Odds on Online Dating

Today, I learned that there as three times as many men as women online. So, the lesson is, if you are a man, its best not to take being ghosted too personally. Chances are you just got lost in the crowd of men wooing an attractive girl. She didn't pick you up and discard you. After a while, online dating can seem like a public referendum on your attractiveness that you are losing badly. But, it is best to be as aware as possible of the environment you are operating and best not get too ambitious. If you are a man, the odds are stacked against you and if you are Asian, even more so.  

Manic Monday Redux

Why do my manic days only fall on a Monday, and why do most of them involve my cycle. I was ready to leave for uni at 6:30 am this morning, all set for a bright and shiny start to the week, when I noticed I had a flat on my cycle. I groaned as I put my bike and started prepping for a phone interview at 7 am which I would now have to do from home. After the interview, I decide to  fix the puncture on my own. The last time I took my bike to a workshop to get a puncture fixed, the repair guy had given me really funny looks. I was thwarted at the first step because I couldn't even get the wheel off with the cheap spanner from my puncture kit. I had to borrow my housemate's high tech repair kit to get the wheel off. Next obstacle: trying to get the tube off the tire. After that, trying to find the puncture, and failing. Full of disgust at myself and my situation, I took the wheel and rim to the nearest repair shop, which it turned out was not a repair shop but a guy working out of his shed, who was out walking his dog when I reached. After making me wait for 15 minutes, he took half an hour to fix the puncture. He was gobby and a typical man who is bad at multi-tasking,  so whenever he talked he stopped working. His services weren't cheap either. 

I finally made it to uni around 11 am but try as I might, I  couldn't focus and I had to write off today. To top off a bad day, I left my cauliflower sabzi simmering on the stove while I was hanging my washing, and forgot all about it. When I remembered half and hour later, I ran to the kitchen, afraid that there might have caused a small fire. I hadn't, and aside from the fact that I  would have to eat cauliflower puree for dinner, there was no damage.  Anyway, tomorrow is a new day, and with a new day, comes new hope. 

Be Like A Pangolin

In my old neighbourhood (it feels funny saying that) there was a giant graffiti of pangolin on the side of a house. A pangolin is a scaly mammal which rolls itself up into a ball when under threat. My current favourite yoga pose (although its not a recognized yoga pose, its one of Adrienne's inventions) is to roll myself up in a ball like a pangolin. The pangolin pose seems like a fitting response to my current stressful situation. Sometimes when under stress, the correct response is not make oneself big and formidable but small and unobtrusive. If life is going to throw you around, at least you are as well protected as you can be. Since one of the current stresses is due to a fall in my confidence due to a prick to my expansive ego, the pangolin pose also feels humble and salving. Humility and salvation is exactly what I need at this time. In fact, I would go far as to say that the pangolin pose is like to apply to more life situations than the lion pose. 

Taking Back Control

I had never thought I would title a blog with the slogan of the campaign for Britain to leave the EU. But, notwithstanding the fact that Brexit campaign leaders were wannabe fascists, feeling helpless and like a pawn of fate can be quite demoralizing. I am currently in a situation where I feel like I  am being tossed around by the waves in both my personal and professional lives. At such times, radical change is not always the answer, not least because one is not in the right frame of mind to dispassionately assess the possible outcomes of one's actions. Rather, ritualistic actions to show you have some control could be what is needed. Rituals have their place in life. Sometimes, the action itself is more important than the outcome of the actions. Sometimes, action--any action--helps and is better than doing nothing.

Conflict Avoidance

I go to considerable lengths to avoid conflict. The thing about studiously avoiding conflict is the resentment festers--and you also start to resent yourself for not speaking up. Often, avoiding conflict in cases of repeat offences is just kicking the can down the road. Once the can is far enough down the road, it explodes and leads to a bigger conflict than the one you were so keen to avoid. I know all this, but avoiding conflict in the short-term is just easier. And, one has to pick one's battles. Often, it is just easier to adjust to the annoying situation. 

