Prevention better than cure!

The world of mothers and women are very different from the world of fathers and men, I'm not starting a gender war here, but just sharing some conversations that I've heard in the last  fortnight that makes women think, act and behave more responsibly than men. Before I share musings at my home, why don't you read Ms. Angelina Pitt's opinion on NYTIMES (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/24/opinion/angelina-jolie-pitt-diary-of-a-surgery.html). 

Angelina is a responsible mother, who is aware of her genetic make-up and inherent risks. She periodically goes through medical screenings and shares findings and her decisions with the world. In a world where celebrities and even working class stay tight lipped about their plastic surgeries, Angelina is open about her health and her decisions to undergo double mastectomy and hysterectomy. Bravo!

A superhuman and superwoman

Many of us still think only breasts and uterus define a woman and qualifies them for the much coveted "motherhood" status, but losing them doesn't make them any less womanly or motherly. For a minute I asked how much a woman is Angelina, but then looking at her courage and responsible behavior to educate larger public I put her on the highest pedestal. She is definitely a super woman and a super human who dwarfs Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.

Secrets du La Chambre: womb or tomb?

Every year my mother uses discounts given by clinics around International Women's Day to get her yearly screenings done (blood tests, mammogram, uterus scans, etc.). Yes, waiting for discounts, and haggling is a quality of a real mother. 

Though my mother never went to college, but that didn't deter her from reading up all women-related and age-related health issues and take preventive measures to protect her and keep her family informed. During one such screenings, doctors found chances of her developing uterine cancer quite high. Her mother had her hysterectomy at the age of 50 due to fibroids (fibroids if unattended can turn into tumor and eventually into cancer). After multiple consultations, she decided to get rid of the chamber where two of the three of us stayed full-term. My brother was premature and my sister reminded upside down (breach baby). Had she not done her preventive check-ups the womb would have become a tomb.

Fears comes true

Post her hysterectomy, my mother has been concerned about developing osteoporosis. In fact her mother developed osteopenia after her hysterectomy at the age of 50. This was 30-years ago and my grandmother wasn't given calcium supplements post surgery. And this year when my mother added bone density to her lists of tests (discount offer, courtesy: IWD celebrations) she was little scared and her intuition and fear came true. She was diagnosed with osteopenia (early stage) and she already knew what needed to be done before she consulted the doctor with her reports. 

Impeccable track record

On the other hand, my father's side is genetically predisposed to heart ailments. My father and his brothers are the first generation in a hundred years to see their 65 birthday. I still have another 25 years to get there! My grand father died when he was 38 and his father died died at the age of 41. My dad suffered a heart attack at 31, and finally underwent  by-pass at 58 and also carries around a defibrillator under his collar bone. In my generation, 3 out of 12 were born with congenital heart defects. But none others except me in the extended family go for a periodic medical exam given the genetic predisposition. I was able to find out my congenital heart issue (PAPVC) during my yearly medical exam and I was able to get surgical intervention to reroute the eloped pulmonary veins before a heart failure. 

My mother may not be a celebrity; she has her fears like Angelina and doesn't shy away from discussing genetic predispositions, scheduling our medical exams and researching on the findings. And every time one of us go to the clinic for a screening my mother becomes anxious. She was never this anxious even when we went for his high school exams. Only women and mothers can think of prevention, remember predispositions and recommend routine screenings to protect the family. 

Health is wealth - if you have not had such conversations at home and screenings, do so today. Prevention is better than cure! 

Stop! Think. Act.

I woke up before the alarm went off yesterday and this happens every time I go to bed anxious. It could be about catching an early morning flight, preparing for an important business meeting the following morning or at the crossroads of life. I still remember how restless I was the night before my heart surgery; even the anxiety pill failed to work. 

Anyway, waking up before the wake-up call could be considered a false alarm, but what if there is something important and significant lurking in your mind or being able to sense the soon-to-arrive tsunami like avians and animals. I woke up at 1.37 am, but my efforts to force myself to fall asleep failed. I got out of bed an hour later to make a cup of coffee and pen down an email to my family on what happened less than 24 hours at work. 

