Redemption or Perdition

For years I have been trying,

to create for my mind,

a haven of peace.

Alone I have been crying,

I have not been able to find,

from my fears a release.

Each day with dread I face,

Is my fate to be a burden?

Will I ever achieve redemption?

I am not good enough in the race,

Hence I keep myself hidden.

Perhaps I am already in perdition.

Questions on God

Two quotes which I have come across at different times time popped into my head today- "life is what happens when you are busy making other plans" by John Lennon and "If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans" by Woody Allen.

Putting the two together, I make plans, I make God laugh and life just goes on. For the last 19 months, that has been the story of my life. It is not worth repeating every setback, large and small, but suffice it to say that my life has completely changed and I am at a complete loss as to what is happening.

Whether it is my child's health and education, my wife's illness, my mother's struggle with the suddenly enforced loneliness, my own hopeless efforts at work, I  have had little say or part in any of it except as a member of the audience or at best, an unwitting participant from the audience.

It is my own life and I am just a spectator with no role, no control over the dialogue and no idea what is coming up. It is being played out infront of me and there is little I can do about what is happening.

Given this, I have decided to stop god from laughing. First, there are no more plans since I have realised that there is no point in them. I am not doing any self-destructive or just giving up, but I have stopped expecting anything from life, neither the bad nor the good.

Next, I have stopped believing in God. As a child, I used to pray for something for my benefit, then moved to wishing good for the world and my family, then to the right thoughts at the right time and none of these have ever worked.

The gradual shift happened since I realised that the first was just plain selfish and silly. Then, the second was a worthy cause and I tried to do something about it as well but it fell apart which led me to focus more on my own life but in an unselfish way. They have all fallen apart now and need a new way to see my relationship with God.

I am not going to be an atheist and outright deny the existence of god. But for me, the growing doubts have become too much to ignore. Earlier, I used to believe that no matter what happened to the rest of the world, at least there was some fairness in what was happening to me and hence there is a god and I need to be thankful for that.

But now, recent experiences have cast a pall of gloom so thick that I cannot see the point in a god. I would like to start with what is happening in the world because I admit that my problems and issues may be too small for god to be bothered. 

Things are going wrong all over the word- war, famine, crime and disease- killing, injuring, hurting, starving and destroying people who have done nothing wrong! It is obvious that there is no fairness in this world. If there is no fairness, what is the point in believing in a God?

Then there is the question my mother asked a long time ago- if there is a God who determines how we live our life and is all powerful, then how can we be punished for what we did wrong when we did not even act of our own free will? I will drop this argument and admit that there is a god, but not the all powerful and all knowing provider of justice. Then what is God?

If God cannot even prioritise the destruction mankind is bringing up on itself and the planet, if he can allow war and rampant poverty, if he can allow one group of humans to subjugate and strangle another group to death, what is he doing? What greater task is he busying himself with?

Thus, as far as the world is concerned, there is no point in having a god as proved by whatever has been happening in the world since the dawn of time.

Then it is my personal stance and as far that is concerned, I have never believed in rituals and poojas and rites. There are some that offer us consolation and closure, like the last rites after a death- it gives us the relief that we have done all we can for that person and it is only for our peace of mind. I do not think there is an afterlife, last judgement, heaven or hell and that once we die, that is it. No matter what we say about soul, or as per hinduism, soul returning to the creator (vishnupadam, brahman etc), I believe the individual just ceases to exist and nothing more.

I believe that most rituals are merely eyewash, to provide an illusion of hope and there will be fairness in this world. It is to pull a veil of expectation that if we do the right thing, we will have a good life and the world will be kinder to us.

Then, it is about silent and unnoticed prayers and hope. I earlier mentioned that my trials and tribulations over the last year and a half have left me with little space for belief in god. Life just goes on and has taken me wherever it feels like and each day is a preparation for whatever worse is to come the next day.

There is no relief but only incessant challenges from which, not only there is no victory, but there is only the certainty of defeat and I feel this is the situation with everyone in the world. We have no chance to win because the world has infinite time and opportunities to knock us down and claim victory.

In this gloom, the only thing we can do is to be a little kinder to each other, reduce our selfishness, care and share what we have since all of us are facing our own battles and every speck of relief from the battle helps us live a little better.

We need to do this ourselves and no god is going to come by and shower us with blessings and luck and favourable circumstances. We need to take care of each other and the planet we live in. That is the only solution if we are to have any hope and future- it is not going to be in the hands of god, but in our collective, conscientious effort that we will find a better world.

Photographic Memories

We used to take a photograph to permanently preserve a precious moment of our lives and sometimes the moment becomes precious just on account of the fact that it has been photographed. This was in the era when we were limited by the costs of a roll of film and processing it, along with the onerous tasks of preparing both the camera and ourselves for a shot and then finding a studio to convert the negatives into tangible photographs.

Nowadays, we take photographs not for memories but for instantly sharing it with the world. Rather than looking back at a time that has long gone by, we broadcast it for instant consumption and then discard it, not transfer, into a hard-disc (or google drive), rarely to be dug up or even remembered.

