Virtual Ramblings

After a long time met up with S at a cafe with her husband N yesterday, it had been almost close to 5 months since I met her, after couple of hours of chat and a Cappuccino and espresso later, it feels good to realize we still have the old connection intact. I was a little apprehensive first, and so was she I guess. But like old times, it was fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

As a kid when I passed by an icecream shop I was drawn to it, I wanted one cone, I never felt bad that I wanted something, I have never dismissed my wants, I have always wanted them passionately, and I have never dismissed my passion, infact I have been proud of my passion for things. But passion can easily grow into envy and then to jealousy. Traditionally both envy and jealousy have been termed bad, people are told be beware of those to feelings, and told to guard themselves away from them.

Theoretically I agree that jealousy is an extreme feeling, and generally harm people who get into it. But isn’t jealousy a very common emotion?, just like you feel happy/sad/angry naturally, you also feel jealous too isn’t it?. If you guys have much self control over emotions that you have never envied anything/anyone than may be I am a very less of a human being. I do envy things, I do envy people, and sometimes I do feel jealous.

As a man in his quarter life, I am on the look our for many things, yep I finally have broken out from the quarter life crisis, not knowing what I want, suddenly things I want seem to be falling into place. I am no saint, I have materialistic things on my list to work for, and also non materialistic things. So now that I know what I want, I am working towards them, some with immediate actions, some with a plan, and some just waiting to have in future. These things amazingly prioritize themselves too, I mean some I seem to want a lot more, and hoping that they happen somehow, and most of them fall into the last category, I mean my wants for the future, which directly I may not have control over, and some which I can do my efforts and have no control on the outcome. Some are really materialistic, and I am surprised I want to have them because there was a time I loathed people who went after them

Over last few months, one of such wants is making me envious. I do not have the word power to express what is it that’s making me envy some, infact every time I get the feeling I am feeling a little bit of envy, I am unknowingly getting disgusted at myself, and driving me out of the scene, making sure I don’t get to listen/view or discuss the matter, and the sad part is that people involved, even though they do not know about it, secretly I have a fear that I may begin to dislike them, like the way its illustrated in all possible media, the rift formed by envy/jealousy. I fear what If I get into that groove.

Jealousy is always considered to be self centric, a selfish act which helps no one, but if you do not think about the extremes, it does help people to work with a better zeal towards the goal, when I grew envious of the kid who used to top the class always, I struggled for 3 full years to topple her at the top. It has not always been bad to me, and I know that, but then why do I fear now?, why am I afraid of my envy?.

When the thought of writing something on my jealousy came up first thing I did was to look up at wikipedia. And I was surprised at their definition and also their distinction between envy and jealousy
Jealousy : “Jealousy typically refers to the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that occur when a person believes a valued relationship is being threatened by a rival”
Envy:“Envy may be defined as an emotion that “occurs when a person lacks another’s superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it.”
“Jealousy concerns something one has and is afraid of losing, while envy concerns something one does not have and either he wants to acquire (nonmalicious envy) or he wants the other(s) not to have (malicious envy)”

After going through this I realize, I have never used the word properly, may be going by this definition I am not jealous, I may be lot more envious.

As usual I am left with a lot of questions at the end.
Is a feeling of envy/jealous normal?,

Is it normal if you end up feeling a little envious about things you want badly for you?,

Does it always indicate desperation?,

Does one need to panic when he feels he is feeling a little envy,?

How does one get himself out of it?, is avoiding a good solution for it, if at all this is a problem?,

Do you feel envy/jealous at times?.

Skittles has an interesting topic for this week’s Heads or Tails. She wants us to share a fond memory. I could’ve brought something out of the my 26 year old memory bank, but I chose to bring out a very recent memory, something as recent as this weekend.

This weekend I took a break from my routine work and decided to take a small weekend vacation with my my parents, my cousin and his family, and my aunt’s family. It began with a plan to spend the weekend at a resort, only to find out they were all booked, we didn’t want to cancel, so decided to spend the weekend at my aunt’s place instead. However we just stopped over on the way to Mysore, to see if there were any last minute cancellation at the resort we wanted to stay, and to our surprise we found what we were looking for. We booked for a single night stay for Saturday, and we negotiated a good deal from Saturday morning till Sunday late afternoon. What followed was a string of sweet memories.