Dear all,

The intention of this email is make all of us list down common and individual challenges, and how we can ensure life as-usual in case there is a situation. Here is an incident that will enable you to start thinking.

I had a work situation yesterday that put me in a bit of stress, but we managed it very well. At 8.45 am yesterday my boss collapsed at work. He was fine a few minutes ago and we even exchanged a good conversation that morning and I was puzzled how life holds secrets of future without a password or even a login screen. He held his chest, wriggled in pain and almost fell on the floor in front of me. I felt helpless and so many thoughts crossed my mind before the paramedics arrived. I thought about how to get the message across to his family and how they would manage the situation. 

This brought memories of receiving a phone calls at work from Amma when Appa was taken to the hospitals in Chennai (2004) and Thanjavur (2009) for recurrent arrhythmia. Though Amma managed the situation very well in getting him immediate medical attention, while each of us took care of other responsibilities from arranging the right emotional, financial and medical support to get over the situation. Over the years we've got really experienced in receiving bad news and surviving them.

Since my move to Paris I have been following my manager like a shadow at work, and I wanted to accompany him to the hospital and travel with him in the ambulance. Instead left him in the hands of the paramedics and doctors and put a small Ganesha idol in his pocket to accompany on this journey. Ther were many things to be taken care of at work. Even when he was in pain my manger was murmuring the tasks to be completed and asked to convey the apologies to the team. I know he would not be upset if I didn't go with him in the ambulance.

As a senior member in the team, I quickly called for a team meeting to make a list of all items he handled and how we would distribute work amongst us and keep the business running. My manager copied us on important emails and he was no afraid of trusting us with responsibilities. This was possible because there was a good amount of transparency in the team and willingness to take additional responsibilities. 

Not all of us are comfortable to share our work and responsibilities because we are afraid of being replaced or losing importance. But we must be practical and think of people and organizations after our time and must not cause inconvenience those who leave behind. My heart surgery though happened suddenly gave me an opportunity to organize my life and put things black and white on a spreadsheet.

With flight accidents becoming a front page story every month, last August before I took a flight to India, I left copies of all important files on the server. On the other hand my boss leaves paper copies of all documents in the filing cabinet. We've created an ideal back-up for back-up. 

But luckily there was nothing life threatening as imagined, and my manager was discharged from the hospital later in the evening. He was diagnosed of stress, fatigue and burn out and was advised a minimum of two weeks rest.

This can happen to anyone and at any house hold. It is important that we organize our financial documents, passwords and share our commitments, etc. There can be family secrets, but no individual secrets. We've had several close calls at home and we still operate in silos and continue to be a risk to each other. 

I have an excel file with all my passwords, and details of all financial investments and monthly payments. I have a similar file at work given access to team members and created adequate back-ups to ensure business-as-usual. Imagine if none of this was available. It would put undue stress on the teams to figure out reality and bring back things under control. 

Many years ago (1997) when I was leaving for U.S. Appa had created a documented outlining various scenarios (loss of baggage, passport, guardian doesn't show up at the airport, etc.) how I must go about solving each of them without panic. This was such a brilliant idea compared to free and unsolicited advices that I got from friends who came to wish be before the journey.

Sadly, we have no control over our destinies or our future, but think about who next and what next. I don't mind helping you create your personal file to organize your investments, payments, passwords and create back-ups to simplify our lives. 

We've had several wake up calls and false alarms in the family and we still don't have a contingency plan in place. Thanks to our laziness, ego and insecurity. The pain of sharing is easier to endure than pain of self discovery. Stop, think and act!

Chandra 

There is nothing wrong waking up to false alarms than hitting on the snooze button and panicking later. At the time of crisis, we all need a manual or guidance and it is possible to create those manuals with the help of our colleagues and family members. Let's save Anxit for other situations that is not under our control. 

Signing off Digitally

We live in a digital era where friendships are forged and forgotten at the twiddle of our thumbs. The same newspaper that publishes scientific studies showing how smart phones and technology is altering social side of humans (read as ruining relationships) continues to expand their digital footprint and social media presence. While one set of parents want to prolong the digital innocence of their children and delay their social web graduation, the other set gets an email account and face book account for their unborn babies with a hurry to establish their digital identities. What is happening here? I am missing the obvious and ominous signs?

