Conferencing

I sat through seven-and-a-half hours of presentations today, the prospect of which was more exhausting than the process itself. The presentations were on Finance and ______ (everything under the sun that you can imagine, which made it interesting). We had to choose between two sets of parallel presentations and I didn't attend the more whacky ones. Some of the presentations were veering towards nonsense, but that's is an occupational risk with interdisciplinary research, and it was good to be in a space that encouraged us to be bold. And the audience was very engaged and supportive.
Afterwards we repaired to a nearby bar for drinks and dinner, which I found a little tedious. Academics, even whacky ones, are more social than the stereotype and, like yesterday, I was the first to leave. The  only upside of not having a social circle is one doesn't often find oneself in social situations where it is difficult to leave. I remember many an evening in Holland when my enthusiasm for the festivities had waned long before the evening ended. I enjoy intimate conversations with small groups of friends and have seldom been at a  party where I have enjoyed myself throughout. Being a master of your own time certainly has its advantages, especially if you are an introvert. 

Welcome to Sweden

Living in Europe as a young South Asian male, one gets used to not getting used to racial profiling. It manages to spoil my mood every time! The  first time I was shaken, also because it was my worst experience of racial profiling yet. I don't feel shaken any more and I am pretty cool when I am being questioned. Both the times that  I have been profiled in the past three months is when I was one of the few people of colour in the airport/flight and when I hadn't shaved my face. Today, the officer made me wait for 10 minutes at the counter before letting me go through. It felt like he was doing his damndest to find something on me. At first, he struggled to find my Schengen visa page, and I had to show him. This has never happened before, as immigration officers gain a knack for finding the right visa page in seconds. Then, he kept starting alternately at my face and at the visa  page. I realized the reason for his puzzlement and told him  that I was resident in the U.K., while showing him my residence permit. I thought that would  be the end of the matter. But, he took my residence permit, held it up and dropped it on the table. He did this a couple of times. I don't know--did he expect it to float in air if it was fake? Further puzzelement, staring at my visa page and conferring with his fellow officers in Swedish followed. I kept my cool, but my patience had begun to run thin. He  then fingerprinted my thumb. After 3-4 minutes, he discovered that that hadn't worked and he fingerprinted my fore finger. He then  asked how long was I going to be in Sweden and why. When  I told him, he asked for  my conference invitation.  I had prepared for such an eventuality and I promptly produced it. He then asked to see my return flight tickets before allowing me to go. I was trembling with anger by then.

Yes, the default attitude towards young black and South Asian men in the West is suspicion, but this man took it to far. Maybe I  wouldn't have minded if he asked for all these documents promptly. Okay, if  you need more proof, ask me for it, and let's be done with it. 

Instead, I was made to feel like a truant child waiting to be caned while the schoolmaster takes his time getting the cane ready. No reason for this annoying and humiliating charade. 

If you don't like people of colour, you  couldn't as for a better job than as an immigration officer. Its even better than being a police, as here you are dealing with non-citizens who have even fewer rights than criminals. Unless you call  someone the N word to their face (and there are witnesses) there is little you can't get away with. 

Indian Men and Rejection

Are Indian men bad at handling rejection, especially romantic rejection? The thought came to me as I was consoling a friend who was getting a hard time from some men she wasn't interested in. I told her that Indian men have this enormous sense of entitlement when it comes to women and they have no idea how to handle romantic rejection so they behave horribly with the woman who has rejected them. And, that most Western women wouldn't stand for such behaviour. Of course, men everywhere have a tendency to turn violent when rejected by women, but I am talking about upper middle-class liberal-progressive circles.
I said those things mostly to comfort her, but I later realized that I do believe them. Indian men, and maybe most men from the Global South, are not socialized to deal with romantic rejection. Romantic rejection is a different beast than professional or academic failure. Not necessarily worse, but different. In a culture of arranged marriages, the potential for romantic rejection is much reduced. You may be rejected for being the wrong caste or not earning enough money, but being rejected romantically or sexually has a different sting to it. Or at least, that is what I think. Few people have an innate ability to deal well with romantic rejection. Most of us handle it terribly the first (few) time(s). Eventually, we get better at handling it with grace and dignity. It still hurts a lot, but we learn to put on a calm front even if we are dying inside. And, not lash out at the person who has rejected us. But, in a culture which puts boys on a pedestal, first to be worshiped by their mothers and then by their wives, rejection skills fall by the wayside,

Audrey

In April 2013, my mom asked me if I would be willing to show an American woman of distant acquaintance around Mumbai. She was a breast cancer survivor who had shunned conventional medicine and was in India for alternative therapies. I had returned from my U.S.-Mexico trip a few weeks ago, and the deep restlessness that would eventually catapult me out of Mumbai had already begun to stir within me. 

I readily agreed and we had a very pleasant day. Sometimes you meet someone who is on the same wavelength as you, and she was one of those people. With such people, distinctions of gender, age, race and life circumstances melt away as you are able to connect on a deeper more human level. I have a number of such people in my life and I cherish them deeply, even though I am not in regular contact with many of them. That doesn't matter because when we meet again  we are immediately able to pick up from where we left off. Oh, the joy of free-flowing conversation!

