Completing 2019!

As we were having a quiet chat about the year that was, we all felt that the last couple of years were especially busy.

We had less holidays, less fun, too much travel, work, college admissions, board exams and all other stresses of growing up, growing older.

And yet, as my mom insists, when we gather to count our blessings and say ‘Thank yous’ there was so much to be grateful for.

Today, I was too busy to watch the sun go down on the year. The office day seemed to keep stretching on a day when usually people wind up early to party. I guess that’s symbolic of the whole year.

I wonder what the new year will be like.
Will the dates make a difference to our lives?
Will we become wiser as we move in twenty-twenties?
Will the world become saner and happier?

I guess it is all upto us.

To paraphrase Dumbledore (he is all for turning phrases): It is our choices that make our world.

Let’s choose to be better selves, make a happier world and celebrate a wonderful New Year!

Let’s choose to have more fun

…and write a little more,

We did it Swaram!
Bring on January!!

The last days of our teens

My daughter is a teenager.

She has big plans and bigger dreams. When I hear her talking of where she wants to study next, the countries she wants to travel to, the cities she plans to live in, the kind of house she wants to build....... one part of my mind says-Yeah, I also thought that way, once upon a time

Those were the dreams.

This is the reality.

The reality isn’t all bad. The sad part is that me (and a lot of us) have become too jaded to dream. We have resigned on our hopes. We have given up on trying so many things.

These are the last two days of our teens.

Let’s celebrate today, before the years turn into twenties.

Let’s go out and party, laugh at the same old jokes and sing the same old songs, just as tunelessly at full volume.

Let’s look at life with hope, waiting for the adventures to unfold, for special people to come in and for new friendships to unfurl.

Let’s try believing once more that there is a world out there waiting for us to step in and make the change.

Let’s celebrate friends and friendships again. To prioritize them above tasks and responsibilities and remind ourselves again just how much fun it is just to have fun.

We can still dream about all that we still need to do and discover.

Let’s start with some more hope.

Our days of twenties are right here.

The years to make the dreams of the teens come true.

Let’s live them to the very best.

The year is complete

Last weekend of the year. Weekends are the time to rest and recuperate and to cover up the sleep deficit. I hardly slept last night but I still don’t want to take a nap and miss some precious minutes. Because it is one rare occasion when the younger kid got permission to visit home during term time. And that gives me the energy to take on everything with a smile.

It may not seem a huge deal to most parents to have kids at home, but if your chick has flown away, you’ll definitely understand how I feel.

This is one of the lessons of growing older: The best holidays are the ones when everyone is at home. I have travelled alone, it was a great adventure, but I always missed sharing the experience with someone. My husband and I take more ‘couple’ trips together, but we still think it is more fun when all of us are together. I have travelled with each of my daughters separately, we have great conversations and special mom-and daughter moments. But that feeling of ‘completeness’ is so very special. To all of those who have the time together, I hope you treasure each moment.

We fight, we yell we drive each other up the wall. My work increases, the house is messier and noisier. And yet I Thank God for these moments.

There was a time we used to take 3-4 holidays in a year. We tried to cover them all-forest safaris, beaches, hills, monuments and mountains. And then with time you realize that the best journeys are the ones that take you home.

As a new year is about to begin. That is what I would wish for everyone. (Not exactly messy or noisy homes) but definitely love and togetherness and contentment.

Lessons from blogging everyday III

I have given myself a lot of pats on the back for almost completing the exercise. (3 more days to go after this).

So what next?

Enjoy the evening with one stress less in life. Read a book, watch a movie, talk to a friend instead. Yes, I want to do that and more.

But I also want to do this ‘stress’ thing again. I still need to live the challenge for another month. Why on earth?

Because, as I wrote earlier, this year was also about facing mortality. Of recognizing the finiteness of time and the futility of regrets. I do have a list of things I did not do this year, even knowing that this time would never come back. But I also have the satisfaction, of doing a little more than before.

The challenge was one part, what I also rediscovered was the joy of writing. Writing for its own sake, not for a job or for a reader, but just for the fun of playing with words.

This stress helped me get through all the other stresses in life. It made me reflect within and focus ahead.

What I would really love to do in the time ahead, is to write more meaningfully. Maybe write shorter or less frequent posts, but hopefully write to contribute, to make a change, to make people think. And to change myself.

Most of my posts have been about myself, my work search for work life balance, my encounters with the education systems my thoughts and fears. It is then that I realized that how small my world has become. Going ahead, I hope I use time to reconnect with the amazing people doing amazing work around me. To read more interesting posts. To discover more interesting stories. More words, more worlds.

