Birthday Week Begins

August 24, 2020

We started my birthday week last night with my daughter, son-law and two grand-cats. We ordered some favourites from Jade Garden. The cats were the focus of attention, but we spoke of other things – covid, politics, work, people who bugged us etc.

 

Earlier yesterday I had been sad. I had begun reflecting about the sixty years of life on this earth and felt there were huge swathes of time where I had lived a rather meaningless life. I felt disappointed that I had allowed myself to just drop into those mindless times. I felt that my decade here in Singy had been too drifty and purposeless. My spouse reminded me not to forget the meaningful things I had created in this time and it brought inner balance back, but I also cannot deny that the decade between 50 and 60 has been one where I haven’t really dipped deeply into much and that is sad. I suppose all I can do now is hope I can make the next decade different. I need to think more of what I count as meaningful, and I want to try to explore the things I want to let go off, and the things I want more of in the next years, during this week. 

 

I want to take a piece of paper and chart out some of the important things in my life, the ones that influenced me deeply and see when and why they began and how long they stayed. Two or three things that had a clear beginning and still continue on as passions in my life are socio-political involvement, focus on the inner life, karate, and writing. Those are things that add meaning to my life. There are others, that also deepen my being, but feel more like disturbances on this path of meaning, and then there are those that only exist as procrastinators and numb-ers. 

 

For some reason socio-political involvement and focus on the inner life have dwindled in my time in Singy. The latter because of the lack of friends here who explore this authentically. The former because of first the distance from India and then the apathy that sunk in with BJP’s win in 2014.

 

But the interest rekindled after the anti-CAA protests in India began last year. This morning I watched a news show about the letter some members of the Congress party had written asking for a change in the current party leadership. It felt like many, including the Gandhi’s themselves, thought that it was time to let go of Gandhi leadership, while others still believed the Gandhi’s to be the cornerstone of the party. I agree with the former but also a bit with the latter – there is something about the Gandhi essence that I too value. It feels more forward looking than the current regressive regime.

 

One of the people in the show was a spokesperson of the BJP. When asked how the party would react if the Modi-Shah leadership was challenged she replied, ‘Why would anyone do that? The party is doing so well right now.’

 

I had just watched a debate on growing unemployment and laughed at her statement. In my opinion, the party wasn’t doing well – as in serving the country in any way that felt right for the needs of the country – and their performance in most areas like GDP, employment, education, social justice, human rights, gender equality, healthcare and I believe defense too were dismal.  The only way they were doing well was that they were popular. Nobody asked her how she defined ‘doing well’ but I would have liked to know her answer to that.

 

I began to think that no government of India had done particularly well with the above indicators, but I felt that some had at least tried. The current popular government does not feel the need to try. They retain their popularity in the same way Republic TV does -- by blaming the earlier 70 years, creating a lot of noise about meaningless issues, and fanning hate and division. That of course then makes me wonder (like many others are doing) what it says about the people of India and their priorities.

 

I am very interested in questions about how people are brainwashed by political or other propaganda and the behaviour this leads to. I have been brainwashed and betrayed myself by people close to me – family and a valued teacher and confidant. I wrote extensively about the experience with the teacher – first as memory and later as a work of fiction – and explored it as deeply as one can alone. Further exploration might happen in discussion with others who have been through something similar. 

 

I think this personal experience might help me investigate and write about the political manipulation my country is in the grips of – if for nothing else than my own curiosity.