Stress, Insomnia, and some Highs

May 28, 2024

 

Sometime during the week I panicked with the thought of BJP winning. Very respected lawyers, activists, and u-tubers that thoughtfully create their content, spoke in bits and pieces about what BJP might do if they return to power. Things like changing laws relating to information freedoms and freedoms of expression amongst others. These legislations were already being aired before elections. Also changing the way in which judges are appointed—so the only institution that is standing up to the BJP is also completely muzzled. The PM’s disgusting speeches filled with lies got more strident and more of his underlings began echoing him. Two days ago he announced that few of the current opposition leaders would be jailed after he won. He will win but there is unrest on the ground and I wonder about his third term. 

A week to results!

Meanwhile the alleged mass rapist—a political ally of the BJP—who had fled to Germany and whose diplomatic passport the BJP refused to cancel issued an apology to his family for not returning to face the charges framed against him. He of course says he is innocent, and the conspiracy the opposition created against him has depressed him. 2500 plus videos of him molesting/raping women have surfaced, but he is innocent because he is rich and powerful and his family practically 'owns' the village they live in. He blamed the congress, particularly Rahul Gandhi for his not returning. I’m just surprised he didn’t blame Nehru as Modi and his mafia do. In today's India, where money and political power have even more weight than ever before, he is likely to get away with everything. 

My days have been filled with stress. I am sleeping badly, very badly (an average of 5 hours and a bit each week). The only thing that keeps me afloat is reading. Finished reading two memoirs during the last week and feel like I am beginning to see the art and craft of memoir and how it is similar to and differs from fiction. I spent one lovely lunch and afternoon with a friend who I hadn’t seen in months. Her spacious home and the slow pace we ate, drank, and talked, took the edge of much. 

As did training.

Some of the stress has been around gastric health and allergies but since I decided the real problem was not the health issues, but obsessing over them, they are not occupying my entire mind. Such a relief. 

A lot more stress was around a sweet cat who I was helping to find a home for. The owner could not take her back to the US where she returns permanently at the end of this month. She is worried that the cat might not survive the journey. The person who adopted her behaved in the most awful manner—and the cat had to endure nine days of severe stress and isolation. I am so angry about how this person treated the cat. Angry too that I/we missed the red flags about this person who offered to adopt her. Finally, yesterday, she was rehomed to a person who I believe will give her the love she deserves and will let her take her time to adjust to him. If you read this, please send healing vibes to the cat.

And yesterday when cat issues reduced, I saw a leak on the roof of the doorway to the bathroom. Leaks are the scariest home issues, aren’t they! At least for me they generate the most stress. Dealing with it now. But also feel myself in constant fire-fighting mode where the body and mind are tense, the eyes and senses search here and there for the next crisis. I don’t think consciously about this but there is a background ‘stress-search’ program running in my body-mind system that I suddenly become aware of. Sucks big time. At the same time something is easing internally, something related to the 'long haul'. Not sure what exactly yet as the sense is hovering just out of reach and when I try to focus it moves elsewhere. Know that feeling?

I think it might be related to me making decisions about my life that though I cannot implement overnight I feel might head me back to 'true north'.

Meanwhile my writing in my memoir course has risen a bit above the bottom it felt at over the last few weeks. Maybe reading memoirs is helping? 

What has your week been like? The highs and lows? 

 

Politics and More

May 21, 2024

 And the Indian election continues. I feel weary of it as do many others, but it continues to be as shocking and entertaining, with absurdities, and the twists and turns. India loves using cricket analogies and many U-tubers agree that BJP is now on the ‘back foot’, at least some of the time. It is thrilling to watch because one-sided contests are boring to everyone, except the winners perhaps.

 I said a slightly contrary thing in my email chat where we share news about Indian politics. I said I thought it better that the BJP wins again, but with very reduced margins. 

As a people we, or at least 2/3’s of the nation, are truly at the point where we think the ruling party will do anything—violate any and all rules—to win. I have been watching ground reports and people are sick of a lot of what Modi has been shouting at his rallies, especially the Hindu-Muslim stuff. They are sick of seeing corrupt leaders co-opted into the party while Modi keeps yelling about how incorruptible he is. They are sick of the way the party jails those they cannot break. The people are also tired of the talk of a mythical Hindu Rashtra that will bring prosperity to all. That dream that has been presented to them now needs practical measures which Modi isn’t discussing in his rally speeches. Yet the people have been so sold with the idea of Modi as the great savior that it is hard for them to link what is going wrong in the country with him. They blame lower-level ministers and ground workers. Many journalists who do ground interviews then say that there is no anger against Modi.  