Lessons from blogging everyday-II

In the previous blogging avatar, writing came naturally. I wrote when I had the time (I have no clue how I found the time). It was more about sharing snippets of my life, trying to keep myself sane. And I had a group-bloggers like me who wrote regularly, read my posts, shared their reactions through comments. I think that kept me on. Sometimes a single comment would make me write another post.

This time it was one big exercise. I know for sure Swaram was reading my posts, that and my stubborn resolve kept me going.

Maybe some of the posts didn’t make much sense to anyone else, but each of them was a big learning for me. Each of them was a reassurance that I could take out this time and complete what I promised. A few months ago, while talking of my writing and exercise, a close friend had told me to face the fact that I was not a ‘upholder’. I was better off working a salaried job than trying to write on my own; joining a class than promising to exercise. I agreed with her.

This month of blogging gave me hope that maybe I could be a ‘upholder’. A month is not very long-maybe it would take three months to really prove myself-but it felt very long. Taking out time every day, that too when my kid is at home (After her semester starts, I’ll probably not meet her for five months).

There have been days when I was very late reaching home. There were days of travel. Of visitors and of precious family time. I have written a couple of posts using my phone while on a flight and some which I have written without knowing in advance what I was writing about.

I am so thankful and glad; I could do it.

Lessons from blogging everyday

The most challenging part of this challenge for me was when I finally logged in to the personal laptop, opened Word and tried to write.  I wouldn’t know what to write. Having finally packed and stepped on to the station-you don’t know where you want to go, which train to take!

I tried making a blog calendar-or at least a list of possible topics, but that began to feel too much like work.

And then I complicated it for myself (yeah, I am weird) by self-imposing a minimum word limit of 300. No 55-ers or 100 worders except for the days I was in transit. So, I don’t have time to write, I don’t know what to write and yet I have to do it every day (for 300words).  

I started writing ‘from the top of my head’. Just whatever my hands felt like typing. It was therapeutic. Just the act of letting the words flow, drawing pictures and smudging them out because many times they would not make sense.

I realized the words would start writing themselves after I struggled for good ten-fifteen minutes. Then I would end up writing something which I didn’t even plan to.

Wow! If only I had the time to keep typing till it became a coherent book.

Sometimes I would get multiple ideas, like a string of firecrackers lighting up on Diwai. But by the time I came back from another day at work, my mind would be like an ancient tubelight once again.

Would it be better to stay up one night and keep writing?
But that would defeat the basic theory of building up the discipline to log in every day-no matter what.

I didn’t write very scintillation stuff or anything that could save the planet. Mostly I ended up writing about traffic, juggling tasks and everything I was stressed up. I was just writing about my thoughts and even that was difficult.

It makes me respect regular writers so much more. People who have nothing to prove, but yet write for the joy of it. People who sit and type for an hour two, with military discipline, and people who look at the blank screen and know what to write. Big salute to all of you!

The Countdown

One week to go for this year.

What did I do in the last 51 weeks?

The year began with series of shocks. My father had a heart attack. Yes, lots of people have them, but it still felt so unbelievable. It was a blessing that everything worked out and after a bypass surgery and some months of recovery he his back to his normal self now. Those days were unreal. It was strange taking an Uber in Jaipur and going to the hospital from the airport. I was never allowed to take a taxi in Jaipur. Papa would always insist on picking me up. (That when he empowered me to drive at fourteen and travel everywhere on my own).

It was strange going home and unlocking the door. That door would always open before we reached it. My parents would always be waiting for us at least half-an-hour before we were supposed to reach.

Watching Papa completely unconscious wired to a dozen beeping machines, breathing through a mask, with pipes stuck into his body was so unnerving that, being in Jaipur, I went and stayed with a friend instead of going home. And felt that warm reassurance of knowing we always have more than one home when we have friends.

Then I lost a close friend unexpectedly. It was something which was not supposed to happen. But it did. And there was nothing anyone could do about it.

The fragility of life and the finality of death-that was what this year hit me with. And the realization that how important each moment of life is.

It is not as if we don’t know about life and death, but when it is close, it changes some things forever. It changes how you look at the time you took for granted, the words you wish you had never said or the words you never said.

Christmas Memories

It’s been a long time since the full family was home for Christmas. And I don’t mean the extended Indian family-even the four of us, the nuclear unit, haven’t been together for Christmas since the elder one went to boarding school seven years ago.

Then the younger one followed her, then came college for one and changing jobs for us. We are now a visiting family. I feel like the one at the railway station waving good-bye to one train and waiting on the platform for the next one to arrive.

All the work that I keep cribbing about-office, home, writing, studying-that is just something to do while I am waiting. This is what I really live for. The precious moments of togetherness-and those are getting so few and far.

