Dear Writer. Be responsible.

Inspired by recent events and filled with gratitude for anyone who has taken time off to read what I have to say. This is me saying thank you the only way I know how.

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Dear Writer,

So often, as we type away from the recesses of our rooms, struggling to find a way to produce those words with the ghost of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome hovering over our shoulder, we forget. We lose track, lose focus, lose awareness. It is important for us to remember, to remind ourselves to pay attention, stay rooted.

Remember that words are important. Be responsible about wasting them, as with any other resource. The white of a page doesn’t exist to be filled. Instead, it is a canvas for you to use judiciously, conscientiously, respectfully. Embrace the blank spaces of the margin, between your words, dividing your paragraphs, as much as you treasure the letters you are weaving together.

Remember your words are subtle. There is a difference between ‘said’ and ‘asserted’ and ‘opined,’ a difference that runs deeper than the middle school diktat of not repeating words in successive sentences. It forms opinions, defines points of view and could make a difference in ways we often do not envisage. Stay honest to the cause of expression without falling slave to the lure of aesthetic. The page should be pretty but given the choice, choose ugly over untrue.

Remember your words are read. Sitting ramrod straight at your desk long into the night, pounding away at your keyboard, it is easy to lose track. Don’t forget that a Word document becomes a page and the page travels much wider than your desk. The world isn’t the screen and those words you are mulling over are being read. You do not know when or by whom or why. They do not hear your voice or see your experience. Be accountable for your opinions and recognize their possible impact.

Remember your words are powerful. Decisions are made on the printed page. Much like the famed butterfly, that odd word could make a difference light years away. The child could receive an education, an adult could lose a relationship, someone’s world could change. It could fix a bad day, your funny piece on the perils of adulthood, or exacerbate existential angst, your rant on the state of the world today. Be sensitive, be responsible, be aware.

But most of all, remember, print never dies and ink breathes a life of its own. Use it judiciously. Wield it sensitively.

You are a writer. In your hands is magic. You are a creator. Be cognizant of the burden of creation. You are an artist. Paint a picture and bring a world alive. But always remember. You are a writer wanting to be read. Sometime, somewhere, somehow, that may just happen. Be responsible.

Reflections in the receding water

This is a bit of writing in the wake of the Chennai floods, a string of thoughts as and when they came to my head. The piece is written in two parts, the first after a day out in the city helping with distribution efforts and the second written today after we wrapped up relief operations.

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My Chennai flood experience started a little different. It was one of luxury, of prosperity, of excess. Two hours after young boys battled each other to grab a packet of biscuits from my hands, I ate hot food and drank hot chocolate milk at my college mess. Why me? Because I'm lucky to have access to a campus that's in the spotlight, a campus that convinced all the vendors to operate on credit, a campus where the mess workers waded through waist deep water surrounding their own homes to cook for us because, in their words, "naange illena ungalukku pasikkum." (If we don’t come, you will all be hungry.)

But my Chennai flood experience is also one of need, of desperation, of want. It's one of women as old as my grandmother begging for food from my fast depleting bag, of young boys discussing how many mouths a Rs 5 biscuit packet can feed, of the scores of eyes laying sight on food for the first time in days. It's the experience of giving and getting instructions to barricade our buses and close the windows to stop people from climbing onto the bus as they try to grab food, of people flocking the minute they see what looks like relief supplies.

My Chennai flood experience was one of gratitude and oneness. Of volunteers coming together and spending hours collecting, sorting, loading and distributing without stopping to ask for names. Of the IITM team realising we don't have a master list of everyone who worked to thank later on because no one waited to take pictures or fill a roll call. Of locals who tell us "Inge oru vellai saapadu irukku-nge, neenge aduthe edathukku ponge." (We have our next meal here, do go on to the next place.) Of citizens sharing contact details on public forums if that means access to more bread loaves or medicines. Of us thanking the stranded for magically procuring coffee while they thank us for turning up. Of running out of paracetamol in the middle of a medical camp only to have a stranger offer to go shopping and return with a box full.

