An index card-a-day

 It was a stray message on Pinterest. It asked to practice drawing, painting, doodling etc. on an index card every day, for a month or two.

I had a pack of blank index cards with me. It had lain unused for years. I had bought it in USA and I had a research project going. My own project, no external funding but I had hopes of getting a fellowship on its basis after my retirement. These cards, like those in library catalogues, come handy for bibliography research. One card for one author or book or article. Notes can be made on the cards to juggle memory and the cards can be arranged in different combinations.

Stationery shops in India do not carry these card sets but in USA, they are easily available and are popular right up to school students.

Alas! My research proposal for the fellowship did not make the cut. I drew a blank when I tried to get my writing published. Academic publishing, never easy, has now become almost impossible. I was disappointed but had to accept it.

So the card-stack remained with me.

I remembered it when I saw the Pinterest message. Why not have a stab at it?

I began with enthusiasm which turned to a drag which became an eagerly awaited work in the end.

There were no restrictions on images to be created on cards. Decorative designs, line work, landscapes, floral studies, portraits and simple play with lines and colors. Drawing pencils, water color pencils, water colors, acrylic and oil paints, marker pens - anything was permitted.

I began with atrocious designs and colors. Later I found myself thinking about this challenge during the day and I started scanning newspaper ads, photos and Google search images with interest.

The freedom and the small size of the card were real boons.

Yesterday, my card stack got over. I missed only on a few occasions. Otherwise, I drew and painted through July, August, September and eleven days of October after having started on 27 June 2024.

Outcome?

Nothing much but a sense of satisfaction.

Take a look at the blog to see some images I created.

Moving house

After nearly 29 years, shifting to a new house was a major job.

Actually the old house was ideal: compact with a spectacular view of surroundings from the terrace and the kitchen window. These made up for the isolation of the house. Its terrace was facing West. I have found that the wind always blows from the West. So just sitting on the terrace every evening, taking in the breeze and drinking the vistas were an important part of everyday routine. Every tile, every bit of the walls in the house had become a part of me. And leave it all behind?

Well, reasons both within and without made the move necessary. Older residents had left one by one and the society had been hollowed out. Others were talking of redevelopment which would have necessitated a move anyway. So why not move on my own, at my convenience?

Outer factors included the 24 by 7 traffic. 11/13/17/26 storey tall towers are in demand and small, cozy societies are a matter of the past. Distant interpersonal relations have become the norm. And there is no going back. So I must make mental adjustments to be with the times and that is better done now rather than sometime later.

Thus I decided to look for a new house. In the same locality. Going somewhere else with everything different would have been too much to take. I spent unquiet, anxious moments to reach this decision. I also realized that I required help in both reaching a decision and then executing it. I asked family members just once and good advice and all the practical help just poured in.

House hunting began in real earnest and then in order not to lose the momentum, we decided to act and a flat for resale was booked. For the same reason, shifting also began soon.

For me, it meant bringing down all the stuff in the lofts of the old house, sort it out and then discard it or pack it in cardboard boxes. Believe me, for one month, I was doing the job. A reverse and easier process had to be carried out at the new house.

So much of our old stuff was useless or redundant. It was out of sight and so was forgotten year after year. I hesitated before discarding things. Soon however, it became a familiar matter and I gaily gave up books, greeting cards, buckets, shoes, files and diaries, mattresses, clothes, woolens, glass and plastic bottles, utensils, earthen lamps et al.

The new house became familiar and started feeling like home after paintings and framed art works were put up on the walls. It took a few days to remember the places of things in the kitchen - my own arrangement but still!

At last, now a routine has developed and memories of the old house are receding.

I lost 2 kgs. of body weight in the process!

Toxic work culture

 

Toxic work culture

Literature on people/ human resource management is full of platitudes. It is also very upbeat and positive, overly so. My own experience about people management is that it is very demanding work and one has to be truthful and honest while dealing with others, no matter what the short run compulsions are. I also found that it is better to restrict one’s interactions to a small group.

On the backdrop of a lot of motivational goodness in the literature, a recent article about toxicity at the workplace caught my eye. (The Times of India, Pune, 1 Feb 23: ‘Productivity got boost from WFH, but toxicity grew too’ by Sujaya Banerjee)

The article states that toxic work cultures are disrespectful, abusive, unethical, non-inclusive and very competitive. Their features are:

·       Lack of freedom to speak up, to experiment

·       Poor communication in the organization

·       Micromanagement by seniors

·       Lack of trust and

·       Poor experience at the workplace.

It was a short article but it caught my eye. It resonated with my experience absolutely.

