I think about risks often enough. A couple of years back, I used to be paid to do it. Now I do it more about of habit. So it’s no wonder I was drawn to this piece than someone who calls himself better than your boyfriend (too bad I call my significant other my husband already). Before we get to the risk part, here’s what BTYB calls an interesting life:

“I know, from experience, that I can’t possibly predict what will happen that day. By the end of the day I may be in another city, I may have met a new best friend, I may have found a new hobby, or I may have completely altered the course of my life.“

By his standards, I have a very interesting life - I never know what is going to happen in my life, no matter how risk averse I try to be. It’s an occupational hazard I have come to accept. But I am not sure unpredictability itself constitutes an interesting life. I think life can be so unpredictable that unpredictability itself can be just a predictable boring matter. Nevertheless, an interesting definition - not every day you come across a reasonable attempt at defining an interesting life.

And I do like this part on taking risks in life. Apparently, they come in three kinds -

Social risks. Social risks have ZERO cost to them. Go talk to someone new. Say what’s on your mind.

Financial risks. It’s pretty well established that the only way to make money is to risk your own money. Put your money where your mouth is. If you have a great idea, DO IT.

Physical risk. I’ve jumped a freight train, climbed a radio tower and several cranes, bought a competition paraglider and yada yada yada…

I can think of one more risk to make your life interesting - the risk of real change. Change yourself. Not a simple change of wardrobe, but more intrinsically. If you were an introvert, try being an extroverted socialite who can’t stop talking. If you were a chatterbox, try shutting up for a week. If you are disorganized, try being super-organized. If you are a peace lover, try getting into a bar brawl. Try it. Just for the heck of it. Just to know you can change anything and everything, whenever you want. And to know what the other side looks like. You can always change back - but do be warned, an elastic once stretched will never really return completely to its old shape. Still a risk worth taking.

It’s almost night, and the neighbor upstairs hasn’t finished fixing her Ikea cupboard. I look over the soft toys strewn across the sidetable and choose the ragged Winnie-the-poo, not least because of some cruel law of ageing magnets that had separated him from Tigger, to gripe to, about my neighbor’s impending nocturnal carpentry.

Some things are never easy, no matter how many times you have said them before. Goodbyes are one of them.

Some things are never said, no matter how easy they should have been. Telling someone that they are the center of your universe is one of them.

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?
- W.H.Davies

Happy Easter, and hope you had a good break.

I know you didn’t ask, but yes, I had a good break too. I had not looked forward to a holiday as much as I had to this one, for a very long time. Not because I was off to the most fascinating place on earth, or because I had always wanted to go there, but because I really needed a break. I used up a lot of my vacation days last year when I went to India on holiday, but somehow, going home to India is never a “holiday” - it is that period of one’s life when you turn over your life for the fulfillment of everyone else’s whims and fancies. Here, take my life - now, think of it as an odd football - yes, I know its not really round, but who said I am not crooked - now kick it all you like - yes, that’s a good pass - now I will wait for that person to pass judgment on my life - and then off we go again, ouch! that hurt, but hey, who am I to complain, I am but an odd football - and then after the few weeks that feel both like an eternity and a fleeting moment, I salvage whatever I can of the worn-out ragged odd ball, and amble back - to live in nostalgia and regret, with annoyingly recurring questions of belonging and love - no more closer to the answer, but irreversibly moving along a path, undeniably helped by the deft passes and the cheering and the booing that now seem permanently stuck in my head like a broken record.

Well, this was not like that. This was three self-indulgent days when I could do whatever I wanted to do - no family, no bosses, no societal norms. Just me and the never ending canals. Yes, I went to Venice. I know, I am big on travelogues and I am supposed to love places and make a big deal about the beautiful sights I saw there, and I do intend to get to that eventually. But surprisingly, when I am back from a holiday, or when I am on holiday - the actual location does not matter as much as the fact that I am there. In the moment. Not thinking of tomorrow. Not regretting about yesterday. Just plainly living in the present. Staring at the lapping waves, and letting anything and everything happen. Just let it be. Don’t try to be in charge. Don’t try to be in control. Don’t be responsible. Just be a child again. With awe and wonder in my eyes. Feel the freedom of the wind as it brushes past my cheeks. Smile at the bird as it soars above my head, and decides to rest on a pole safely away from my reach. Tap my feet in tune to the bobbing of the boats, as they try to catch every wave.