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I’ve seen Bhanu Akka every day for the last five years, as she sits patiently in the lobby of our hostel, in charge of our security. Every day for the last week, she has told us stories of her house and her neighbours, as they struggle to put their lives back together after floods ravaged the city. She told us stories of another Akka whose house was washed away but who was ”lucky” enough to save her ration card, which she proceeded to dry on a dosai kallu. She told us of people whose utensils were blackened by sludge, whose choice lay between washing them thin or the unaffordable solution of replacing them all. There were stories of snakes in the stagnant water of bedrooms, people lying on the bed anyway for want of somewhere else to go. There were tales of traffic jams caused on the only half of the road that was usable because people began spilling onto the streets to escape from the cramped, unhygienic environments of shelter halls. The auto driver who dropped me home late last night thanked God for his first floor house, telling me how the people on the ground floor were flooded and those on the second were dealing with leaking roofs and walls. The beginning of every conversation in Chennai today has become ‘how is your home?’

Behind every aching muscle in my body today, there is a story. The stories from Anankaputhur and Vyasarpadi, Moggapair and Iyyapanthangal, Velachery and Taramani. The stories of people in neighbourhoods I barely knew existed till recently. The stories of the woman as old as my Paati who begged me to give her a sari she could use. Or the Anna who ran behind our bus as we pulled away after distribution. Or the Akka who bent down close to thank me for distributing sanitary pads, saying only we understood her struggles. Or even the woman who stood by me as I assisted in a medical camp, warning me when the time came to stop. “People are coming back for seconds, ma,” she told me. “Go give this to people who need it more.”

Never before have I seen this kind of longing. More often than once, I have been shaken by men and women much older than me thanking us for our work, their eyes glowing at the sight of food and medicines. Even in the ruckus of our “control room”/collection centre, as we joked of having stocks to last for years, there was a tinge of unease in our voices, speaking volumes of the roads just outside our gates. No matter how much we joked and collected and segregated, all this would disappear in minutes outside, we knew.

This last week and all the hours in it have taught all of us many things. It taught us the value of bread and water, of dry roads and cloudless skies. It taught us to save every drop, switch off every extra light, huddle in one room to optimize candle light. It taught us that good faith and trust can still drive mass movements, a lesson reinforced every time supplies traded hands with no questions asked. It taught us that our city, known for orthodoxy and conservatism often spoken of in the same breath as boredom, can rally together when the going gets tough and not give up. It taught us that in times of need, hierarchies are forgotten memories as professors checked with student coordinators to volunteer in the efforts and children lugged many kilograms of rice to unload/reload. It taught us to share information, resources and encouragement. It taught us to stick together and come out stronger.

1 week. A dozen core members. Around 25 neighbourhoods. Hundreds of volunteers. Many thousands of kilograms of supplies.

Doing our bit to reclaim home.

Learning from the Legends: includABILITY 20

There is a cream visiting card in my wallet that reads Former Chief Election Commissioner of India. Yet, if I close my eyes and think of Navin Chawla, I will see him breaking a Rs. 5 KitKat bar into three to share with the police officer accompanying us and the driver of the VIP black Merc courtesy The Park.

There is a note on my phone with an email id of India’s most famous ad man. But if I close my eyes and think of Prahlad Kakar, I will only hear uproarious laughter, spontaneity and the ability to talk of everything from a soufflé omelette to scuba diving. That, or the time he asked me for the Tamil translation of ‘fruitface’, venturing to try himself and coming up with ‘pazhimoonja’ or something like that.

There is a picture of the stage on my phone, and in centre stage wearing a pale pink bhandini sari, sits Bollywood’s mother figure. Yet, if I were to close my eyes and think of Jaya Bachchan, I would hear her voice congratulating me on feeding the teleprompter, smiling as she squeezed my arm in congratulations.

There was a moment when I went up to introduce myself to Siddharth Jayakumar, a boy who has cerebral palsy and has worked in the private banking sector for over five years now. I meant to tell him I had seen him at many events before but never had the chance to talk to him before he stopped me and asked “aren’t you the girl from TEDx?” Turns out he had told his mother the same thing.