• Nostalgia from years down the line spent in Mysore with my two cousins, the times we have had fun, places visited and pranks relived, fun remembered. Sometimes it fun just reliving the moments from the past
• An Aunt’s special dinner, with a delicacy which she prepared the best, I have to admit I ate a little too much
• A place which is very small, and has an almost unnoticeable grandeur, well I am not talking about the famous Mysore palace, but a place called “Mylari hotel”, famous for their amazingly soft Masala Dosa. Saturday morning spent over a sooper cool breakfast.
• Being greeted by some Bikini clad people at the resort by the pool [well I am naughty sometimes :)]
• An hour spent along the river kaveri, trying to help my 6 year old niece catch a fish.
• Hours spent lazing in the pool, without knowing how to swim, and almost blind without my specs, with my niece and my cousins.
• Playing cards with the family till 1 am filled with roars of laughters and lots of fun.
• Sleeping till 9:30 in the morning to be woken by a bored niece
• A trip to a local hillock and a very calm temple, walking bare foot in a scorching sun.
• A long enacting of a being a wild flower, with a lot of swaying and hushing noise as well, my niece is playing a flower in her summer camp’s play. So we got a demo of her play as well as the dance she is gonna perform.
• A post lunch card game to wrap up a lovely weekend spent, with a lot of fond memories to carry away from.

Remember the question I asked some time back?

“People who do not affect us, people who really do not care much about us, people who were close to us once upon a time, people who have grown up and apart, why do they still matter to us so much?, why can’t we forget that people who have drifted apart?“

I think I am back to the same thought again today, I think I found the answer, “Time”, how effectively it makes us forget people, and reduced their need, their importance.

This put a even bigger question on my mind, are people really important?, people who did not stand the test of time, do they still matter to us?, is “mattering” just a function of time?, or time just hides the importance and people will be back to haunt us soon.

Hinduism is known for a lot of festivals, even though over time many of them have lost its festivities, some of them have survived modernization and lack of time. Some of these festivals are my favorites, some because of the way we celebrate them, some for the sweat memories associated, and some for the philosophy behind the festival, today happens to be one such festival. Today is the first day of our new year.

Like Chinese calendar which has 12 years named after animals, Hindu calendar has an year cycle of 60 years, and each of them are called samvatsara, at one point I could name all of them, but aging body has affected my memory ;). Today happens to be the beginning of the sarvadhari samvatsara, and we call the festival “Ugadi”, which literally means a beginning of the new year [era]. You can read some more info about the festival here.

On the day of  Ugadi, apart from the normal practice of taking an oil bath, and praying to the god, we have two very unique practices. One is we touch the feet of the oldest in the family, and he/she will provide us with the blessings and hand out a mixture of neem[margosa] and jaggery [unrefined sugar], the other thing is the eldest in the family, generally the male reads the almanac or panchanga [Indian calendar] .

I like the philosophy behind handing out the mixture, as today is the beginning of the new year, this practice is a symbolic way, of the eldest in our family to tell us, life is going to be a mixture of a sweet jaggery and also the highly bitter neem, so the elders bless us with the courage to face both the highs and the lows. As kids I used to hate eating neem, as it is very bitter, especially the flower is much more bitter than the leaf, but then as I began to realize the importance, the bitterness became more symbolic, and at the end it really solved the purpose, you cannot eat just the neem its too bitter, nor can you take just the jaggery its very sweat, so its always good to take life as a mixture.

Reading the almanac, is again a group activity, like many of the other festivities, this again is an attempt to gather the family members, almanac has a lot of predictions for the year, including the months where rains are  predicted, days which are considered to be auspicious, days of eclipse and stuff like that, it provides a common platform where the family could really plan the year ahead, and take inputs from each other. Its again a symbolic gesture, we really don’t go through the almanac, and only as a formality my dad generally reads through some paged of it, but good thing is we all get together, discuss what we are planning for the year, and more importantly know a bit about this samvatsara.

