The Mommy Clown? Or the Selfish me?

Yep, I want to be selfish. Have succeeded partly. At least I would like to believe so.

This post is dedicated to all my lady friends who juggle multiple crystal balls in life with success. Its funny I should write a blog post about something so commonplace and something every household goes through with flair. Or maybe not, maybe they struggle as I/we did.

There was a time when I used to dramatize that I was a juggler juggling crystal balls err.. multiple responsibilities, all of them fragile and having their own particular balance, oddity, spin, weight, etc. The kids were small, they demanded a lot more care giving compared to how much they need today. They constituted the most fragile ball I held in my hands. At the same time, I was not willing to give up my job and hence I held the other crystal ball, which was probably more heavy in terms of weight, but a bit less fragile in my mind. Just a teeny-tiny bit.

The third ball I held in my hand was on the home management front. Hmm, this by far was the most painful crystal ball to manage. I would probably equate it to a crystal ball with poking, sharp protrusions. This was not mine to work on and manage by myself unlike the other two. I was reliant on outside help to clean and cook. With a full time job and two kids, I suppose I had to, especially in India. Maids would come and go; they would either have extremely horrible work quality, or would not last long because of various reasons. Running a household in India, for all the help you get, is a tough act for most women. Having tasted life in the US, where I could happily clean once a week and get away with it, it was very hard to 1) rely on external help for cleaning 2) deal with the frequency of cleaning, which is everyday, given the amount of dust entering your house.

Ok, so why a blog about this? Hmm, a lot more women nowadays are taking on highly stimulating and challenging careers, which demand that you go beyond the call of normal work hours. Well.. until we hit the baby phase of our life. Then we are constantly juggling these three balls I mention above, sometimes a little clumsily, sometime dropping one, checking if anything broke, and if thankfully nothing's broken, or we haven't mentally broken with the act of juggling, continuing to do so. All in the name of still wanting to do everything that keeps us happy. Its a tall order for most women. We carry on, kidding ourselves that its the right thing. Sometimes we give up, call it a day and hang up our working shoes and return to sanity and the role of a full time mom, housekeeper, etc. Its a personal choice. Yeah sure! There is no easy "choice".

At the end of the day, if I continue working, I have then dedicated my life to being the ultimate clown, one who juggles so many things in her life, she can no longer see herself as how the audience would probably see her - a clown clumsily performing on the center stage of life, dropping balls here and there, feeling guilty for not being able to juggle well, and yet there she is on center-stage, can't get away, because she chose this life of a mommy-clown.

Can't have it all. The only thing I would say is that there does come a point, when we get a bit better at juggling, so there is life at the end of the tunnel. It is a long tunnel, and I have learnt that rather than be the perfect mommy-clown, its sometimes better to keep my crystal balls to the side for a couple of hours a days. Maybe exercise, do some craft or even dance center-stage on that same stage. Maybe an Elaine Benes like dance, but it is for myself, my time, alone, for me, and I don't care if I am still on the center-stage of life, and if others judge me for being a bit selfish with my time. That time, I am being deliberately selfish, so the other 14 hours of my life that I need to play a juggling clown, I can do so with gusto, and maybe not drop those precious balls as often.

Governance and mutiny

Are we capable of mutiny only against external threats? Like when we were struggling for Independence. Is it the case that if our house member does something wrong, we accept it and live with it, and never attempt to correct it? No, we have a vested interest in the whole thing, right? We would try and do our best to solve the issue.

If another country threatens our land, our army men rise up to the occasion, our country men and women, the patriotic lot that we are, rally support for the whole situation, vent online, do whatever it takes, but feel justifiably perturbed about the situation.

But, and its a big but that amazes me day in and day out; we live with shoddy governance and its effects day in and day out. And we get peeved by it, perturbed by it, but there is no action on it. Case to point - the roads in Bangalore in many places are terrible. Years pass by and nothing is done about it. And we pay the highest road tax in India. Thousands of commuters from all walks of life put up with this ridiculous state of affairs. What do we do about it? We rant about it on the Bangalore Police Facebook page a few times. Then we get tired of it. We sign online petitions on ChangeMyCity or change.org etc. Armchair activism at its best. I got pretty good with that at a point in time.