My afternoon at includABILITY 20, Ability Foundation’s celebration of their 20^th anniversary, was a humbling evening of learning and inspiration in a room filled with such different people, each a celebrity in their own right.

There will be a bigger article that comes out in places other than my blog, but till then, here it is. The memory of greatness standing merely feet away. The experience of humility and gratitude of having the chance to be a part of that moment. The opportunity to grow.

In that room were people with disability and people supposedly without, there were celebrities and then aam junta. There was laughter and there were hugs. There was never-ebbing conversation in everything from English to sign. In those few hours, identities were put on pause – he wasn’t an ad man, she wasn’t a heroine, he wasn’t an IAS officer, she wasn’t an activist. In those few hours, everyone sat together and held hands through stories of pain and struggle, discrimination and bullying, and ultimately strength. In those few hours, we were all audience to stories of immense will power and determination.

Yesterday, I met India’s biggest ad-man and a top-ranking heroine of a generation past and the man who ran multiple elections. But I also met a blind cognitive neuroscientist who paraglides for fun, a deaf girl who struggled through insensitive mainstream schooling to become a trainer today and a quality control executive from a famous corporate who has celebral palsy and left the audience in splits with his humour, even as they stood to give him a standing ovation. Tell me, who are the celebrities? Who are the real heroes?

The idle musings of an almost adult

Think, everyone told me. Think and it will come to you. Think and it will dawn upon you. Just think and the world’s answers will appear in a heartbeat and clarity will come giftwrapped in a nice little box miraculously left behind by the Tooth Fairy one Tuesday morning. All you need to do is think.

I’ve thought on planes and trains, buses and bikes. I’ve thought while I was meant to be thinking and much more when I wasn’t. I’ve stared just to the right of my professor’s face during class and doodled pointlessly in the corner of my notebook. I’ve made more To Do lists than anything I’ve ever done and then stooped from putting ‘Figure it out’ to ‘Shower’, in an effort to check something off. You can’t say I didn’t try.

When it all fell apart all around me and all the same advice kept pouring in, I turned to clichés. I took a long, hot shower. And I thought some more. Or atleast I tried.

What do I write my paper on? And once that is done, what do I do my thesis on? And once that is done, what do I do next? Where do I work? Do I let go of a great job just to leave home? Do I accept another great job even if the cash isn’t great? What qualifies as good enough and how do you identify a challenge? When you can’t differentiate the road less travelled from the well trodden path, how do you choose to be conformist or rebellious? And how is it that the more I think, the more questions seem to need thinking about?

This thinking thing is a lie, a web designed to keep you in a never-ending loop. You think you get more questions, you kid yourself into thinking you can answer them all. For now, I’m going to take a break. The paper may happen, or not. Reading all day is fun in itself. The thesis will definitely happen. On what, well, epiphany shall strike before graduation some time. As for a job, I’m only almost adult for now. Please don’t burst my bubble?

The Dead Man's Woman

Yes, it has been a while. Ah well.

This is pretty much all the good that can come out of late night exam mugging. I was recently told that this blog is 'all serious' and in that spirit, here is a piece inspired by Albert Camus' The Stranger, fiction written from the point of view of Marie. Title credits, a play adaptation I was a part of a couple of years ago :D

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I’m tired of being the mistress of a man sentenced to death. How long am I to hold on, hang in there, not let go? To cling to a sliver of hope by the tips of my manicured fingernails? To shut out the voice in my head crying for rationality, for a better future?

I love him. Or at least, I did.

We met in strange circumstances, we did. His mother had died, my boyfriend had left me. It is unsettling, speaking of these situations in the same breadth, almost writing off the death of a progenitor as being the same as a spineless, transient relationship. Yet what can I say? That queasily unsettling feeling of the very first day set the tone for our liaison. I became the mistress. He became the stranger whose unidentifiable charm drew me in deeper than I expected.

I want to marry him. Or at least, I did.

He grew on me, that man. How and when, I do not know. He had an abrupt way about him, always answering questions off the top of that intelligent head. If one didn’t know better, one would claim there was no heart in the man, that he was merely a machine with bodily needs. God knows I knew of them. Yet, I walked up to him one sunny afternoon. And I asked him to marry me. What possessed me, I have not the slightest clue. Did I expect him to gush with emotion? No. Did the long forgotten memories of girlish romance threaten to rear their suppressed head? I think so. I should have known better. He said yes because I was the first woman to ask.

