Being grateful!

Too hot to work. I need to sit in an air conditioned room in order to work.

When I come to think of it, I have changed a lot. I who hated air conditioning have come to consider air conditioning as an inevitable part of official life. Why?

Picture from HERE

I can't quite think of how I have changed this way. Probably it is the weather in Kanpur. Maybe people change when temperature oscillates between 0 and 50 degrees. But physical realities around us should not change our mental/spiritual dispositions that easily, right? Can I justify murdering someone because I don't 'like' that person? No. That would be ridiculous. Or, can I justify sacrificing my beliefs because of one negative instance? I don't think so. So there must be something else that has urged me to change.

Did I begin taking things for granted? I would like to consider this as a very good explanation of the change in myself. I don't think I appreciate my blessings as well as I should. I realize this in the small incidents of life. For example, when I wake up in the morning, I have a washroom right by the side of my room, and I take it for granted. When I used to stay in hostel, I did not have this facility. And I clearly remember hating it. I like to have a private washroom all for myself. I don't like to share a washroom with strangers because of multiple reasons. Cleanliness is one. The point is, I have taken my personal washroom for granted! See- I have changed. I can give multiple examples of this in terms of things and facilities I possess: like cellphone, computer, study room, etc.

In terms of people too I am blessed abundantly. I have people to share my joys and sorrows with. I have people to whom I can confidently ask for help or favours. I have people from whom I can borrow money on short notice. I have people who will welcome me to their homes despite the fact that I don't have a permanent home to welcome them to. I have people who think of me, and wish me a better future. I have people who respect me for what I am to them. I thus have innumerable reasons to live happily and be thankful. But I take these people and facilities for granted.

I need to change myself. How?

I shall be grateful to people. I will thank people verbally and non-verbally for the love, care, consideration and concern they have for me.

I shall be grateful to the facilities I use. I will use them with a grateful heart. I will not exploit such facilities, and use them responsibly.

Good start, huh? I would like to think so. Small changes, small steps are how everything begins. I would like to be positive about things. 

The Igbo language called 'silence'

Silence can be quite powerful. We all know that. But how powerful? Here is how silence is used by the Igbo tribe of West Africa.

Importance of Speech among the Igbo people

Igbos are an eloquent people. They love to speak in the most beautiful manner to convey messages. Language is a very important social possession for them. Probably for the same reason, they use silence as a tool for communication. In general, Igbo people greet everyone. Greeting is given much importance. Speech therefore is central to the Igbo lifestyle.



Silence as grief
When someone dies, the grieving family is not supposed to be spoken to. The grieving family is supposed to be so heartbroken, that they are considered not able to stand any communication. Therefore, if you wish you convey your condolences, you go and stand before the person you want to console. In silence. When you think the person is consoled, you sit down in the house. When you think it enough consolation with your presence, stand in front of the grieving person again in silence for an amount of time you judge sufficient. Then you leave in silence.

Isn't it beautiful? In our cultures, we go to a grieving family knowing not what to say, but say something and all of us feel super awkward. The Igbo system of silence is excellent since the social norm is such that there is no necessity to speak. Silence says it all!

Silence as consent
When a boy wants to marry a girl, the boy needs to get the girl's consent. Before the marriage, Igbos have customary courtship- like Western dating. The would-be husband has to please the would-be wife with gifts and fulfillment of her wishes. But this comes only if the girl gives her consent for courtship. How do you get this permission? You ask for it. Asking for permission involves certain rituals. Either the boy or his middleman, in the presence of the family and relatives have to ask the permission of the girl for marriage.

The response of the girl is scripted by the Igbo culture. There are only two possibilities. Either the girl runs away or she stays there. If I were the suitor, and if she ran away, I would think she doesn't like me. But the truth is, that according to Igbo culture, the girl runs away because their culture insists that she doesn't know how to respond appropriately with her 'yes', so she runs to her room to rejoice in seclusion. So, running away is giving consent. If the girl stays, it means that the suitor has to leave. The ashamed suitor leaves when it becomes clear to him that the girl won't 'run away'!

Silence during social gatherings is considered as consent. For example, if some decision is made in a gathering, your silence is counted as consent, and you would be expected to take responsibility of the decision made at the meeting.