But that is not really the solution is it? I want to be able to do something about it, something more than armchair activism that I am doing, but something that does not take time away from my core responsibilities. Isn't this a problem each one of us faces? We want to work on causes that improve some social or community aspect of the life we lead, but we lack a good forum or channel for it. Even if we dedicate time to grassroot level activism, and I know many organizations and individuals have started willing dedicating their personal time to this, it takes a long time to get results. Government organizations have a certain culture, right? Its just the way it is.

So back to my original question. Is mutiny only against outsiders? Can we not have a mutiny against bad governance? Yeah, we elected them, they are our own people. So should we not challenge the results of their governance? Is voting for someone like the Hero Honda ad of "Fill it, Shut it, Forget it"? Should we just vote and trust them to do their jobs and then live in the vain hope that one day somebody will come who will look at this damn road that's in this state for 4 years, and fix it?

If I don't pay taxes for a year, will the officials not look at it for 4 years? If they don't work on something expected of them, should we stay silent for 4 years or more? I suggest we do our bit of mutiny. Stop paying road taxes. Seriously? Yeah I know, its rather easy to say it than do it. This, my friends is the power of the govt. Elected by the people, but accountability to the people can be zero, and we live with it.

The system has to change...the culture of acceptance has to change.....

The times are, a changing. Apparently.

My life is entrenched in a world based on economic growth. Growth that is the new order of the world. Whether it is India or China or the US, the only thing that matters is that magic number called GDP.

I am the typical urbanite living in a world driven by the market. I earn decently well, being in the IT industry. Not what I think I should be given that I am stagnating in the same company for more than 5 years, so maybe the next job hunt is eminent. But yes, apparently I deserve more, more because everyone in my field with my number of years of experience is earning a certain number. Yes, I deserve more, because anything less would be underselling myself. Yes, I deserve to make the most of the opportunities provided to me from childhood to this current moment, and by an industry that thrives on job hops to get more pay. An opportunity available to me, thanks to my being born in a certain family, with certain value systems, with a certain exposure to the world, with a certain capability to get me an education, probably not in the best school around, but a good one with solid grounding that helped me take on responsibilities in every aspect of my life.

Its all luck I say. Capitalism, they say,  is all about working hard and if you end up making a ton of money because of "your" initiative, you are revered and respected, because you made it on your own steam. Crap.

Imagine a guy who is working hard making roads or railway lines in places like Delhi, in summer. Working hard, yes, getting paid reasonably well for it? Hell no. What if I had been born into that family? I am privileged not just because of my abilities, but because of which family I was born into. Because I am a product of all the years of education, thanks to my parents money being well spent on grooming me, ensuring I got the right breaks in life. That's why I am where I am. I got the opportunities. Not because I started out equal with everyone and somehow my thirst to do more and achieve more got me more. Now I get to make hay while the sun shines. And so my kids shall. Its great, except when you are born in the wrong family. As simple as that.

So the story evolves usually about the two classes in India, the haves v/s the have-nots. I am sure that this topic has been analyzed by the intellectuals oh so many times.Somehow things have improved for everyone. The new India is shining supposedly. Even the maids salaries have gone up 10 fold. They have more purchasing power. Their kids get to go to English medium schools. Things are not as bad for them.

And yet, the same kids, had they been born in a better off family would have been able to make capitalism work better for them.  Truly.

Somehow it all boils down to the rich getting wealthier and wealthier, and the poor definitely improving over the previous generation, but not quite getting the breaks that come automatically to the wealthier lot. Beaten topic, I know. Sigh!

Sometimes I wonder if capitalism is all that great as its made out to be..

Asthma and Running

Today, I got into a discussion with a friend who recently tested as being allergic to dust mites. That finally got me started on this blog I have been meaning to write for a long time about asthma and running. Almost everyone knows the benefits of exercising on a regular basis. There is enough material online, with detailed information about how running can benefit us in so many ways. I am just here to tell my story, specifically in relation to asthma.