I disagree. I think the people are angry but also the way he has been built up over the last ten years to an almost god-like status is confusing. So, I believe that if the opposition won and if they aren’t able to turn things around quickly enough all the pent-up anger would be directed against the opposition for the mess that BJP left, and Modi would return even more powerful. 

That’s why I feel the opposition shouldn’t form the government but should have strong numbers in parliament, so their voice isn’t silenced as it has been for a while. I don’t really worry that the opposition will win because the BJP with the help of the spineless Election Commission will see to BJP’s victory. 

In the possible situation that the results are so altered, and the BJP wins with a huge mandate I still think that the tide has turned, and they no longer will be able to hold the people mesmerized. To control the people, which is what they really want anyway, the government will have to become more visibly authoritarian. And that can only lead to more visible resistance. They will have the power to crush and silence any dissenting voice, but the people of India really cannot be fooled forever, even if a ton of money is spent on trying to do just that.  

I believe that wind has changed direction in Indian politics. 

And for me personally? I saw a few changes this last week. 

A friend invited me to a healing experience which I resisted strongly, perhaps because of lack of time. I only agreed to attend because the friend nagged at me when I first declined. On the day of the event, I dragged and cursed, but I also saw that there was no point going unless I was open to it. I worked on my barriers all day and I arrived there with a smiling, open, self that allowed what happened to enter. It did something to shake up an inner status quo. Still figuring it out but it felt like it set up vibrations that shook loose some stuck spots. 

Working through the memoir course and the assignment threw up a lot of childhood memories. I saw that I didn’t have any strong ambitions as a child. I only simply rebelled and did what I was told that I as a woman shouldn’t do. So, I decided I would be an astrophysicist, and the only strong desire I remember is wanting to get away from home, more specifically from the joint family. I suppose my childhood wasn’t very happy and that is one reason I have few memories of it. 

When I did an exercise to write about me from the perspective of someone else, I picked my mother, and I realized something else. I remembered that as a child I had a strong urge to understand myself, the family I lived in, and the world around me, and I wanted others to understand me. I remember my mom telling me I should drop that need as nobody would try to understand, and I should adjust to life the way it was. But it sounds like I was a ‘people’ oriented person who had humanistic and social concerns, doesn’t it? Yet I didn’t understand myself and know this then, and chose to study Physics. I didn’t return to these ‘loves’ until 1992 when I was 32 years old. Half the age I am now. So, I lived half my life confused about what I wanted from it, found what I wanted, then another half of the half in a country where I couldn’t possibly follow the desire I wanted and had to find other ‘loves’ here.

It is fascinating to discover this about myself. It probably says more, but I don’t know what yet. 

I do admire people who know what they want early in life, follow those ambitions, and realise their dreams. I obviously didn’t. But I will not regret the life I didn’t live anymore, because the life I did live shaped who I am today. Maybe even shaped this regret. 

Tuesday Rambling

May 14, 2024

The longest (I think), the biggest (for sure), and the most expensive (definitely) election (rather non-election) in the world continues. It is so obvious that this process barely fits into an exercise of democracy; what with comprised institutions, and a PM that doesn’t follow the model code of conduct, and regularly lies and spews hate in his rallies. Yet supposedly clever and good journalists, like Barkha Dutt, rush to defend democracy with words like a robust election etc. I don’t really know what kind of internal conflict it takes to deliberately be blind to the one-sidedness of the process, to not see the infractions, and the conduct of the Election Commission. I salute the U-tubers that bravely bring out the bias and inequality of the process, and the impunity with which ruling party candidates behave. I've said this before but can't say it enough. Salute!

I know Dutt calls these U-tubers activists and not journalists. Not sure if they still call her a respected journalist? What does a respected journalist do when steeped in an environment where journalists are just propogandists? Doesn’t that require re-questioning of previously held beliefs and ‘truths’ about journalism? 

Yes, I am frustrated at the state of media in India. I grew up with a robust and fearless media and seeing the simpering bunch of sycophants makes me feel miserable. The PM apparently gave forty ‘exclusive’ interviews in the last two months where he repeated the exact same thing and gave advice to the pretend-journalists on how to present the news.

I’ve been stumbling in my writing. I am not happy with it but also am unable to see how to improve it. I suppose it is good that at least I can see that it is mediocre to bad. The comments from my teacher on the assignments in the memoir class show me that. They probe and ask me to ask myself what I am trying to say and why I am using the specific details that I do. I know the comments are right for I ask myself similar questions before I submit. I tie myself up in knots on whether to submit or not and then convince myself that sending in something is better than sending nothing. 