Instead of getting all maudlin over the way things of change, let me recall the best memories of Christmas:

•      Jingle Bells! Yes, it wasn't Christmas without the whole school singing Jingle Bells while the plumpest nun came as Santa Clause and gave the whole class the same gift. There was a TV shaped Tin Coin Box I had got one year, which I used forever, one of the plastic legs gave in long ago, but I think that box is still there in my parents’ home.
  
•    Life took a 180 degree turn: Inter-House Music competition at FAPS. The kids used to prepare with the intensity of preparing for the Cricket World Cup. Our house would be ringing with carols all month.
  
•     Playing Santa for years, till the girls caught on and also made their father join. The planning and gift wrapping and the joy of watching people open their presents.
  
•       Christmas celebrations in the apartment. The earnestness of the play practice, dressing up the kids and watching them enact the same story.

I guess that part of life has come full circle.

We haven’t even put up the tree this year. Now we don’t have the enthusiasm and the energy, and they don’t have the time.

But then what will we look back to after a few years?
We’ve got to create some memories to stay with us.

Let me take out the fairy lights.

Winter Solstice

The sun was still in the sky when I left from office today.

It was such a welcome sign. The winter solstice is behind us. The days are going to stay brighter for longer.

The ‘half-glass-empty’ person in me chimes right in-that means the years is over. The kid goes back to college in 10 days. We’ll all be soon a year older! Another year gone and what did I do? I still need to lose 10 kgs. I still need to write my book. I still need to complete the M.A I signed up for. I still need to complete the story I was supposed to finish last Sunday!

Why am I so worked about dates? The calendar is just something we made up to measure time. The sun and the moon don’t give a fig about the years and the months.

Why is it so important for us to track and measure and count? Maybe because for us time is limited. (I am strictly not thinking of office login and logout times or project deadlines here, although it’s hard not to-we live by them). This whole concept of living, not knowing the literal deadline is so unsettling. How do I know whether I am going too fast or too slow? If I try to all the things I want to, I miss out on the precious moments doing nothing, spending time arguing with my daughter, reading, watching Harry Potter for the 65^th time with her. And yet if I do that, how will I complete the blog post for today, get up in time to beat the traffic tomorrow morning, save up for their future?

Live for this moment or slog for the years ahead?
The present or the future?

What is the future anyway?

That hateful alarm at 6.40 am!
And yet, I am grateful to wake up to another day. 

That’s what this year has been. It has taught me not to take the future for granted. And to love the present.

Us and Them-The Illegal Immigrants

This post is not about the NRC or the CAA or the wall at the Mexico border. It is a conversation to understand why would anyone choose to be an immigrant.

That too an illegal one?

Have you known any of the boat people, the Rohingya or the dreaded Bangladeshis?

The family of the Syrian boy whose body floated on to the seashore? 

(I could not bring myself to use that photo)

Why would any parent take that risk with their child?

To escape a fate worse than that.

To escape death and torture or starvation or worse if they did not take the risk. Or maybe because they do not have a choice. Like the Rohingyas and the boat people they are just forced out of the country where their grandparents lived and worked and now have no home to go back to.

What makes them different from us?

Chance or Luck

It is sheer chance that we were born on one side of the border, into a religion or nationality or economic class which keeps us out of that cage (for now). Privilege that has come to us by chance. It is privilege that lets us move through cities and countries with dignity, to go abroad and work, to send our children to another country for education, for a job, for business. We have the means, they do not. That’s the only difference.

But we don’t have enough resources for our own. How can we take care of them? If their own country cannot take care of them, why should we have to bear the burden?

Why should Europe open their borders to fleeing Syrians? Why does America have to let the Mexicans in? Why does Assam have to accept the Bangladeshis?

What is the solution? Put them in cages and force them back in to whatever hell they came from?

Look into the eyes of a fleeing immigrant child and her hopeless mother and then answer. Think of what your own exalted religion, your humanity says and then answer.

I honestly don’t know the answer to that. What I know is that separating families, putting people in concentration camps and pushing them back across the border for something anyone of us would have done in their place is not the answer either.

Does any of you have the answer?

The village where I come from

How can we say for sure where a person has come from? And no, I am not talking of the last 70 years. That’s a tiny span of time since humans started immigrating.

DNA mapping and the study of languages show that humans have been immigrating right from the time they existed on this planet. There are some very interesting maps and timelines to show how we spread all over the globe from one tiny speck on the map. And of course, then there are the stories and legends and history and interpretations.

This is what I have re-constructed from what I read and heard about the valley my mom’s, dad’s side of family came from. After Africa, one early branch of humans reached what is known the Indian subcontinent (they came without documentation, but there were no countries back then so we can’t call their immigration illegal). They took a coastal route but manage to cover the country and reach the now Assam-Bangladesh region. Then there were some who moved northwards first, reached the Steppes and then walked eastwards, crossed the North-Indian planes and reached the same area. 

