Category: just a point of view

I like this quote

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Never imagined I’d be sitting in my lounge in Mysore quoting Shakespeare. It’s from Measure for Measure.

“Our doubts are traitors

And make us lose the good we oft might win

By fearing to attempt”

I’ve lifted it from a book by Rafe Esquith ( Teach like your hair’s on fire ) one of the wonderful books I’m reading about education. Some are analytical or like Rafes: stories of innovations to help motivate children to learn.

I’m certain many of us can recall examples of how our doubts or fears have stopped us making decisions or taking action. All of us hopefully will remember when we did have the courage of our convictions and acted successfully.

I often remember when I first started working in local government in the U.K. I thought it idiotic and time-wasting that certain powers hadn’t been delegated to officers (from the politicians : councillors/corporators). We would go to formal committee for what, to me, seemed small decisions. My senior colleagues ridiculed the idea. We’ve tried that before laddie (it was Yorkshire but I was 30!) 🤔 I did it and I got it. Result. 😛

The doubts and doubters didn’t win over.

Grumpy old man

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One of my first clients as a student social worker was an old man.

He was seriously grumpy

We would joke about where grumpiness came from.

Was it inherent in the person? Was it learned through experience? Did it arrive with old age?

I now know the answer.

It’s all three

The key factor though is we can choose to be grumpy or not.

I was more grumpy, especially over the past few years, now I’m a bit less.

and I’ve not got the T shirt.

Footnote

As I can’t stop talking, writing, wording….

One flavour of grumpy is anger and I realise it’s derived from being sad. Another is post trauma and the impact it has.

Visit Manjula’s library there’s lots to discover that might help.

Me, I’m still working on it.

But I do have this one.

Outta here.

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As we know—— Travel brings so many benefits—- broadening horizons, being challenged, learning outside our comfort zones, time for reflection, meeting new people….. blah blah

One overriding lesson, is from comparing and contrasting the two countries. I now know India is way ahead in so many ways.

At the airport as I await my flight, there’s women in sarees, and shalwa but just one man (me) in Kurta.

As Indian kids would say Hi-Bye.

Grief and grieving

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I have to say something about this….. but I’m not ready to yet, beyond the following…

… I’ve just had helpful discussions with my sons. It’s critical to be heard.

Other friends have fedback that they’ve recently seen a real difference in me.

“Grief is not one thing, and it is not linear. It looks and feels different for everyone, and it can hit you at any point – even months or years after the fact.” From this article in the Guardian Newspaper.

In my view it keeps coming in waves.

The Guardian feature writer Emine Saner reports on the acceptance of grief as a medical condition

I don’t recognise this, but as I say — it’s different for everyone.

There is the risk of ‘pathologising” ie to ‘label’ things unhelpfully and somehow blame the individual.

But back to the first point, I believe grief after we lose someone is always with us, as I’ve said before it’s a new life-long-friend that we have to learn to live with for the rest of our lives.

We don’t get over it, yes it changes particularly through the process of grieving but it remains with us.

I say again .. we don’t ‘get over it’ and such statements can be at the very least unhelpful.

I understand however that there are some situations when the raw roughness of grief can be absolutely debilitating. At times it has been for me.

I have however valued the opportunity to share my feelings online and directly with friends. To celebrate Manjula and shout about her from the virtual treetops. That helped.

To reiterate … the bottom line is that this situation is unique for everyone and we all deal with it differently.

and … It never goes away.

More later.

Teenage work

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Reading an article and it’s photographs are flashing me back to work in the 1970s while still at school and later, the gap year before attending university.

I worked in a different location to the one featured in the article but similar situations in the steel city of Sheffield.

One crazy job, from age 17, was when the electric arc furnaces — creating steel — were switched off for the weekend. We’d climb on top of cranes that tipped scrap into the furnace then carried molten steel to be poured into giant moulds.

We’d clip our safety harness on to the structure, then walk along narrow gantries to brush the dust that had accumulated during the week, shovel it into bags to be carried down.

Here’s a photo of a similar crane in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Art gallery in London, formerly a power station.

It’s probably ten metres long and rests on tracks along each wall. The equivalent in the steel works was many (five?) times larger.

It was still really hot, even though the furnace was shut-down and always dusty. By the end of the shift, the dust had worked it’s way through two layers of protective clothing and ingrained into our skin. With sooty faces and light patches (Hanuman style) around our mouth and nose showing the masks did have some protective effect.

