Back to Bristol (Summer 2023)

 I suppose there are so many posts titled "back to Bristol" that I should start signposting them with the season and the year. This trip has been the least stressful among all the trips I have made from the UK to India. Pre-covid, even when the world was a much less angry place, there was the stress of field work. Post-Covid, there was the stress of Omicron and my PhD, then my PhD viva. While I am still not completely free of my PhD, I am nearly there. 

This evening, I remarked to my mother that my life is there (in the UK) now. Of course, if I had a permanent job, I would be able to say that with more confidence. If I had a partner in the UK, even more so. Or  a house. All the worldly trappings that bind a person to a place. But, as imperfect as my life in the UK is, it is of my choosing, even if it is a negative choice. By that I mean I have chosen a place where I feel less like an alien, rather than more at home, although I guess they amount to the same thing. This is not the place to get into my relationship with India, but suffice to say that every time I come home, I feel more like an alien, and less capable of imagining a life here. 

Dancing

I went dancing last night in Thane for the first time. Thane is changing beyond recognition, and the club I went to was fancier than any of the clubs I have been to in Europe or the UK. Not that I have been to many at all. But, they had fancy lights, sparkler guns, cool visuals, a blonde girl to serve cocktail with sparkles--the works. And, I have recently started seeking out opportunities to dance. I have always enjoyed dancing and I am a decent dancer, if I may say so meself. I have a ear for rhythm and what I lack in grace, i make up for in enthusiasm and athleticism. I have also taken to dancing in my ktichen, which is particularly suited for it. Dancing when no one is watching is quite a treat for someone like me who is self-conscious. I think yoga has helped me move more easily and less stiffly too. In my kitchen I am the picture of ease and grace. But, yesterday, a friend took a video of me dancing, and it turns out I am nowhere near as a graceful as I thought I was. It doesn't matter thought, if I am dancing by myself in the ktichen. 

Off to Nepal Tomorrow

 I am off to Nepal tomorrow. It was supposed to be a trip for contemplation and meditation. While there are no major crises in my life there are several things I want to change or learn to cope better with. I see myself as a thinker (as pompous as it sounds) rather than a seeker, but I find myself coming up frequently against the limits of thinking and intellectualizing. If I could find a spiritual path that would help me cope better with life, it would be great. Maybe someone as skeptical and cynical as me can never find a spiritual path, but I want to keep an open mind. But, the course in Buddhist teaching and meditation that we originally planned to go to Nepal for has been cancelled. So, I promptly turned this trip into a trekking holiday. I don't plan to take my laptop along so this will be a strictly no-work trip, unlike any trip I have taken in several years. All my last few trips, even to see my aunt in Brighton, were work-cum-leisure trips, even if I felt eminently unproductive during those trips. Either it was PhD work or grading or both. I still have to finish my PhD corrections and there is still lots more grading to do, but that can wait for two weeks. I don't expect any solutions from the mountains to the problems of my life. I just want to not seek solutions for my life problems for two weeks. Just a breather--nothing more, nothing less. 

Setting Mental Boundaries

 I am going to try not to turn this into another rant about teaching. But its difficult to do that in grading season, especially if you are trying to speed up grading. On this particular course, the problem is not that I am teaching mainstream economics. Its that I am not sure what I am teaching. The course material is  a hotch-potch, and even I can't make sense of the assignment, so I feel sorry for the students. I was teaching on the same course last year, and tried to hash it out with the unit leader. So, this year, I didn't even bother trying. I don't know what she expects, so its no surprise that I am having trouble marking. And, I don't think I have ever read so much crappy economics. The worst part is some of the students will leave the course believing that they have a sound grasp of at least some economics, which they clearly don't. They have been introduced to too many concepts and too superficially, so they have filled in the concepts and done a god-awful job of it. Anyway, not my problem, which seems to be the maxim that I have taken recourse to most frequently over the past two years in this job. Yes, setting such mental boundaries is important to keep my sanity, but surely its not sustainable. 

Back In My Adolescence Bedroom

I am back in the bedroom where I sent a good part of my adolescence and adulthood after five nights of sleeping on the floor of my parents' bedroom. Blogging was out of the question because it was a full house. Blogging requires physical and mental space. The past five days are a bit of a blur. The things that stood out were the heat and the frequent reminders about my single status amid my cousin's wedding. This is not a post about my long-term singlehood, but I recently read a book about singlehood which echoed many of my feelings about it and I will get to it someday. For now I will just say that I encouraged and participated in jokes about my single status. I tried to embrace rather than avoid the elephant in the room, and as a man, I guess it was easier. It helps that Indian weddings are oriented around families rather than couples. There is no need for a plus one, as there is no couples dance or any dancing at all. 

Waiting to Fly to Mumbai

 My customary airport blog as I wait for my flight to Mumbai. I'm flying Virgin Atlantic this time, so I don't have to worry about travelling with a hoard of upper middle-class Indians. I suppose this is the most relaxed I've been travelling to India in the past few years. Dec. 2021 was in the fog of Covid, and Dec. 2022 was ahead of my PhD viva, even though I knew I would pass thanks to the benevolence of my examiners if not the brilliance of my thesis. The viva has come and gone, and I got away with minor corrections. There is still the matter of doing the minor corrections. Summer is not the ideal time to visit India, but every season has it drawbacks. Winter brings with it polluted skies, and summer the possibility of catching dengue for the third time or some other dastardly tropical disease. My relationship with India is complicated. Every time I go back, I feel more out of place and the thought of having to move back there if I don't find another job next year looms heavy. But India will always be home. And, I don't want to make it sound like every trip to India is an ordeal because it most decidedly is not. Most of the people I love dearly live there. 

Last Day of Teaching

 Today was the last day of teaching for this academic year. There is no question that this academic year was far more easy going than the previous one. No new job, homesickness, Covid scares, actually catching Covid, and tearing my hair out about my stalled PhD. But, I also felt spectacularly unmotivated. I was teaching the same courses as last year, but felt like I was less prepared than last year, when the material was knew to me and I had to exert myself a bit to familiarize myself with it. Yes, I am forced to teach mainstream economics, yes its been a tough few years for everyone, yes, the world is going to hell in a hand-basket, yes, I need to be kind to myself. But, surely, one can lead a meaningful life in the given circumstances. A life that does not entail constantly invoking self-kindness to survive. I want to regain my love and interest in economics but I don't know how to. Maybe the mountains of Nepal will provide some answers.