I find this beautiful and empowering at the same time. For one thing, the Igbos have a hierarchy of genders. Men are more powerful than women in the family and society. But when it comes to marriage, the girl has the power to refuse. That is beautiful. No forced marriage.

Silence as enmity
If you have an enemy, you certainly won't speak with him/her. But Igbos don't stop it there. They not only stop talking to the enemy, but also express their enmity in body language by culturally sanctioned ways. For example, if your enemy walks up to you on a road, you stop and turn around, cover your mouth with your hands. You enemy also does the same. It is a signal to your friends that this person is not trustworthy, and is an enemy.

In my culture, if an enemy comes to me, either one of us or both of us will be hospitalized if it results in least harm. The Igbo way is peaceful, yet powerful. And there is no violence involved. Simply smart!

Silence as social sanction
If someone in the village community acts against the common good or common laws, they are ostracized. Igbos do this by banning all communication with the ostracized person/persons. No speaking, no greeting, no trade, no exchange of goods. It is like the modern day sanctions imposed by the rich countries on poor/less powerful ones. The silence, and accompanying isolation results in change of behaviour in the ostracized. It cannot but result in it, because the villages are designed in such a way that without the other, you cannot survive!

This corrective mechanism of silence is what I like the most. No obedience? No talking! Don't know how practical will this tactic be in our civilization!

Silence as ritual
During ceremonies, participating Igbo people are bound to observe silence. Others are expected to maintain silence around these people. Ogbanigbe festival, Lchu iyu nwu ritual, and cleansing ritual related to Ogbanje children are some ceremonies where silence is observed.

Silence as respect
Silence is observed by the one one on the lower rung in hierarchy, as an expression of respect between hierarchically related people. For example, parent/child, elder/younger, husband/wife, male/female.

Silence as protection
If someone has a communicable disease, they are supposed to be isolated. No one is expected to speak to them. This observance must have come from fear of dreadful diseases like smallpox that have taken many Igbo lives.

Silence interpreted as deferred action
If you make someone angry, you expect them to get angry. Igbos believe that such instant response finishes the emotion then and there. But if someone serves you the silent treatment, Igbos know that something is in the offing. The culture then expects that if someone reacts with silence, they would react later with some terrible action.

Reference
Nwoye (1985), Gregory O. Eloquent Silence Among the Igbo of Nigeria. In Tannen, D. & Saville-Troike, M (ed.) Perspectives on Silence. Ablex Publishing Corporation, New Jersey.

Learn from dogs

A dog is a perfect example of how to set your goals. When a dog is hungry it will find its food. When the dog is thirsty it will find water to drink. What is certain is that a dog is not distracted by what happens around it when it sets it's goal on something.

This is something that we must learn from a dog. When the hungry dog finds food and realizes that there is someone near the food, it will wait patiently until the food becomes accessible. When the obstacle moves away the dog moves forward and eats it.

The dog knows that it cannot stay hungry forever. It's hunger needs to be satisfied. It cannot forget it's need. We humans lack this kind of dedication to our goals. If we can be so dedicated to what we want, we can achieve anything. Let us learn a lesson or two from dogs too.

Teaching tolerance in an IIT

Construction industry is one of the biggest industries in India as in the rest of the world. In cities large buildings are completed in systematic and fast fashion. Whether these constructions abide by the rules of the city administration and the nation is a totally different question.

Construction site in front of New Core Lab, IIT Kanpur

Here at IIT Kanpur, a building is being built right in front of my study room. The land is dug up using big machines in the months of March, April and May. Before digging up, they raised a fence around the land. It looked like a joke- it was just 7 feet tall! The pit they dug was almost three storeys deep and about 3 acres wide! The powdery sand from the pit was transported in open trucks across the campus, through a road that lies between the major boys' hostels during, before and after the examination week. This entire region was covered in dust. One could not walk through these roads at any given time of the day because of thick dust raising from the roads.