Standing atop the Rialto, amidst the thronging crowds, staring into one of the most beautiful sights - The Grand Canal - which has the unique quality of being bizarrely busy and silently serene at the same time - enjoying the cool spring breeze and managing to tune out the clicks of a hundred cameras and loud voices in a multitude of languages - I felt blissfully alone. The century-old monuments staring back at me could have crashed down in a breathtaking avalanche, the gondoliers could have thrown down their oars, capsized their gondolas and joined each other in a triumphant synchronous dance, the water could have risen till all were submerged, just because it has been feeling cross at a world, where just about everyone has an opinion on the rising water level, even when no one has the slightest clue - and I could have still felt the peace. I would have still felt oddly detached, and not felt the need to react or to absorb, to witness or to wade in. It was just me. Alone, even in the maddening crowd.

And here I am, back at home, physically alone, typing away at the rigid keyboard of my new laptop which has not lent itself to familiarity yet despite the many hours I have already spent with it, kept company by the occasional cold blinks on my task bar announcing new mail and people signing into the various messaging systems from all sorts of time zones - and I feel strangely crowded - like everyone wants a slice of my life and a piece of my peace. Across the borders, across the miles - friends I love, family I adore, cultures I admire - I want to absorb all and be part of all. Ideas cram my head - its time to get up and act. The world is full of possibilities, things to be done, races to be run, mountains to be conquered - for after all, atop every mountain, there must be a moment of peace.

There is a reason we love traveling - its not the bustling boats on canal grande or the expanse of San Marco square or the golden mosaic at the Basilica - it is those stolen moments in our otherwise busy lives, where we indulge our desire to break loose of all the strings that bind us tight, where we pause to add in a new bandage or adjust an old one that keeps our weary souls together, where we can be alone to finally really be - see ourselves as we are, not through the eyes of others; to do those things we want to do, not those that are expected of us; to feel those emotions that come naturally to us, and not those we are conditioned to feel; to pen those words that can’t seem to stop flowing, without stopping to think what they mean and why they are and what will they mean to anyone else - to just be us, and connect, for once, not with everyone around us, but with our very own inner selves - and finally be able to be happy.

Just happy.

Deny it all you like, but most of us lead multiple lives. Not in the schizophrenic way, but in the “One person - Many interests” kind of way. Gone are the days in which one person could be slotted into one career - the days when you were a doctor or an engineer or a lawyer or a musician or a writer or a janitor.

A lot of people straddle multiple professions - often vastly different from each other - sometimes sequentially, but increasingly simultaneously. The corporate lawyer who composes music during his free time. The railway clerk who writes furiously at night hoping to publish his first novel. The engineer who is a closet activist. The doctor who volunteers to build homes for the poor on weekends. Or the musician who runs his online outsourcing company and buys a Porsche. While some of these characters are figments of my imagination, there are many like them who are very real. To cite just one example, Shashi Tharoor is someone who never ceases to amaze me. How does he churn out so much writing - books, columns, the whole enchilada - even when he is holding a full-time job at the UN? Well, why go that far - if you hold a job and you run a successful blog - there you go, you are one of the subjects of this post.

The Rational Reasons

The truth is, we are moving into a world where people can’t just do one thing. Be it in the course of one’s life time or in the span of five minutes, we are seeking to do multiple things. Multi tasking is the norm - it is no more just a necessity, it is also a choice.

The reasons for this are many - Firstly, it is a safety net. With decreasing job security, people don’t want to have all their eggs in the same basket. Say, you work in the semiconductor industry and it is going to hit a downturn, aren’t you better off if you could run a dance troupe while you out of your job? Secondly, it is because we can. With the proliferation of internet and several other technologies, we can do much more in a shorter time frame. We could run an internet company while we keep a day job. You can be an online trader. You can find out people who would buy the second-hand goods that you like to sell on Sundays.

Thirdly, societal expectations are pushing us towards it. I know, I know, I said it is a choice. But thin is the line that separates peer pressure from choice. Did you really want to smoke the hash the first time you did it or did your friends subtly prod you towards it, by expecting you to. If everyone around us has a “second life”, who wants to be the loser who doesn’t? Fourthly, the additional income. If you have money, the world is exploding with things you can buy and do. Why wouldn’t you take up another vocation if it can bring in some extra dough? And finally, what about the excitement of variety? I used to eat bee hoon for lunch every day through the winter and spring of 1996. Even a cheese sandwich would have seemed gourmet to me then.

Be as common as it is, this phenomena is not well understood or well managed - by those who engage in it and by those who need to support it.

Lets start with the employers - the ones who need to let us earn our daily bread, lest we starve and can’t spend time on our side careers. And the ones who could, if they like, benefit from it.

