Salvation in Work

This morning, I felt like I was falling to pieces. My laptop conked out last evening, and I was up past midnight trying to get it to work. One of the options, was disconnecting and reconnecting the battery, which entailed taking the whole laptop apart. It took me a good two hours and when I tried to switch it on again, it wouldn't even get to the stage where it was stuck at, which told me that I had screwed up. I spent an agonizing 30 minutes trying to figure out what was wrong, and getting from square minus one back to square one. Naturally, I didn't sleep well last night. A laptop conking out is not an earth-shattering thing, but coming on top of all the other past and present problems and trauma, none of which are earth-shattering on their own, it was too much for me. In the morning, I managed to find a technician who would look at it, but my nerves still felt jangled. Towards noon, I had started to wonder how long I could carry on like this and began to contemplate options stretching from going to India for a visit to tagging along to Cornwall with a friend this weekend. Then, I decided to tried a third option--work. I managed to spend a good few hours immersed in my work. Although my progress was not monumental, I felt much better. I often say to people how glad I am to have had a PhD to keep me occupied through the pandemic. However, over the past few months, I feel like I have stalled, making my PhD more a source of distress than respite from the problems in this world. Today, I felt that the only way to make myself feel better is to work. I don't feel like going to Cornwall, and I don't feel like going to India, not until I finish my PhD.  After two fieldwork trips to India, I had vowed that the next time I visit, it would be without the shadow of an unfinished PhD looming over me. The last time I ran back to India, it was in a different time and I was a different person, even accounting for changes to one's personhood with time. The spectre of that retreat will always haunt me in times of stress even though I have made peace with that event and ceased to be embarrassed by it. I know the pandemic has made everyone' s mental states very volatile, and I might feel very differently a few days or even hours from now. But, for now, the plan is salvation through work. 

Falling Men

News media and social media are awash with pictures and footage of Afghans running alongside and some even clinging tot he sides of departing U.S. military aircraft. The most macabre footage is of two black dots falling from the a plane in mid-air--bodies of men who were presumably clinging to the sides of the plane when it took off. Yes, not hiding in the wheel bays like stowaways but clinging to the sides of a plane as though it were a bus. How desperate (and clueless) does one have to be to take such as a drastic step, with a 100% chance of death? Or did they get caught up in a mass hysteria? The news got me reading about plane stowaways, 3 out of 4 of whom die on the journey. It was pretty gruesome reading. There are many ways to die as a stowaway--being crushed by the retracting wheels of the plane, hypothermia and hypoxia. But, apparently, the most common way is death by falling to the ground close to your destination. People who are not killed by hypothermia or hypoxia lose consciousness. As the plane starts descending to land, temperature and air pressure rises, reversing the hibernation state. But, if that doesn't happen quickly enough, stowaways are still unconscious when the plane lowers its wheels for landing and tumble  to their deaths. 

The Fall of Kabul

Almost 20 years after the US invasion o Afghanistan, Kabul has fallen to a Taliban that is much stronger than it was 20 years ago. The flotsam from other tragedies closer to home will mean this one will be forgotten quite soon. At least, until the first waves of refugees land up at the gates of Europe. One of my housemates from j-school was from Afghanistan and is currently based there. He was one of the most extroverted people I know, and  having been a journalist, I know quite a few. He spoke of a country completely dependent on Western support and unlikely to function otherwise. That was in 2007, and looks like things didn't change much since. Afghanistan was awash with funds from Western governments and he intend to go back and partake of their largesse. But 2007 was the twilight year of the Great Moderation. In a few months, the Global Financial Crisis would erupt and the world has been lurching from one disaster to another ever since. 

Wheels Turning Again?

Yesterday, I wrote that my PhD is like a beached whale. The despair carried over into this morning, and I woke up in the depths of despondency, compounded by the news received last evening that my closest friend in Bristol would be moving away soon. I spent most of the morning on house-keeping activities, which distracted me from but did not dissipate the despair. I made sporadic attempts to work on my PhD, but to little avail. It was only in the late afternoon, that I lay on my bed and felt the wheels in my head start to turn. No brainwave, no Eureka moment, more like a tremor in a limb that has lain lifeless for weeks. I am by no means out of the woods. But, after being paralysed for weeks, even a flicker of movement gives hope that must be jumped on. Hopefully, this is not a false start and the buzzer won't go off tomorrow. But, I am hoping that wheels might, just might, be squeaking into motion. (As my friend Mandy says, keeping everything crossed). 