My own work experience is pretty limited. I began my career in a large, professional manufacturing organization when I was singularly ill equipped to work. Instead of acting on this realization and quitting quickly, I hung on for three and a half years. Then I was in a semi-government organization for donkey’s years. It is the latter that I am talking about.

I taught in a college, funded by the state government but run by a private trust whose life members constituted the management. The college had a nice, compact campus at a very good location and its staff and students were cosmopolitan. A number of institutions ran their show in the campus and my college was the newest member.

I had to spend a lot of time to get tenure in the college. By then drift had set in. Students stopped taking the examinations seriously and they also stopped attending lectures which were pretty boring. The subjects of Commerce were also very boring and were taught mechanically, without any explanation of their background and forward, sideways linkages.

Students’ absence was something nobody talked about. Instead, ostrich-like, the faculty looked inward and concentrated on backbiting and watching each other’s moves for career progression. Progress was never defined in academic terms. It was only administrative i.e., taking over office work, examination work and finally becoming Principal.

Due to government regulations and reservation rules, the faculty got divided into 2 groups, a handful of tenured teachers, surrounded by a large group of temporary teachers, part-timers, leave vacancy teachers etc. The latter were made to slog in the hope of getting tenure but just a few could manage to. Because there was no accountability to students, permanent faculty had plenty of time on hand and it resorted to groupism. Reserved versus general category teachers was the basic divide to which were added more angles of subjects, departments, facility with languages, general outlook etc. etc.

The salary scale was meagre but it was periodically revised as per successive pay commission rules and the positions were pensionable. So there was plenty going for these tenured jobs. There were few separations. People dug their heels in and tried to sabotage working from within. As the first principal of the college retired, there was dilution in the effective power in the hands of subsequent principals.

I only concentrated on teaching and I was attracted to research. It did not take long for the established group to keep me at an arm’s length because my motives were not understood. Each of the features of toxicity mentioned above was experienced by me. I felt suffocated, alienated in the college. I found the culture non-inclusive, closed and discriminatory.

My part-time post-doctoral research fellowship was the last straw for the in-group and because of it, I was made to feel like a pariah. I retaliated by totally ignoring the group. I got isolated but I did not mind. I concentrated on my own work. There was another, younger teacher who excelled in teaching. He too, quit in sheer disgust.

In the college, I could work on my own. In corporate jobs, people cannot and they cannot afford to be shunted. So, they take to copying their seniors and that makes the workplace even more toxic.

Given the highly competitive nature of corporate workplaces and given human psychology (highly educated, experienced persons can also be very mean!), inclusion of these negative but crucial aspects of working, will make human resource management literature more realistic.

Epiphany

 In my novel Empire, I have drawn a character called Emma Macmillan. I have made her a liberated woman who is far away from the stereotype of the indolent memsahib. Emma establishes a school for native girls in Calcutta and then, after her marriage, takes to promoting Indian textiles to improve the lot of highly skilled Indian weavers, impoverished due to cheap Manchester piece goods.

I made Emma travel to different parts of northern and central India in search of special textiles and I have also shown that after a visit to England, Emma gets a brain wave of making standard readymade frocks and dresses for women who otherwise must stitch their garments on their own or get them made which was expensive. The year is 1886.

Emma's character is rooted in history so far as her school is concerned. After that, it was only my imagination.

Imagine my surprise when I came to read something similar that actually happened in 1889.

It is described in Outliers, the story of success by Malcolm Gladwell, Little, Brown and Company, 2008.

In chapter 5, lesson 3: The garment industry and meaningful work, Gladwell describes the journey of Louis and Regina Borgenicht, Polish immigrants to America in 1889. Louis has worked in a garment shop and Regina is a skilled seamstress. When they come to New York with one child and one more on its way, they have money to last for just a few weeks. Louis starts looking for work and notices that readymade garments of all types are available in abundance there. He realizes that they greatly add to the convenience of customers and are easy on their pockets. Readymade garments are the most important commodity he says to himself. He finds that readymade aprons are not available. So he and his wife start making them and selling them. One thing leads to another and both become manufacturers and suppliers of garments in due course of time.

Gladwell states that theirs was not an isolated story. There were many other Jewish immigrants who were similarly skilled and who became successful in American garment industry at around the turn of the 20th century. Being there at that time was the essential ingredient in their success.

What Gladwell has said about success and its prerequisites is riveting read of course.

Let me however, right now, gloat over how close my ideas about garments were to what actually happened. Of course, I had imagined India and Great Britain. Gladwell wrote about East Europe and USA. Still, the common thread made my day!

Hilarious

 I have a public provident fund - ppf - account. For saving income tax, it has proved to be very convenient. I opened it in 1990 and continue to use it. An account runs for 15 years and after that, extension for 5 more years is possible. There is no upper limit to the number of extensions.