The Evil Employer

One of the great debates of our times is how to attract and retain talent. Now, one new innovation in the area - from none other than the mighty Google - seems to be to keep the employees glued to their job all day long and all night long. Ok, I am exaggerating. But behind the carwash-on-campus and the hair salons and the gourmet kitchens and the dry cleaners, the real intention is to free up enough time so that employees can spend every waking minute thinking about their jobs. Not a bad strategy, really. But here’s the skinny on it. We are living in a world where ADD is becoming more and more prevalent - hell, you won’t even be labeled as having ADD if you can keep your attention on one topic for more than 5 minutes - the very definition is being changed by innovations such as Twitter. And soon, it will be humanly impossible to dream, eat, sleep and live your job as Google seems to expect its employees to do.

Now, I am not saying Google is evil, just that its strategy may be flawed. The way to attract and retain people is to let them be themselves - allow them to explore their multiple dimensions, spend time out of their jobs, so that when they are really at their jobs, they are productive and at their best. The diversion will only do them good. Employers who give long term sabbatical to their employees are the ones who are getting it right. So are those who allow flexible hours, and part-time work - they not only have a larger pool of potential employees to choose from, they also have a more re-energized workforce who is at their best in the smaller amount of time that the company pays them to sit at their desks.

What else could employers do? They could actually promote employee’s external interests. Encourage inter-company SIGs - it need not all be of the money-making kind. If there is a bunch of wine enthusiasts who would like to start a wine tasting club, then provide them the ability to find each other within in the company networks. Someone wants to start a fitness academy (which incidentally one of my colleagues just did) - let them use their corporate contacts to get clientèle. That entrenches them deeper within the company than the best gourmet kitchens can. Now, I understand the conflicts if what you do for your job and what you do in the side are too similar. But chances are, the interests are divergent enough. If not, clear boundaries, rather than a complete No-No would be better. There are many more things that employers can do, details of which would make for an entirely new article, but the bottom line is, Encourage the employees’ external interests and provide them the flexibility to pursue them, rather than demanding they are at their job every waking minute - chances are they will choose you over your competitor. And continue to stay with you.

The Zealous Selves

And how about us - you and me - who are passionate about our “second lives”?

Be it your passion, be it your choice, be it your solace from daily drudgery - truth is, it is not easy to maintain a secondary line of career. Even a post on a blog requires you to spend precious time and brain space. So, what do we need to do,in order to have our cake and eat it too?

First, recognize and acknowledge. There are several of us who don’t even realize the multiple “jobs” we handle. The career woman who after spending eight hours on the job, comes home and starts her next shift as the family’s chef. The blogger who doesn’t account for the amount of time he is spending on posting something new for his readers every day. The wanna-be musician who spends two hours a day practising after a long day spent at his tiny cubicle. True, they are all labors of love. But even labors of love can have a toll on your life. You must admit to yourself the time you are spending on them, so one fine day you don’t wonder whether there is an abyss where your time is disappearing into. Also, it would be a pity to discover too late that there was some place else you would rather have been. Let the decision to spend time on anything be a conscious decision. If you are consistently spending a substantial amount of time of your life on anything, be sure to acknowledge it.

Prioritize and choose. This sort of stems from the first one. If you sit down and think about all the “side things”, sometimes, and for some people, we are not talking about two. But several. Recently, I met a management consultant who spends about 60-80 hours a week, advising corporations on their strategy. He also volunteers on the board of a non-profit organization. He is a member of the choir of his local church. Not to mention that he is considering writing a book on the latest thinking in strategy - a job that will no doubt require not just typing words, but hard-arse research. I talked to him, who seemed to manage everything with a smile. And even seemed to have enough time to spare to talk to the likes of me. Well, talk to his wife and a completely different picture emerges. We all get overworked sometimes, even when we don’t realize it. Especially when it is spent on multiple things. Carefully consider everything you want to do - and choose one. This is already a side. If you have sides for your sides, some things are going to spill off your plate sooner or later.

Carve out a time and a schedule. If you are serious about something, do something serious about it. There is no point trying to carve out a career as a musician if you are going to go through your day pining about your music, but when you get home your hands are too tired to lift up your viola. And you are never going to make it as online trader, if you don’t spend enough time understanding the market. Even though it is a side, it requires time and effort. The extent of time spent, and the seriousness of the targets set may depend a bit on what you are doing, and why you are doing it. Nevertheless, if you want to have to have a side career, you should at least give it a decent shot to make it successful.

