Old Friends

I met an old friend from journo school today and I am glad it worked out. I had a busy day wrapping up at work before my Italy trip and for a while I was hoping he wouldn't message me as I  was also  tired. But message me he did and we managed to meet without incident. He is possibly the best people's person I know. Friendly, unassuming, doesn't take himself  too seriously. People warm to him like I have never seen. He is great friend to be around, full of tales about his experiences as a cricket journalist and a great mimic, so it was a fun few hours. He is  going to be in England for  the next few months, so we are sure to meet again.

Walking Out

Sometimes I feel like I take my much-vaunted new relationship with guilt too far. This evening, I walked out of my yoga class when I learned that my instructor was away, as I had attended a class with the substitute teacher before and hadn't enjoyed it. In my defense, the substitute teacher hadn't arrived, but I am sure the others were surprised to see me walk out without a word. They haven't ever been particularly friendly to me so its not like I owe them an explanation. In fact, some of them  look straight through me even though we see each other every week. The only reason I choose to join this overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly female and overwhelmingly lithe group is because the yoga teacher is amazing. But that is something I have whined about before.
If I had stayed for the class, I am sure I would have felt bitter, and counted the minutes to the end. Not the purpose of yoga at all. Life is too short to waste on things you don't enjoy and don't have to do, especially if there is a way to escape. Equally, I wouldn't have left if  the instructor was already there. The right to do as you please doesn't extend to being cavalier about other people's feelings.
When I was young, I gave an inordinate amount of attention to the question "What will other people think?". Its not that that question has gone away. It has just become more nuanced. Do I really care about the people who I am worried will disapprove? Who am I hurting with my actions and can it  be avoided? What will I think of  myself?

Solace In Songs

The past few days have not been the best. The fascist at home has tightened his stranglehold over the country and aspiring fascists here, rookies though they are in comparison to him, are getting stronger by the day. Although I am not a music afficionado,  I often turn to music for solace or inspiration. I have written before about the power of music to summon the past and how I associate certain songs with certain periods of my life. I just went back and read it and didn't know whether to be pleased by the quality of the writing, which was good, or dissatisfied that I haven't made as much progress as I thought since then. But that is a blog for another day. Coming back to the present, where hope hangs heavy rather than uplifts, I have been seeking solace in songs. The only songs that provide solace are old Bollywood songs, because they remind me of an India very different from now, which was already changing for the worse when I was born. And Indian protest songs, which remind me of the India that is fighting back against the rising tide of hate and fascism. All other Indians seem like they are complicit in the making of the new India. Of course, the obvious question is if I feel so strongly about what's happening in India, why am I not back there? Its a good question, and I have no explanation beyond saying that I don't want to live there, and now even less as it is careening into  fascist future. 

Unleashing Your Wisdom On Others

After you have gone through a life-changing experience and come out on the other side, after you've discovered the joy of therapeutic writing and daily blogging, after you feel you have transformed your relationship with the world and with yourself, it is perfectly natural to feel like unleashing this newfound wisdom on the world, or at least on the people around you. It is tempting to read other people through the lens you read yourself, and identify their strengths and flaws. And try to correct their flaws. Which is not a bad thing in itself. I don't belief this inclination, at least in me, comes from pride and a desire to have my wisdom validated, but a place of concern. At least most of the time. When a number of people say you are wise to start to believe them and feel pressured to act wise. And, that is when you stop listening to people. Pride is not bad in itself, but is harmful when it starts to dominate over other emotions. And starts to drown out what people around you are saying. Because wisdom doesn't lie in seeking truths about life and disseminating it to the world. It lies in responding to the needs of yourself and those around you in the most fruitful manner possible. And, that requires active listening and suspension of judgement. It is difficult to know when to intervene and when to keep your counsel to yourself. But, listening, pausing for a moment before an intervention can  help to  some extent. 