I know him. Or at least, I did.

He didn’t do it on purpose. He is not a bad man. We went swimming that morning. Out in the middle of the ocean, our legs intertwined as we floated in the calm waters, I almost felt happy, normal. His hands found their place on the small of my back and we kissed. The salt in my mouth mixing with the salt in his mouth mixing with the salt in mine. Four hours later, they found a man with five bullets in him. They said he had done it. No. I don’t want to hear more.

I believe him. Or at least, I did.

He told the world it was an accident. A series of unfortunate events. A set of bad circumstances. A mere coincidence. He didn’t speak to me at all. His lawyer said he hadn’t meant to kill that man. It was Raymond who had a bone to pick after all. Maybe it was the sun at the wrong angle or something about the sand. There was a dead man on the floor and the gun in his hand. This is all we know. But he isn’t a bad person. He isn’t.

I want to wait. Or at least, I did.

I visited him at prison. Once. I sat on the other side of the glass with a plastic smile plastered on my face. I asked him if he was fine. He said he was. I felt stupid asking. So I spoke. I spoke to fill the awkward silence. I spoke to hush the nervous beating of my heart. I spoke. I told him of work and tennis and swimming. Of Raymond and Masson. I spoke till my jaw hurt. Till the men came to take him away. I spoke and I smiled. And I never went back.

I’m tired of being the mistress of a man sentenced to death. They say he will die and I will live. But I want him to survive. At least, I did.

What Math taught me

It wasn’t too long ago (or so I’d like to think) that I remember studying for my Grade 10 Math board exams thinking I’d never have to get my hands dirty again. The horrors of trig, algebra, matrices, vectors and linear programming (nope, no calculus) would be left behind as I started Grade 12 prep in subjects I thought were my cups of tea – Psych, Socio, English Literature. For the next two years, the only Math I did was a tad bit of Business Accounts and even then, my calculator did most of the work. I mean for someone who wanted to study Sociology, why bother with Math, right? Right? (Please say yes...)

Fast forward four years and the college student in me realized just how disillusioned I was. For reasons I still cannot fully empathize with, a degree in Development Studies meant I needed to equip myself with an armory of quantitative skills, all based on a fundamental understanding of Calculus. For an entire semester, I sat through a Bridge Course to learn the basics before seeking refuge in my hostel room and crying the Math out every week. Not that that helped anything, actually.

A year and a half ago, I began my tryst with Statistics. For four months, I copied from the board symbols that I could swear were abstract art but seemed to make sense to all around me. If the Prof asked me where I had a doubt, I couldn't say because I couldn't read the Greek out loud. I didn't know the symbols. I will never know whether it was the countless pens used copying out the undecipherable symbols, many prayers and tears or merely a professor’s kind heart that got me through that course but it happened. A year and a few other challenges later, I found myself on the verge of Econometrics.

I got myself a copy of the textbook, assuming the real deal may motivate me a tad more than a black-and-white photocopy (Note to Self: It makes no difference. At all.) and tried to block out memories of super-smart seniors groaning about this particular course in the past. Four more months, I told myself. Then I would really be done. As I wrote ‘Q9’ on my answer paper this Friday marking the beginning of my last answer, I felt a rush I remember from finishing boards. One more answer, 15 more marks, and then this will be over. You will be done.

These last two days have been spent on a euphoric wave of getting through it and as the inexplicable sense of happiness started to wear off, just a tiny bit, I thought back at just how much these courses have done for me this past year and a half. Here are my top five Math lessons:

• It’s like medicine: It tastes like crap, most of the time, but it will do you good. Much of my education for the last six years has been stuff I absolutely adore. And then Calculus reared its nasty head and I have spent hours and hours doing stuff I neither understand, nor enjoy. But what has to be done, has to be done. Many years later, you may be the healthier for it.

