Silver Jubilee!

 I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by.

- Douglas Adams

  The Salmon of Doubt

 

The Salmon of Doubt, of course, is a posthumously made compilation of stuff from Douglas Adams’ laptop. So, this quote was simply lying around somewhere on his hard drive, waiting to be found. I have always hated deadlines. I hated them in school, I despised them in college and I have absolutely loathed them at work.

But deadlines are the sole reason I got any work done at all during the past 25 years.

Yes, I have always made my point in a roundabout fashion. All I am trying to say is that it has been 25 years for me in the workforce, except for a brief 3-day period when I was between jobs.

In the June of 1996, just after I had finished my masters project viva-voce, I received a letter at my hostel room asking me to join on the 1^st of July. There were four other classmates. We all landed up fresh-faced and excited at the brand new building on Trinity Circle.

When I think back at it, I remember the HR person calling my name out. I turned around to respond and then suddenly it was still the 1^st of July but of 2021 and I was on a MS-Teams call in my home office, with my daughter watching her Netflix show outside the room!

How did all that happen in a jiffy?

I have stuck to two organizations during this time: one for 16 years and a month and now another for a month short of 9 years, all the while when – apart from deadlines – people also whooshed past me endlessly from job to job to job.

That doesn’t mean I was ever stuck on a single piece of work for more than a year or two. My roles kept changing, briefly getting more generic and then getting more specialized. I measure growth in terms of learning and doing new and different things, and by that gauge, I never stopped growing. It was never learning and doing though. It was always doing, failing and learning. Somehow, I managed to cling on fast enough during those failures to convert them into learnings.

I have no doubt I caused varying degrees of heartburn to bosses and subordinates along the way, but I would like to believe that I came good on a few occasions as well.

On one hand I ponder about enough being enough. What is this 20^th century concept of a 9-5 job anyway? (SW jobs have been more like 8-11 on regular days). On the other hand, if I have managed 25 years of each upcoming deadline inspiring me, what’s a decade more after all?

Onwards and upwards on the procrastination ladder!

 

I like work, it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.

             - Jerome K. Jerome

Three Men in a Boat.

Gratitude

 

தினைத்துணை நன்றி செயினும் பனைத்துணையாக்
கொள்வர் பயன்தெரி வார்.

thinaith thuNai nandri seyinum panaith thuNayak

koLvaar payan therivaar.

-    ThirukkuraL #104

 

Thiruvalluvar always packs a punch in his one and three-quarter sentences and he has an entire set of 10 kuraLs dedicated to help and gratitude. Here he says that even if the help rendered is of the size of a millet seed (thinai – foxtail millet), the person who benefits will value it to be the size of a palm tree (panai).

Since March 2020 I have been extra paranoid. Hand washes, sanitizers, masks and masks, wiping grocery packets, washing milk covers, spraying delivery boxes, using key-ends to press lift-buttons, all of it!

Even when I did go to the office, maybe a total of 7 or 8 times, I have been over-conscious about everything. And despite all those precautions, I caught the bloody virus.

Did I become lax while opening delivered packages? Did I subconsciously lower my guard since I got the first vaccine shot? I can recall and dissect each step till the cows come home and even Monsieur Poirot’s little grey cells will be at a loss to pinpoint the exact moment when I caught it.

But caught it I did.

I heated milk, put in a pinch of turmeric in it, and couldn’t smell it! I put in a bit more and brought it closer to my nose. Still nothing. On the spice rack, next to the little turmeric jar was a bottle of asafoetida. When I couldn’t smell that, I was quite sure. Of course, I tried the clove and cardamom boxes, the lavender bathroom freshener, soap, shampoo, an argument that even a normal cold has this effect, etc. But I knew that the next morning I would get tested. I wasn’t even anxious while waiting for the result. Though I was disappointed when it was positive, I had practically anticipated it.

I was terrified at first until video consultations with doctors and a subsequent series of blood tests convinced me that it is a mild infection. The vaccine has done its work.

It was the first day of the little one’s Summer Vacation. At least a couple of weeks shaved off from meeting her cousins and playing with friends. All Easter weekend plans duly dashed.

All that was manageable but how does Sukanya manage the kitchen, the clothes, the dishes, the constant nagging of a bored child and still get her office work done while I languished in my singe room cell? The first day was terrible for her. By evening she was utterly exhausted and at her wits’ end.

Indian spirituality would attribute it to past good deeds, but it is the pure goodness of people’s hearts! Or if it is anyone’s past good deeds, perhaps it’s my mom’s! From the second day, breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks started pouring in until Sukanya had to ask people to stop and make a schedule for coming days.

And it is not just anything that friends are sending. They are very conscious of what I eat, what I like, what would suit me and still make it delicious. I did not lose my sense of taste along with my smell and I had no problems with my appetite, so I have been having a gastronomic blast – and a very healthy one at that!

There are also the enquiries, phone calls of support, people taking time to talk to me and ensure that I am feeling ok and I am in good spirits, calling Sukanya to ask about how she is coping, calling Aaradhya to keep her entertained, sending he favourite stuff to eat, sending her gifts a good month ahead of her birthday!

I haven’t said thanks to anyone yet though. A friend always says that my brother and I both start stuttering and jabbering when someone does something for either of us. “You just have to say ‘Thanks’!”, she says. But I don’t know how to express it. At least, in person.

 So here is where I am saying my thanks. But how do I say it? What words do I use? How many superlatives can I add before the word ‘Thanks’? How many languages would be sufficient to express what I feel? No matter what I say, it will not be enough.

प्रीत रीत सब अर्थ की, परमारथ की नाहि
कहे कबीर परमारथी, बिरला कोई कलि माहि।

preet reet sab arth ki, paramarth ki naahin

kahe Kabir paramarthi, birlaa koi kali maahi.

-   Kabir Das

Almost a couple of millennia after Thiruvalluvar, Kabir’s couplets have a similar remarkable effect.

He says that all these things that people do for you, apparently due to love, are for selfish purposes and never without motive. He says that he has seen unconditionally magnanimous souls very rarely in this kaliyuga.

Since Kabir was a saint, with no desires whatsoever and unaffected by life’s ups and downs, he was probably not in need for much support during his entire 120-year lifespan. This is probably why he did not experience unconditional magnanimity. We are but normal humans with earthly needs and desires and there are plenty of occasions that we require help from others.

Each time life has thrown a googly at us, we have experienced the “paramarth” which Kabir thinks is rare. This is only one of those times. We are blessed to have the kind of friends we do.

 

I can no other answer make but thanks,
And thanks; and ever thanks;

-          William Shakespeare

Twelfth Night, Act III, Sc. 3.