of this happened over the past 15 days, each week felt like an eternity and to break in and out of routines is going to be difficult. Also finding my own place there and also fitting into my groove and coming to terms with the massive shocks has taken and will take its time. But what really helps is knowing that there are other people sinking in the same boat… and that we’ll all come out of it together.

Here is a glimpse of my life at Adharshila and the interesting changes that I have made to my life.

This is the road that leads me to Adharshila. The small crowd of trees that you see at the far end is the Adharshila Campus… The road is almost always open and makes for a great evening walk route.

This is the Computer room. It gets its name from the sole laptop that lies on the table here and the fact that there is a battery here from which one can charge their laptops to prevent the dangers of voltage fluctuations of all the other plug points in the campus on the laptops. It is also where I take most of my classes or other work related discussions.

Here is the infamous open bathroom that I have my baths in. It is relatively safe from human eye so long as you ensure you bathe when no one is around or don’t care enough. One must beware of the uninformed animal once in a while like the dog that walked into and out of the bathroom whilst I was having a bath and had soap all over my body. I have to say that that was one of the most interesting moments of my 15 days!

This is the kitchen of my new room. Here we have cooked kichdi and bateta nu shaak (potatoes) and I have cooked maggi… once. The second highlight of my 15 days!

So basically my day at Adharshila starts at 5:30-6:00 Am. Its a different story that it takes a lot of effort to actually convince myself to get out of bed at that hour but for all other practical purposes I am awake.

Then I wake up and do sundry waking up activities like use the loo/brush/eat/drink milk etc and prepare for my Economics class with the 10 graders. This is the highlight of my day… everyday. That gets done by 10ish and then I’m doing some or the other work till about 4:30 after which time I study a bit and sit with the room mates and chit chat. Then there is shramdaan that involves some amount of farming. This is fun and we sing random songs while doing this with the other girls. After this we go for a walk into the sunset and come home, make and eat dinner and lounge around till the eyes close the shutters and one is forced to call it a day. This happens around 9:30 pm!!!

I will write more about the day to day fun things that happen later… but this is for all you guys that wanted pictures!!

This last one is one of the 15 gorgeous sunsets I’ve seen in my 15 days there…