There was no religion back then, but I am assuming they started by worshiping nature and were later Hindus by default. Then came the kings and this land was a part of multiple kingdoms at different points of time. From the known history of the region, we know it was first ruled by Hindu and Buddhist rulers, and then by the Delhi Sultanate, followed by the Bengal Sultanate and then petty rulers of Afghan descent. Islam came here through rulers and Pirs. Masses changed their Gods and their names, but their lives continued to revolve around farming and fishing. 

During one of the phases when the Hindu ruler of Tripura conquered this area, he imported Brahmins from Bengal to change the religious matrix. I guess they would be considered legal migrants by the rulers. Don’t know how the local population felt because the history was written mostly by the rulers.

Now I don’t know which branch of migrants my ancestors belonged to.

What I know is that their homes were a part of East Bengal when the British sliced up the Bengal based on religion. Then they were a part of Assam when the British transferred the district to balance revenues of provinces. Then the district was transferred to East Pakistan in 1947, which later became Bangladesh in 1971, because of religion (and because Assam wasn’t too keen on retaining a slice of Bengal). But a tiny sliver of the valley remained in Assam because of the geographical boundary.

Thousands, who had no role to play in this game of power, were forced to move from one side of the river to another based on their religion. They left behind their homes, their lands and their history and became immigrants once again.

A dark new world

Gosh! I have turned so dark! Each post I have written in the last few days is gloomier than the previous one. My thoughts can almost be used to create the sets for 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II'.

I am on my blog regularly (for the last 20 days) after a decade. Most of the time I am writing on a stop-watch mode: log out of work-drive-write-post blog-shut down-move to next task. It’s Friday evening and I have half-a-dozen less things to do today evening so I got a few minutes to click randomly on my older posts from a decade ago.

That was like watching 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone'. There was wonder and hope. There was fun and innocence and a sense of faith.The kids were on the brink of discovering a whole new magical world. The newness of it all-the majesty of the bewitched world of schools, making friends, discovering spells and learning to fly! 

There were so many people who read my posts back then. There were strangers who commented and shared their reactions. Now it is mostly a solitary reflection. It was a commitment made on Facebook that made me come back and stick through for the last twenty days. I thought I’d get over my reticence over sharing my blog with known people and broadcast the recent posts on Facebook. Maybe more people reading the random posts will make me write more (and less randomly).

When I logged on, I realized what a battlefield social media had become. The country is raging over the latest bills/acts, but it was unnerving to read the words thrown by people I thought, I knew. It’s not just the views of some my ‘friends’ but the stringent violence and outright nastiness of it. And yes, I am shocked at the depth of naivety (or plain dumbness if that’s a word) of so many of who have turned into pawns of dark wizards on both sides of the battle. So many different masks have emerged under the faces that were so familiar!

The streets of our cities are full of death-eaters and the dementors have taken over the virtual world. It is not just me; the whole world has gone dark. There is no place for our barbie-fairytopias here. This world needs a million patronuses.

Learning in the Dark

I met a social worker who has been working with under-privileged, abused, abandoned children for decades. When asked about how he manages to keep up his spirits in this overwhelming fight, he said he can’t. He finds it increasingly difficult to go on. Because in trying to solve one problem he finds twenty more-each with it’s own spiraling mess. He started with hope. Now he has lost the hope, but he still fights on, because he does not think giving up is an option.

I feel the same way about our education system.

It’s just getting more and more politicized. The oldest and the best institutions of our country-the ones who produced national leaders and international scientists, economists and graduates who work across the largest and the most influential corporations across the globe, are crumbling under increasing political interference. Most positions of control are filled through influence. Most admissions are through quotas and connections.

It’s getting more and more commercialized. The newer campuses are high-end townships; glittery and glamorous, exclusive and designed to impress. Education comes with a steep price tag.

And then there are the students forced to make choices that would affect their entire life at the age of at fifteen (in some schools they have to do it at thirteen). There is the flawed ‘board of education’ system with about 30 education ‘boards’ in the country-with archaic curricula, bureaucratic management, and of course political agendas.

Then come we the parents, armed with internet on tap, and the ambition to do our best for our children. (Can’t blame us, we were trained to keep doing our best since we were three-year-olds).

There is the problem of millions of children never getting and education.

And then there are millions who have not changed their mindset despite being educated.

Yes, I have lost hope. But I will go on questioning till I find some solution to some part of it, because giving up is not an option.

The College Admission Project: Different Shades

My college-admission research project started as a list, evolved to become a branched tree, grew some more roots and shoots and know resembles no known shape.  One of the branches was about talking to different people, to learn about different perspectives.

