Mind, You!

Am I good  or not?
Am I as good as I think or not as much?
I know a lot, at the same time I feel I don't know a lot
I am sufficient and feel insufficient too
I am recognized but I also encounter being undervalued
I am performing a very important role as well as not critical enough
I have these moments where I swing like a Pendulum
At times, I am in full swing and at times I am frozen
I know in my head that it is my decision what I feel and what I want to see
My mind plays these games with me
I can visualize you, my mind, with two threads pulling one on me or another, based on something transient, like your mood!
I imagine not responding to your games and traps
I imagine being still and observing what happens if I don't fall for them
Not to laugh at what mind, you are doing ...
More to find the right place for you
For you to be a tool and me not be a victim 
Afterall, the world's a stage and we are mere players, mind, you and me included.

"Good" is a trash word!

 

"How is this?" Nihal asked,  after a few scattered hours on lego with his finished Ship cum Submarine. "Wow! That looks good!".I said. It looks great... big for sure to do it on his own, without a step wise manual. He sure used a lot of his creativity.  "Good is a trash" Nihal said.  "Why" I asked... "because it means many things" he said. "Our teacher asks us to use more words to describe."

"So, what do you think... How is this?"

"Hmmm... The design looks great! Wow it has a detachable flight to take off! It does shoot bullets if required and it shows your creativity and that you are increasingly enjoying playing with lego!"

With many hours of work on it and a lot of improvisation "good" did no justice , it wasn't just good enough!

Make it Simple but Significant.

“Should we meet tomorrow for lunch?” The text read. “yes,Sure!” I responded, thinking to myself of the nice opportunity to meet and interact with another family. Amidst isolation and restrictions due to COVID 19, such invitations are rare. I met the couple twice with their young boy pre Covid. We struck off well, common nationality and community lent to our relatable conversations, perhaps. 

The next day I drove to their apartment with my two children. We parked the car at a distance and walked towards their apartment in no hurry until we felt the pitter patter rain drops all over us. In less than 5 minutes we found ourselves at the main gate. I reached for my mobile hurriedly to avoid soaking in our winter coats. “Hi, we are at the main gate” , I said. “I will be there in a bit”, she sounded anticipating. A couple of minutes later, I saw her walking with her four year old to help us in through the security gate. 

We exchanged a “ How are you doing?” as we hurried to protect ourselves from the continuing drops of rain. We were soon in the lobby, approaching the lift and reached their apartment. Her husband awaited us at the door. Another “How have you been?” followed, as we lightened ourselves of the heavy coats and winter shoes. We mindfully resorted to our latest learning of hand wash and then settled in the couch.

We got talking , not knowing a lot about each other. Some conversations need effort to get started and some others need the effort even take a pause. They weren’t many pauses as we continued conversing. The topics transitioned from Safety during COVID to parents back home to a common interest in farming to arts....until I had a bang in my head due to pangs in my stomach.  “Should we continue talking as we eat, I am sure the kids must be hungry too”, I said aloud.... thinking “I really need to eat NOW!”

We set the table. Being too many for the chairs, we decided to have a sit down on the floor lunch, Desi(Indian) style. As we uncovered the lids the food smelled aromatic, the dishes with a range of an everyday mouth watering Indian meal. The pulses, the pickles with clarified butter and steamed rice! The food was delicious! To top it all, home made Ariselu, a South Indian sweet delicacy that is far from easy to make. 

The conversation continued through the lunch interspersed with “wow! This tastes good”, “Mmmm” expressions from us. My son, who was in the background playing with the little boy finally yielded to hunger and savored the home made meal. Soon after, we had to leave to be in time for our next engagement.

As we were putting on our shoes and the coats, “We have been wanting to invite you since last year, it finally materialized” she said smiling. “I am glad it did, we had a great time knowing you all better” I responded . Such came to an end a very warm meeting.

 “I really enjoyed it, how about you?” I asked my children on our drive back. “yeah... it was good” said my daughter as her typical response where she was neither too bored nor too excited. “The little boy could have shared his toys with me” said my boy  complaining about another half his age. “ The food was homely and tasty” I said. “I wonder why I fuss so much when we invite someone over? Listing what we will make, looking up recipes, shopping for ingredients.... it’s a bit too much right?” I muttered. “I should learn to keep it simple and spontaneous” “That’s what I tell you every time, Amma” said my daughter. With those thoughts we reached home and got back into our routine.

We exchanged messages of mutual gratitude the next day, soon followed a telephone call. After some initial exchange, “We wanted to invite you all since last year but honestly I wasn’t so confident  about my cooking. It’s only now that I feel better prepared  to cook a good meal. I am so glad that you liked all that I made.” She said in her soft humble tone. I felt like a boulder hit me. “It’s been a year since you wanted to have us over? You took time to pursue that intent and waited until you felt confident to invite us?. In comparison the few days of fuss and stress that I experience is nothing” I told myself reassuringly. 