She had a warmth that drew me towards her and spoke about her illness with such grace and candour that I was floored. I had no pity for her, only admiration. She was a martial arts practitioner, social activist, dog owner, and had her niece living with her, while also holding down a full-time research job in a university. Despite her health challenges, she seemed to have a full and fulfilling life.

We promised to keep in touch and wrote each other a few long emails over the following year. The last time I wrote to her was a few months before I left for Holland. I didn't receive a response and as I became occupied with the changes in my life, she slipped out of my mind.

Today, out of the blue, I thought about her and googled her to try to find out what she was up to. I found a GoFundMe page set up for her benefit. Although she was free of cancer she had other serious health complications which had compelled her to quit working a year ago. She had also lost her health insurance in the preceding year. and was paying for her health expenses out of pocket.

I felt a wave of sadness and love came over me. I might not have spent a lot of time with her but I could see that she was a gem of a person who radiated love and life. I will write to her in the next couple of days, when I have a better idea of what to say to her.

Bad Hair Day

I don't think I've ever had a haircut that I really liked. There have been haircuts that I thought were alright and there have been times when I have been complimented over my haircut and there isn't a significant overlap between the two cases, so I guess tastes in hairstyle vary a lot.
But, the haircut I got this morning looks positively weird. Along the sides, above my ears, I am nearly bald. When I bend my head backwards, I can feel the skin fold--that's how short it is.Then, there is a deeper layer of hair near the top of the sides of my head. And, the top my head is a forest of hair. I feel like there is a turnip on top of my head. To top it all, I have a date in two days that I am really looking forward to. This couldn't have come at a worse time. I have had worse haircuts (thought not in a long  time) but the timing of this one makes it particularly hairy.
I texted a friend saying that I hate my haircut and she asked for a photo. And she claimed to love it. The beauty of haircuts is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose.
I suppose this haircut is a bit of a daring experiment. I am not a fan of daring experiments and neither am I fan of my more sedate hairstyle. Which is a funny position, I suppose. I guess I need to stop caring about my hairstyle so much, or put more effort into identifying what I like and making sure I get my haircut that way. I can't have it both ways. I don't think I can be bothered to put the effort into my hairstyle so I just need to stop bothering so much when I get (what I think) is a bad haircut. I have a haircut because I have to and my only objective is to make sure I don't have to go back for another two months at least. I am not metro-sexual and I  have no desire to be. I like to be presentable, but with minimum effort. 

Men And Tears

This morning, I saw a news headline about how a tennis player had burst into tears after winning a title. Of course, it was a male player as a female player bursting into tears wouldn't have made the headlines. A couple of months ago, the Australian cricket captain, who had admitted to ball tampering, spectacularly burst into tears during a press conference. And, his weren't those silent manly tears that strike a perfect balance between emotion and equanimity. His were tears of unadulterated agony. His were tears that had battered his masculine defences and were spluttering out with a vengeance.

Shortly after, I was at an evening event when a woman told us how it was common for Australian men--even the  super-buff alpha males--to burst into tears from time to time. She had been warned  about  this habit  by an Australian friend before she moved there. One of her Australian boyfriends would attend a mens-only cryfest where men would gather,  air their feelings and have a good cry.

But, this morning's story also got me thinking of othersituations where men's tears are not a sign of shameful weakness. Death of a loved one, I suppose.

It is drilled into men that anger is the default masculine emotion. At the risk of rank generalizing and essentializing, when women are scared they often cry. When men are scared the react with anger because they can't afford to be seen as weak. That is probably the reason I reacted with anger when I knocked that dog into  the river. So, we men choose offence over deescalation. And scared men having a go at each other can cause untold amounts of damage.

Open Doors

For the longest time, open doors bothered me. The door to my bedroom would always be closed, even when I wan't watching porn. It just gave me a feeling of privacy and peace. Last year,  during my lengthy stay in India, I tried keeping the door open and to be honest, it wasn't the same. I sympathize with people who feel more comfortable behind close doors.

But, obviously, the preference for closed doors isn't sacrosanct. Our new PhD office is divided into  two rooms, unlike our old sprawling office. The  problem is one of the rooms is always too hot while the other is too cold, due to some quirk of air-conditioning in our "Smart" building. The obvious  solution is to keep the connecting door open and allow the temperature to equalize in both rooms. But one of our  new colleagues doesn't like the door open. She has her back to the door, so she doesn't have a reason to object. Her most frequent excuse is to block the sound if someone is talking in our room. So, now, we talk in whispers, barely giving her an opportunity to complain. To me, it is obvious that she is one of the those people who works better inside closed rooms. But, in a shared office, you can't put your comfort above those of others.

And, she does sneaky things like closing the door when we are away for a short while. Or, she will close the top latch of one of the doors, as though saying if she can't have the doors closed at least she will have her say in which door is open. Now, me and my colleague prop the door open just to assert our presence. It is childish and exhausting, but seeing her try to throw her weight around is quite annoying.