Let all those around you - from family to friends to most importantly, your current and future employers - recognize it and give you credit for it. Let no one call you a loafer just because you come home to spend time behind a computer screen, trading virtual goods on Ultima Online. Or if you spend a good part of your weekend practising with your local jazz band. That makes you a musician, no less than the one who doesn’t do anything else in his time free from playing music. When you write your CV for your next job, build in your alternative career into your skill set. I will wager you might have learned as much or more from those efforts. As important as recognition, is support. If your wife adamantly opposes you freelancing as a web designer in the weekends, it is best to engage her and convince her, just as you would have done, had she disagreed with your day-time job.

And last but not least, remember to give yourself the occasional pat on the back or the kick on the butt, depending on what you deserve.

The Digressive Detail

I just realized that I have probably mixed up several degrees of involvement in a secondary career path in the definition of the side dish that I wanted to talk about. Even though the specific issues you would face were you pursuing your passion as a hobby or trying to meet your ends meet by putting extra hours into the dreaded second job may vary, I believe the issues discussed here remain relevant across the whole spectrum. I couldn’t think of a more apt word - when our plates are full, don’t we just call the dish on the side, the side dish?

The Quixotic Question

So, now, its your turn - pray, tell me, have you had/ do you have/will you have a side dish to the main course of your life? Are you relishing it or not just yet? What worked for you and what didn’t?

Very many years ago, I used to have a very simplistic exclusive view to what Indian means. “If you live in India, you are an Indian”. period.

One fine day, I had to fill in an application form for a scholarship in Singapore, in which the race column had four choices - Chinese /Malay /Indian/Others. Suddenly, Indian was not a nationality, but a race. That was a new concept to me. And my idea of Indian expanded a bit. As I left India, I still wanted myself to be included as Indian. But I didn’t want to include any Singaporean Indians. So I changed my definition to “If you hold an Indian passport, you are an Indian”.

Years went by. I had lived in Singapore for sometime. Things change. Habits change. Mannerisms change. And this FOB Indian seemed to be in a quandary between Fresher-Of-the-Boat Indians and the Singaporean Indian world. Taxi drivers started complaining to me about how they don’t understand the accent of Indians who come from India - they inferred from my fake Singlish that I was born and brought up there. My old definition still protected me, but I was beginning to empathise a bit with the other side too. So I generously expanded my definition to “If you hold an Indian passport OR If you are an Indian by race and I like you, you are an Indian” (ya, I still couldn’t include everyone and that was my loophole).

More years went by. I attended a job interview in which the interviewer asked me out of the blue whether I would be willing to give up my Indian citizenship. The process for visa for Indians (PS. this is not for Germany) was very tedious and he said it would be easier if I changed my citizenship. I don’t know why, but I said a firm indignant No. (Before we start any employer bashing, I did get the job offer regardless of my less-than-perfect answer, but refused it partly because of the long winded visa process and my unwillingness to wait.) Nevertheless, the incident made me ponder what I would have done if really a great job offer depended on my willingness to forsake my citizenship. The truth is, if it isn’t such a sudden unexpected question and if all other factors are excellent, I may not say No a second time. After all, what is in a passport? Its who you are that counts. And to protect myself from any such possibilities in the future, I arrived at my current definition for Indian, “I think I am an Indian, therefore I am an Indian”.

The concept of Indian is fluid and its precisely in its fluidity that it finds its beauty. We all have different definitions for what it means to be an Indian. In my life so far, I have already gone through four. Who knows how many more there are to come. I don’t think a billion people would ever come to a consensus on what it means to be an Indian. Nevertheless, the topic will still be one close to our hearts.

I would love to write about it more, but just don’t have the time now. So for now, I will just leave you with two links.

Scoot over to Divya’s and she (and the commenters there) have some great arguments.

The second one is on the flip side of this coin. Even as we struggle to be included as Indians, we have to fit in into the environs that we live in. Here is one of my old posts on how far I will go in adjusting to a new place.

Gotta go. More later.

Tweety is a fellow resident in my apartment building and has her nest just outside my bedroom. Because she reminds me of Tweety in Jamba’s ringtone ad and because I am rather unimaginative when it comes to christening birds, shes called Tweety. Tweety and I are good neighbours - even though she does not take any of the food crumbs I offer her, we have an agreement that she doesn’t wake me up with her cries before 7 am and I in turn don’t do anything to harm her nest.

Afterall, I do understand how much the nest means to her. She started building it a short while after I moved in here. While I sat by the window sewing the curtain edges, she would fly back and forth collecting small twigs for her nest. I moved to hanging the pictures, assembling the tables, fixing the beds - and she kept going at collecting her twigs. Even when I took my breaks and even after I eventually finished my moving in, she kept at it. Until she had built for herself a beautiful intricate little nest.