I transferred the account to my bank from State Bank of India to make operating it even more convenient.

My bank's staff has always had some trouble over this account, I don't know why. I have been able to persuade them to paper things over because there is nothing wrong from my side.

A few months ago, I had this bright idea of withdrawing funds from this account and investing them in shares for getting better returns. PPF currently pays 7.9% annual interest and bank fixed deposit rates hover around 5.4%.

Regular withdrawal from ppf is possible and there is a formula that is used to work out the withdrawal amount. I went to the bank two months ago and found out how much I could withdraw.

Recently, on a trip to the bank, I enquired about a withdrawal form. They did not know and told me to use the ordinary withdrawal slip for regular bank accounts. I filled it in but on presenting it, I was told to wait. They made enquiries with the zonal office, were told there was a separate form but they did not have any. I was asked to go again the next day. To my relief, the concerned officer phoned me to say that the form had arrived.

I trooped down with revenue stamps and my passbook. I was told to withdraw a small sum, a round amount.

"There is some problem with your account. In one of the years, you did not make any payment."

"Not possible. I have been religiously using the account for depositing money."

"Our computer says it is so."

"Is there some problem? Withdrawals are common."

"This is the first case of partial withdrawal I am handling."

I rolled my eyes.

"Because of the alert on our screen, you will have to close down your account."

"Look, I have checked with my investment advisor and he has confirmed that an account can be extended any number of times. There is no ceiling."

"No, that is not correct."

"Who says so?"

"I am saying so. You just wait."

I did and I could see two officers consulting each other gravely. After a while I was told to submit my completed withdrawal form. Had it been account closure, the amount would have been double of my withdrawal. So the officer had tacitly taken back his words. He said he would carry out the transaction.

"Thank you. When will I get my passbook back?"

"It will stay with us." He punched it and filed it.

"How come? I still have a large amount of money in the account. The passbook is my record."

I came back home. After 4 hours, there was a message and a phone call saying that the withdrawal had gone through and I could collect the updated passbook. I promptly pocketed it.

It is my hard-earned money but the bank appears to have some claims over it!!

Urban living

 The morning yesterday was Sunny but it started raining in the afternoon and continued to be wet. At around 3.30 p.m. I went to the terrace for a minute and my attention was caught by a fire in front of me, in the army institute. I thought they were doing some torch carrying exercise. But the fire got bigger and made an ominous hissing noise. I looked closely. A branch of the jacaranda tree on the boundary had caught fire! The fire was getting bigger. It started raining and it was extinguished. I came inside.

The drizzle stopped and I heard a bigger sound, the branch had fallen. Some young people on the road were shouting but there was no letup in the continuous traffic.

Something had got to be done. I called the fire brigade station nearby. A person sought the details and then advised me to contact the power distribution company. It had three helplines. All were busy. I kept calling. Got through and was met with a prerecorded message. It was repeated in Marathi, English and Hindi. I waited patiently. Then I had to feed my 12 digit consumer number. Then the service got stuck. I fed the number four times but to no avail.

I could not quite turn back now. Kept calling the number. Reached the call center staff and the phone was stopped. Two more tries. Nothing happened when I pressed the option for power supply off (power was discontinued by then) and so next time I chose the option of emergency. Finally got through. Gave the details of what I had observed and told them that the fire was now out due to the rains. Added that I was stuck on their helpline and that at the beginning of the rainy season, I had contacted them to tell them about tree-cutting but I was pooh-poohed.

Nothing more could be done and so I got busy with my reading.

When power supply was restored after two hours, I checked outside. The tree had been pruned. After half an hour I got a message saying that the problem I had reported had been resolved.

What ho!

 Put the lock down period to some use by writing Empire - a novel on the life of memsahibs in India in the late 19th century. The style of writing is old; developments are few but characters' responses are covered in greater detail. Hackneyed plot of 3 friends travelling to India on a liner. Mixed facts and fiction. Enjoyed myself writing it.

Published it on Amazon KDP -Kindle direct publishing - as both an e-book and a paperback.

How to bring it before people? I have stopped short of running a promotion campaign on Amazon.

Thought I'd recommend it to Arlington Heights Memorial Library and British Library whose collection I access regularly.

AHML used a subterfuge: "We acquire only books of local members with an active library card." Their collection has all the established authors.

From my account of British library, I tried to put in a new purchase request. It did not get forwarded. So I sought a clarification. "Only UK authors." I was told.

The animosity baffled me. I was not trying to influence their purchase decision in any way.

So self-published books on KDP are not taken seriously. For all the democratization of publishing ushered in by Amazon, old prejudices die hard.