One of the interesting ones was that on ‘Management Quota’.

In our times (a quarter century ago) they were called ‘Donation seats’ and people going to Karnataka and Maharashtra for Engineering and Medical studies would hesitate to name their college. They would always be forced to explain that they were going to a ‘private college’ paying the insane but regular fees in response to the inevitable ‘Oh, Donation college!’ smirks.

Now there are private colleges in every state and not getting though JEE (now there are three of the JEE tests too), does not mean the end of the world.

There are hundreds of other colleges, many of them offering better education than some government colleges. They maintain quality by admitting a percentage of students through competitive entrance exams. They adhere to legislation by keeping a required percentage of seats for centralized entrance processes. And they manage their expenses by allocating a percentage of seats through highly prized Management Quota (not Donation) seats.

And then some seats are converted stealthily from one category to another.

“Well, we have worked hard all our life. Shouldn’t our children get some advantage because of it?”

“There are no seats in those colleges because of reservation, so what’s the option for people like us.”

“Yes, we too follow the required reservations. But then how many from the reserved quota would pay these fees?”

“Yeah. It was a steep amount. But since the placements are so good, the kids can recover it in the first couple of years’ CTCs.”

There was another option which came up in ‘our times’. The nearly bankrupt countries breaking out of the erstwhile Soviet Union started cashing on the Indian parent’s ability/desperation for Doctors/Engineers.

In spite of what the financial rating agencies say, the Indian Economy has evolved much since then. Universities from all over the world are setting up stalls at ‘Education Fairs’ (and no I didn’t make up that term) to woo our worthy students; and their parents who want to do their best for the children’s education.

Child's Play? Memories of 'Nursery' Admissions

Sixteen years ago, as a young mother, I went through the Nursery school admission process.

The playschools coached us and the kids. They held special seminars before the admission season where experts came to give talks (and everyone from book publishers to health food and insurance companies sponsored the events). 

The school principal almost ‘forbade’ me to go to my hometown for my younger kids’ birth (in February) because the elder kid’s admission ‘season’ began in October of that year.

If you think I was ‘hyper’ to give in to the pressure, let me tell you that:

• One of the schools used to give out only a limited number of forms on a first-come, first-serve basis; starting from 8:00 am in the morning. People queued up from the previous night.
• A family we heard of, had converted to another religion to get their kids admitted in a sought-after school.
• People shift residences to meet the address criteria of well-known schools. To counter this, one of the schools wanted prospective parents to provide proof of residence for the previous five years. (Maybe that inspired the idea behind one of the most contentious bills in our country).
• here were coaching classes for three-year-olds and special sessions for parents. This was eighteen years ago, now I hear the kids don’t have any tests/interviews. Maybe the parents go through extra-special-sessions now.
• One of the schools had written tests for parents. Both parents had to appear for the same test, sitting in different rooms-I guess the answers were then compared. I wonder what they did after that.
• Application Forms asked for our qualifications, qualifications of maternal grandfather and grandmother, paternal grand grandfather and grandmother only.
• One form asked us to list the most important people we knew in the fields of education, music, sports, arts, etc.
• Most forms asked, “How can you contribute to the school?”
• I guess the question asking, “What make of cars your family owns?” wasn’t even surprising.

We went through that whole experience and managed to get the kid into a great school. We kept photocopies of all filled-in forms because I was pregnant and would need to start preparing for the other one soon.

Wow! This was such an awesome exercise in confidence building.

Of course, I can handle college admission. I can handle it twice too.

A Whole New World

I visited the swanky campus of one of the new trendy colleges. Not as the parent of a prospective student, but as a friend of a faculty member. I got to interact informally with quite a few students and faculty members.

This was so different from the colleges my friends and I had studied in! Or maybe, it's just me! A dinosaur who had sauntered in from another era.

There are educational consultants who specialize in setting up these huge institutes. Some of the areas they work on are: getting a celebrity board of directors and faculty members; ensuring government clearances-land acquisitions, subsidies, land-use-change permissions, tax subsidies; connecting high net-worthy investors with promised returns and of course the marketing and promotion.

The courses are suggested by the consultant. But of course they are vetted by the faculty. The faculty themselves are dependent on the popularity of their courses-decided by the number of students opting for their courses and providing feedback. All great innovations to ensure transparency-except for the situations where a Prof who insists on rigour and discipline in a finance class, may get outbid by a course on exploring the links between Bollywood Music and Math.

This particular institution had on board a famous politician who owned a big chunk of the forested hill district. Well an institution this size will need to have political connections, I was told.

When a new course was being started-the teachers started suggesting with a class size of 30 so that they could build their facilities over time. The consultant insisted on a class size of 120 to ensure the ROI. The staff prepared the proposals hoping the government body which sanctions new courses would suggest trimming the proposed strength to 60. They got an approval for the full 120.

