Month: September 2019

Forgiving.

The topic for this week’s 2 on 1 Friday blog post when Shackman and I post on the same topic came to me as a flash of inspiration when I sought Shackman’s forgiveness for delaying the suggestion. I hope that he has. You can indeed check out if he has at his blog.

Having got that little bit of confession off my mind, let me revert to the quote that I have included above. I think that it is a well thought out suggestion that reflects the truth about forgiving more than any other platitudes that one can come across.

I personally do not believe that human beings are capable of forgiving harm done to them. In my case, I have not forgiven anybody who has caused me harm, though I have moved on and in some cases, even forgotten the incidents unless they come up as reminders when something triggers those memories. I think that all of us are like that but, since it is supposed to be divine to forgive, we pretend to ourselves more than to others that we have forgiven. The best that we do, I think is that we drop that person from our lives and move on finding our pleasures and company elsewhere.

I am more inclined to trust this quote.

We Have Moved.

My readers are well aware of how much synchronicity plays a part in my life. It should therefore not come as a surprise to them to read this post about another remarkable event.

On Friday last, I had written a post What Did You Gain Or Lose By Taking A Risk?. In that I had written about leaving a long held position, to shift to Pune in 1990 to a new employer and a new life.

After we had moved cities, bought our new home and settled down, we had sent a folding card to all our friends and family giving our new address.

On Sunday, that is yesterday, the son in law of a dear but departed friend of mine sent me a WhatsApp message that, on going through my late friend’s papers,  he had found that card. This young man does not read my blog posts and so could not have known about my having written about the move.

The first image here shows the main message that appeared on the first page.  Please click on the images for larger resolution.

The inside page showed an interesting message and our new address. I have cropped the address for safety reasons.

Unfortunately, the photographs taken by the young man are not very clear and by the time I had asked for fresh photographs, he had disposed off the card. This is therefore the best that I could get out of the images received in WhatsApp.

Yes, the poignant message “…and we are broke!” brought back a lot of memories. We had put all our savings and also had borrowed heavily to buy and furnish the new home and we were totally broke.  We  had to start our lives more or less all over again. It has been an eventful life since then and, in retrospect, I have no regrets despite having lost my partner who stood by me then and stayed with me during the rebuilding exercise for another two decades.

What Did You Gain Or Lose By Taking A Risk?

I am not much of a risk taker, or, more accurately, there were not many instances when I had to take risks. I can think of three major risks that I took about all of which I have written separately in my earlier blogs but this is a summary of the three to address this week’s 2 on 1 weekly Friday blog post where my consort Shackman and I write on the same subject. This week’s topic has been suggested by Shackman who has just taken a big decision about which I am sure he will write this week. Please do go over to his blog to see what he has to say.

The first risk that I took in my life was when I was all of 22 when I decided to quit my well settled job and life in Chennai to go to Business School for a two year course. I was more or less constrained to take the risk as I had to handle some ticklish personal issues in Chennai and prudence suggested that I remove myself from the scene for a while. I took the risk and the rest as it is said, is history.

Business School, a novel concept in India at that time, resulted in my being recruited off campus by a multinational company where I spent the next twenty three years in a successful career. While I lost the carefree lifestyle of a bachelor by going to the BS, I gained a great career and made many friends, many of whom are still part of my life.

The next big risk that I took was three years later when I was 25. It was a deliberate one of asking my late wife who was till then a friend, to marry me. I lost my bachelor status but gained a partner for the next forty years plus all that marriage brought along with it including a great son.

The third big risk that I took was to quit my employer of 23 years to seek my fortune elsewhere. I took that decision as I knew that I would be uncomfortable with the future direction that the company took and in retrospect, all that I had foreseen took place and I have no regrets whatsoever. Taking that risk exposed me to four other experiences of differing types and those experiences were priceless. Here too, I gained in stature and made many friends some of whom are still very much part of my life.

By taking those three big decisions, I did not lose much but, gained a great deal and the gains are still working for me in my retired life. I have no regrets.

Relocating.

My fellow 2 on 1 Friday blogger Shackman has recently relocated to California and I was inspired to suggest this topic by that move. Please go over to Shackman’s blog to see how he tackles the topic.

My pre-marriage and the first year after that was life living out of a suitcase from the age of 16 for me. I had relocated a few times between Hyderabd and Chennai/Mumbai and also Ahmedabad before my marriage in November 1968. Relocating was simply a matter of packing my suitcase and moving to a hotel, hostel or paying guest accommodation and did not make for much effort or difficulty.

The first home we set up after marriage was in Delhi and since it was for a stay of just a few months, we had taken a barsati on rent and hired furniture and bare minimum utensils and a stove but both of us lived off suitcases.

The first proper home that we lived in was in Mumbai between 1970 and mid 1973 when we acquired furniture, cooking utensils, linen, etc and when we had to move to Kolkata, we were exposed for the first time to relocating with major packing, discarding etc but, the redeeming feature of the exercise was that we could hire professional packers and movers who did the dirty work, stored the stuff till we found accommodation at Kolkata and unpacked for us too.

From that first move, we relocated to Kerala, back to Mumbai on three occasions, Delhi and Bengaluru and finally to Pune in 1990 where we bought our home where I continue to live till date. During these relocations we moved and set up new homes on eight separate occasions till we put in our final roots.

I had to relocate on two separate occasions afterwards to Tirupur but since it was to furnished accommodation on both occasions I simply had to pack a suitcase. Whenever Urmeela came to stay with me there, she too simply had to come with a packed suitcase. So those two relocations were not really relocations in the true sense.

The only major disruption that we experienced during the relocations was in the schooling of our son Ranjan which, we once even had to solve by admitting him to a boarding school for three years. In retrospect, those three years were also the most disturbing for both of us despite frequent meetings with him at his school as well as his coming home for his vacations. Another experience that I would not wish on anyone.

I can therefore confidently assert that I am a seasoned and well-experienced relocator. I would not like to do that again though as I am now too well ensconced in my comfort zone in Pune where it will be three decades next year, since we relocated.