Ready to Ramble!

First thing I want to know is, did So Cal finally float off into the ocean? My pleas for love have gone unheeded...are you trapped under something heavy? Burnt to a crisp in the desert brush? Abducted by militant border patrol agents? The imagination runs wild...

Last night I spent two hours reading and re-reading a short story; “How does the corn go? Pop, pop, pop. How does the knife go? Chop, chop, chop...” and so on. The maidservant's daughter is nine years old and I discovered that she has no idea how to do her English homework (she has a level 2 book but clearly needs a level 1). We read this same story over and over every day, morning and night. The words bounce around my head incessantly like ping pong balls. I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Now that I am officially free to leave Delhi – at least according to the man at counter number two – I have decided to stay. I've even established something of a routine here, discovering many things in the subtle details of my daily life.

Just as the news of my release came, I committed to doing everyone's least favourite work; I will produce this years' annual report for Pravah. I know, it's a loathesome task. The main reason I agreed was that the deadline for the report coincides with my deadline for leaving Delhi - November 18th – and I prefer to leave a project finished. Besides, for better or worse, I have real skill when it comes to writing BS (Thanks to UCSD, Bob Filner, and CCBRES, to name a few).

My workday officially starts at 10am, but this is more of a suggestion than anything else. I spend most of the day staring at the computer, horrified by the documents I am supposed to edit. My email sits open with no messages while I slip into daydreams of remote mountains and islands. I am interrupted only by the office lady who serves everyone coffees from a tray.

The people who work here are highly educated Indians from all over the country. Their status seems to release them from the conventions of the lower classes; most are non-vegetarian and/or non-religious and the dress code is completely open. I notice also that office culture is the same everywhere. Everyone is overworked, there is too much food floating around, and meetings are painfully time-consuming and ineffective.

In other words, I have doubts about returning here in January as a salaried worker. Yes, it's a great opportunity, yes, I have the need for gainful employment, and yes, the work fits nicely into my philosophical framework, but...


What, exactly, is my point?

Even though my soul feels dull and degraded in this greedy and materialistic western-style metropolis, I can still appreciate the lessons I am learning here.

In the past I was under the impression that my country had a monopoly on soul-destroying apathy and greed. But my experience in Nepal and my experiences here have taught me that this kind of apathy can develop anywhere. Once again, I see that I cannot escape myself and I shouldn't try. The only way out of this is by going through it; I must find a way protect the love and gratitude inherent in my soul from the toxicity of soul-destroying environments like Delhi.

Just last night I practised selective tuning while sitting in the park near my flat. Mosquitoes swarmed all about while my legs and ankles burned and itched. But I told myself it was all in my head; if I could focus on something else, I would forget about the burning. And it worked!


I still don't get these Indian people

One reason India teaches patience and tolerance so effectively is because Indian people are not organized. They are remarkably talented in many ways, but organization is a foreign concept. This extends to everything from the queue at the FRRO office to the papers I am currently editing; Logic and order are conspicuously absent.

So it's best to leave your western predilection for reasoning and specifics at home. And don't bother asking why, because nobody knows, and because there is no reason, and because everyone has a different reason... Really, though, what more can you expect from a culture where the word for yesterday is the same as the word for tomorrow?

I do well here because not only do I accept the inherent confusion and ambiguity of the culture, I revel in it; The more inane the scenario gets, the more I giggle and laugh. Pain is pleasure and vice versa; Without one we cannot experience the other. This is the duality of our lives as human beings. The sooner we truly understand this, the sooner we can accept and even embrace the challenges of life.


About those inspirational tidbits I promised...

The following are a few quotes and things that have inspired me in the last months and I hope you find them inspiring, too:

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

“Fear less, hope more;
Eat less, chew more;
Whine less, breathe more;
Talk less, say more;
Love more and all good things will be yours.”
Swedish Proverb

“If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can't, you're right.”
- ??

“A man is but the product of his thoughts; what he thinks, he becomes.”
Mahatma Gandhi

"Winners never quit, and quitters never win. However, if you never win, and you never quit, then you are an idiot."- Anonymous (courtesy of The Swiss Contingent)

...okay, so maybe that last one isn't exactly inspiring. I'm not sure how it got in there.

Have you had enough yet? Are you ready to stop procrastinating?? Are you clinging to the edge of sanity like me???

With love, light and wishes of peace,
the eternally optimistic LMA