But as it turned out, it was not just for her. Tweety soon had a tweety Jr. - happened while I was away at work or while I was sleeping, but one fine day she was way too possessive of her nest and made too much noise when I opened my bedroom window. And then I saw that she had a new little fella to take care of. Oh well, Tweety dint trust me anymore. Her precious new born was too precious to trust her implicit arrangements with a silly human. I kept away - I can live with opening just one of my bedroom windows.

Over the weeks, Tweety was obsessed with Tweety Jr. - she was forever bringing him little tidbits of food and fighting over every little insect that came near him. She nurtured him, like only a mother can. One day, I saw she had a broken leg, probably fighting with a bird that came too near her precious. Tweety and I grew apart - apart from giving her a name, there was nothing I could do to make her my pet - and I was getting bored over her over possessiveness too - she wouldn’t even let me have a long peek at Tweety Jr.

Until today,when she broke our norms of good neighbourhood and seemed to be crying her heart out early in the morning. There was a certain hollowness in her cry - it dint sound like a Jamba ringtone anymore. I went to the window to check and I saw what had happened - she was alone in her nest. Tweety Jr. had grown his wings and flown away. To the unknown. And Tweety seemed to be inconsolably crying out loud, way too loud. In an attempt to pacify her and get back to my sleep, I put some bread crumbs and a bowl of water at my window sill. For the first time ever, Tweety gave in and had some of my food. She seemed a bit consoled. We seemed to share a special bond again.

I smiled at the cruelty of nature and the inevitability of her rules. And I shed a silent tear - for the goodbyes I have said in my own life.

I know its been only abt half a month - but I feel like I have been to another world and back. Like so much has happened. Probably because when I travel, my mind works at a pace thats over my usual speed limits. I like nothing better than staring for long hours out of the window of a moving train. There is something uncomparably liberating in the incessant passing of the greens, the occasional cow on the field or the lone passerby. I love the silence, when long forgotten thoughts are pulled out of my memory and restacked after much deliberation. No idea is too stupid. No thought is too random. I am the philosopher that I never get to be.

The more I travel, the more I realise the borders are so thin - we are all just travellers on the path of life - on a never ending race in which we dont know where the finishing line is. We try to plan our race - to pace the middle and to sprint the last lap, yet the white tape could just be round the corner. Whether we are Spanish, Indian, German or Portuguese or anyone else for that matter, we are just people who yearn for the same things in life. Who are hurt by the same old things. We try to be different - yet we are not. We try hard to belong - but we already do.

I have more blisters on my feet than I have had for a long time. I have a lost a couple of kilos and am a few shades darker. As we trekked the Pyrenees, I discovered muscles on my body that I did not know existed. The harshness of the arid mountains was unlike all the tropical green treks I have been to before - it made nature seem so much loftier and human life so much more trifle. I am physcially tired. Yet I feel like its my mind that has done most of the work. I relived my childhood memories of when I had read about Don Quixote, Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama. I used to learn French from an old Goan lady, who had a lot of stories to share about Portugal and Portugese. As I was browsing through a book store, I came across a book about Goa - the colony that was invaded and conquered by the Indian Union - It was almost like hearing the other side of the story in a court trial.

While each civilsation tries to outshine each other by showing off their prowesses in their fantastic museums, no one really understands who sets the benchmarks. What if someone discovered tomorrow that the ancient people who did not have a written form of language communicated by telepathy which makes use of the collective human conciousness that modern science has not yet been able to completely reject or embrace; if writing and recording was irrelevant because their memories and brains were sufficiently well developed to capture and retain even the minutest of details; would these same museum curators run to hide the remnants of writing and to pretend that their ancestors were of the higher developed kind? Are these projected supremacies and discoveries of each ancient civilsation as relevant as they are made out to be? Whether they are from the Roman era or the Indus Civilisation or Egyptian remains (which btw, I have seen exhibited in so many European museums, it makes me wonder what is left in Egypt), they all tell the story of the progress of the human race. As I see more of the world, I see more links than I see differences.

One of the many wonders of travel is that it makes you realise the beauty of what you leave behind. Its great to be back home. The routine somehow seems welcoming. Yet, I know the feeling wont last long. As soon as my wallet and work permits, I hope I can travel again. As I stood gazing Christopher Colombus’ and Vasco da Gama’s tombs and the ships that carried them to the new found lands, I was somehow reminded of a poem I had learnt in school:

Beyond the East the sunrise,
Beyond the West the sea,
East and West this wander-thirst,
That will not let me be.

Across the centuries, across the continents, some things never change.