There was a time, a long time ago I suppose when I used to work out without knowing I was working out. Let me rephrase. As kids growing up in the sprawling campus of IITB, we would easily walk 5-6 kms a day, bike, swim at every given opportunity. 

I remember the year I got introduced to swimming, we used to swim mornings and evenings. Then 10th grade happened, studies took over, which meant many hours sitting at one spot, munching something or the other while studying, etc. This continued for a few years, till we got past 12th grade, started relaxing a bit with college life and realized that those few years of not being active had taken a toll somewhere.

A friend and I then got into more structured workouts..training under the IIT athletics coach. We got into a habit of running 5-6 kms almost everyday, followed by more than an hour of detailed stretching and floor exercises. Those by far, were the most perfect years of my life. We would happily spend hours working out late into the evenings, lying down on the grass staring up at the twinkling stars after a good workout every evening. We weren't doing anything phenomenal by athletic standards, but the results of working out slowly started showing.

My friend moved away, I got busy with further studies, subsequent marriage, a new job, a new country, etc. I worked out, albeit sporadically, or long periods of "not at all". I didn't "think" of the impact of long hours of working on my laptop day in and day out. I was busy with my life, I suppose.

We still managed to do fun "active" stuff, like rollerblading, heading out for hikes when we could. But I had no dedicated time to workout. I was no longer the person who could run 5-6 kms a day with ease.

Then of course the natural progression to a mother of two, along with continuing to work in IT ensured that I practically had no time to breathe, let alone exercise. We had moved to Bangalore by then, and I was at wits end trying to keep everything together. Exercise was the last thing on my mind. I was always tired. By 8 in the night, I would be ready to crash. There were times when I slept for an hour or so, managed to wake up just in time to have dinner, then manage a call or two with colleagues across in the US.

Allergies and asthma related issues had started surfacing slowly but surely. These issues had started in the last year of our stay in the US, but started making huge waves in Bangalore. Many folks I knew had allergies, asthma. Most blamed it on Bangalore weather, dust, pollen, parthenium, seasons, etc. I got to a stage once where I ended up hospitalized due to a really bad asthma attack. The usual nebulizer with the doc did not do the trick and 6 hours later, was in the hospital.

No wake up call happened then. Life went on. I learnt to manage my asthma better, which meant I learnt to rely on inhalers mornings and evenings or when an attack looked imminent. Two years of constantly being on inhalers, trying one homeopathic medicine after another to the point that I no longer had the will to continue to actively manage my asthma.

All these years, P had been quietly running, building up from 10 K to a half marathon, to finally a full marathon. Somewhere along the way, I realized I wanted to be running again. Started slowly, and would like to say that I have been running not too much, but running reasonably frequently the last couple of years. And the most miraculous thing that has happened has not been the weight loss or the endurance or the increased energy. The greatest benefit has been the almost complete freedom from asthma attacks. To have come this far from a stage where I was constantly using my inhalers to "breathe normally" to an almost 99% asthma free state is nothing short of a miracle. And I credit only running to this.

Why running? Why not any other exercise? I run about 5 km each time, about 3-4 times a week.  Not much. But compared to other forms of cardio, running leaves me bathed in sweat, literally. My very strong belief is that running combined with profuse sweating clears my body of built up environmental toxins or other allergens. These, when left in the body and when accumulated over time trigger asthma and other allergic responses in the body.

I have no basis to prove my theory. Except that, for the first time in 7 years, I have not touched my inhaler except just once recently when travelling. I rest my case.

Run some. Run more!

Addendum: 08-Oct: I did a little bit of a rethink, and wanted to say that maybe I am a bit biased towards running, but any exercise that gets the sweat pouring and heart rate up is basically good, not just running. For me, the running culture around me, with a substantial population of my friends running half marathons and full marathons is something inspiring, and one day do aspire to go to that level. Till then, sweat it out everyday, keep asthma away is my mantra.