Define the qualification criteria

A few years ago I analyzed the digital requests that I receive from colleagues, new acquaintances and strangers. Colleagues with whom I work every day and new acquaintances sent me Facebook requests, while strangers with whom I’ve never seen or professional engaged with continue send me LinkedIn requests. Why do these people want connect with me on the digital space? Does engaging on the digital space means blurring lines between colleagues, acquaintances and strangers?

Begin with a purpose

In age where social media following decides your celebrity status, establishing the purpose and communicating it is important to sustain the connection. I rarely send out requests until I am absolutely sure that we needed to stay engaged through digital channel. When some of my friends from the same city send me a FB request, I ruthlessly denied their acceptance. I prefer saving them for a real face-to-face interaction and delay their admission until we moved to different cities. I apply the same principles to requests that I received on LinkedIn. I let my colleague’s requests age and add them when I moved on to another organization and when there is real need and purpose.

Let them earn their stripes

Though I operated on Facebook under an alias, I followed a set of self-made rules to add or delete. During the four years operating under an alias, I never used privacy control nor did I use the delete button often because I made a conscious choice of whom I let in into my digital world. I even told the aspirants that there is a 3 year waiting period to get on my Facebook, just to discourage them from queuing up and weed out the fake ones (inspired by Michael Porters Marketing Model Framework). I prefer letting people earn their stripes just as my grandmother selectively relaxes the entry rules to her kitchen.

More control, less troll

It is important that we control our interactions and engagements to make them mutually meaningful in the social media maze. I used social media to inform my dear ones (only 35) on my whereabouts and the amazing discoveries I made during my trips, I shared images of what I baked on a Sunday afternoons, interesting reads I came across, personal points-of-views, and sometimes tagged them to videos and articles based on their interests. I was never upset if they didn’t take notice of my posts or liked them.

Ignore bloated egos and inflated endorsements

Who invented the Like button?  The Like button is like soda; it comes with a lot of sugar and fizz and gives you a momentary rush that eventually turns into an addict. When I talk about the Like button I must also talk about endorse and recommend features on LinkedIn. Sometimes reading through mutual endorsements, makes me feel suspicious if I am reading facts or fiction. Every sentence is punctuated with a superlative and makes individuals look a Superman or Superwoman. Where are the real people? Or do you misrepresent us to the world? Have we become fabulous liars on the digital world? I still have a few unprocessed recommendations waiting because I don’t know them more to endorse their work.

The last straw

During the recent Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, I had shared an opinion column from the Guardian on my FB page on how “Je suis Charlie” campaign doesn’t make sense. Within minutes one of my friends on FB sent me a text message saying that I was being anti-French and that he is ashamed to have known me and stay connected with me on Facebook. Honestly, I liked the arguments put forward by the author and her healthy approach of approaching a subject from multiple viewpoints rather than being steadfast and standing our ground and going for the easy delete option. A harmless post uprooted a friendship that took years to sprout.

Digital makes no difference

I learnt my biggest lessons of life from observing and engaging with people on digital world. Despite having these stringent rules and principles, I’ve infuriated friends and managed to lose some good friendships. I’ve also compared the quality of relationships that I hold with people who I don’t engage digitally vs with those whom I engage digitally. I find that the digital world grows our unconscious bias and colors our perception based on images we see and information we read and share. Jealousy, superego, and narcissism creep in like an uninvited guest (weeds) and forces one to re-think their presence and friends on digital world.

Back to old ways

Values and morals seemed to be missing in the digital world. What has recently worried me is our digital appetite: the way we consume data and people, the trend has been more worrying than what we eat and calories associated with it. I had to end my addiction!

After much contemplation backed by experiences and data points from my social experimentations, I hit the delete button on multiple channels last week. I didn’t want to vanish discourteously from their world without a notice or a thank-you. I sent out emails to all those whom I was connected with informing them about my decision to end my digital presence and signed off digitally. Yes, I am back to my good old ways of engaging with real people and face-to-face.