A lot of perseverance was hiding behind my perceived simple and homely lunch. I felt grateful and thankful to receive all the warmth and kindness.

Diwali in the spirit of Christmas!?.

Have you done that? Celebrating Diwali in the spirit of Christmas?

I did that last couple years. I celebrated Diwali, the Indian Festival of Lights that is celebrated by lighting many lamps to dispelling darkness also from our lives, hearts and minds. We pray for wellness and prosperity. We share this excitement and love with family and friends wishing them well. 

The last two years we celebrated celebrated Diwali in a foreign country. It was of course different, we bought lamps and decorations and even crackers from the huge excitement that starts in end of October for Christmas in December. To make up missing friends and family back home, Indian families got together in small or large groups attempting to create the atmosphere back home and share with each other the spirit of Diwali. Having non-Indian friends over became a good opportunity to building new relationships and sharing the richness of the festival to others. 

This year, of course isn’t normal for anybody in anyway ,how could we have a normal Diwali? Because the coronavirus infections were soaring exponentially in France the government suddenly decided to impose a lockdown with less notice as 24 hours. The conditions included absolutely no socializing with family or friends, shutting down of all restaurants and non essential shopping. In fact, it turned out that while certain shops were open for essential goods all the nonessential items were cordoned off and not available for purchase. This time the Diwali shopping here included a visit to the stores hoping to find something that could beautify our Diwali and bring the festive spirit only to see that it was not available for purchase.No new decorations, no flowers for the puja, no new additions in the house . We were lucky to find sparkles that still helped us keep up with the tradition of Diwali.

We finally had a nice, little, quiet, yet a beautiful festival. we managed to do the Rangoli, the decorations, the sweet dish ( I didn’t buy haldirams gulab jamuns as usual, made Kaju Peda instead, well it stared as Kaju Barfi) at home, a special dinner, we had flowers from the garden and some lights to decorate the prayer place. Oh! we needed so little from outside. Finally with a bit of disappointment, a bit more nostalgia and a strong festive fervour, another Diwali well spent. However I am still asking myself if I would want to celebrate Diwali in the spirit of Christmas? 

Three Cheers to Three Years!

Disclaimer:  what is here is not true in absolute sense but perceived by me and my truth. There is no intention to hurt any beliefs or sentiments.

Three years since I landed in France with my two babies  My girl, 9 years and my little boy , all of 5. It has been a roll a coaster adventure to say the least with my husband not being able to move until months later. I  fell on the road, bought rocket leaves thinking spinach, was sleepless for weeks and my daily exercise was translating tons of necessary documents from French for our everyday life .........and the list goes on. The only target I had for the day is to get through the day still being sane. Three years later, it’s a HUGE transformation in my mind. Without further overwhelming, here is a humble ode to my journey. 

Three years in France and here are my list of threes!

Three top lessons I learnt

1. The foreign country does not score better than my own for purely logical reasons, emotions aside

2. I am an explorer at heart but I still miss home

3. Indian cuisine is grossly underrated and shamelessly  adulterated in this part of the world

Three surprises

1. India is technologically far advanced (Online banking transactions, online Filing of incometax returns, order online food ) 

2. French seems to be “the”  Only language in this world ( Ok fine, just a bit of exaggeration that is but not considerable)  

3. I expected to find esoteric professional competence, I was surprised that in addition to enough learning , there is equally enough to contribute.

Three culture shocks (The basis for all three, the way I perceive is that sharing your time and life with someone you love is important) 

1. The separation percentage of couples

2. Children’s partners moving in with parents without financial independence or formal relationship commitment

3. People looking for companionship / partners at all ages

Three blessings

1.  Mahagathe as a spiritual path and Gurudev Venerable Mahamuni Sritha Mahagatha‘s guidance

2. My close friend, Arati as a transition coach

3. Nikki as my manager

Three immensely helpful people

1. Monica Hajek  - Countless Helps

2. Marine Bracq - helped to hire the first car in the week I landed and gave me first driving lessons in France

3. Shweta - was picking my kids from school when I couldn’t get there in time.

Three biggest moments

1. When Kalyan, my husband got a job in Airbus, France on his own merit ( Since French companies are highly and conservatively protected by labor unions, hiring a foreign national on a local contract is “something”)

2. The trip to Disneyland

3. Having my parents visit France

Three achievements

1. French Driving license

2. Change leading an area I had no clue about 

3. Surviving 8 months Settling in a new country without my Biggest strength, my partner and soulmate

Three life skills

1. Cooking ( Ab cooking se dar nahi Lagta babuji... bahar Khane se lagta hai)

2. Cleaning ( read end to end, the house, the lawn, the garage......the kitchen draws, cobwebs......You know there isn’t an end to this list.)

