Santhosh's ramblings

Yesterday during my evening walk, I ended up having three spontaneous conversations.  Here they are, with some added ramblings.   I visited an elderly uncle who no longer recognised me, repeatedly asking who I was despite our families’ close past relationship. Once a respected technical engineer in the Middle East, he had taught us about energy conservation and sustainability, even implementing solar panels and gardens at his home. Now, he has lost most of his memories but accepts it with a smile, unlike my mother, who struggled for years with her memory loss before eventually becoming unaware of it. Will I...?   As I left the house, I recalled this poem by Bonhoeffer:   “Who am I? This or the other? Am I one person today and tomorrow another? Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others, And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling? . . . Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine. Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am Thine!”   Does a pers...

You ramble when your mind is all over the place. But then nature and creation can help you move from diffuse, unfocused thinking to focused thought. Garden gazing helped me in this shift. Here are three thoughts on life from a recent garden gazing. Relationships We have a small tree or shrub (or a community of shrubs) in our garden. It has not one but three or four plants. The one that gives stability is a large curry leaf plant - almost like a tree. Over years of being unattended, it has grown wild and all over the place. And climbing all over it are three or four other plants. One is a jasmine plant, which is almost like a snake creeping over the curry leaf plant. Then there is another creeper with yellow flowers. And attached to the tree are many parasitic wild plants, including mistletoe and wild orchids. It is interesting to observe that when there is “uncontrolled growth,” many others latch on. Some as support for growth and contribution to the world (like the jasmine plant), but...

I gave my car for a bit of denting and painting and was coming back by auto rickshaw. And suddenly a realization hit.   You might have heard about how the Greek mathematician and physicist Archimedes discovered how to measure the volume of an irregularly shaped object by observing that a body immersed in a fluid displaces a volume of fluid equal to its own volume. While taking a bath, he noticed the water level rise, leading him to exclaim "Eureka!"   Neurophysiology now has evidence that revelations and realizations happen when you move from focused thinking to diffuse thinking.   There is the story of Thomas Edison. He would be working on a problem and then would go to sleep with a metal ball in his hand. Suddenly the ball would fall from his hand, and he would wake up—but he would wake up with the solution in his mind. Moving from focused to diffuse thinking in sleep, and revelation emerging in sleep!   That is what happened to me - in the quietness of the auto, I...

Over the past two months, I have had two haircuts—each a completely different experience.   The first was at one in a chain of barbershops, offered at a very reasonable price. The professionals there, and our conversation, were intriguing. Nestled in a small town in Kerala, the shop was run by three young barbers from Uttarakhand who had picked up respectable Malayalam. My grasp of Hindi allowed me to connect further, leading to minimal discussions about their lives, how they ended up here, and what it was like living far from home. Still, there was a restraint in our exchange. I pondered the reason - perhaps my age, a subtle sense of being outsiders, or that intricate web of hierarchy present in every Indian community.   Of course, there was an offer to dye my hair and make me look young too, which I politely refused.   The second haircut took place in a stand-alone shop, an older-style barbershop, again  charging the same fee but at the capital city. I had last vis...

I’ve had three small  (very minor) accidents in the last two months. All of them, unfortunately, were of my own making. Yes, this is a “confession blog.” Each one was potentially avoidable, and - truth be told - my spouse had warned me that this was bound to happen. More on that later. But it makes me wonder: is this a case of late onset “Accident Proneness”? Is it a newly emerging disorder (I prefer to call it a disorder - because that diffuses responsibility), or is it a late-onset behavioral trait (for which I must, unfortunately, take full responsibility)? Or was it all, the wet climate of Kerala? (I need to find a reason beyond self.) I’ll leave the diagnosis to the reader.   Accident #1: Running Before Yourself Disorder (RBYD) - The first accident was a slip and fall on a wet and slippery step, the effects of which I’m still recovering from. In hindsight, the problem wasn’t the step - it was me. Specifically, it was me running ahead of myself. For those neurologist ...

This blog is not about our family weddings, but something deeper. Some recent weddings have taught me much - about myself and about our culture. I’m taking a bit of a risk by sharing some family stories, but let me reassure my family at the outset: my intention is not to embarrass anyone or to air our dirty laundry in public but use these events to reflect on the culture around us.  The question I’ve been grappling with, after attending a few family weddings over the past three years, is this: Why do fathers seem to have a harder time than mothers in letting their daughters go? Or is this just my perspective as a man - that we struggle more? One thing I’ve realised  is that men often have a harder time giving up control than women do. We are - broadly generalising  here - control freaks. These days, I find myself advising men my age or younger, (mostly baby boomers) who have daughters yet to be married, to watch the movie  Father of the Bride . I watched it before my...