On turning 40

 

I turned forty last January. Couple of months before that my dad passed away. He passed away when his blood sugar was touching normal levels, his heart was pumping good, his arthritis was under control and all other bio-medical markers were right on the dot.

He died of some obscure internal tumour bursting inside his tummy. In short, doctors still don’t know what killed him. So that’s how much progress we have made in medical science.

Anyways, sorry for digressing. This post is not about my dad. Or his death. Or my loss. It’s about thirty-nine other things which happened when I turned forty.

Dad departing was just the first one.

 

I don’t know if I imagined it, but in December, I felt my body stalling at the treadmill. Like how cars stall when there is some malfunction. I ran faster, but legs were lead and stayed put. Ultimately, I jumped down from the treadmill and moved in with the fat ladies at the ellipticals. Forty had begun.

 

Forty played mind games with me. I realized I don’t care about my thirty odd lac rupees stuck with Mantri builders, Bangalore for the last six over years. When I had booked the apartments in 2012, my grandma was alive, and so was my dad. They were gone now. Who would come to celebrate the grand house warming ceremony which we might have in 2020? Time is just a bitch. We sleep around with our pet projects, with our next big money-making investment, with our promotions and businesses, while the stations keep rolling by and soon enough the train stops and its time to get off.

 

Forty gave my wife her business. Seeing me finally give up the ghost on my materialistic dreams she got scared. She started her online business which soon led to stalls in fairs and festivals and then to a boutique.

I have been after my wife for the last twelve years to do something on her own. She’s a gifted cook, an astounding baker, a good writer and always had innovative business ideas. But first she had the excuse of finding her feet in Singapore, then it was the baby, which lasted for seven years, and then forty happened to me. I knocked my head and put my feet up on the couch and surrendered to my non-materialistic self. And that got her.

 

I almost forgot to mention. I lost my job ix months before I turned forty. The small hedge fund couldn’t hedge their risks and got smaller. They shut down their Singapore office and fled to their Japanese homes. But I wasn’t left high and dry as my previous employer Citibank (God bless America) lapped me up. They even matched my salary. So finally, I tasted my worst nightmare, of losing my job.

It actually changed me. I no longer am afraid to lose jobs. And I don’t attach any stigma to the whole ‘downsized’ drama. I have now the mindset of developed nations where being out of work is common and sometimes even desirable as it provides a much-needed break, a different perspective and a hope of getting re-skilled to change one’s field of work.

 

Forty also taught me how to re-adjust in a firm you have worked before and now have to work with much younger people, and a new boss who you need to report to, who is not only new to the team but younger than you.

For the first time, I learnt to keep my emotions out of my job. Yes, I agree I was lucky to get a very balanced lady as my boss, who supported me and respected me as the subject matter expert, but even then…, especially me being me. You know the whole bong ego bullshit. But I’m so relieved to have got over that.

 

Forty also taught me minimalism. Its different from “why do we need this earphone, we already have the headphones? But this is wireless. And that is a bone conductor. And this one here…” No. That’s wastage and then learning to not waste. Minimalism is different. Its about balance in wanting the best, analysing if I need the best, analysing what needs to make way for the new stuff, deciding a place to keep the stuff well in advance and always keep it there, take time to clean and maintain things and use them to the maximum. Minimalism to me is to make use of stuff you buy to the maximum.

 

Quitting

Today is about quitting. Or rather, not quitting.

Yesterday the results came out, and I have failed again to win the hearts of Competition Judges. I am getting accustomed to rejections.

But the feeling of “not wanted” “not good enough” is piercing. It is like a knife which I hold in my own hands, close to my heart. And when I am most vulnerable or pensive, I jab the knife in. Right in.

Careful enough to open the wound, but not to spill any blood. Nobody should see the mess.

So I find solace in my friend’s words. He says – Celebrate each rejection, wear it like a label on your arm. And keep trying.

Thank God for these positive people! They stir up the souls of the likes of us with a big spoon, and give a good knock on our heads. Yes, it makes us feel happy. And makes us write.

About the other quitting – I quit smoking last year, July 31. But that wasn’t the day I had my last cigarette. I had many after that. I don’t smoke unless someone offers me one. So I am in that can-smoke-if offered-for-free type now.

God! I have hated free loaders all my life. And now I’m one. So maybe I have not quit. But not to be too harsh, I do avoid people who smoke.

And sometimes I seek them out when I get those pangs in the middle of the night, to smoke. Very akin to being horny.

While there is a way out for the latter, there is none for the former. Coz I have quit.

Once

 

She had once flown, clutching her desk and drawers,

And as the clouds whizzed past.

She caught a glimpse of God

But the screams shut him out

 

She had once sat on a rainbow, with its colours melting

All muddled up, until it was night.

She jumped down and headed home

By the last local train

 

She had once eaten, by the wayside temple

A gift from Gods,  yet so simple.

Now she belched after her meal

The poison tasting stale

 

She had once worn clothes, the fabric clinging to her sweat

The threads intertwined, until she was naked.

Now she turned in her sleep, her lithe body awake

The fabric became a blanket which he has flung away

 

Published in Culture Cult

http://content.yudu.com/Library/A3xvng/CultureCultMagazineN/resources/index.htm?

 

 

 

Where we will be

Wife and I wander around in the bubble. We see everything but they are out of shape, everything stretches out and time stops in the bubble.

We have a child, of this world. And two of the other world. The child of this world wants friends, parties, sleepovers, brothers, sisters and a secure playroom and a school to go to when she is bored at home.

Wife and I want nothing. We want to run, jog, exercise, listen to our own kind of music, watch movies which doesn’t bore us too much and fight.

The fights get bitter and it is always a Who-dun-it. Whoever wins the fight has to apologize to the loser. That’s what I like and hate about our fights. Depending on whether I lost or won.

And now we have to go back. Maybe. Quite possibly.

Go back to a place where my wife came from and I had overstayed.

Kolkata was always a motel for me. A few clothes, fewer friends, old relatives, some secure jokes and an insecure job or school.

I don’t know what it was for wife. Memories she wants to forget because they are too good. Plus these memories threaten to burst her bubble.

 

It’s not about bad roads, or goons or school pressure or lack of jogging tracks, or clear weather or ignorant people.

It is about being.

We have to be again. We have to pretend again. We have to live again. In the original aboriginal Indian way.

Were we ashamed of our Indian label? Not really. But we were ok with only the label.

It’s like joining a candle march. You hold the candle and cry. Because everybody is crying around you and you think you can actually feel for the departed and their dying moments.

But you don’t – You’re in the bubble.

But for the parents of the dead, it is a raw wound and it hurts from all sides. It stifles them and they cannot breathe, eat or sleep. They need redemption.

So they run. Run to candle marches, give television interviews, rant and shriek for the out-of-turn death. But they find no respite. There is no escape.

Their grief is not a label. It is not a candle. It is a breath taken away.

 

So it is with going back to India. Being Indian won’t be a label any more. Being Indian will stifle us. It will hurt from all sides.

But this hurt won’t be grief. It will be a shock for the death of an NRI. Yes, there will be death and there will be a birth.

 

It’s scary because we don’t know how it will be for our earth child. Because she is not in the bubble – Her real life here will be a real life there.