Stiff Hamstrings

Today, I asked my yoga teacher what I could do about the stiffness in the ligaments behind  my knees. She said it was understandable as I had stiff harmstrings, and stiff hips. But, she added that my flexibility had improved a lot since I started attending her class.
I have been doing yoga for two and a half years and attending her weekly class for two. To be sure, I don't do yoga to make my body more flexible, I do it because it helps me relax. But, it would be good to have increased flexibility as a side effect, and for the length of time I have been doing yoga, I don't have much to show on that front. I had starting doing some exercises to stretch the ligaments behind my knees, but today my yoga teacher said those ligaments are not meant to be stretched. They are meant to stabilize the joints. Oops! My efforts to engineer more flexibility in specific joints need to stop, I suppose. 

Mental Toughness

I just read an article about mental toughness of endurance athletes. It defined toughness as "experiencing something that is subjectively distressing, and then leaning in, paying attention, and creating space to take a thoughtful action that  aligns with your core beliefs. I quite agree with this definition. Toughness is not about charging through a tough situation no matter what the cost to your (or someone else's) body or mind. Sometimes toughness entails retreating to regroup or even abandoning the fight completely. As a fitness fanatic, it is the easiest thing in the world to push myself  through  a workout even when my body is protesting, and risking injury or sickness.
As someone who is facing a situation in my personal life where I am torn between persisting and retreating, I could use some mental toughness. My Dad is the toughest person I know and also one of the gentlest human beings you could encounter. I have never seen him fazed by a situation and his threshold for physical pain is the stuff of legends. He is immensely fortunate that he was born this way. The rest of us have to learn through facing the hard knocks of life, practicing techniques that help us cope with stress and reflecting. 

Blue Monday

Today is supposed to be the  most depressing day of the year. It is the middle of winter, Christmas is over and people have been back from long holiday long enough to contemplate the year ahead. I don't care about Christmas and I don't particularly dislike winter but the past few days have been a little blue for me. Today, I had a meeting with my supervisor for my bi-monthly bollocking. It wasn't a bollocking this time, so to speak, but I was told in no uncertain terms that my completion target was very ambitious,given where I am in my PhD. If the point hadn't sunk in, she added that the work I had done so far was not bad by any means, but I still had loads to do and my pace of work hadn't been inspiring. She also said that I still wrote too much like a journalist.
I have never considered myself a slow writer (I used to work for a news wire, for god's sake). So the thought that I am a slow academic writer is sobering. Maybe I am too early in my career to judge whether I will or won't be a prolific academic, but there is at least the possibility that I won't. So far, with typical privileged male confidence, I had assumed I would. And, the bit about my writing being too journalistic stung too. I do have a tendency to use the existing literature as a prop to say what I want to say, rather than to actively engage with the literature. I thought I was getting better at it, but obviously not as much as I had imagined.
Anyway, blue Monday will be over in a few hours. With a new day, comes new hope.

Reading My Blog

Since I resurrected this blog more than two years ago, I have been so focussed on writing on this blog, that I barely ever re-read past posts. Maybe I subconsciously assume that what I have written in the past won't be of interest to me now because my thinking has evolved. Insights into life gained when I was writing those posts are stored away in my mind and so would be boring to revisit. Today, I realize I couldn't be more wrong.

Firstly, this blog is not a chronicle of my expanding wisdom (even writing those words made me squirm). This blog is a rumination on my life at a particular point in time and at a particular place. Yes, there is a therapeutic aspect to it, and I do occasionally gain insights which help me tide over problems. But that is not wisdom, that is self-care. Secondly, one does forget these insights, as I discovered today. Current predicaments often feel like something one is facing for the first time, but that is usually not the case. Chances are one has faced similar predicaments in the past, and it might be useful to revisit posts from that period. Thirdly, brevity is a key feature of my writing, so reading past posts doesn't involve reams and reams of self-indulgent twaddle.

I am going to make a conscious effort to re-read past posts more.  