I havent been hit by the jolt of reality yet. I am still in the realm of random thoughts and unreasoned out musings. My head feels happily muddled. A post on my impressions on Spain and Portugal will just have to wait a bit. Its also probably not the best time to blog. Moreover, its time to go to bed. To my bed.
Good Night.

“A handshake is a universal token of friendliness here. Be it in office, or at home or in the street when two cab drivers greet each other. Something that may not be done even in offices back in Trichur.”

I came across this at a post in the Girl-with-big-eyes’ blog and was reminded of something that happened a very long time back. I had gone back to India for hols and was attending a friend’s brother’s wedding in Trichur. This friend and I had been to school together, but after high school, we had gone our separate ways. She was introducing me to her new college classmates, and I, like a normal person would do, held out my hand for a “how-do-you-do” handshake. The guy looked positively shocked. My friend (we both had studied in a conservative all-girls convent school) looked so scandalized that I thought she would faint. Well, now that I had shook my hands with one, if I didn’t shake hands with the rest, that would be too much favouritism for everyone to stomach. So, I bravely kept at it. After shaking hands with abt three ppl, everyones gazes made it pretty clear they thought I was an alien. Oh what the heck - to my credit, I shook hands firmly and politely with all 8 of the new people I met that day. Trust me, I was embarrassed - I had somehow forgotten the old Trichurian rule of just nod and smile when you are introduced. But I didn’t think much about it until on a recent trip to India, I came across one of the guys I had met that time and he remembered me as the “girl who shook hands”! I am not trying to belittle Trichur - come on, I love my home town, but really! whats wrong with a handshake?

Its very intriguing how differently people across the world greet each other. Considering how much importance a first impression makes, I don’t think we give enough thought to this.

I never grew up with the tradition of touching my elders’ feet - but I am expected to do so whenever I meet the parents of my close friends from the North. And my recently married cousin’s wife is from the North and she does what my dad calls “a dive” whenever she visits our home. But what surprised me was that my mom was very impressed with her ‘humility’ and ‘good behavior’. Now, I just hope my mom doesn’t get it into her head that it will be a good way for me to show my respects - come on mom! its just a Northie tradition.

Farther away from home, Germans and Americans squeeze your hand! It doesn’t help that some of them are tall and big and strong - I have to remind myself every time “Squeeze, Su, Squeeze harder!” - lest I come across as not polite enough. I had a French friend who insisted on kissing me on my cheeks everytime we met. I was visibly taken aback the first few times, and he nonchalantly explained, “I am French. I can kiss you when we meet”. Hmm..I never really found out if it was just his greeting for girls or if it was really the French greeting.

A Brazilian acquaintance would hug me everytime we met - now I had reasons not to piss off this person - so I googled and found out thats really how the Brazilians do it - and so I endured the hugs. To be honest, it was really only a symbolic hug, nothing that makes even a touch-queasy person like me uncomfortable. But bottom line is, if you are in Brazil (and I have heard this is true for some other SouthAm cultures), you might wanna give hugsy a try, or at least be open to it.

In many Western cultures, men stand up before they are introduced to someone important - and the chivalrous ones stand up for women too. Standing up shows politeness and respect. Same goes for India - but its not the men who stand up - its usually the younger person who stands up for the elder one. I remember I did this once in Singapore, and was met with a startled “is-there-a-thorn-in-your-seat?” look.

I have been asked an umpteen times why Indian men are “so touchy” with each other. People, please dont take offence at me - I have already endured enough being at the wrong end of this question. If you have been to Little India in Singapore, you will know what these people are asking about - you will see Indian men who walk around with their elbows on the next guys shoulder. I have even seen a few hold hands. Now if this was restricted to Little India in Singapore, I could have shooed off the question. But look around you, Indian men are definitely more touchy - with other men (thanks to Indian traditions, they stay off from women - thank god for that!). Even in business contexts, I have decidedly seen non-Indians squirm when an Indian man, with all friendliness and innocence, would give them a hard and a tad bit too long pat on the back.

