The 18th March Project – post 26

Here’s a bandwagon I’m more than happy to jump on to- #BeatPlasticPollution.

It’s amazing how many people are interested in cutting down their use of single-use plastic. Or is that just what the algorithms are feeding me?

I’m personally very concerned about being as low-waste as possible, especially when I travel.

Why particularly when I travel, you ask. What about when you are wherever you live (home or expat-land)?

Needless to say, I’m careful at (nearly) all times. I do my best to make conscious choices. When you’re home, you know what your options are for disposal, recycling, take-back schemes. Plus you have access to your own arsenal of reusables. But when you travel, it’s easier to slip up, as I did in SG (sorry, SG!)

I recently visited Kodagu aka Coorg, Karnataka, India for the first time. I was impressed by the fact that we were given only one plastic carry bag in our week there. Even food deliveries come in cloth bags.

My best friends either used the metal straws I carried for them or drank straight from the glass (you know, like regular folk). People looked at me funny every time I said “No straw, please”, but not when we held out our cloth bags to put stuff in. Education?

Did we get through the whole trip without discarding anything inorganic? Nope. We just made better choices than we would have before:

• We bought bigger bottles of water, and used our sippy cups and straws when we could
• We ate at restaurants rather than have them deliver to us
• To blow our noses after all the masala and chilli we ingested, we used hankies/towels

My waste-related goals for my next trip:

• Drink tap water if feasible. If not, buy the biggest bottle possible, and fill my bottle with that.
• Carry a tiffin for food so it doesn’t need to be put in bags or even boxes. A paper bag I’m okay with.
• Take the Metal straw along.
• Reuse plastic cutlery that I already own, perhaps carry metal cutlery.
• And a cloth bag. Always a cloth bag!

But what do I do about the waste created in-flight?

Another challenge to surmount…

The 18th March Project – post 25

I took a break from writing for a couple of months because work got really intense and hectic, and I didn’t want to beat myself up about yet another thing I couldn’t achieve.

But now I’m back(ish), ready to start putting my heart back in my words and laying them bare on a sleeve… (This mixed metaphor is all awry.)

Awry is a funny word. When we were kids, my sister and I read it as aw-ree.

Tsk was tisk.

Epitome was epi-tohm.

There’s a right way to do some things, and some things you can muddle through because the end justifies the means.

But the things that have a right way- you need to be open to learning that way, and you can’t go on saying aw-ree, tisk, and epi-tohm.

And if you insist that your way is right, you end up looking like an uneducated fool.

It’s the same thing when you’re dealing with other people. If you insist that your history or your perspective or your aesthetic sense is “right”, without a care for other histories and other perspectives and other aesthetics, you risk alienating amazing people while looking like an uneducated fool.

Will everybody just take a breath and listen to other people instead of trying to justify themselves? Or worse, gaslighting?

Then we can figure out the right pronunciations, together.

The 18th March Project – Post 24

To my younger brother

A year ago, you asked me for a birthday present – I was to write every day, and publish something on my blog twice a month.

Because of you, I’ve spent time on hammering sentences together, more time in fact than I had in previous years. And I don’t plan on stopping now that I’ve begun (also, there’s our new agreement that basically means I can’t stop). Shows the power of a social contract, huh?

You often say that you belong to the Dark Side, that you are an ass, that you are not a good person. Honestly, I don’t understand that, and I sure as helvede don’t believe it. Yes, you have your moments when I want to smack you because you are taunting someone more than necessary. That hardly makes you a bad person. Perhaps that’s just the façade you throw up because you don’t want people to see you for the big softie you are (oh no, the secret’s out!).

I’m not going to praise you, because I know it will go to your head. Just know that I’m glad to be your big sister, whether the difference between us is 4 months, or 4 years, or 40 million light years. You are one of the reasons I don’t believe that men and women mature mentally at different rates – you’re almost on par with me, haha!

Here’s to many more years of educating each other, of helping each other be better, of forcing society to see the possibility and worth of platonic relationships between men and women, of being part of the fight to make the world a better place.

Here’s also to secrets – the keeping and revealing of them, to social gatherings that we may or may not remember, to exploring whatever we can of our surroundings while we still can.

Here’s to adding decades to the half decade we’ve known each other, to dancing at all the big functions (they don’t only have to be weddings), to synchronously rolling our eyes at other people’s stupidity, to more chivda, and chakna, and bibimbap, to funny misunderstandings about shower gel, fingers, and haste-haste, to assembling furniture, to giving credit –sparingly – when it is due, to paying for each other’s food and drinks, to long walks, and to arguments about presents.

Happy 30th birthday, Bhai.

May all your dreams come true, and all your plans be fulfilled, and may you find your pot of gold.

