I, dad and Tagore

Today is Rabindra Jayanti and this brings back so many memories.

I was seven, when I thought I had written my first poem.

It actually was just a line – Robi tumi Kobi (Robi, you are a poet) – I did not know then, that I was just stating the obvious, something the whole world already knew. My young brain thought differently - How can people miss the rhyme? Rhyming is a key component of poem.

I remember showing that line to everyone in the family, fishing for compliments, particularly waiting for appreciation from my father who had a great collection of Tagore’s music.

My father was a poet. I read his ramblings.

After that one line, I had written many more on different occasions. My family tolerated my scribbles particularly the ones I wrote in colloquial Bengali. Tagore must have twisted in his grave.

Honestly I was personally not a big fan of my own poems though and soon realized when something disturbed me I found poems as an easy outlet. That was it. So it was nothing profound for the world – just a mental release. This arrangement worked well for many years till I finally realized, I can try and weave stories which people can read and like however I seriously do not quite have the depth for poems at all.

I and dad watched Mushairas regularly. I attempted singing the songs from a Bengali Movie “Dadar Kirti”. The point I am trying to make is we grew up with these little nothings around Tagore, love for poems, his music, his life, his personality and looking for meaning in poems of other languages – Hindi, Urdu and English.

This blog is not supposed to be a diary entry with a long story on “Me” and my “Memories”. This blog has a definite point to make.

I have quit corporate roughly five years back and when I was asked today by a friend, “What are your retirement plans?” I had to emphasize “I am retired”

Retired to do what, if one may ask - to live

Do we even know while we are busy making a living, something called life quietly passes

Why have your poems dried up?

Where are the stories and why are they lost?

Because the world is busy earning their livelihood, without the faintest clue how much they need to live, even if they live till ninety, even with medication requirements, even with building contingency funds, even with annual vacations, even with inflation, even with growing responsibilities.

Once we know that figure, we can retire – mentally first, then physically or get ready for second innings, more grandiose plans to leave legacy or work for greater good.

Here is one of Tagore's quote to remind you

You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water

If you think, the time is now to live, then pause, reflect, take charge, change directions, make critical lifestyle choices, manage priorities and give life a chance.

Can you do that merely by staring at the whirlwind called life?

Here is one more line from Tagore to get you to act

I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy

Lifestyle choices: The Financial Bit.

The following is an excerpt of a mail I sent to my cousin sister in response to an article she sent me on investment:

In my early twenties, I used to read a magazine called Investors that kind of shaped my thinking - I never believed in long term FDs because inflation neutralizes the marginal gain and short terms are just plain useless.

Now I focus on vital few (invest in a project or two) instead of trivial many (paper assets, properties, insurance etc)- a disciplined and structured pursuit to live with less. I may have reasonably high financial goals for the next decade, not in a competitive way but a collaborative way working with my tribe, and "savings" has no role to play here.

Savings/ FDs never made a person rich by experience or wealthy by currency. Something saved for a rainy day, often gets spent on a rainy day.

Our factory model education system (That is linear and based on conformity) is zero on financial literacy. The generation today, don't even know how much they want, why they want - It is more about external validation and social acceptance. They understand net worth and the Forbes list, however clueless about self worth. I did not intend to react about the article with a "Me" thing or generalizing a generation - An economy is not just about government, it is about individual thinking. How can thinking evolve if education is all about pursuits, scores, degrees and failed parenting strategies?

If youth today, think of solving an issue, addressing a cause, be a global citizen instead of studying for a job or a pay check, they will not talk savings, but assets that appreciates - The whole world is their market - they bring home dollars. They will not talk about retirement benefits, but about leaving a huge legacy long after they are gone.

The topic "Savings" is a favorite pass time for many from our generation because they do not quiet understand anything else, like investing 1/10th their money in someone's business that can fetch them returns in a year (Angel Investors) - So what most people think is the safest investment FD is actually the weakest link in their financial landscape and sole dependence on that can be disastrous.

I am going to leave you all with two questions:

1] Do you know or have any idea, exactly how much you need to earn to live happily ever after? 

2] Do you think the reason why you are working so hard, is because you do not know how much you  actually need?

Gender Equality: Myths and Truths

Recently during a phone conversation with my cousin, when I asked him to visit us, he abruptly told he hardly has time to visit relatives because at times he is working on Sundays too.

His wife is over forty, a graduate and she sings well. That is it.

She never did a job, never tried for one and never wanted to do one. She felt extremely useful doing the domestic chores, which ideally should have been outsourced to a maid (to siphon some money from those who have to those who do not have as much as you do). I think that makes perfect sense.