Footnote.

It provided insights into how others live that I value to this day. Men and women often working twelve hours, sometimes seven days a week.

It was my first opportunity to supervise a small team.

Compassion pah … humbug

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I just had to post again. Earlier I reflected my concern about the lack of care and compassion (see last posting) when I stumbled across this photo and dickens quote

Here’s someone’s extreme lack of care and compassion preferring that we don’t support people in poverty, who are clearly undeserving feckless oiks.

Un-bloody-believable.

Except this attitude is all too familiar, but I expect that these people (I’ve made it anonymous as we don’t want to create an internet teacup storm) aren’t demonstrating the slightest bit of self awareness by posting such crap on an insignificant page of old London photographs.

Maybe they haven’t got the slightest idea that our system is slanted in favour of the rich and powerful and blaming the powerless feeds into a narrative that maintains this unsavoury order.

Obviously I am naive about how people just accept the demonisation of poor people. I feel a Brexit moan coming on. Get real old people.

I write this having just returned (I live in India, remember?) from a one room dwelling that would have been no better and probably far worse than where those in the photograph lived.

The people are not to blame for the cycle of deprivation or their lot in life.

In my distorted view. It’s our duty in life to work out how best we can be kind and that includes showing care and compassion with a more equitable share of the resources we have at our disposal.

Assuming the immigration bureaucrats (long story) let me remain in my adopted country, we’ll continue to help where we can, through Manjula’s Mysore.

Kalyuva Mane is a school we support to help children who’ve experienced difficulties in their young lives.

give me strength

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I apologise for ever complaining about Indian bureaucracy

In any case I usually blame the British Raj and maybe the current British Administration might value a lesson.

Sarcasm warning

I travelled to Bangalore last month, a five hour round trip, to submit my passport for renewal.

Yesterday I received an email from the passport office in Liverpool England, with a formal letter attached.

My photos have been rejected for a range of possible reasons. They haven’t indicated which one: it could be only one photo sent, head too small (in real life, opposite being the problem) or any number of other options. They’ve kept that secret.

Clearly my approach of carrying a selection of photos to Bangalore and asking their staff member which ones were suitable and they selecting them ( yes there were two) , didn’t do the trick.

I have twenty days to send to England otherwise my request might be rejected.

I have a new photo taken and place them in envelope ready to send. I avoid writing a sarcastic note about having asked their representative for guidance. I just plead to get it back asap so I can travel again.

At the central post office.

Take a ticket for your place in the queue. We all take one but then ignore the system.

Speed post Sir?

Yes please, how quick will it be?

Twenty days

I’ll send positive affirmation vibes against any delays and rejection of my application.

Please complete the declaration form and sign

Here it is

Three copies

There’s a xerox machine. Gets jammed but quickly sorted.

Copied and signed

ID please with address.

I have my Adhaar card.

Two copies please

Back to the xerox

…

I Zap the equivalent of £19 via QR Code (bet you can’t do that in Britland) It’s done.

Yes I can hear you saying. Why doesn’t he send the photographs digitally?

Because you can only do that if you’ve completed an online form and you can’t do it online when requesting a renewal from outside the U.K.

Just don’t ask, I’m now relaxing

Kat kits

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Take over the asylum.

I love it

The palace is a real success.

The yard has so many exciting opportunities.

Including crinkly plastic

New game bouncing around on plastic in empty water tank.

I’ve been careful not to get too attached to the Kits. If only life was so straightforward.

As with children we should recognise the need to continue to have playful fun. How else can we enjoy and keep learning?

Simple ritual

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I ordered a chai on Lucie and my first walk of the day.

The guy put sugar in the glass, carefully pouring onto it, hot milk. Then hot water in a steel ‘glass’

How’s that my chai?

He promptly threw the milk onto the ground followed by the water and thankfully just about missing Lucie.

I’m guessing it’s a first thing in the morning ritual. I can find out no more, at this stage, given my sophisticated knowledge (don’t ask) of the local Kannada language and the hotel owners grunts.

I did get my chai.

Another connection with the caribbean. In their case before you take a sip of your rum give a little to the ground.

It’s now back home to finish preparing breakfast for todays lovely guests Eli and James from England