3. Self Grooming ( If I even had an inkling I had so much potential, I would have saved myself... millions of paisas ;-) and a hell of time)

Three things that weren’t possible in India

1. Super many holidays

2. A walk 10 mins away from home and I can hear nothing but just my breadth

3. Driving my mini cabriole with an open roof and saying  to myself “C’est la Vie _ This is life

I ask myself if I would do it again to go through all the pain and it’s hard to say yes. Have you heard that  “No pain, No gain “ or “Gold Is distilled after a lot of burning and purification” or even “ there is no development without destruction”. It has been worth the pain, the exposure, the pleasure and realizing the value of what India has to offer, would not be possible otherwise..... so it’s a YES......  YES......YES!

Do you mean what you say?

 

I have always been fascinated with Communication, it’s ubiquitous presence whether we are consciously communicating or not and yet our failure at it so often. In all my working years, across cultures, across companies, this topic has never been out of fashion!
Recounting one experience and thoughts from it..

In my HRBP days, with a young first time manager, we were discussing a situation that he encountered in his team. One of his team members was in near tears, explaining a personal situation that came in his way of meeting the project timelines. In the manager’s words “I could see he was lying through his teeth and I didn’t believe a single word of what he was saying”, closely followed by “How do I sound empathetic in this situation?” I heard an imaginable Akashvani “ You don’t seem to even trust him, how can you express empathy which is much farther?” We come across such examples in our everyday life at work , at a coffee shop or with our family where we express or not something and wonder in hind sight what should I have said to have created a desired impact?

When we talk about learning better communication, it needs to start with what am I feeling, if the context relates to exchange of emotions or if it Is a cognitive subject, begin with what is my belief on the topic and how can I express it? Communication represents the branches, the leaves, the flowers and fruits, all external manifestations of a tree. However, these stem from what lies beneath, the seed that has been sowed. If you have a bitter gourd seed within, don’t expect to deliver apples ! 

There is a rather strong connection to acknowledge what’s going on inside before focusing on improving communication skills in isolation. If I am going to negotiate with my customer and want her to believe that it’s win win solution, I would spend considerable time to examine if I really believe in win-win or 80-20. In managing my team, if I do not want to come across as top down , I will take time to reflect if I believe in status orientation or egalitarianism in this context. Those who fake contrary to this may convince some people some of the time but cannot do it consistently with most people most of the time.

In the absence of this clarity and alignment, authenticity and credibility come crashing down and a chase to be an effective communicator will only be a moving target. The bitter gourd or apple essence will linger through what we say, what we do, our questions, comments or even our silence!

To Be or To Be

At the moment I am in a special situation. I live in a foreign country and I am employed in an industry that is heavily impacted by the Covid crisis. In all the uncertainty around me about the future, job, role, work and unprecedented transformation in all walks of life, there is the certainty of one thing that I didn’t experience pre covid........that certainty is of time. I have never ever before this experienced time ... in seconds, minutes and hours only in days and months.

For the past few months I haven’t had full working weeks, I worked between two to four days a week but not all five! When I was about to enter this phase, I had this huge excitement and anticipation of ample time ahead of me. Like a child awaiting summer vacation, I created a long list of all that I wanted to do, wanted to learn and wanted to accomplish in this extraordinary leisure that I was going to get. Today over 5 months of that anticipated leisure has gone past, where I didn’t  have to get to office by a certain time, didn’t have to work around the school schedule for children and a steep drop in official meetings. At the end of each week I do not have a sense of accomplishment, in fact sometimes I fight uselessness, as a feeling. I am left with thoughts about what I could have achieved or I would have liked to do with my time,  wondering what I would do if I was in my country, what if I was on my farm....possibly started on the distant agri business dream, how I could possibly help my family’s’ needs relating to their wellness and the list runs long. At some point continuing to look at what I couldn’t do is very exhausting so I decided to look back and say If I haven’t achieved or accomplished lots of things then what did I do at all?

I realized I didn’t accomplish much and that in itself is something big that I achieved in last 20 years of my life. Over the past few months I experienced what it means  when I was not doing much to fill my days with lots of activities. In all the available time, I exercised freely, I meditated by choice, I did not miss any of my dance classes . I met more families regularly than I did before. I spent immense time with my children. I have complete control on my now clean house! I could turn out some delicious traditional dishes that I always outsourced and even started growing herbs. In fact by not doing anything (in my own thinking learning a new professional skill, doing a course or picking up a certification), I found a space to be stress-free, to not be overly anticipating the future and taking each day as it comes. 

Going forward when somebody asks me what have you been up to? I will be lot more comfortable to say I’m doing nothing much these days and then smile to myself because I know what not doing anything really means to me now.