Why would someone want to graduate if they had no intention of using it anywhere during their lifetime, not even to teach your own kids? My cousin’s son has tutors. The lady of the house, as far as I know has one permanent duty – To take her son on a rickshaw to the tutors and back home (Notice, I said rickshaw who again gets paid by my cousin’s earnings)

I tried to kindle some spark and some hope because there are so many online opportunities today for stay at home moms. His wife can easily try earning from any one of those to ease the pressure on my cousin from being solo provider. Now my cousin, quick to defend, started nagging about how his wife also lacks time to engage in something new.

He is 54 and he has no plans of retiring any time soon. He sold his two storied independent house to buy a flat near the railway station so that availing local trains become easier to reach his work place. I asked him why one earth does he want a flat near the station when he is likely to retire in a few years.

His response kind of shocked me – “I can work till I am seventy” or something on those lines. Of course one can work till he is ninety however why would he want to continue the same hardships, hustling in a train. His plan to travel by local train even when he is seventy is what shocked me.

Key Takeaway: Dinosaur mindsets

End of Scene 1

Eye candy

Brainless trophy wife

Arm candy

Brainless beauties

Look good and stay quite

Who are they?

Do they choose to be that?

Did they ever have personalities of their own?

Could they be professional achievers?

Do they naturally drift towards social causes because they are genuinely concerned or because that’s easiest route to fame?

Do they have soul searching moments regarding purpose of life?

Did they really sacrifice their careers or are they just not career material?

Are they just hot, fashionable, trendy and highly insecure about their twitter and Instagram followers?

Are they highly educated or at least self-assured?

Can she hold her own financially?

Do they make good money?

Could they be in positions of power?

Is it just the bedroom or the boardroom?

Can she have a high paying career?

Do they take up a hobby or two every spring?

Are they docile helpmates or ambitious achievers?

I have known people who talk and write about women empowerment and yet when the time comes to choose career moves – say a transfer to a new city, it is the woman who quits her job to facilitate husband’s ambitious transfer.

End of Scene 2

I am labeled a feminist not because I am single or because my friends, regardless of gender, have always cooked in my apartment. They qualified to use my kitchen not because of their gender, but because of their ability to have a full meal ready for a large group.

The label comes because of blogs like these.

I am labeled ambitious because I happily chose to be single and most people I know believe I chose career to marriage. Yeah Right, that is why I retired at 42 quitting my job of 11 years without much thought. Independence matters, nothing else. Confinement does not define me. Suspend judgment and let choices breathe some air please.

I chose to earn my bread, build my humble abode, travel in a budget, buy a low end car and live my life. I worked hard for many years to earn each of these.

And many out there chose to be fed, live in a mansion inherited by spouse, be trendy and fashionable while rearing kids, learn Salsa and Spanish while ordering the maid to cook Continental and yet this lot is considered less ambitious because they chose a life without a career.

How ambitious is it to cross your feet and have food for years together that someone else earns for you? How ambitious is it to squander money on shopping and travel using someone’s hard earned income?

Key Takeaway: Brains are the new beauty and the new gender

The challenge today is not the inherent bias we observe towards gender but when the woman consciously chooses to take a back seat with a mindset that sets disastrous examples for the next generation and the man chooses to defend such a move.

One’s lifestyle choices is a derivative of how you think, what you think of others who toil for you, how sensitive you are of other’s well-being, how much importance you give to people’s opinion, your self-esteem and most important your personal sense of self -worth.

I will leave readers thinking about my cousin who plans to continue working for the next 15 years and the level of stress he is likely to be exposed to in future

And my non ambitious counter part, who choose not to earn or support in this responsibility to provide for family - both financial and non-financially because that decision is deliberate, circumstances manufactured for personal convenience/ defense and absolutely parasitic in nature. 

Write to ramosara.foundation@gmail.com about experiences you want to share regarding alternate living to create awareness about lifestyle choices.

Important Update 29th April - One brain stroke on 22nd April and I lost my cousin this week. 

It is my birthday, today.

An old school friend called me from Bangalore today. She recently lost her mother and I could not muster courage to call her when I first learnt about it from other sources.

Today, when she called and we got chatting about how the last few days were – the vacuum this loss created in their lives, way forward and old memories

Slowly we drifted to other topics - education, values, charity, her children, corporate life and something that caught my attention was when she said, 

“We will lose many people (she quoted a percentage, which I am unable to recall now) from this area in the next few years because mostly retired people stay here whose children are far away"

They are affluent, reasonably healthy and probably travel through technology to their children lives, every second day - the SKYPE, Watsapp and the Duo. It is not about money or convenience. 