Fascism And The Resistance

What connects most major countries today is not just the rise of fascism but the rise of the resistance to it spearheaded by women from the most marginalized sections of society. Whether it is the Somali refugee or the young Latina in the U.S. House of Congress, the Muslim women of Jamia and Shaheen Bagh. It turns out the most down-trodden also have the stiffest spines. It is not simply that adversity builds resilience. Nietzsche's aphorism that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger is true. But, what doesn't kill you can also break you for life. Putting yourself back together requires intelligence, bravery, fortitude, the kindness of others and also luck. It requires creating a relationship with yourself that is semi-autonomous to  your relationship to the world. Treating yourself with respect when the world doesn't respect you is not easy. It requires going deep within yourself to find  reserves of kindness and empathy for yourself and using those reserves as fuel for your ambitions in the outside world. So, that you may be marginalized, pitied, ridiculed by the outside world but you can still walk with your head held high, secure in the knowledge that you are trying to be the best version of yourself. 

Deserving Love

A few days ago,  I listened to a Youtube show where a comedienne who is unusually forthcoming about her love life spoke about how she was scared of intimacy and didn't think she deserved love. i can identify with that feeling to some extent. A part of it is due to good ole existential self-loathing.  But, a part of it is also not being able to visualize oneself in the popular template of a romantic relationship. I say template because there is in most cultures a well-defined template of what a romantic relationship should be like (determined by social mores which changes with  place and class, etc.) If one can't imagine oneself in that template it is easy to conclude that one doesn't desire or deserve (depending on the extent of self-loathing) to be in a romantic relationship. One is possibly too selfish, too self-indulgent, not flexible enough, not compassionate enough, not generous enough, etc. etc. 

It is perfectly reasonable not to desire a romantic relationship. But, I feel one can say that with confidence only rather late in life and after one has been in loving romantic relationships which failed due to that reason. It is human to think of oneself as special, and in this case, specially unsuited for romance. Many an oddball thinks he is specially odd and the odds of finding someone compatible with him are extremely low. But, one is seldom as special as one believes. And, that is a good thing. Society discourages oddballs from displaying their odd attributes, which is why many oddballs keep them in their closets. The closet doors lie closed, waiting for the right oddball to swing them open. One is compatible with more people than one believes. So it best to keep oneself open to all possibilities.

Royal Family Reporting and Financial Markets Reporting

As I was listening to the radio while trying to coax myself out of bed this morning, the news came on. The main story was the  outcome of the Queen's family meeting to discuss her grandson Harry's decision to step away from his royal duties. There was a quote in the news story from a royal observer pointing out  as the Queen's press statement mentioned the word 'family' it showed how important her family was to her or some such banality. And, it struck me how alike reporting on the royal family and reporting on financial markets is. No one really has a clue why markets rise and fall just as no one has a clue about the inner going-ons of the royal family. It is very easy to find market watchers (and royal watchers) to say blindingly obvious stuff as well as inane stuff. There are also some crackpots available to say outrageous things just to break the monotony. But, neither should be dismissed as just entertainment. Both play an insidious role in society--market journalism lends an air of respectability to what is essentially gambling, and royal reporters encourage pride in and nostalgia for Britain's imperial past. 

Referencing in Academia

I am the kind of person who hates academic referencing, and I have paid the price for it. I don't mean I have paid someone to do my references, but I have been penalized for careless referencing. But, over the past few months, I have realized that referencing is an essential part of academia because not only it is important for one's credibility to cite sources it is also useful for people following in your footsteps. To be honest, a bulk of the academic papers one reads are not that good. But even if they are not, their references lists can be a gold mine. At the risk of sounding condescending, some researchers might not have anything particularly insightful to say, but are good at finding the relevant literature. I don't have that particular skill, so I am envious of  those who do. I have no time for points of style that some academics and some journals are anal about. But, well-referenced articles make it easier for a reader to go back to your sources and draw their inferences from the material if they choose to. 