The 18th March Project – Post 23

Fun sustainability facts for the UAE

• The UAE has a bee-keeping association. They’re based out of Sustainable City
• A few restaurants in the UAE are banding together and stopping the use of straws and single use plastic in their outlets. One of them is The Noodle House, where my family and I went in November and asked to not be given straws (no, I’m not taking credit, but isn’t that a wonderful coincidence?)
• The UAE has ordered Seabins, receptacles that help filter plastic out of the ocean
• Bamboo brushes are available in the UAE, though, as with most ‘alternative’ options, they are more expensive than the conventional plastic option.

Happy 30th to R who always uses her voice in defence of those who need it. I hope you’re using the straw I ‘gave’ you!

The 18th March Project – Post 22

It’s my godmother’s birthday today, so I’m going to take another stab at explaining the concept of godparenthood to my rakhi brother.

What’s the point in godparents?

In Christianity, when a person enters the faith through the sacrament of baptism, there is at least one person responsible for the spiritual well being of the new Christian.

Usually, people born into Catholicism are baptized soon after birth. Our parents are primarily responsible for guiding us spiritually. They promise during their nuptial mass to raise their children in keeping with the tenets of the Faith.

Godparents are appointed as a fail-safe – if the parents can’t look after the child, it can become the godparent(s)’s responsibility to do so. The role is meant to be spiritual, but it can also be material and emotional, depending on the situation.

Are there any rules about who can be a godparent?

If we’re talking about the Catholic Church – yes, of course!

One of the biggies: is if s/he is not Catholic, s/he is considered a witness to your baptism, rather than a godparent.

Ideally, a godparent shouldn’t be a crappy human being, but it’s been known to happen.

There are more rules, but let’s not go into them here.

So, does the godparent have to be a relative? Who can you be a godparent to?

A godparent does not have to be related to you by blood or marriage.

In my opinion, my cohort sees becoming a godparent as a rite of passage. It’s also something some of us feel entitled to – for instance, we expect that we will be godparents to the children of our siblings or close cousins or best friends.

How many godchildren can you have?

You take on as many as you can handle. And how many you can handle really depends on how you define being a godparent.

Some godparents are involved in their godchildren’s lives, others don’t make an appearance post the baptism. This does also depend on the relationship the godparents have with the parents.

As of now, I have just one godchild. My mother’s elder brother and his wife had nearly 10 godchildren between them , I think.

Hope this Guide to Godparenting helps you understand us better, Bhai.

Happy birthday, Goms!

The 18th March Project – Post 21

Things I noticed while travelling in Scandinavia:

1. Traffic lights – In Sweden and Denmark, the yellow/amber light comes before both the red and the green lights. So you can anticipate when to stop, and also when to go. I didn’t see this in Lisbon (nearly 5 years ago) or Dublin, Killarney, and Galway (about a year and a half ago), so I assume it’s not an EU thing.
2. Snow – first of all, how cool is it that we got snow?! The Danes who knew of our wish gave us kindly, sometimes patronizing, looks, as if to say “Silly girls! Snow is not something to look forward to quite so much.”

One of our colleagues did tell us that a clear day after snowfall could feel warmer than an overcast day without. And he was right. That was brought home even more when we returned to the relative warmth of Dubai, and found ourselves feeling cold in 15 degrees, when literally the day before, we’d been fine in -6 in Stockholm.

3. Lighting – alright, I didn’t pay much attention to this in Stockholm, possibly because we were outdoors a lot, and didn’t go into very many buildings meant for public use (museums, malls, offices), but I’m still quite sure that most of the lighting there was yellow.

I understand that the bright glare of a white light tube light is not very hygge, but isn’t it tiring trying to figure out where all the yellow lamps should go?

Also, are those LED lights? CFL? Because if they’re incandescent, they’re definitely heating up the atmosphere. Or does the cold cancel out the heating effect (in terms of contribution to global warming)?

4. Language – it’s not always easy to find instructions in English. I suppose that’s why it’s imperative that people who move to Sweden or Denmark learn the country’s language. Thankfully, most people speak English in both countries. And Google Maps works fairly well.

The 18th March Project – Post 20

Do we make it easy for the strong to prey on the weak?

For the sake of argument, let us assume that the men are strong and the women weak, though victims and perpetrators come from all genders and all age groups and all races and religions.

We teach our girls that they must resist and be chaste and virtuous.

We teach them guilt.

To be otherwise is not to be a good woman.

We teach our boys that they must chase and not take no for an answer.

We teach them entitlement.

To be otherwise is not to be a man.

What if we reversed the lessons? Or better yet, what if we taught them all the same things?

What if we taught our girls entitlement, and our boys guilt?

What if we taught them that they are entitled to their own physical, emotional, mental and spiritual spaces, but not to someone else’s? That when they invade other people’s personal spaces, even after they’ve been told not to, they ought to feel guilty. Guilty enough to apologise and to change, and not to let someone else do it.

What if we taught them that pushing the boundaries to get more out of work or study or play is alright, but not if you are shrinking someone else and taking away their power.

