Sunday Posts

I have chosen to live outside India for more than a decade. This was my attempt to become Indian. I did not leave India because I felt constrained. Rather, I was comfortable. And, it is that comfort that I wanted to overcome. My persistent requests for transfers abroad, even to remote locations in Asia and Africa, were often met with puzzlement by my bosses, who could never figure out why I would want to go away, leaving what seemed to be a promising and safe career.  Eventually I went away, but I never really left. Most of my conversations always centred around India. All that I learnt along my way added to my perspectives and changed me. I lived in Bangladesh first, which made me cross the first boundary, that of religious stereotypes that afflicted so many conversations when I lived inside the cocoon in India. Travelling in South-East Asia opened up my mind to the value of working by hand, and challenged the deep-seated caste-based presumptions that I grew up with. And...

I have been asked to keep a journal for one of the modules in my MA course. I am now trying to force myself into the habit, though I am never good at doing anything when I am forced. However, this is only required for a short while, with the final coursework due in early September, and I thought I can keep trying it for a month. I am expected to write about my Professional Practice and immediately the confusion starts. This is for an Education course and for the purpose of the course, I should possibly focus on the part of my role as an educator. Indeed, I teach Marketing Strategy to Post-graduate students one afternoon a week, and this is going to go up to one and half day a week starting September. However, this is only a small part of what I do. Teaching is my adventures in the chalk-face, an element in my exploration of models that I intend to employ, some day, in the Online College that I want to set up. So are other things - the administrative functions that I carry out as the He...

As you can see from the pictures, taken during my regular mile-long trek to the nearest working railway station (about 20 minutes walk for me), I am currently snowed under. This whole week has been quite a nightmare: Monday, it was the Tube Strike, and though I could get in alright, most of my colleagues suffered and many of the meetings got canceled. Then, Tuesday came the snow and complete collapse of the transport system. Tuesday night, I took four hours to get home though it is only about half-hour journey. (Still I must consider myself quite lucky as most people could not get home that night and ended up staying in Train carriages overnight) The misery continues, though I am getting used to it. I have now adjusted to this mile-long walk every morning to the nearest working station, queuing up behind the crowd well outside the station concourse for the hourly service to Central London and then doing a somewhat similar exercise every evening. The fun is that it is not snowing in Lon...

I said before: This part of my life is about WAITING. But this year-end is a wonderful thing. Nothing will change on 1st January morning but you can sure imagine to be a fresh start. You can do that every morning, indeed; but, on 1st January, your fresh start meets fresh starts of almost every other person, and except the very cynical, most of them meet you with an instant readiness to start again. This makes it such a potent day for making a real break. And, since you know the date well in advance, you can plan ahead a little. So, as I approach the end of November, it is time for me take stock, close chapters and prepare myself to move on. 2010 has been a better year for me than 2009. That matters: I shall feel happy that at the end of this year, I am far more stable and forward looking than I was a year back. But, then, 2009 was an exceptionally bad year for me. I had a frustrating job, my credit card debt (primarily due to my travel commitments and less than regular reimbursement pa...

I am now struggling to write. I do intend to post everyday, but ideas are now quite difficult to come by. I am left guessing the reason: I am extremely busy and engrossed at what I am doing; the winter is suddenly severe and given me an unseasonal flu; and the commitments of study has eaten away the little time I had left. But, I would argue, none of this will keep me from doing what I love doing: My fear is that I am slipping into a waiting mode of some description. The state of my life at this time can be called - WAITING. I have committed myself to Education, and made significant progress in the last six months. My lack of confidence, arising out of my failures in the last couple of years, is quite safely behind me. I have discovered a new set of skills: The ability to engage a class and teach them something is giving me enormous pleasure; the ability to drive concrete change is another, and despite its slowness, progress always makes all efforts worthwhile. But, all of this seems t...

Saturdays are special, not just because they come once every five days. By that definition, Sundays will be more special, because they appear once in six days. But Sundays are rather lazy, even the God felt tired and slept, because, particularly if you are in Britain, most shops operate on an absurdly short schedule. But Saturdays are far more active, and though I usually spend a good part of the day shopping and stocking up for the week, it is still my time to plan for the following week. Sometimes, the planning horizons are longer, and issues on table are too complex to be decided upon immediately. This is one of those Saturdays. The key question I am grappling with is whether or not, and when, I shall be able to return to India. This appeared a no- brainer even a few months ago. I was in a dead-end, thoroughly unsatisfying job, which involved travelling to India once in a few months. An additional dimension was added by the racist abuses I had to endure, ever so often, inside my ow...

It was good to get up early today. I am usually a morning person. But, after joining the college, my daily schedule has changed a bit. I never get home till very late, and then my studies and other commitments keep me awake. The alarm, as usual, goes off at five, but I have struggled to get up that early. But, today, was different. In fact, today, as the alarm went off, I felt lazy. There was none of the early morning summer sun to be felt through the curtains: It was all dark. It felt different. Though it was tempting to stay in bed for longer, it was the mixture of guilt and curiosity that pulled me to get up. And, then, I saw the mist outside. So, the autumn has finally arrived. On time, and in full glory. Now, surely the leaves will go. Warm clothes will come out. Days will become amazingly short. The chill of the wind will soon turn into rain. After a long, dry and hot summer as it was this year, I have almost forgotten winter, but it has now made its presence felt. It felt the r...