The Company of Women

On Friday, one of my colleagues remarked that I enjoy the company of women, and although that is unquestionably true, it still felt weird to hear. I remember a couple of years ago my grandmother saying that my dad has the soul of a woman. My uncle, who is no male chauvinist, but a bit of a bloke laughed and my grandmother hastened to clarify that she meant it as a compliment. My dad is one of the gentlest and most emotionally resilient people I know. My dad's response was to ask what was wrong with him having a soul of a woman. No one had a response to that.
Maybe one day I will have the confidence to respond like he did. I'm aware that a part of the reason his gentle ways are appreciated is because he has been professionally successful. Similarly gentle but less successful men might be dismissed as weak and effete. But, this is not a post about how exceptional my Dad is. This post is about my slight unease with feeling so easy in the company of women. Today, I went for a book club meeting after months and really enjoyed myself. It was me and three other women but I didn't feel out of place at all.

Hum Dekhenge

I don't have family roots in the Punjab or Sindh and as far as I know, no one from my family was directly affected by the Partition of India in 1947. I didn't hear stories from my grandparents about the horrors of Partition and how they had to leave everything in what is now Pakistan and flee to India. But, this week it struck me what a terrible tragedy Partition was and how it has cleaved a people who are so alike in most respects. One of the anthems of the current uprising in India is a poem by legendary Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, which became a symbol of resistance against the brutal military dictatorship of Zia-ul-Haq in 1970s Pakistan. I came late to the song, but have been watching this rendition of it on loop all this week. Not only are the words stirring and the tune mesmerizing, but the visuals are exquisite too. The montage of singers includes Hindus, Christians, transgender persons. And what struck me is how Indian they seemed to me, and how Pakistani I must seem to them. The horrors of Partition, the rise of virulent religious nationalism on both sides of the border have not been able to erase the commonalities between us, and hopefully nothing will.
This is the time for hope and change, a time when old ideas about how the world is and should be are crumbling. Maybe India and Pakistan will never be one again, but at least we won't be at each others throats.

A New Dawn?

Today, was a good day for me personally, but also for anti-government protests. This regime doesn't know how to retreat, when it finds itself in a hole it digs deeper, pulling the whole country in with it. That strategy has worked so far  but there are signs that the tide is turning. A top Bollywood female actor came  out in support of the students today. The top Bollywood male actors, who are much more popular, are still silent, but its just a matter of time. (Biding one's time  seems like a win-wing strategy. If the tide doesn't turn you are unharmed, and if the  tide turns, you can always join in late, and people's relief at your support will wash away the reality that it was so long in coming). 
Of course, this government still has four more years in power. As their power slips, the violence will increase. I have always felt right-wing regimes are most dangerous when they are on the downswing. But, the violence and oppression accelerates the downswing. The key question is how will the regime's supporters react? Will they still perpetrate violence without the backing of the state machinery. My gut instinct ( or call it wishful thinking) is they won't,  save for the lunatic fringe. 

The Dust Settles

After buzzing with uncharacteristic over the past two days, my Twitter notifications indicator has gone silent again. The validation nudges can become addictive very quickly, and when they stop they leave behind an uncanny silence. I  still check my Twitter page occasionally to see if any has liked or retweeted my article, but realize that its for the best that the world has moved on. Eventually so will I, although I must admit that coming down to earth after walking in  the clouds is not a pleasant experience. There is also some guilt for getting carried away in the first place, which I trying my best to resist. At the end of the day, we carry our triumphs and losses much longer than the world does. How to maintain equanimity amid heady triumphs and grinding losses is an invaluable skill that is difficult to learn. 

Polymaths

Reading about great thinkers of the past, one often encounters the word 'polymath'. In my own discipline of the economics, some of the polymaths are Jospeh Schumpeter, JM Keynes, Adam Smith and, of course, Karl Marx. While people who show mastery of a particular subject are rare enough, polymaths are even rarer as they  show mastery over a number of subjects. A good friend of mine is a polymath and I just spent two hours talking to him. He graduated at the top of his class from India's premier engineering institute, almost completely a PhD in computer engineering from Notre Dam university, left it to do a diploma in journalism, finishing at the top of the class (which is also where we met) joined a national newspaper as a journalist and became the editor's blue-eyed boy, quit to follow his wife to Sweden where he was offered a PhD position by a statistics professor whom he managed to impress over a casual chat, finished a PhD in statistics and immediately got an assistant professor position at VirginiaTech. His newest hobby is ancient Indian philosophy and he has been reading original texts written in Sanksrit. If wishes were horses he would do a PhD in it.