Friends' Weddings

Today, I got an email from an old friend inviting me to his wedding reception. Since I didn't knowhe was getting married, it came as a surprise. Its been a while since I attended a friend's wedding--the last one was in December 2015. There was a wave of weddings in the winter of 2012, but since then, weddings have been few and far between. As far as close friends go, I don't anticipate any weddings in the near future, although there could always be surprises, like this one.
While I am happy for my friends who are happily married, marriage does mean I see less of them. And when they have kids, they practically disappear. It used to be that most of my close friends were coupled up, if not married. I would occasionally feel jealous of them, but not anymore. Maybe I have changed, maybe the world is changing. In recent years, most of my new friends are single, and single people seem to be everywhere and quite content with their relationship status. And, today, I read an article which said childless women who had never married were happier than married or divorced women or mothers. I have believed for some time now that surviving the triple crisis of capitalism, liberal democracy and the climate would require fundamental changes, not only in the political and economic spheres but also in the social and individual spheres. The rise of people who don't want children because of the state of the world are an example. Marriage and children may cease to be the chief markers of a settled life. Of course, finding your soulmate is definitely something to be celebrated. But, one can't wait around to find one's soulmate. "Your choices are half chance".

When Hope Dies

This will be my last lament about the elections. The results are in, and the ruling fascists have expanded their mandate of doom. Our minds are not up to the task of imagining what havoc they will unleash. We only know that it will far exceed our worst expectations. Minds fueled by hate have extraordinary amounts of morbid creativity. India has given me another reason for not moving back if I can help it. There is anxiety about what the world will turn into and despair about how little we knew the world we were living in. History tells us the march of the far-right has only be stopped by a cataclysmic calamity like a World War. Will India suffer a giant economic crisis or will it go to war with Pakistan, or both? The far right cannot be contained, it can only be crushed. This might seem very cynical and defeatist but I suppose no one can see a way out that doesn't involve pain and possibly bloodshed. At this moment, these profound words of Karl Marx describe my sentiment: All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.

Ahead of D-Day

Tomorrow is the result of national elections in India, a country where I have spent most of my 33 and-a-half year, but where I don't want to live again. Sometimes you feel closer to a place when you are away from it. When I was in India, I was mostly too preoccupied navigating the traffic, noise, crowds and general craziness too care much about what was happening to the country, except for the time when India and Paksitan were on the brink of conflict. From a distance, all the trivialities vanish from view, and I only see the big developments. What happens in the elections tomorrow is unlikely to affect my life in any meaningful way. I have friends and family in India, of course, and I might have to move back out even if I don't want to. But, none of my friends and family are likely to fall foul of this regime unless India becomes a failed state. My outrage at the current right-wing fascist government is not even expressed on Twitter. All I do is silently fume. If only we were pushed to action when we got outraged. But, India is in my bones--the good bits, the many bad bits and everything in between. It will always occupy a part of my spiritual space whether I like it or not. And, my heart will sink if tomorrow heralds five more years of the current government.

Shame and Privacy

Do we all have private habits that we'd rather other people not know about? Not quirky ones, but embarrassing ones. If we were secretly filmed going about our lives in our homes, would we resent the violation of privacy for obvious reasons, but also because some of our actions would cause us deep embarrassment if chronicled? Ideally, everyone should have some personal space to give shape to their private inclinations without fear of shame or embarrassment as long as those inclinations don't hurt anyone. And, no, I'm not just talking about porn viewing habits but all the things we do secure in the comfort that no one is watching. Which is why voyeurism is such a violation. To be an object that feeds someone else's curiosity or worse, libido, must be quite unpleasant.
Which is why living in someone else's house as a lodger always comes with constraints. One has to perform the role of a "normal" and a no-stress lodger all or most of the time. And performing normality can  be quite painful.

Life Goes On

I woke up this morning and immediately remembered the news from the previous day that had filled me with dismay. But I am chasing down a PhD deadline so I couldn't afford to mope. And, it seemed a little ridiculous to cry over the results of exit polls. When one is confronted with cataclysmic events, one has two options. One can either make changes to one's life in response to that event or soldier on. Life has to go on either way. The world has an endless capacity to surprise us. We all must take responsibility for our own happiness and then of those around us without guilt or self-flagellation.  