Last week’s comments left me particularly discouraged. I began to feel I am a terrible writer, and I should quit. Quit writing or at least quit the course. If I quit the course, I could still maintain the illusion that I was a decent writer. I remembered a time in my life when I felt the same about karate. I was stumbling around forever on a plateau-ed state. I could see I was bad but didn’t know how to improve. It went on for ages. I trained and taught through it and all the self-doubt. Not sure why I did it, just as I am not sure why I continue to write through the state I am in. Giving up and moving onto to something else I am better at is easier, isn’t it?

The same evening I got the comments back from my teacher, two of my black-belts and I had an online training with the chief instructor of our karate organization. He was pleased with the standard exhibited by my junior black belts. He said to me, “You didn’t give up and look at where you are now.” I think he might be remembering the time he was considering grading me but found my technique lacking focus and power. He told me to train harder and come back the next year. He did organize a few private lessons with the top teachers of the organization to help me. 

I guess I should take inspiration from it and hope someday I will get off this writing plateau too. And though I do not have a private tutor, reading and reflecting on good books is like having a private mentor. 

A writer friend once told me that I should use the resilience and tenacity I had to get my black belt in other aspects of my life. She knew bits of the story of that journey which seemed epic at one time but almost inevitable now. We were sitting drinking cocktails in Bangkok on a sultry evening after I had attended a writing workshop she had conducted. Her four-hour long workshop required stamina and tenacity to write through until the end. 

She is right but sometimes I find it hard to transfer between processes while feeling so rotten. 

Interested in hearing about things, times, and places, you’ve stumbled around in and what kept you going through the blocked state.

Thanks for reading my Tuesday ramblings. 

Greatest Loves

May 7, 2024

It is the kind of afternoon to stay in and drink hot tea. A strong steady rain, not yet a raging torrent, falls outside on a darkening day. Sometimes I love not bright—dull doesn’t fit—days like this, especially when I am indoors. But unfortunately, hot tea is now confined only to breakfast time because of issues like being sleep deprived if I drink caffeine past noon and suffering from acid reflux. 

I feel content, peaceful, sleepy today. Also able to work.

Yesterday was lovely sunny day with a blue sky and fluffy clouds. Such days also makes me happy most times, but yesterday my body was wracked with pain – shoulder/neck sprain from training, left leg/hip/back pain which is on a high every Monday after two days of morning training, and gastrointestinal upheaval. I found it hard to focus on the work at hand, which was an assignment for my memoir class, as my attention continuously shifted to one of those pains. I felt gloomy and stormy in body and mind. 

A creeping realization that is growing while participating in the memoir class also was agitating me. The realization that I am so distant from my desires that I don’t know them anymore. The realization that the project I thought I could work on during the class was not a project at all — it might be but not in the way I had envisioned. The project was my journey through karate but participating in discussions and doing the assignments I saw that karate was not the deep love of my life. I mean I always knew it, but I also went along with some narrative that it might be since that was what I had spent so much of my life over the last sixteen years, here in Singapore, doing.

I tried to unsee this. The truth was clear that if I had never moved to Singapore, I would never have wanted to have my own dojo and I would never have been country representative with all its responsibilities. I would be a happy student, who could come and go as I pleased, rest during times of bodily distress or busy times in my life. This seeing left me extremely unsettled. My thoughts strayed into the life I missed out on, and I began mourning it and wondering who else could I have been if I had followed my deepest passions? I do know what my deepest loves were and likely still are though so many years later I probably need to rediscover them. 

But here, I had contented myself with smaller loves. This is something to feel loss and grief about, but since life moves forward and I cannot change the past I need to allow it space to be mourned and then move on. Where I don’t yet know. But it is good to have seen what I guess I was trying not to look at. The question also is when did I become this person who looked away from uncomfortable truths of herself and her life?

Ya, but nice to be in this space of recognition right now. What will unfold further who knows, as I can’t see the future. I couldn’t see who I would become after I moved here and so many things before that and before that. At every choice and fork, I had the chance to be someone else. 

Third phase of voting in Indian elections today. PM’s speeches have become even more disgusting, and I see many saying that they are ashamed to be Indians right now — for those who don’t know let me share that the PM had said in his first year of office that Indians now were proud to be Indians whereas before when the Congress ruled, they/we cursed themselves for being born in this beautiful land. I hope this disgust with his divisive and untruths translates into votes, but the drowning BJP is resorting to very undemocratic means, threats and more, to scare election candidates away so their candidates get a walkover. And they might still win the election by hook or by crook and very likely more the latter. 

I’ll leave you with another thought today. I was reading a book in which the author said — ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’, is a category error. I have always felt this and me and my artist friend have often disagreed on the above. What do you think? 

And what are the greatest loves of your life? Have you been able to live them, or have you strayed from them? Do you have regrets, or you feel that where you are is just right?