How can only money help if a senior needs to visit the hospital for a regular check up and has to run around filling forms, or to different quarters for doctors, tests, reports and payments? 

The needs seem very simple and yet it is very crucial for the well being of this generation who are in their late sixties.

Someone to talk to

Some one who can escort to the hospital

My friend does this religiously - meeting seniors in her area on Saturdays just for a heart to heart chat. I almost choked when I tried to imagine the selflessness of the act and the impact it could possible have on these people.

We all have choices

We either get into that global gyan mode of sermonizing what their children could have done, how parents could have inculcated those values in them to take care of seniors or 

Just do our bit

What moved her to tears and gave me goose bumps was when she mentioned that one of her friends was having a walk early in the morning one day, when a senior person, called her and suddenly asked her to join her for lunch that day. 

"Why Aunty? What special today?"

The senior lady's answer to that question sums up her entire life and existence. How lonely she must be to call an almost stranger or a random acquaintance walking on the road for lunch - to give her company.

"It is my birthday, today"

Please promise us that you will try this with the senior neighbors and relatives, this Christmas.

Image Credit: Canva Design

You definitely do not want another lonely voice to ask you to join her/ him for lunch - just hoping for some company on a special day. 

To keep a senior's dignity intact, just reverse the role and call them instead.

Write to ramosara.foundation@gmail.com about experiences you want to share regarding senior living and dignified ageing to create awareness about lifestyle choices.

Today,

I Was Consciously Changing My Life Style, I Just Did Not Know This Had A Name

I watch a series of tiny houses on YouTube when I do not have pressing assignments, coaching or pending client orders. Click living big in tiny houses to know what I am talking about. My personal favorite being Ella's 82 sf flat in Tokyo. 

I write about alternate life styles in this blog though our Foundation primarily creates awareness on Dementia. I should be filling blog space here talking about Dementia.

How are the two related?

One can write about Dementia, what the patient goes through, what the care giver goes through once, twice, thrice. Then we are done. 

We can give our readers alarming statistics, therapies, talk about painful stories of lost memories. It is not quite enough today, to just consider post dementia measures as most of us know this is progressive in nature. 

Instead, we chose to talk about how not to ever reach that state, how to be proactive about prioritizing well being, healthy living, making the right lifestyle choices, getting out of that trap of ever growing consumerism

We opted to highlight pre-dementia scope - Quality life as the content agenda to serve that purpose.

1] Read - Keep brain active

2] Lifestyle choices
3] Yoga/ Meditate/ Walk
4] Consciously move to stress free life

The importance is exactly in the same order as listed here. Let me explain how these are interconnected:

1] If you are not reading enough, you really will not know what you are missing due to your 24/7 commitment to your one dimensional job or business; 

2] When you are unaware about what you are missing - the greater pleasures, you are so happy to be content with consumerism and materialism. No wonder you make no effort to change your lifestyle choices.

3] As you are preoccupied with materialistic achievements (Living standards), you are in that constant chase without realizing your daily compromises on basics (Life) - Health, relationships, time that is gone. Most average minded person kind of suffers an identity crisis socially without certain gadgets, assets and sense of belonging. 

The need of the hour is to pause, not run - rest your mind and feed it with seeds, not weeds. How can you realize this need if  you are in the whirlwind of habitual thought pattern - doing the same things day after day mindlessly - How can Yoga (Physical well being) or meditation (Spiritual well being) even begin?

4] If you are not conscious about what you are losing will you try to change it, move to an alternative life style?

Early retirement:

I retired from corporate life at forty two to travel, soul search, alternate life style, unlearning age old habits and this - create awareness on Dementia.

Frankly when I quit, the idea was just to take a break - nothing more fancy or ambitious. Just life. When I began to contemplate on alternative living options without returning to corporate  it made perfect sense to conclude - Being competitive is a thing of the past; Being collaborative is the new norm. More on this later. 

Here are a few life style choices I made in the past few years.

Living large in a tiny house:

In January this year, I moved from my Bangalore flat 

Image Credit: Personal (Bangalore Flat and Balcony View)

To my one bed room flat in Kolkata which is one fourth the size of my Bangalore apartment

Image Credit: Personal (Kolkata Flat and Layout)

I have a very cute balcony the size of a refrigerator in this tiny flat. I will click a photograph soon and upload here. That is my study/ meditation space/ nature time. It was open for the last 11 years. Just a month back I gave shape to it.