Exit Polls

All the exit polls say the ruling fascist party in India will be back with a stronger majority. If this is true, there is nothing more to say. Yes, there was vote rigging, but it is unlikely that it was on such a scale that the result could be primarily attributed to it. When so many people seem to have taken leave of their senses, you wonder if you and your ilk are the crazy people. An expanded mandate is just that. It means that the mess they have made and the havoc they have wreaked has popular support. That the blood they have spilled, the hatred they have spread has mass support. Call it bloodlust, call it what you like, it doesn't make a jot of difference. India will possibly go from a secular semi-mature capitalist republic to a tinpot dictatorship. Till a few days ago, I was saying that if they win this time they will surely lose the next time, but who knows how much damage they would have done by then. Now I am not so sure. In times of seismic iconoclastic changes, the old frames of reference don't serve any purpose. Like the native Americans, who couldn't "see" Columbus ships because their physical form was like something they could not even imagine. Anyway, it is not done till it is done. I will save the rest of my pathos for 23 May.

Facts

Today, I read a review of a pop fiction book by a well-known blowhard who has a theory for everything. Such books are popular because they are accessible, not least because they have a simple story line. They are mostly written by non-experts and are so broad that they are more all-disciplinary than interdisciplinary. And, people lap them up because stories devoid of nuance are quite easy to follow. All facts are subordinated and even mangled in service of the simple theory and some authors even play fast and loose with them.
Writing analytical histories is bloody difficult as I am finding out while writing the first chapter of my thesis. For every fact that supports a particular theory, there seems to be a counterfact. Trying to find the connecting link in this maze of contradictory facts is like trying to grab a wet soap. It slips through your fingers as soon as you think you have got it. Which facts to focus on, which facts to overlook, which facts to tag as contradictory are all weighty decisions because a theory that fits all the facts is not a theory at all but a simple and infinitely long timeline of events. All of which makes the job extremely difficult but also extremely enriching. Trying to bring light to an obscure corner of the world may not be lucrative but it sure is fulfilling.


Which makes the job extremely difficult, but also 

Original Contribution

As I struggle to write the first chapter of my PhD, the doubt that most assails me is whether I am saying something new. Even though I realize that knowledge advances in tiny increments, and anything that I write, someone else would have written something that to the casual observer looks exactly the same. In quantitative research, you can distinguish your research from the data and the statistical methods you use. In qualitative research, it is more difficult to distinguish your research, unless, for instance, you are doing an ethnography. 

The need to make an original contribution and not just play with words can be a excellent spur to action. And, it can also be stressful because one has to remember that research is messy, research is about pushing the boundaries of knowledge even if its just infinetesimally. So I am trying to enjoy the ride, keeping in mind that writing is what I like to do best.

Another spur to action is envy. In the past few days, two people I know but wouldn't call friends have experienced success.That made me jealous, especially since I don't think their work is anything to shout home about. At least I'm not fighting my tendency to get jealous any more.

Pigeon Hit and Run

As I was cycling back from uni today, I swerved to avoid some geese and before I knew it, I had run over a pigeon. I pedaled fast, not looking back to see what became of the pigeon. It immediately occurred to me that there was nothing to be done. There were a few pedestrians 20-30 metres behind and I suppose they would have seen or heard what happened. If they were the animal-loving types, they would have probably thought me a beast for pedaling on. But, what was I supposed to do? Pigeons are supposed to fly away when you approach and I wasn't travelling at great speed. I feel like a hitter-and-runner but I don't know what I could have done except stop, express some contrition for the benefit of the pedestrians behind me and placed the injured pigeon off the path. I can rationalize as much as I like by saying that humans kills animals on an industrial scale to whet their appetite for food and other things. But hurting another tangibly living being for no reason is never easy. I don't know how people who hunt for sport do what they do.
Eastville Park, which I cycle through every day on my way to uni, feels like a minefield. Last year, I ran a dog into the river, so now I am extra careful around dogs. So now there is another species that I have to watch out for apart from people, children, dogs, geese. Pigeons!