In the age of specialization, its not easy to be a polymath. Our age rewards focus and specialization. I am no believer in the cult of the genius who can save the world. Polymaths are just great fun to be around, especially if  they are humble like my friend. And, it is a sobering experience being around one. Since I have spent the past few days with my head in the clouds after my article was published, I could do with some humility.

On A Cloud

So, the academic paper that I started working on two and a half years ago, finally came out today. It is my first-ever peer-reviewed publication (co-authored with my PhD supervisor), and I am quite proud of it. I let my family know and mailed it to them and a few friends, posted about it o Twitter and Facebook and went back to working on my PhD. I was monitoring how many likes and retweets it was getting on Twitter and till noon it was barely getting any love. I was a little disappointed but didn't give it much attention thinking people were off Twitter as it was the weekend. But, then my supervisor and co-author, who has 50 times as many as Twitter followers as me posted about it, and it exploded. Nothing that I have ever posted has got anywhere near as many likes, tweets and comments as this, and I felt a little overwhelmed. Social media is addictive and ever like or retweet is a nudge of validation that wears of quickly and keeps you wanting more. It is possible to spend inordinate lengths of time staring at your screen, waiting for the likes and retweets to come in. I know because that it was I did today, barely managing to get any work done today. I felt like I was walking on clouds for most of the rest of the day. I realise that this is just the initial reaction. Once people read it and if it half as good as I think it is, they will disagree with parts of it. On Twitter, disagreement is often expressed freely and aggressively. And the nudges of validation could quickly turn into jolts of disapproval which a sensitive soul like me might struggle with.
But, I can worry about the popularity of this article going to my head, I can worry about potential challenges. I can worry about how some glaring errors may have sneaked into the published version, which would be unforgivable for a former  journalist like me. And, all this worrying won't make a jot of difference. The simple story is an article that I worked hard on and am proud of has finally seen the light of day. The fuss will settle down sooner than I think and I will go back to working on my PhD.

World War 3

I woke up to the news that the US  had assassinated a top Iranian general in Iraq, by far the most serious escalation in the US-Iran dispute. Yesterday, the news was full of images from Australian bushfires that had already burnt through 12 million hectares, and floods in Indonesia. Fascism and climate change locked in combat over who can destroy our world faster, welcome to 2019. I have often written on the hopelessness, frustration and anger that comes with living in the time of peak fascism and climate change, but it does feel like a new challenge to one's sense of equanimity comes every day. Just as you feel you have steadied yourself to the latest disaster, a new one comes along. I acknowledge that I am not directly affected by most of these events, cocooned as I am in British academia. But the evens do take a toll, and it takes active effort to compose oneself. The world as we know it exists as much in our minds as the physical reality around us. In the age of hyper-connectedness, we feel every disaster more than we would in the  past. Which is why it is important to try to disconnect from the world in our minds and focus on the physical world around us. Yoga encourages one to focus on the breath, the most fundamental way in which our bodies connect to the world. I have often written before on how the breath represents the union of the mind and the body. I will have to learn to focus on my breath even more in the coming days, weeks, months and years.