SOAS Rejection

SOAS rejected me and didn't even bother to inform me. I only learnt about it when I wrote to HR, who sent me a pissy email when I said I expected to be informed even if I was unsuccessful (in more polite words). I wasn't expecting to get through so it didn't come as a shock to me. Prior to the interview, I was wondering how I would cope with the having nothing to look forward to if I don't get the job. But I've realised that the thing that bothers me most is being stuck on my PhD. In the past two and half months, it feels like it has barely budged. The new deadline is two and half months away. I remarked to a friend today that something has got to give, right? I can't spend the next two and a half months doing nothing. I will go mad. Neither can I expect much help  from my  supervisor, who hasn't fully recovered from Covid. My  PhD feels like a beached whale--unwieldy and unyielding. It feels like my life is on hold because of my  PhD, and my PhD is on hold for some mysterious reason, so everything in my life is on hold. I have accepted that nothing is sacred, I am ready to abandon concepts that I have toiled over for months. But, replace them with what exactly?

One Man's Conspiracy Theorist, Is Another Man's Truth Teller

I set out to write a blog about conspiracy theories after a family friend with an advanced science degree forwarded a decidedly unscientific video which propagated a Covid conspiracy theory. I put up an oblique resistance because I was bored but didn't engage beyond a point. To be fair, a lot of people forward videos without watching them, so he may not have even seen the video. But, I hadn't expected him to be a conspiracy theorist. Many people have pointed out that both left-wingers and right-wingers are susceptible to Covid conspiracy theories. Let-wingers because they look at very incident through their capitalism-is-evil lens and right-wingers because they are bat-shit crazy. Each group is animated by a religion-like faith in their respective ideology, be it communism, fascism, white supremacy, etc. But, this family friend is a hippy who works on farms. I haven't interacted much with him recently, but I wouldn't categorize him as either a left-winger or a right-winger, more like an anarchist. Maybe anarchists are susceptible to it too. Prior to the pandemic, I would have tried to argue it out with this family friend. Now, I just can't be bothered. it was difficult enough to convince my mother to take the vaccine. So, I ma just going to adopt the attitude of "Ja, jee le apni zindagi, japte rehe apni conspiracy theory".--"Lead your life as you please, spout conspiracy theories if you wish'. 

Juddering

 I learnt a new word from my first visit to my latest physio today--juddering. It means to shake like a engine would when it is stalling. For some of the new exercises he taught me, I will know I am in a new position when my shoulder starts juddering. And, I suppose, I will know that my shoulder is improving when the juddering reduces in intensity. Of all the physios I visited, he seemed to be the most competent. he is a shoulder expert and I had considered seeing him before I went to my previous physio. But he had a long waiting list, and at that point of time, I was not in a good place mentally and physically. I decided I couldn't wait to do something about my shoulder so I cancelled my appointment with him. Even at the time, I knew I might regret it later. And, now, it is easy to kick myself for the money and time expended on the previous physio. But, the most pointless thing in the world is 20/20 hindsight coupled with amnesia about your previous mental, physical and emotional states. We hold our past selves to higher standards of  stoicness and rationality than our current selves. January and February were difficult months for me and I did my best to cope. Sure, I made some decisions which turned out to be the wrong ones. So what? This is not the first wrong decision I made and it won't be the last. Its no use crying over split milk especially when the floor has been wiped clean and you have opened a new carton. 

On a completely different note, this is my 1000th post. The fact that I have reached this milestone in about three and a half years since I resumed blogging means I have been extremely regular. Not only that, after turning out 247 posts in 2018 and 244 posts in 2019, I was extremely prolific in the annus horribilis I of 2020, churning out 292 posts. I reckon I will end up with a similar number this year, which has been comparably horrible to last year. I am a sucker for milestones but the 1000th post milestone is the biggest one I have celebrated so far. The next 1000 milestone is at least 3 years away, assuming I keep blogging regularly. Who know what life will be like three years from now or if I will even be alive. And, in any case, 2000th post doesn't have the same zing to it as 1000th post. For a comparable zing, I will have to wait for my 10000th post, by which time I will be well into my twilight years and global atmospheric temperatures may be at least 3-4C higher, and all the carnage that comes with that.