Social Experiments

Technology constantly runs social experiments on people and puts human interaction to test. Some of us adopt and adapt, while some of us just deny entertaining such opportunities. Let me be honest, I prefer organic conversations (writing an email or face-to-face interaction); but nevertheless Skype is an acceptable substitute. And the recent experience confirmed that getting into someone's personal boundary also belongs to the category of social experiment.

I must confess that my Paris sojourn has brought in a regular flow of friends to my place; who've helped my discover the city and comfortable places in my own house. Should I call it making memories? And the large hide-a-bed in my living room doubled up as a comfortable resting place for these tired visitors and tourists.

I have travelled with both men and women and we've often shared rooms and beds during our trips. Not sure what the world around imagined about us, but it is fun to trick the world the world into thinking the obvious. And in the process we end up learning more about ourselves and our friendship has gotten stronger. 

Individual spaces and boundaries define who we are and sometimes when the boundary gets redrawn we explore the new territories. My friend comes from a culture where every newborn has its own space, while I come from the culture where a family always sleeps together. And we've known each other for over eight years; we lived in the same city for sometime,we've done vacations to together and we've even slept besides each other in many cities: Maine, Hampi, Paris, Amsterdam. That has trained him to carry ear plugs to block out my snore. 

When I was growing up, individuals room was a luxury at home. My siblings and I slept together for over 17 years and during summer we slept won't our parents since the house had only one air-conditioner. Things started to change when I left home at 18 and it took me a while before I felt secure sleeping by myself. After 22 years of going to bed by myself, I felt sharing beds could affect each other's sleep quality from tossing, turning and nasal disturbances. And I was about to find out the answer from a 15-day trial.

And when he came to visit me this month, the hide-a-bed in the living room stopped working. I didn't know how he felt when I delivered the message about sharing the bed until he went back home and messaged me a week later. 

Over the two years, I perfected the art of making my bed comfortable for one and two to converse and sleep. By facing each other the bed gave us an opportunity to enjoy a face2face conversation without having to twist our necks, and we had more rooms when we flipped on our sides without having to touch/disturb each other. 

Since I had the habit of sleeping early, he would stop watching television and would come in lay down next to me to enjoy a long conversation before we both fell asleep. While in bed we both ensured mutual comfort and had interesting conversations on a variety of topics ranging from foreign policy, elderly parents, professional life, our futures, etc. before we fell asleep. And in the morning, I would ensure that my departure from the bed didn't disturb his sleep and I even closed door to prevent sunlight from entering the room. Some days he was awake and we spoke about places he should visit during the day and our meeting plans for the evening.

One of those nights, I asked my friend when was the last time he shared beds. He said it was a few years ago when we did a vacation together in Maine and then quickly went back to share an experience sleeping besides a female classmate. But then confirmed this was longest duration he had ever slept besides a man. But was it good or bad?

We all get used to the luxuries of life and technology and when we are forced to live without it, it becomes painful. Yes, that also includes getting used to an empty space besides me on my bed and we were both getting used to it. 

Yesterday, we were both awake after midnight, and it had hardly been 10 days since he visited me. After discussing about our weekend, he confessed missing our long conversations and trouble getting used to sleeping alone. I echoed his feelings and continued to toss and turn with a hope to quickly fall asleep. 15-day trial period didn't come with an extension :)

I realized that non functioning of the hide-a-bed made us participate in social experiment that put us in touch with our true feelings. What kept me awake last night apart from the coffee that I had at 5pm was having an opportunity to have a room-mate who doubled up as a good friend. How brilliant would it be to meet up with him after work and catch a movie in the middle of week, wander around the town on Friday nights and bake together on Sunday afternoons. I convinced him of our soon-to-start Exotic Marigold Hotel in India. Until then, I'm eagerly waiting for my friend's next trip. 

Get your Swiss Account

At a time when the ruling government in India is formulating a bill to severely punish those parking black money in tax heavens, I have boldly opened a Swiss account. An account that promises me of water-tight and air-tight privacy. No governments or courts will be able to access my information. Doesn't that interest you?

The Swiss are finicky about sharing private information and for the first time this policy works in the favor of public and Indian public who are waiting to get back trillions of money (black) stashed in Switzerland can rejoice.