Campaigners and Academics

Picking up from where I left off yesterday, one question I often wonder about is can campaigners be good academics? Or are they too sure about their beliefs to keep an open mind, which is vital for research? I have met some intelligent academics who are not open to new ways of thinking at all. Marx's famous quote exhorting historians to not just interpret the world but to change it comes to mind. Is trying to change the world  by interpreting it an impossible having-you-cake-and-eating-it goal?
I don't think so. At the outset, I must confess that I am instinctively not a campaigner, which I put down to my personality. I don't consider myself an intellectual whose time is better spent intellectualizing rather than knocking on doors. My discomfort with campaigning is purely down to my introverted personality.
But, I do believe academics can change their (corner of) the world while interpreting it. I wouldn't pretend to be able to teach my students to think for themselves (assuming I can think for myself) but at least I don't get in their way when they do. I fight the temptation to correct them immediately when they say something wrong and allow them to finish.  And, from the feedback I have received, being generous in spirit and approachable by nature are underrated attributes for teachers. The job of a teacher is not to have students in their thrall, hanging on their every word, but to open new worlds for them. 

CLass workshop

I attended a workshop to train us in communicating progressive ideas better to the public. It was primarily aimed at campaigners, and while I have never knocked on doors in my life, the chance of attending a left-wing event  in Bristol lead by a woman of colour and with a fair number of presenters of colour, was too good to miss. I couldn't say I had a great time. One of the sessions was on austerity and as an economist, one has to watch people mangle economic concepts. And the one time I made a point, it was treated with undisguised skepticism by a man who I am pretty sure didn't  know anything about economics. If I had told him I am a PhD student in economics, maybe he would have believed me. Maybe it was stupid of me to raise technical points in a debate about marketing tactics. I don't know what I really expected from the event but I had company, so I went.
Henceforth, I am not going to attend discussions on economics with laypeople unless I am the one presenting or invited as an expert. This might sound downright snobbish, but sitting in on lay people discussing economics is a profoundly frustrating experience. Stepping in and correcting people makes one feel like a show-off or know-all. 
I am two years into my PhD and do believe there are topics on which I can speak with reasonable authority.

Post-Colonial Theory and Brown Men Hugging

I attended a lecture on post-colonial theory by a world-famous academic at Bristol uni last evening. He is orignally  from Bombay so I attended partly as gesture of South Asian solidarity. Post-colonial theory is notoriously dense, and I was prepared to be left scratching my head. The speaker spent an inordinate amount of time specifying what he was NOT saying because all those things he was not saying seemed identical or extremely close to what he was saying. Nuance on steroids. I was also a little peeved by neologisms, my favourite one being intutionism.
But there were a few redeeming features of the evening. One, was the sight of the academic and his host, who is turns out is quite well-know in his own right, hugging at the start and end of the literature. Two elderly brown men, one Indian and the other Pakistani, hugging each other wholeheartedly in one of  the temples of British academia. The British shudder at the prospect of eye contact, much less physical contact, so I am sure these men were making a statement.
The other redeeming feature was the wine, of course. I often feel like I lost my taste for alcohol after Dengue Round 2 but yesterday it went down pretty smoothly and I was happily tipsy with just  two glasses. 

Platonic Friendships

Yesterday, I read a screed about how men's inability to express their feelings to other men lead to women having to play the role of therapists to the men in their life. Most of the examples were of women playing therapist to their romantic partners. I don't disagree with the basic contention of the article. But, the thrust of the article was that men should feel comfortable expressing their feelings to other male friends instead of burdening the women in their life. While I have written before on benign masculinity--how even men who reject toxic masculinity have a hard time being emotionally open with other men, instead preferring the company of women. But, my problem with the article was that it completely ignored platonic relationships between men and women. Maybe  the author sees such platonic relationships as also emotionally burdening women. But the fight against patriarchy must involve pushing the envelope on possible relationships between men and women. And not simply telling men to deal with their own shit among themselves.