Night Out In Bristol

Now, that I have got my profound reflections on the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 out of  the way, I can move on the more flaky stuff like my first night out in Bristol, and my first night out in four years. When I was making plans for NYE with a friend, I was hoping that the plan would be us hanging out at her apartment with her housemate. But both she and her housemate were eager to go out. I was hoping that we would spend most of our time in their apartment and step out for a short walk around midnight, but I realised that was not to be when I reached their place and saw them both decked up to the nines.
But, it was NYE so I resolved to be a sport about it. When we reached their regular waiting hole there was barely anyone and both of them looked disappointed. I didn't care either way. But the live Irish band was good and after midnight the cloud started tricking in. Eventually, we made it to the dancefloor. Back in Holland, which is the last time in life that I went partying, I was always a reluctant dancer because many of my friends were Latino and I felt like a golem next to them. I am a pretty decent dancer but only to Bollywood music. In England, though, the men are terrible dancers, so I didn't feel very conscious as I stepped on to the dance floor. It was fun but I couldn't let myself go. I was aware that I was the only man of colour and felt that I had to be on my guard. It would have been different if I was with a large group of friends, but I wasn't and my antenna was tuned to catch the first signs of hostility. Even if I got hit, at least I wouldn't be caught unawares.
No night out in England is complete without a bar fight, and sure enough there was one. When the clock struck three, the  creepy men crawled out of the woodwork to prey on inebriated girls. We left shortly after.
All in all, my night out was fun, but mostly so because I hadn't been out in years, and knew that I might not go out partying again for a few years.

New Year

This is going to be a big year. If things go according to plan, I will finish my PhD and start a career in academia. I wish to stay on in the UK, and preferably at my current university, but wishes are not horses. The world is changing so fast that 'the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry'. Living with constant uncertainty is something my generation has had to get used to. Insecure jobs, precarious housing arrangements are a part of our lives, not to mention the political upheavals we are having to live through.
How does one avoid feeling unmoored and  anxious in this fast-changing world? Maybe constancy  has to be cultivated, not hoped for. Obviously, one's sphere of influence in this matter is quite limited. So one has to find those people and activities that make one feel more secure and at peace with the world. For me, that is yoga and writing. I  try to do both religiously and they have brought a lot of peace to me. Apart from family and close friends, they are my constants in this world.
I am also trying to channel my anger and frustration with the state of the world into my PhD. There will be a lot of distractions over the next six months. The flames of fascism are likely to rise higher. But, I am trying to tell myself that the best thing I can do to help the resistance is to finish my PhD as fast as possible and join academia as a critical scholar and teacher. I am not an activist by personality and the self-preservation gene in me is too strong that I won't stick my neck out too much. I have made peace with both truths.

Another Year Ends

This year wasn't a Watershed Year, and neither is next year likely to be, unless 'that' happens. And, 'that' doesn't refer to anything to do with my career or any unforeseen event. And, that is all I am going to say about that. 

But, just because it wasn't a Watershed Year, doesn't mean it wasn't an eventful year. As  I look back on it, I feel abundantly blessed. Sure, there were minor hiccups and disappointments, as there are always, but it was a definitely a good year for me personally, even though the fires of  fascism reached new heights. I spent almost of the year in India for my PhD research. At the beginning of the first trip, I had no idea what I was looking for. But, I muddled around, fiddled in the dark, and found my way. The second trip was longer than I needed, but I had no way of knowing that. All in all, the trips were a success and my PhD has a clear direction, even if there is still a long way to go. Along the way, I realised that I want to stay on in England after I finish and I told my parents. The signs were all there because they  didn't seem in the least bit surprised.

Back in Bristol, I moved into a new house, leaving behind a landlord who had rescued me in my hour of need three years ago but had grown increasingly hostile over this year. But, I bear him no grudge and neither do I rue the loss of a friendship born out of fate putting us together. People change, circumstances change, and it is best to move on with as little bitterness in one's heart as possible. I also made another close friend, who is now my best friend in Bristol. On the romance front, there wasn't much to report. But, that doesn't mean there were no takeaways. I realised that I am not going to settle or be in a relationship with someone who doesn't make my head spin. That  might mean I will be single for a long time, if not forever, and I am okay with that. The world is changing, and social norms of what constitutes a "settled"  existence are bound to change too. 

Time to head for my New Year celebration now. Next year is going to be a big one, but I can write about it tomorrow, and for the rest of the year.