I wondered how everyone including the administration was blind to this. I know. The trucks passed through a road between students' hostels- not faculty residences. I know that trucks transporting any construction material must be covered. This is the law of the land. But laws are to be broken, aren't they? Especially on the campus of an institute of national importance like IIT, these laws must be broken blatantly so that the students must be normalized- taught a lesson. If a student's blood boils due to the fact that the trucks are not covered and campus is polluted, and they pass through hostel roads 24/7, the boiled blood has to come back to normal temperature sooner or later. This will teach the student a lesson or two about living in India. In the long run, students will learn tolerance. That's the plan. Yes, that's the plan. To raise a generation of educated youngsters who are blind to problems, or are afraid to react to problems. Long live the system!

Living in Kanpur

It's hard to live here in Kanpur.
The area is so polluted that it has a world record in pollution.
To breathe, knowing that each breath reduces my life by a couple of minutes is hard.
It's like suicide.
But there is no other option.
Can I not breathe? No. I can't.
Therefore, breath by breath, I die here.

Can Kanpur's problem of pollution be solved?
It can. But I don't think it will be.
Until the people here- including ordinary people, government and local authorities accept that pollution is a problem, it cannot be solved.
Here, pollution is the order of the day.
Ordinary people spit pan all over the roads and walls.
Industrialists spit chemical waste all over the rivers and land.
Politicians spit venom all over people's minds and hearts.
On top of it, education is a scarce resource.
There is nothing unnatural or extraordinary in it.
Since there is no problem here, nothing can be solved.

When dust storms occur in Kanpur, we can see the profile of human life flying in the air.

Plastic, dust, dirt, debris and waste fill the atmosphere.

No space to breathe.
I could feel my nostrils burn with each breath.
I could feel myself dying breath by breath.

But nothing can be solved here. Because there is no problem here.

It's hard to live among stubborn people.
For them, the world is monolithic.
Their way is the only way.
So I dream of a day when I go away.
So far away that I can breathe clean air.
So I would move away from this place, just for one clean breath.
That alone shouldn't be too hard, I guess!

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson

In this generation-defining self-help guide, a superstar blogger shows us that the key to being stronger, happier people is to handle adversity better and stop trying to be “positive” all the time.

For the past few years, Mark Manson—via his wildly popular blog—has been working on correcting our delusional expectations for ourselves and for the world. He now brings his hard-fought wisdom to this groundbreaking book. 

Manson makes the argument that human beings are flawed and limited. As he writes, “not everybody can be extraordinary—there are winners and losers in society, and some of it is not fair or your fault.” Manson advises us to get to know our limitations and accept them—this, he says, is the real source of empowerment. Once we embrace our fears, faults, and uncertainties—once we stop running from and avoiding, and start confronting painful truths—we can begin to find the courage and confidence we desperately seek.

“In life, we have a limited amount of f*cks to give. So you must choose your f*cks wisely.” Manson brings a much-needed grab-you-by-the-shoulders-and-look-you-in-the-eyes moment of real-talk, filled with entertaining stories and profane, ruthless humor. This manifesto is a refreshing slap in the face for all of us, so that we can start to lead more contented, grounded lives.

(Review is from Amazon)

Shit academics shouldn't do

There are a lot of things that academics do. Not all of them are cool. Here are a few advises for academics. For a better academic, for a better world.

Image Credits

1. Have a bath at least once a day.
2. If you don't have a bath everyday, don't go and sit in public places where others are bound to go. Example, your laboratory. You are making your lab mates' life hell by sitting next to him/her emanating your stench. He/she can't or won't tell you that you stink. But be sensitive and wash yourself for god's or devil's sake!
3. Learn how to use the washroom. All humans poop and pee. But all of us who live with others must learn to flush and make sure that your shit doesn't antagonize others. If you can't do that, what bloody research are you capable of doing? Grow up!
4. Learn and respect traffic rules. You are part of a law abiding society. So you ought to abide by some rules. For example, if someone is crossing the road, you need to stop and wait. If there is no space, you ought to wait before overtaking. If you want to die, please do. But don't kill someone else with your carelessness on the road.
5. No one will scold you for being introvert and spending time alone. Therefore, if you can't brush your teeth, do not get too close to people to share your intellectual gems. Realise that your mouth stinks.
6. Please respect public property. This includes water, furniture, infrastructure, electricity and food. You don't get extra credits on your score card for leaving an open tap in the toilet or running air conditioner in the laboratory. Conserving energy makes you feel good. Try it. 

Overall, be nice to others.