The World As A Scary Place

I was watching a movie about life for black boys in a rough neighbourhood of Los Angeles in the 1980s and the endless cycle of violence that most men were/are trapped in. At the end of the movie, there is a dialogue about how the American news shows paint foreign countries in conflict as hell on earth, while  ignoring the war-zones in their own country.
The world has become a scarier place in the past five years. While watching the movie, it occurred to me that the world has always been a scary place for disadvantaged groups--for  blacks in the US and most other countries in the West, for Dalits and Muslims in India, etc. But I say this without any guilt or any remonstration to myself to toughen up. Yes, I come from a world of  privilege, and I don't take my privileges for granted. But, all of us deserve to feel home in this world, even if, in reality, there are many worlds. One can beat oneself to oblivion about how one is complicit in perpetuating a system of privilege without making a jot of difference to that system of privilege. People who are too busy beating themselves up don't have much time for other things. Or one can accept that by merely existing, one is complicit in perpetuating the dominant order, unless one is an outlaw. And, then move on to how best to be kind, starting with yourself and the people around you.
As an aside, it says something about this world when even the privileged start to find it a scary place. Revolutions seldom happen as a fell swoop, all though they are remembered as such. We may be in the midst of a revolution but will only be able to recognize it as one in hindsight. 

No Good Deed ...

I have always thought of myself as not being particularly disposed to acts of kindness. As a self-absorbed person, I tend to put my well-being first. That is my first reaction when faced with the potential for inconvenience, and I make no apologies for it, because that is how I am wired. But a first reaction need not be the final response. On reflection, I often do decide to inconvenience myself for the sake of others, especially for friends or family. Yes, there is a large gap between what I would do for a friend/family compared to what I would do for an acquaintance. But, sometimes it is better not to be over-generous and then resent yourself and the target of your generosity later. 

Yesterday, I performed an act of kindness and I thought long and hard prior to it. The good deed did go unpunished, and in fact, was rewarding. While I was performing that deed, the thought of a similar good deed to another person came to my mind, but I didn't do it. And, I don't feel guilty about it. There is a lot of sadness and misery in the world, and, as individuals, we can but play a small part in alleviating it. In seeking to alleviate it, one must be careful not to give so much that one ends up adding to the pile of misery. "Ultimately we are first responsible for our own happiness". As someone who is prone to guilt, I am not sure I believe this statement fully. But, I do know that people prone to guilt beat themselves up a lot for not being nicer or more giving. Less sensitive souls don't give these things that much thought.

Flirtation and Sexual Harassment

How much of yourself can you be if the opposite person construes that as an invitation for flirtation or romance? When does mutual flirtation turn into sexual harassment? Obviously when one of the parties feels uncomfortable. But can that discomfort be expressed without damaging relations or other repercussions? Some people are better than others in setting the tone of their relationships and expressing discomfort. There are others who are more passive in setting the tone of their relationships. And, should a person who has suffered sexual harassment treat her harasser coldly in the future. And, if she doesn't,  is that proof that she didn't  really suffer harassment. Should she be in a permanent state of nervous fury and never ever exchange pleasant words with her harasser? In such matters, the  dice is loaded against the weaker, or lets say, more passive party. The one who is  prone to not rock the boat. Any action save anger towards her harasser is taken as proof that she wasn't really harassed. How does one establish boundaries if its not one's nature to be assertive? Or should they be enshrined in a workplace code?

Then, there are cultural differences too. An invitation for  romance in one culture might just be banter in another. Again, this argument is often marshaled  in defense of the harasser, who is usually a man. Cultural faux pas are less grave than sexual harassment. 

I am aware I have asked more questions than answers, but such us the topic.