Transport

Last year, in July I had sold my car because I cannot use it in Kolkata. A friend asked me if I will buy one here, now that I have decided to settle in Kolkata.

The seat covers are still on, after 10 years
Chauffeur driven only 5200 kms. 

The caption of my car picture says it all. I cannot drive. I am quite happy to travel in public transport and rental cars. A friend of mine is developing a website which will be kind of a hub for drivers. When that is operational, I might just reconsider- till then, Hail Ola, Hail Rentals, Hail Uber, Hail Public Transport.

Frankly as I cater to my clients and students from home, I only need to travel through technology - SKYPE!!

Shopping 

If I picked seven dresses for an occasion, say Durga Puja this year (which I did) I made sure seven old ones were out of my wardrobe first. Those are gone and done with.

Learning with purpose

If I chose to do something new - be a retreat or tour leader or spa therapist, I do a plan that collaborates, instead of being competitive with existing players. Collaborative to the extent of allowing jobs for many others.

Hobby - Close to nature

If I chose to buy a farm land 12 years back, because I love growing my own veggies (Some day I will learn that end to end) - the thought was the same - Impact on environment and community.

Anekal, Bangalore

If I booked another plot in Kolkata last November, that is because I still hope to grow vegetables, teach English in the rural areas and enable youth to be global work force - Same thoughts: More than me. Beyond Me. 

Panpur, Kolkata

Coaching - Giving back 

If I chose to write a booklet, it was more to give access to people regarding online opportunities to impact their lives - financially and otherwise. Coaching which is an integral part of the book is two times learning, which keeps my brain cells active and lets many be part of this wonderful process of giving back what you learn in more ways than one.

Evening Walks

Apparently it looks like a casual walk that the body needs to be in shape. However that is actually my brain storming time. The most critical storyboards for my client's business or my student's learning map takes shape there.

Travel - Rejuvenate and Know

My travels and dine-outs, that is budgeted and well planned. I see no reason to spend a considerable sum to make that 1% rich who is already doing well - Let me not name them - The star hotel owners. So I prefer to spend my money on those who are trying to build something of their own - With the kind of salesmanship I have, I kind of coax my fellow travelers to do just the same.

I can let them pose in front of the ship as if they own it to glam up in social media channels - as long as they let me serve my purpose of travel - explore while we empower small businesses on the way.

It is only recently that I learnt this is called the Minimalist life style. I am not exactly there yet because I still have load of books and CDs stacked but I am getting there.

Less is more now. So much more that I want to use the loudspeaker to tell the world how relieving it is just to walk without a phone, travel without a laptop, switch off the TV and talk to people, letting go off baggage - physical and emotional, associating with friends that add to your bandwidth and not take away your bandwidth with unnecessary ego hassles.

Less space, More Warmth
Less friends, More acquaintances
Less activities, More time
Less worries, More peace
Less work, More money (multiple incomes, multiple careers with what you like to do so it never feels like work)
Less living, More life
Less technology, More Nature
Less Media, More Real time
Less Food, More Health
Less Watching, More Reading

If you know the causes of health anxiety and consequent impact, you will know exactly what I am trying to drive - Lifestyle choices and quality of life.

Write to ramosara.foundation@gmail.com if  you have had major change in your lifestyle choices in the recent past that may inspire others to do some course correction and live better, healthier life.

Last night, at 22:21

I stared at his face book for more than an hour seeing all his photographs, paintings and reading all his earlier comments

I have not spoken to him for years

I have met him in person, a few times

A great guy and his personality – Painter, writer, and restaurateur intrigued many

His witty one liner saved others from blues

Miles away from home, in a different country I first knew about his existence through a common friend when she showed me a gift he had given her - A Bible.

Humane!! 

Last night, she calls me at 22:21 to say he is gone – Just like that.

Early forties, lung infection and a massive heart attack!

His friends are still pouring messages on his timeline. I am reading them and will continue to read them, long after the messages stop and people get on with their lives.

The lonely war most people fight,

Stress

Infection

Depression

Financial crisis

Throttled aspirations

Death of a near one

Negligence

Chronic health issues

Mental Health

Mild addiction

Weak immunity

Lifestyle choices

I seriously do not want to end this blog with sermons, one big take away message or global gyan.

Re-look at your lifestyles. Get out of that predictable flow chart (Over work week and over indulgence weekend) and aggressive pursuits that is leading to a place called "Nowhere"

Take charge. 

Seek help. 

Live!!

It takes a lot of choking to go through timelines at moments like these. More power to the family. More strength to us, who are left behind to deal with these abrupt and irreparable losses.