I recently watched the award winning documentary, Citizenfour that narrates snooping and data privacy. A week later, I watched an interesting talk on TED about email that guarantees personal privacy through data subscription (https://protonmail.ch/). If you are not convinced watch this: https://www.ted.com/talks/andy_yen_think_your_email_s_private_think_again

A few things are close to my heart that includes sustainability, sugar-free diet, vegetarianism,  South Indian classical music, and personal privacy. Though I'm honest and open in expressing my thoughts on my blogs, but that doesn't qualify that I'm ready to sacrifice my privacy. Not that I'm writing something illegal, but I don't want my communications to be read or shared without my permission. 

After signing up for my account (I got a confirmation email that my account will be created and I will be informed in the coming days), I shared this good news with some of my dear ones, and one of them wrote back to me with a search engine that protects your privacy. Search engine: https://duckduckgo.com/privacy

In a world where every idea is commercialized, and quickly taken to IPO, such services have taken the route of crowdsourcing to protect our digital freedom and privacy. So be liberal and donate to Protonmail and others who guarantee your privacy. Be wise and stay protected. 

But for now it is too late…

It has been 18 years since I began working, and my school life seemed to have followed me like a faithful dog. Is it me or is it the system? I still carry my lunch-box and some of my colleagues even take company buses to work. Our professional life mirrors  school life in many ways other ways too.

We begin the day without a school bell or assembly, but we come out grim from the 30 and 60 minute conference calls that remind us of Math and History classes. We may not run around the office during lunch-breaks, but we still enjoy sharing from our lunch boxes or escort each other to the canteen. And on the days they are absent; our days appear long and grey and breaks are unappetizing.

The business units we work in remind us of our classrooms and our superiors remind us of our teachers. We may not play book-cricket any more, but solitaire is good enough. We strike conversations with our colleagues with a hope to discover a hidden friend in them. Sometimes we get lucky, but many at times it remains transactional. Those discovered friends become our Stonehenge, we rest our professional burdens at the minimum and sometimes we use them as a sounding board to compare raises and discuss other aspects of our lives.

In the course of the year, the organization holds internal competitions that stack rank individuals on various dimensions (cricket, dance, football, music, quiz, fashion, etc.) in the name of employee engagement. They also celebrate annual days where some of the winners from these competitions get to showcase their hidden and special talent. Oh, I forgot to mention about Tech Fiesta that reminds me of science project fairs in schools inaugurated by scientists and bureaucrats.   

Every year, one among us get elevated to play the class monitor (some say brown-nosing, while some argue performance), and we immediately notice a quick switch in loyalty from friends/colleagues to superiors. Shit! Yes, and now we are confused how to handle our relationship with the person in his/her new capacity. Caution builds distance and occasional complains stop and we start to measure words and we lose a trusted colleague.

Finally, the school year finishes with the evaluations. Some of us come out in flying colors (Not 50 shades of Gray please), while some of us get relegated to the corner and are made to stay longer in the same classroom. Those moving to the next grades are put in new (sections) teams, and we have new superiors and colleagues to build rapport with. And needless to say, exams and evaluations happen and similarly one among us gets to be the next monitor.

Like in schools, there are back-benchers who arrive late, make after deadline submissions, and enjoy every day of their life and their colleagues’ life too. Then there are fringe elements that do what they are not supposed to-do at work (for ex: browse questionable sites) and turn into a corporate bully who harasses colleagues. While some of them get to stay for long and continue with their under the radar activities, some get caught and shown the door.

And every time a colleague leaves, we pool in money to organize a small party and give them a token of appreciation. Soon follows an invite to follow them or write a recommendation in LinkedIn (digital autograph book). 

Every evening is the same. Mom welcomes you with a cup of coffee, checks on your lunch-box and the tales that come along with it. There are days when you rave about a raise and move to a new section, and but then there are days when you don’t have the energy to rant and go back to doing your homework.

Now we’ve discovered our school life is no different from my professional life, we still ask our kids, nephews and nieces to go to school. Every Friday evening, Sunday evening and Monday morning still feels the same. Though our summer vacations are not elaborate, but we still have to stay connected and finish our homework. In the end, nights are still sleepless, we still care about some of our colleagues, and we work hard and to-do well in my evaluations and please our superiors.