These 120 students have been selected after clearing an over-subscribed entrance test. There were many who could not make it.

The fees they’ll pay for a four-year course is more than what they will earn in the next ten years (as per average market standards). Their average recreational spend (travelling to the nearest city, eating and drinking out, watching a movie, gifting and other items that they didn’t want to detail) is more than the monthly income of many white-collar works in metros.

Most of them are not here to get a job (that’s so middle-class). They are still figuring out what they want to do with life, and the intensive education they will receive here will ensure they will do well with whatever they do.

Maybe the emperor is wearing special clothes-it's just me....

More on Colleges: Starting another search

Since the Junior kid is on a completely different career track than the Senior one, I have to do my college research again. I started with another excel sheet, looking up colleges and their admission process.

Has anyone of you noticed this: If you google up the name of any well-known college or entrance exam-what comes up highest in the search results are the coaching centres!

Yeah. Even AI knows that to get to a college in India, you first need to get to the right coaching centre. Some of them also have entrance tests and offer discounts to high scorers to ensure that they get the right potential candidates.
They have admission forms where the students are asked to add their photos and give full rights to the centre to use their photos in future advertisements (for life). I also know of students who did not attend coaching centres, but score well, being approached by centre reps in retrospect, and offered good incentives-in exchange of rights to their names and photos.

This is education in our country!

What is the alternative?

Compared to the cost of private education in the country, education in Canada, Europe, Australia and the old favourite U.S.A seems much more value for money, for those who can afford it. As a girl studying Computer Science in U.K (and doing an internship one break and planning to hike Kilimanjaro in the next break) explained to me: It’s too difficult to get admission in the best colleges here. And then you end up slogging all the time with no other activities. And the state of education in other colleges is just too bad.

I am glad she found an option that works for her.

Again, there is no answer for those who cannot afford this option too.

Watch what you like; but study what the system wants...

The last post triggered memories and alot of angst about the school-college education system in our country.

This whole subject-stream selection was traumatic for me. From wanting to study Literature and History, I qualified as an Engineer but never worked as one.

The elder kid went through the same difficulty during subject selection but luckily, she had only two possible streams of study in her shortlist.

The younger one had to make her choices last year, but she is still confused.

It is because, unlike DTH and Cable operators who were forced by TRAI to stop making us pay for ‘bundle packs’ and let us pick and choose the channels we wanted to watch; the education boards and colleges still insist on ‘bundles’. If you like Math -but select Economics instead of Chemistry or Physics in high school-you don’t qualify for any of the Engineering or Medical entrance exams. That’s another thing that you want to go to Engineering college because the top global banks go there for campus recruitment.

I thought times had changed. I though the ‘Doctor-Engineer-or nothing’ philosophy had faded away with the last century. Now the kids have choices. Now there are so many other options.

But when we got into the college application mode and I started looking up the numbers, I realized so much that had not changed. Law and Design have got added ‘acceptable’ careers. Liberal Arts has become a new entrant-but are still being looked upon as fancy-rich-kids colleges instead of something that can change a person’s life, lift a family out of poverty kind of a career. So, lakhs of students still spend the best years of their lives slogging to clear entrance test.

Private colleges step in to provide for the burgeoning numbers, at burgeoning fees. And as for those who cannot afford them, and do not manage to grab those 0.5% seats in good government institutions, what happens to them?

The Race

Do my blog posts give the impression that my life is one hectic race?

Compared to the life of sixteen and seventeen year-olds, it’s a walk on a travelator.

My younger kid has now reached the stage where she had to make life decisions. Which subject to choose? What does she want to become? Which ‘competitive exams’ is she going to prepare for?

My kid is very competitive; in sports. She has had meltdowns before tournament finals (now she is more mature, she just glowers at her opponent till the other person loses nerves). She feels like she will let her whole class down if she doesn’t win all the class events for them. She even aims at winning long-distance runs (geez, you aim at completing them, not winning, the other sibling is shocked). But when it comes to ‘competitive exams’ she blanks out.

And I don’t blame her.

I found the whole scene so sad when the elder one appeared for her entrance exams. This was the scene in front of one of the 'examination centres'. 

I couldn't click one of the the multiple training institutes who had set pop-up stores across the pavement and the guys passing around brochures and pamphlets with photos of alumni-top-scorers in entrance exams.

And those for entrance exams for design institutes. Just around 50,000 students competing for about 60 seats in the ‘General’ category. I was glad it was not Engineering with around 10, 00, 000 students in a blood bath for 7000 seats. I did not even look into the NEET numbers.

Why do things have to be this way?

Because we have the world’s fastest growing population!