Wishing you all a very happy ugadi, and a very prosperous Sarvadhari samvatsara.

1. People who do not affect us, people who really do not care much about us, people who were close to us once upon a time, people who have grown up and apart, why do they still matter to us so much?, why can’t we forget that people who have drifted apart?

2. People whom you have never met, people with whom you have connected, people whom you don’t know in person, why do they still matter to us?, why do we have a feeling of a strong belonging associated with them.

Growing up in a joint family can be fun, I was deprived of it very early in my life, I got to just experience for few years, and then we moved out. Even though we moved out, I could sense the strong influence of joint family on us, both my parents come from one such, and even after we moved out we were in very close connection with the rest of the people from my parent’s family.

Any person from joint family would have seen various lovely relationships blooming, there are people of all ages and gender, in all kinds of stages in life, with experience of going through everything you can possibly get into, with people getting into almost everything you seem to have faced in life, ready to ask your advice, ready to give you some, help you out, command work from you, teach you, respect you and so on. At some point we become so self sufficient in these families we never look out for others in case of problems.

This, I guess must be a common thing in people my generation, where in you have seen a joint family or mostly your parents have grown up in one, and you have moved out either as young, or in most cases, because of job and have settled into a nuclear family. With the population problem, and issue with the ever increasing cost of leaving, we mostly see maximum of on kid per couple. I am really not saying its wrong, in fact its really good that people are concerned about such an important problem like population. On the flip side what this has redefined our concept of a family, and in doing so has replaced so many aspects of family life.

When I look around I see two kinds of families in Bangalore,

People who are originally from Bangalore, who are very less, and who mostly have parents at home, that makes it a typical family of 5 people, husband, wife, a kid, and parents of the guy.
Or the couple have moved out with the kid, so that makes it 3 people with the parents in close touch.
People who are not originally from Bangalore, they are typically a family of 3 with parents of both husband and wife visiting from their place yearly once or twice.

I see that in either case, people are not getting the rich experience of the older folk, nor the help when required, they cant even count on the over present advice. So what they do, they look out for these relationships outside. Acquaintances develop beautifully into these relationship which no longer exists in house. Given the circumstances, and knowing that old joint family may not be feasible going forward, I think this is something really good. I mean the relationship we form with people we know, and sometimes whom we have hardly met.

The fact that we spend so much time at work, makes us kind of take our work relationships home. A closely working co-worker becomes an activity partner over weekend, a slightly older one can guide you in case of issues, some one even older takes care of giving you unwanted advice like its time to marry, or you need to plan your finance kind of stuff. A co-worker’s wife does become a close pal of your wife, and they do end up sharing your evening time as well with the co-worker. Helping each other if one falls ill, or helping out with the kids. A female friend who can understand you really well can help you out during issues, and a guy friend might end up showing really genuine concern,

Today was reading an article where some website has opened where pregnant women can seek out old people’s advice, now isn’t this what old people in the house gave out in older times?

I know that all this comes with a lot of fights, lots of disagreement, jealousy, people not getting along with each other. But that has been there before and it does exist now also, but isn’t this social co existence something we should be proud of?

so anybody on the lookout to extend your family

Growing up alone is not much fun, there are so many things you miss out on. I know that there are many things, not so good on the other side of the picture, but I was wondering about things, which I think, I missed growing up without a sibling.

Sharing the room,
I am sure not many people with siblings will agree with me on this one, I think I missed sharing my room, even though growing up, for long time I didn’t have a room for myself, I shared the one with my parents, and then had to settle for the living room. What I meant by sharing the room, is sharing the living space with a fellow human being is fun. The fact that I never shared my room, never stayed in a hostel, nor during my years of working, has still kept the desire to share the room high.

Fights,
I have had my share of fights with my cousins, but there is something which I find attractive about fighting with sibling, its like the most harmless fights you get to see, with really no harm meant to either side, for silliest of things, and for funniest reasons siblings fight. There is something sweet about this. All the harmless swearing, painless punches and fun-full pokings are the ones I miss.