People around here pass you their visiting cards like it is such a no-issue. Don’t make that mistake in Asia. In Singapore, make sure you look at it if you receive a visiting card. Look impressed - fake it if you aren’t - it would only do you good. I am told its even stricter in Japan - when you are handing out your visiting card, make sure its in such a way that its not upside down for the receiver - hold it at the two tips nearer to you with both your hands. And bow till your nose touches your feet ( Ok, I am just kidding abt the last one! ;o)) But talking abt the Japanese bowing - I have to relate this rather unrelated incident - our office building used to house a lot of Japanese banks as well. So one day I am in a crowded lift, late for a meeting and wishing people would just stop trying to squeeze into this lift - when in comes a Japanese dude - complete with a double-breasted jacket and pin-striped shirt (a digression in a digression: if you doing business with the Japs and you dont know what to wear - err on the formal side - even my strictly-Tshirts-only husband bought a couple of decent shirts and suits when he worked for a Japanese company). Back to single-level digression: The Japanese dude who was standing near the lift door bowed his head low and long as a gesture of good bye to his business associates outside the lift. And the supersensitive lift door that was almost about to close went back to being open! A few seconds of impatient wait - and the door is about to close again - and again our pin-stripe dude bows - i should change the adjective to ‘wide’! And strictly no exaggeration - this continued for three times until someone grunted in impatience and he finally limited his bow to a slight nod of the head!

Back to greetings and introductions - have you seen two Saudis greet each other? - They would grasp each other’s right hand, place the left hand on the other’s right shoulder and exchange kisses on each cheek. Even men to men! Thank god, I was a kid when I was living in Saudi Arabia and was generally ignored. And by the time I was old enough, they denied me a visa - do you know the country has no provisions for tourist visa! You have to be invited to enter- and to leave the country, even a foreigner needs an exit permit. So, if you cant get any of the Sheiks to invite you over, you are never gonna see the Laila & Majnu caves and their really pretty oases. This might come as a surprise - but I din’t have too many complaints about wearing the Burkha - where else can you go to the supermarket in your PJs? and never have to worry about a bad hair day? Before I forget - don’t ask a Saudi man about his wife - your intentions will be construed as everything under the sun except politeness.

This has turned out to be a rather long post and I just wanted to narrate my handshake crib. But before I sign off, just one more thing I learned today. In Germany, say only exactly what you mean. Do not exaggerate, do not use superlatives or superfluous words unless necessary. I asked my usual “Guten Morgen! How are you?” to a colleague in the lift today morning. She replied with a matter-of-fact “OK” and a polite return “How are you?”. It was morning, I had just had my coffee and was feeling chirpy - so I breezily said “Great”. And that was a mistake - I got back a quizzical “Great?”. People dont feel “great” around here without a reason - how could I have let that slip my mind? I spent the next couple of floors explaining how excited I am abt my vacation next week and thats why I am feeling “great”. Ah so! everyones happy - sorry - “OK!” again.

Alrighty, end of post. I have tried to put down whatever I can remember, but its kinda limited to my personal experiences. The ads from the world’s local bank have given us all a couple more insights. But there is so much more to go - I shudder at the many blunders I am yet to make.

Would love to hear it if you have any experiences/anecdotes/advice to share.

I had no idea how easy it is to make whipped potatoes!

Peel and cut, say 6 potatoes, put them in cold water, cover the lid and boil.
After the water is boiled, remove the lid and continue boiling for about 15 mins or till the potatoes are tender. Then drain the potatoes very well, add half a cup of warm milk and 4 table spoons of butter and knead well with a fork/spoon (Use a potato ricer, if you are a fancy cook). Continue to heat for about 3-5 mins, and then add about 1/4 cup warm milk and salt and pepper to taste. Fluff it well and its ready to serve!!!

After I made potatoes in three different ways for the last three days, Srijith thinks I have taken to German cuisine a tad too much - but you can’t blame me, the supermarkets sell potatoes by the kilos and I have only two people to cook for. I tried the Indian potato masala, Swiss Rosti (a rather miserable misdirected attempt, I must admit) and whipped potato. Maybe, next week will be french fries, golden potato croquettes and baked potato skins - I am told one can even make delicious cookies from potatoes!

Did you know that the potatoes have a very interesting history - they were first cultivated in South America by the Incas, who guarded it as their little secret (apparently, they even had Potato Gods), until the Spaniards came along and conquered the Incas. They brought potatoes back to Spain and continental Europe, where it received a mixed reaction (Did we really expect Europeans to think alike?). The Spanish called it ‘Edible Stone’ and ignored it. The Irishmen loved it, more because they dint have much else to eat. The Scots hated it because it was not mentioned in the Bible - so it must be unholy. But I like the English story the best - the royal cook threw away the tubers and cooked the greens (sounds like something I would have done =) for Queen Elizabeth, who promptly rejected it. Potatoes came to Germany in the late 16th century, when the King ordered the peasants to plant potatoes to save themselves from the famine - anyone who dared to disobey would have their noses chopped off! May be its a testimony to how much the Germans love their noses that I have to buy huge sacks of potatoes! Then the potatoes traveled to France - trust them to make it chic and trendy and we got the Pommes Frites or the French fries! The irony is that the worst French fries I have ever had in my life were in a cafe in Paris. And finally, the Irish immigrants and the returning soldiers from WWI brought the potatoes to the US - where Sir Mcdonalds(ya, I know theres no such knight - but there might have been one in Potatoworld) popularised it as we know it now! Maybe because potatoes are not all that popular in Asia, but I haven’t heard any Asian potato anecdotes.