And also, because the percentage of children fighting to go to good colleges is spiraling every day.

Children want to go to IIT because they are taught that’s the key to a golden future. How many of them want to get into IITs to become Engineers? How many of them even remain Engineers as professionals?

But then, I am told that they get the option of becoming Investment Bankers or even international journalists, because they went to IIT to become Engineers.

Where does this leave the ones who actually wanted to become Engineers? Oh, they should have worked harder then (attended 2 more coaching classes in parallel) or started earlier (moved to Kota in 4^th standard).

I can fully understand why the kid would rather run in a marathon.

...because I have promises to keep

I didn’t snooze the alarm today. I started driving full eight minutes ahead of yesterday’s start time. See this is what measuring and optimizing can do. Today, I will check off at least one more task than yesterday, and sleep for 15 mins more.

I got stuck behind a water tanker in a narrow lane.

Maybe I should have snoozed the alarm.

No! I don’t give up so easily. I have managed to post for 11 days straight. I am changing as a person. Let me start (restart for the 105^th time) the weight-loss project too.

I managed to reach office at the target time.

My laptop went into an update mode even before starting. I decided to go up to the gym before the deluge pours out of the mailbox and submerges me.

I do know where the gym is; I just had to ask someone how to operate the door. And then I saw the 'pros' discussing the right way to swing the weights and do squats, and wanted to disappear. I stayed on, asked someone where the weighing machine was, and figured out on my own how that worked. Isn’t that a beginning? Anyway, I wasn’t dressed for a workout. Didn’t have shoes, or a towel or a change of clothing, so I couldn’t do anything much today.

At least I had measured my weight and knew the target one. The new, changed me will get there one day, soon.

The workday was extra-long today because of an extended workshop. That meant I had to drive back through peak traffic. And there was a call I had to log in for after reaching home. There; Mr. Murphy had done his usual thing with my beautifully laid plans.

I have to go through the same madness tomorrow again. That’s just a few hours away. Couldn’t I miss just one post and make up for it tomorrow, or over the weekend?

I am tired, hungry, sleepy. I haven’t had a decent conversation with my daughter all day. I need to call my parents too. I don’t know what it is that is still making me write. Maybe because I know how bad I’d feel to give up after sticking through for nearly half the month. Or maybe it’s for the sense of satisfaction I feel after knowing that yes, I managed to uphold the promise one more day.

(Will get to the weight loss and the book writing one too-one day-soon-hopefully)

Finding time to write/Writing to find time

Once she grows up and goes to school, I will get back to…

Most mothers would have their own choice of words to complete the sentence. What of the mothers whose kids have ‘gone to school’? They probably mean that once they are done with ensuring homework is done, and the uniforms are ready, and the lunch is packed and the kid is back from the three other classes, and the birthday party, they will complete their sentence.

My kid has gone to college and I still hadn’t started acting on my ‘dream list’. Just attempting to write a short post every day started leading to continuous headaches from lack of sleep. And the frustration of not being able to anything well enough. So, I got into soul searching/serious project planning mode.

Step 1: Excel sheet of all the tasks I ‘need to do’ and ‘want to do’ in a day.

Step 2: Assign estimated time for each task except sleep (added numbers for the worst-case scenario too-so driving time varied from 40 mins to 2 hours)

Step 3: Subtract Sum of all task timings from 24:00:00

Sleep time came to 3.5 hours

Step 4: Freeze timings for all non-negotiable tasks and steal minutes from everything else. Sleep 5.5 hours.

Step 5: Shift some tasks for weekend only (can’t afford to read every day), knock-out some tasks, try multi-tasking (driving and eating breakfast) and hope and pray but the Excel sheet still shows 6.5 hours of sleep.

As all good project managers do, I didn’t even factor in things beyond my control (illness, maid’s illness, unforeseen tasks, etc).

And finally, as all good project managers also do, I decided to ignore the Math and believe that something will work out. I will exercise and read and write and still do justice to the office and household, one day. 

For now, let me be glad that I managed to complete this post today.

Parenting a Teenager

I have some time to write today. But no clue about what to write about.

When this was primarily a mommy blog, there was always some incident like coming home to find the PC screen upside down or some conversations like these that I had to share. I am still the mommy but with two teenagers, there has been a slow and steady erosion of my job description.

The kids are not only on their own wings, they keep trying to take me under their wing too. Maybe they are looking for some payback.

You need to exercise. No mom, you don’t have fever and you can’t bunk office. How can you read this crap; I’ll find you a book to read. Show me the ticket, I need to confirm the time. Give me the ID cards. Did you pack your charger? Why didn’t you finish lunch? Phone-Wallet-Keys why can’t you not lose just these three things?