Had my parents told me before, I would have been a proud school drop-out. But for now it is too late.

Society and its influence on our Self-worth

The word "Self-worth" seemed to be stuck in my head since yesterday. While I was cutting brinjals this morning I looked at either halves and little pieces to check there were no trapped insects (dead or alive). That is how I've seen my mother inspect while cutting brinjals. Aren't we all like those insects caught between society and self-worth?

Suddenly I went back to January of 2000, I was working in Warick and was also pursing my MBA in the evening. My sister had got married that January, I still remember the exact date because it also happens to be her birthday. Not sure if it is a good idea to let these two days overlap; especially if you one of them fails it takes away your self-worth and drags those emotional attached along with you. 

Birthday and wedding day

After her marriage, my sister and her husband moved to US. He was a year away from finishing his PhD at UIUC. He was a year senior to me at school and this alliance was all arranged. My sister is of the type that let her life decisions with our parents and that was one of the reasons why she didn't question when her marriage date and birthday fell on the same day. True, nobody begins a new union with a skepticism, but still it is good to anticipate accidents and break-downs along the way or have maturity to deal with it.

One-way ticket

One way tickets sound death knell, and that fall all the suspects who rammed aircraft into the WTC and Pentagon had purchased one way-tickets. Within 3 months after her marriage, my sister was sent to visit me on a short trip. My brother-in-law and his mother booked her a one-way trip to RI and my sister was too naive to understand and question their intent. 

That spring became a long winter

That was the last time she saw them and what soon followed was a divorce notice. An unconsummated marriage run by an educated mother-in-law and probably son who behaved like a pet animal and their marriage seemed like a social obligation. During the three months my parents were checking with my sister on her physical intimacy, domestic peace like every parent of 23 year old who would send their only daughter 10,000 miles away. When my sister confronted him for lack of physical intimacy things started to snowball at my sister. He blamed the stress from his impending dissertation and alongside blamed my sister for not being smart enough and academic oriented. 

I was 26 and between a full-time job and a part-time MBA class three times a week I had an additional responsibility of now attending to my sister and sort her marital discord and associated legal entanglement. I went and met Prof. John Dunn whose Business Law course I was enrolled in that spring semester and he put me in touch with a friend who practiced family law in Illinois. 

Fitting into definitions 

Coming from a conservative Brahmin family and we were finding it difficult to explain the situation to my sister, to relatives and friends and to ourselves. Let me explain the definition of conservative at our household: women stayed in a separate room during their periods, wearing anything other than a half-saree or a saree was unacceptable, and my male classmates were not allowed into the house and me or my brother had to escort my sister if she had to step out of our house. For male members, we were not allowed to wear jeans or shorts and we were not allowed to watch movies or leave home after dark.

In a Brahmin household a marriage is seen a lifetime relationship and for it to be broken within 4 months was apocalyptic. While the lawyer started to discuss the grounds with the lawyer on the other side, the crowd back in India started to blame my parents and my sister for their karma. Bad husband and a failed marriage equals bad karma of a family. While some relatives who mean our well-being started to blame our karma, while more nobler ones started to cast aspersions on my sister and her character affecting all our self-worth. 

The fall begins

By that fall, all possibilities to salvage the marriage failed and we were heading for the full and final settlement. Since I had a full-time job and had enrolled 3 more courses in fall, I had asked my dad to come down and finish the court formalities which included travel to the court in Illinois. And on December 10, 200 my dad and sister had returned home with a failed marriage and a court notice that proved her innocence. 

In fact my sister had begged her husband not to divorce her and that she was prepared to live in an unconsummated marriage for life rather than going back home and disappointing her family. I don't know why women are expected to to live through bad marriages and why a divorce is considered a curse on the family?  

I could see my family struggling from the evaluations made by the society and their own friends and relatives. I didn't want them to go down and since I was emotionally attached to them I had to put a fight and get them back on their legs. I finished my MBA the following spring, shelved my PhD plan, resigned my job and came back home. Constructing my sisters life and resurrecting the self-worth of the family was on top of my list. 