So heres to potatoes - the spud is a real stud indeed!

What do you want to be when you grow up is a question that we might have been asked or have asked ourselves when we were growing up. Some of you have been lucky enough to know it right from the start. But I was one of those ‘future generalists’ who kept switching from profession to profession. My age and mood-of-the-moment had a crucial role to play in whether I wanted to be a teacher, an astronaut, a bookshop clerk, a doctor, a lawyer, an archaeologist or a detective. As time passed, I chose one career and stuck to it. As much as I would like to, ‘jumping around’ every now and then doesn’t really work at the work place. People pay you for your experience and expertise. The bull shit that they talk about hiring generalists with creative problem solving skills or allround talent is just that. Whether you like it or not, very few of us are privileged enough or are entrepreneurial enough to try a new profession or industry every once in a while. But in my free time,I am my own boss. I explore a fascinating world where I flirt with geography to philosophy to literature to sociology to law to my most dearly beloved,Physics, every now and then. No one really cared or knew about my switching interests and fleeting passions. Books of all shapes and forms, unfinished paintings and artwork, collection of sand from different countries, trinkets and appliances of all imaginable forms litter my closet, and unknown to my husband, I have been shipping all this junk from country to country. Depending on the time of the month, I swing between being elated at my versatility to being depressed that I am good at nothing.

After I started this blog, I was chatting with a friend who had read my blog and he asked me, ‘So, what exactly does your blog focus on?’ And there it was. The world was once again forcing me to choose. One path. Not many. I non-chalantly told him, ‘Stuff. Nothing in particular’. The seasoned blogger that he was, he decided to let this novice in on one little blogging secret ‘You gotta focus on something for people to read your blog regularly. You know that, right?’ Though I tell myself that I write for my own self (which is true to a large extent), like every ‘normal’ writer out there, I do like it when people read what I write. Its not necessary, but its a feel good factor. So, even though I told my blogger friend ‘thank you, but I don’t care’, I secretly mulled over this in my head. And slowly I realised that every single one of the blogs in my blog feed list had a topic or area that they focused on. I had neatly categorised them into science, philosophy, literature, India and technology. It seemed that the self-proclaimed generalist that I am, did not read regularly any blogs that refused to belong to a certain genre. I realised that if I weren’t myself, I wouldn’t subscribe to my own blog, perhaps because it didn’t fit into my categories. Though I promptly created a new category called miscellaneous, it is still empty because I am yet to find a blog that I like, which fits the bill.

That leaves me to wonder - Do we have to specialise to be taken seriously? Like dating, where it is ok to flirt with many men when you are young but society sighs if you refuse to settle down after a certain age, if your interests are too varied, if your mind serves no one master, are you doomed to belong to the legion of those who deserve to be sighed at and eventually ignored? Do we believe, consciously or subconsciously, that the total knowledge a person can have is constant and thus someone who knows more about one thing should know less about another? That you need a PhD in philosophy before you can question the reality of our existence or a published book before you can write about literature or a proven fashion sense to comment on fashion trends? And that no one person can be equally interested and thus may have something worthwhile to say on all the above and more?

From what little I remember of my high school history lessons, several of the ancient greats were often referred to as versatile geniuses - they would be well versed not just in one field, but in many. While I admired such multi-faceted personalities, I rarely hear of versatile geniuses in our era. The heroes and role models of our times are specialists. They go deep into one topic or area and are undeniably the best in that field, but only in that field. Ask them about something unrelated and they are worse than the average Joe on the street. And the thing is, we are not surprised at this. Nor do we seem to mind. While the explosion of available knowledge in any area could be one of the reasons, I believe that it is more a function of our attitudes and expectations. We don’t expect our role models to be good at several things, but to be very good in just one chosen field. And we naturally follow it up with ‘if he or she is good in one thing, he or she cannot be good in another’. Or ‘thats his field, let him stick to it’.

Has the specialisation that has become an accepted requirement of our professional lives now permeated our social, philosophical and even our recreational worlds? Have we come across the proverbial ‘Jack of all trades, Master of None’ one too many time? Would we rather have a bright violet or a bright red over the wonderful harmony of a distant rainbow? Are we conditioned to believe that if you know something about everything, you probably know nothing about anything? Is true versatility a thing of the past?