• Variables vary: There is no point is asking why this alpha is different from that one. And thus, there is almost no point trying to keep track of these things. Embrace the fluidity and join the cacophony, defining your own alpha. Add a hat for good measure.

• Support systems are precious: These last few years have been a team effort and I kid you not. While I was probably the one writing the exams, the job of making sure I don’t throw myself/my notes out a window was in the hands of those around me. It seemed only right to call them after the last exam and thank them. You know who you are. I honestly couldn't have done it without you.

• Intelligence isn’t absolute: Single digit scores don’t bode too well on the intelligence/self-confidence scale or so I thought. I told myself it was because I hadn't done Math, I was right-brain driven, all these things. But the miracle of passing these last few courses and even coming to enjoy parts of it (only parts though) taught me something I’m unlikely to forget. Intelligence is as subjective as everything else. Man makes the hierarchy. I will forever be worse at Math than Sociology. So?

• Hats and stars could make all the difference: The night before the exam, as I closed my eyes to get an hour of precious sleep, all I could see swimming before me was ‘hat’, ‘star’, and ‘tilda’. The last six hours had taught me they were different, something about bias and estimation. Years of ‘silly mistakes’ and nightmares of words I didn't know existed drilled into me a lesson I couldn’t have learnt more effectively otherwise – attention to detail. That one apostrophe (‘dash’, is it called?) could make a world of a difference.

I still dream of not having to deal with any of this in the future and who knows? Maybe two years from today, I’ll be dealing with STATA and regressions all over again. But till then, I’m done.

Uncharacteristic of my blogs so far, I’m going ahead and naming two individuals who made all the difference to my Math education, in completely different ways. Umar Sir from Grade 10 - for sitting with me for hours on end making sure that holy 90% mark was hit and calling me years later as I struggled in college to threaten me with dire consequences if I didn't pull my socks up and Prof Anup Bhandari – for never judging the inadequacy of my questions, the absence of any foundation and the fear that was writ large on my face. The number of times I have gone in and requested him to repeat weeks of portions is countless and never once have I felt judged. Thank you.

The Happy Meter

Another personal rant, inspired by a recent article and all the 'what are your plans' that seem to haunt me these days.

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As tears flowed down my cheeks, I stared, stunned at the computer screen. Everyone has a story, I thought. Tales browned with age and skeletons in the closest of various shapes and sizes. Stories of strength and courage are camouflaged under bright kurtis and wide smiles. Who is to tell? Who can see beneath the surface and count the scars? Who can read the signs and tell the tale?

They say it should bring us happiness, security, love. They tell us it is the first step of the rest of our lives. They say it changes the person we are, for the better, mind you. They build these tall fairytales and push us into the deep end of the pool. Some of us know how to paddle, others to float. Who can claim to be the Olympian?

This elusive concept of happiness has always intrigued me. What does it mean? Where do we get it? Which path leads us to this elusive goal? Apparently, Western thought claims the problem with parenting today is the goal of ‘happiness’ – your child is never going to be happy enough and you will thus be a perennial failure. As we grow up, we say it all the time, either as the truth or in the hope that the sound will transform into reality. Yes, I am happy. I love what I’m doing, it keeps me happy. Today was such a great day, I’m so happy! You look so...happy. The cynic in me is fast classifying these five letters to the list of lazy words my high school teacher drilled into us – nice, good...happy.

What if all I need is a Rs. 10 packet of beach cotton candy to be happy? Or molagga bhajji on a rainy day? A nice fat tome with a steaming mug of hot chocolate, perhaps? A paper well written, a presentation well made? Children wishing me as I walk into the class? What if my pleasure comes from the smaller things, the details? My chosen raindrop winning the race down the car window or the mango I ate being just ripe enough? Maanga having the perfect twang of salt and spice? An old pair of jeans buttoning snugly again or a crisply washed Rs. 20 note in a forgotten pocket? A phone call from an old friend or a good morning text from the unexpected? What if all it takes to keep me happy is normalcy, the mundane?

Who are you to define the rules, lay down the laws? Why must my happiness adhere to your restrictions? I could be poor, single, unemployed and ugly. Who are you to say I can’t be happy?