 

There’s so much work to be done.

Happy birthday to Cousin E, who like the other good men in the family, is capable of being both caring and strong. May we help Little K, and those who come after, navigate a better world than the one we find ourselves in.

The 18th March Project – Post 19

Today marks 30 years since I was christened.

I recently had the chance to be a tour guide through my version of my faith.

I bumped into a colleague of mine while I was on my way to church. He asked if he could tag along. Of course I said yes; is our faith not meant to be welcoming?

He is a curious person, and never hesitates to ask questions. I’m sure our filters are set to different levels. Perhaps some of what he asked would be considered offensive to some people; I don’t think I found it offensive because, to me, faith and religion should be open to discussion.

I’m hardly the most religious of people, yet when he asked why I go to church if no one was watching, it felt like I was exposing a little piece of my soul. I answered honestly – I go to satisfy the part of my soul that needs nurturing from time to time. I don’t go every weekend, though I do try to.

Why isn’t there a big cross on top of the church? Because, from what I’ve been told, we are not allowed to have one. We have freedom to worship; we don’t need to advertise further.

Can he hand out Bibles at the metro? Er, no, we wouldn’t want to get in trouble for attempting to convert people.

How come you have to pay for food inside the church compound? Why isn’t it free? There might be more Christians if it were… Ah well, we’re already the biggest parish- perhaps we don’t need to bring people in that way. And anyway, hasn’t Christianity used that tactic already?

I told him a little about how a Mass is structured. He wanted to know if the priest speaks, or if it’s only readings from the Bible and singing. Does the priest only tell people what to do, or speak of fire and brimstone and judgement? Yes, the priest speaks, and there are readings, and there is singing, and there are some formulaic prayers. Priests- well, each one is different. But most speak with a thought to context. Some things never change, some rules are constant. The wiser priests know how to bring the lessons from the old days to life for us today.

It’s always interesting to see an outsider’s point of view.

 

The 18th March Project – Post 18

I love History.

I remember facts quite easily, and History is full of them. That’s not to say that I remember every detail of a treaty, or battle, or assassination, just enough to recount the bare bones of the sequence of events.

I started out, like most people, I assume, studying History as prescribed by the syllabus. It wasn’t enough- I like to know more. So, I started to do my own research (which at that point, was limited to flipping through the pages of the encyclopedia, sometimes at random), and read more than I needed to know for the exams. I can still remember some bits of trivia about the major wars- the World Wars, the American Civil War, the Indian fight for independence. Most of what we studied revolved around the West, and didn’t focus enough on the pasts of countries that have existed for centuries more than the European countries that later colonized them.

While we did cover some medieval Indian history in school it was mostly in relation to the spread of religion and or the kings and emperors all Indian children learn about: Ashoka, Chandragupta Maurya, Babar, Shah Jehan, Jehangir. It was only in college that I learned a little about the empires of Southern India, among them the Rashtrakutas, and the Chalukyas.

It seems to me that I didn’t learn very much about Goan history, barring a slim volume in the Xth standard about Goa’s freedom struggle.

So now I try to read books that delve into the experiences of those affected by colonial powers, whether fiction or non-fiction. I read counterfactual history, because the what-ifs can be more entertaining than the actual sordid past. For instance, if Hitler had become a painter, would the world look like it does today?

I wish the grandparents who were old enough to register what was happening during World War II were still alive- they would have added a subaltern colour from the colonial past.

 

The 18th March Project – Post 17

 

For my recent round birthday, my Danish colleagues gave me a couple of books. One of them, the one I’m already done reading (for the first time. There MUST be a second!) is The Year of Living Danishly by a British journalist, Helen Russell.

I guffawed several times while reading this book, because there were so many things that were either perfect descriptions of ‘my’ Danes, or diametrically opposite to them.

Here are some of the fun/funny things I’ve learned:

• Danes leave their babies outside in their prams while they shop or eat
• Legoland, Billund closes for winter. The word Lego comes from the Danish Leg godt, which means play well.
• The Danes drink 10-11 litres of pure alcohol per person per year. Or thereabouts.
• In the smaller villages, it’s possible that the kindergarten/nursery teacher will bring the class over to the house of the child whose birthday it is for some ‘cake and chaos’.
• It’s okay to burn the Danish flag, but not that of another nation in Denmark
• To mark the New Year, Danes jump off a sofa (onto the floor). They also smash plates against their neighbours’ mailboxes.
• The Danes don’t believe in epidurals. Or paracetamol.
• Confirmations are a big deal. Some kids – sorry, young adults have nonfirmations.
• There is Christmas beer, Julebryg. It’s available for only 10 weeks of the year.
• There are more divorces post the summer holiday than during the rest of the year. It is suspected/assumed that this is because people are forced to spend several weeks together – longer than at Christmas.
• Skat is the word for tax as well as the word for honey.