For some time, I would keep reminding them that I was still the mom, but then I stopped bothering. I listen to the instructions. I make worse excuses than they ever made. When they get really mad over some random (unfortunately quite common) incident like misplacing a wallet, I use the zooming-out trick I learnt from them.

When I almost delayed a flight, requesting that they let me ‘un-board’ and search for my phone, I thought my daughter would start a blog of her own! ‘Teenaging a parent’ or something like that. We found the phone in the seat pocket after sending the crew on a treasure hunt. She just gave that ‘Don’t say a word’ look, I refused to meet her eyes. I acted ‘normal’, read a book for ten minutes and then silently offered to share a bag of chips.

It is good fun being a parent of a teen. 

It’s also payback!

Going On

What makes people go on?

I look at change-makers, craftsmen, entrepreneurs, successful people from myriad walks of life and see a common characteristic. Of not giving up. Of going on despite the odds, fighting to the end even when failure is imminent and of not letting go even when there is nothing to hang on. Some do it because there is no other option, some do it because it is what they are.

And then there are the ones who give up rather than fight back. The ones who want to fly and make a few attempts too, but then they fail. They consider their options. What if they fail again? They analyze. What is the possibility that their dream would work out? They listen to their fears. Is it worth the risk? They step back and walk the path more traveled by, and they make peace with their choice. Well, they did try, but then there are the thousand and one reasons why we have to wake up and let go of our dreams.

I am more of the second type, although I wish I could be more of the first.

That’s one of the main reasons, why I keep swinging between taking up writing and dreaming about it. That’s one of the reasons why I started with this blog a decade ago and why I find it so difficult to post regularly. I give up when there are more important things to do (which there always are). I give up when I am too tired or stressed or have nothing to write about, which is often the case. I give up when I see nobody reads my posts anymore, which too is quite often. And I let go.

This time it was more of a promise that happened over a Facebook conversation with Swaram that is making me post every day. The irony is that I am struggling with Going On, while she writes about Letting Go.

Ladies Seats

I grew up in a small town where public transport was almost non-existent. I drove my own scooter and then a car before I was old enough to get a driving license and my parents were ok with that. My mother had felt mauled and violated every day of travelling in a bus to college and this was there way of protecting me.

When I moved to a bigger city and decided to use the public transport, everyone who knew me had advise to share. Travel only in the ladies compartment. All busses have ladies seats in the front. Don’t go towards the back. Don’t get into busses which are too crowded. Never get into a bus which is nearly empty. Wear shoes with sharp heels. Carry an umbrella and poke it into anything that comes closer than three inches.  

Except for wearing pencil heels, I tried out most of the other tips. I would be weary after the long day of internship but still stay propped between sweaty women even if there was more breathing space at the back.  After some time, I started driving my scooty to work even if it meant driving 56km through Delhi traffic.

It took some time for me to try and use the bus after I moved to Bangalore. It had better buses, there were less dire warnings around and yet I stuck to the seats in the front, which far too less compared to the number of women who traveled. I saw an empty seat at the back and went for it. (I did have an umbrella). I realized that since the seat was two feet  higher the view was so much better too.

I am big advocate of public transport now. I have persuaded many to try the trains, metro, car-pools and the bus. I tell them to travel in more numbers. To claim what should be ours. To carry umbrellas or pepper sprays or whatever works for them. I just don’t tell anyone to stick to the ladies seats.

This post is in some ways contradictory to my previous one. While I was writing that I was questioning myself on why we have to do so much to stay safe when it is, they who should be living in fear. I guess that too was rooted in reality and so is this one.

There are times when we have to be extra vigilant and there are times when we need to be brave. There is a reality we cannot change in a day. We need to be prepared for it. But that doesn’t mean we give up trying to change it. 

Teach your daughters about safety

Teach your sons about consent. It is the patriarchal mindset that need to change. Men should be brought up to respect women.

I agree with all these statements. But I feel helpless. I know a lot of mothers who are teaching their sons about consent. I know a lot of men who respect women. And I know they are a small minority. There still are a lot of animals around us and they could be anyone, anywhere.

We still need to worry about our daughters. Yes, they should have the right to travel alone, to come home at the time they want to, to wear what they like to, to go out when they want to. 

I wish I could assure my daughters about their rights. But I cannot. Because in the dystopian world we live in, rights may lead to a court case running for a decade, but they can't keep you safe. The law makers and enforcers can't keep you safe and neither can the society. There are molestors and abusers and rapists and murderers amongst the people who walk around you and you have to take care of your safety at all times. 

You are the one who has to be vigilant, alert, connected, the one to avoid lonely streets on dark nights. You have to make sure you reach home safe.

For no matter how much I want to change the world for you, I know there is a long way to go. Till then let us do all we can, to keep ourselves safe.