Gifts,
I kind of like buying gifts for people close to me, who better than a sibling. I would have to admit would have loved an younger sister to pamper or even an older one to totally take care of me. I do care for both ways, receiving and giving small little tokens, kind of cheesy, filmy but really cool.

Protectiveness
I am a big fan of protectiveness, I would really not mind someone owning me, totally protective of me, and trying to safeguard my every step. Sounds crazy eh?. I think its good. Same way I wouldn’t have minded to do the same to someone else, elder or younger to me. Its kind of shows the interest and care someone does have for you. I know its a lot easy for me to say, without knowing the problems of people who hate being overlooked. But still somewhere I like the idea.

Experience.
Just today I was talking to a friend, about mistakes I have made by not listening to my parents, there are so many things which I cannot talk to my parents about, nor they would be the right people, I would need someone who is not much away from my age group, may be a little older who has gone through the same problems, I guess their experience would really help. In the same way my experience would help someone who is younger and going through the same path as me.

Teaming up
Most of my early memories of my associations with my cousins, are about the fun we had ganging up, the things we enjoyed as a team, I just cant imagine the fun we would have had if we had a small gang like that for ever at home, things I could have got away with, wicked plans we could have come up with, and games we would have played together. Miss the feeling of a team.

To add to all this, Things like someone to bully, someone to blame on, someone to mislead, fun you find in torturing, lots and lots more.

Hi,
I have said sorry for this before, I think I was wrong, I really don’t have the guilt for what I did, instead I am feeling guilty for apologizing. There was a reason behind what I did, and till today I feel it was not wrong. I may not be right, but I was not wrong either.

All I wanted was to congradulate you, and amongst our friends. I feel we are mature enough to handle this right?, also its not this was something that happened just few days back. Its 2 long years, and I dont like seeing you hesitate to bring this side of you amidst us.

Still I do respect that you got upset, which I may not have liked being the cause for. So the apology was for that, for pissing you off, but definitely not for what I did.

I know that you are very busy and may not be reading this, atleast not soon.
If and when you read this, am sure we will have something to discuss
-Rambler

I am currently reading a book called Running from safety written by Richard Bach, have to admit being a big Richard fan, this book has not impressed me much, well compared to other books of his, at least not yet. I am into the book by about 100 pages, and today came across a gem of a thought.

Richard says “As a kid, if anybody asks me to point the way home, I would have pointed up“, he says “He didn’t know till long ago why“. Then he continues. “I couldn’t point inside, a tight space cluttered with body parts, barely room to breathe. Couldn’t point left or right. those direction s took me nowhere but a different here“.

I have to admit, I didn’t get what he really meant here, why was he talking about a far away home, I began to wonder is he talking about the principle which talks about, Earth being a temporary home, we being here just to do our job, the actual home being place near the god. I thought it looked way to irrational or idealistic for him to think like that. If not this, I began to wonder what does he mean.

I finally settled for this interpretation of mine, I guess all of us never really understand where’s the place where we feel like home, “home” here is that illusionary place, where we feel at ease with ourselves, we let our mind expand and travel to any place it wants, without any restrictions and rules. The fact that he had never found such a place “here”, he points upwards, that signifies his hope that it really exists, its just that he needs a map or a path which leads him there.

Next gem in the book I came across today was to do with the definition of family. His wife Leslie complains to him “I really have felt like an outsider all my life, I don’t think like others do, where I grew up, I don’t think like my mom or dad or any other member in the family“. To that Richard replies “You do think the same as your family, Only your family isn’t who you thought they were“

I was really impressed with this last line, I have been complaining of not finding people who really think like me, or who can really appreciate the ideals which I have, or more importantly have ideas which I can appreciate. Its so true, we always do search for our families, siblings, father, mother and most importantly our partners, we do search family in every person we meet. Just hoping we can find that ideal set of people we always dreamed off.

Very few of us are fortunate enough to find a partner who can be a part of our “family”, some times people find them after few unsuccessful attempts. Some are lucky enough to transform the other person into their families, but most of us end up living the life, as the outsiders.