Resurrection is only after crucifixion 

I reached home on May 31, 2001 and had already put together a plan on various fronts. Give me sister freedom and independence to choose and make her life decisions and probably get here employed before starting to think about her marriage again. In parallel, I had to mute the relatives and friends who were sometimes talking shit behind our backs. I wrote a polite half-page letter addressing my friends and relatives and asking them to take moral responsibility to understand the truth and not gossip and kill a family with their words. Subject of the mail read: There was no free lunches even in marriages and I had enclosed a copy of the annulment not if where my brother-in-law had told the court that he was a psychological gay (at that time it wasn't legal to be gay in US) and the court had annulled the marriage. In fact I had also shared a paragraph on the difference between annulment and divorce and why my sister and family needed more of their love and blessings and immediate need to shutdown gossips and rumor mills.

What followed was a decade of experiences on health front, specially for my dad. Stress took a toll on his self-worth and eventually ended up for an emergency by-pass. And I had just begun to work in India and I was overqualified and underpaid whore (I'm borrowing your terminology) and it was difficult I make both ends meet especially when there is no medical insurance for the family. 

If you look at history and analyze reasons for wars, independence movements and revolutions they point at self-worth. When self-worth of individuals in power or the overall society is  undermined or disrespected, the change occurs. We were neither powerful nor large in numbers to start a revolution, but such occurrences are a part of every home today and I must say reformation is on its way and outlooks are changing. 

My dad's siblings watched us from a distance and some made fake promises to show up the next morning with money. My mother jewels and some fixed-deposit receipts were mortgaged to meet the medical expenses over the next 12 months my sister and I used our pay-checks to get out of our financial obligations. During the period of recuperation, my father was emotionally shattered from watching his children fend for him and putting up with the harsh words of his elder brother asking him to go back to the village and look at the family lands. If my father was smart enough he would have built substantial savings for his family from the agricultural income, but instead he saved up and gave money for his elder brother to get his daughters married. 

With my brother getting closer to 30, he was peaking his marriageable age, but with my sister at home we couldn't predict the dynamics of another girl walking into the house. Eventually, 7 years later my sister was married to another divorcee who lives with his family in Vasant Kunj in Delhi. While our prime was put to use reconstruct her life and all our self-worth and save the family from the aspersions of this society and community. 

Finally arrives the spring

They are Brahmins from Trichy who had migrated to Lucknow and Delhi in early years after independence. This time around I asked my parents to visit them and stay with them at their place for a few days and also asked them to come down and stay with us for a few days to do the due diligence and ensure there was a cultural fit and more so on the values front. My nephew is 9 years old (going to 4th grade) and here is a video on him at the age of 2.5 singing a complex Sanskrit krithi by Muthuswami Dikshithar, one of the trinity composers of Carnatic Music - https://youtu.be/h3rDK4uBW1M 

Krithi by Shyama Sastri: https://youtu.be/w5UTkCO_b8Q

Another Krithi by Muthuswami Dikshithar: https://youtu.be/n-WBr8ipM7w

Astapathi of Jeyadeva: https://youtu.be/svuNt_4grjk

Project of our lives

He still learns Carnatic music in Delhi and my sister was a performing musician until her first marriage. When he was a year old, my sister and present BIL had an opportunity to move to US on a 2-year project and this gave my sister an opportunity to erase her fears and bad memories associated with US and I sent my family to visit her so that they get over the trauma of US and horrible experience. And at last, I made a trip in 2011 August, a year after my heart surgery to visit US and get closure from my abrupt departure in 2001.

The past decade has been busy learning lessons of life and more importantly resurrecting our own self-worth and extricating ourselves from the hunters web (society and relatives) and walking back to life using our sticks called values. Today, I see my nephew as success for all our trials and tribulations. Hopefully, he will grow up to be a responsible son, and understand the importance of self-worth and battle one needs to wage to protect it. 

While these thoughts were cooking in my mind, I finished making one-half of the brinjal into South Indian style dry seasoned with coconut, coriander and red chili grind and the other half into Mysore style gravy (cut brinjal into small square pieces) cooked with tamarind paste and added boiled toor dal and with fistful jaggery at the end.