However, Google photos has taken a contrary position as it reminds us of various "pics", to use the contemporary term for photographs, we have taken over time and uploaded on Google. Since I am alone for most of the week, I go through these pics and recollect the context behind them- a birthday, a trip, a festival or an ordinary outing and in case of my daughter, just about any interesting thing she said or did during her first 2 years and they still bring a smile to my face.

When I go home, I show these pics to my daughter and she is as enthralled by her own antics as if she is watching her favorite disney princess movie. I also actively collude in her self indulgence.

However, I am not home during weekdays and only during weekends do I see my family. During most of the week, photographs are a reminder of what I miss each day since they not just show me random moments frozen in time, but I am usually able to place those moments as part of a bigger story about the events that surround each pic.

Thus, memories are not records of a happy past but a cruel and painful reminder of what I have lost and what I miss. This is especially true of all good memories that have been preserved in pics. They are proof of what I used to have and there is little hope of getting them back. I can see and almost feel, but can never reach them. The happy and peaceful moments are gone and I am drowning in uncertainty, anxiety and loneliness.

As far as memories of unpleasant experiences go, since they have not been photographed fortunately, they do not come up frequently. I am glad that they are over and hence it is a relief, but experience suggests that bad times repeat more often than good ones. Hence, they are scary reminders of what lies ahead.

Am I then condemned to be always haunted by memories, whether they are happy or sad? I do not want to carry them like a burden and I do not want to feel what is fondly called "nostalgia" for I have never understood why it is such a romanticised and glorified word as it only means reminders of a past long gone and unreachable.

I want to live in the present and look ahead to the future. I neither want to relive the pains of the past nor be reminded that I cannot get back what I once had. Past has got me to the present, but more than a sense of token gratitude, I cannot bear them as a burden anymore as they hurt me more than I can suffer.

I hope there is something in the future that is happy and worth living for. I wish that I am not past all the good times in my life and that there is more to be lived in gladness and peace.

The Year That Was

I tried to review the year 2022, but then on January 2nd 2023, my father passed away. That's a strong and blunt opening line, but I have no other way to start describing a year that had me move jobs and cities multiple times and also finally turn my family's world upside down.

The beginning of the year was about LIBOR transition at the time of Corona. At work, it meant uncertainties, wrangling with IT and mid office to implement changes about which I was also learning on the go from online articles, other banks and through trial and error. The omicron wave lashed at my home as well, but the effects then were minimal while the long term damage will remain unknown.

A deserved break and visit to my in-laws in Thrissur was upended when, out of the blue, exactly a year ago to this day, the Bank made it clear that it would transfer me back to retail banking, albeit near home, as per the newly minted HR policy which gave primacy to branch banking. The policy deserves an entire thesis to be devoted to dissect it's pros and cons and impact on the Bank and it's personnel- hence I do not wish to delve into that now. For me, it meant family would be unattended in Mumbai while I would be at home, or so I thought.

That was when I realised the difference between a home and a house. I was alone at my house that had been my permanent address since birth, but I did not feel comfortable. Without my family, I felt suffocated and rudderless. 

That did not have to last long fortunately, as after a lot of bureaucratic wrangling, I was able to get my family back home, which I thought would be the beginning of some stability.

Stability- I have lost sight of what that means. When I joined in Kerala, I was a fish out of water- transplanted from the world of market risk to credit risk. It was not just uncomfortable but even hostile. I must admit that the immediate environment was very supportive, but it was more like inmates at a prison trying to make each other feel better and hoping for an escape or serving out their sentence before losing all hope for a normal life.

The initial period was a struggle but I felt hardwork would give results. My stance was vindicated and my usual strategy of studying, reading and just brute force trial and error worked, or so it seemed. There were results, but it was all in vain as I could not escape the pitfalls of retail banking in SBI. This too deserves to be analysed thoroughly, which I would leave for a later post.

I had to leave, for peace of mind, and realised the purpose of fear and anxiety - it's meant to force us to get out of threatening scenarios and if that's not possible, survive it. Right from the day I joined, I was afraid of such a turn of events. Everyone dismissed it as unreasonable and attributed it to my mind's failings. The riposte from management or seniors was that "so many people are doing it, what is the problem with you?". 

I like to think that the answer is "I have other options while others are scared to explore anything outside" and not "I'm too scared and not as brave as them". 

And so, I left. Some say it was a brave call, I felt it was unwise and hasty. But either way, I felt it was the only option. The interregnum was scary, but the emergence of options made it easier with time, each of which had Bangalore as the destination.

The options emerged due to the risks I took in 2017. At that time, it looked hasty and unwise. I left everything and everyone I knew and dived into unfamiliar depths. I was broken down, all my limitations - anxiety, homesickness, lack of self confidence- laid bare infront of an unforgiving city that pushed me to the edge, before I was able to claw my way back.

Thus having seen off Mumbai, Bangalore seemed a step down in all aspects- despite the city's famed IT sector, it's not as fast paced as Mumbai. For me, the lack of sunshine and slow paced work were mood dampeners. The profile was also not what I wanted at the time, but perhaps it was what I needed then - something easy to pick myself up after the complete dismantling of my confidence at the hands of top management.

Perhaps Bangalore had the same opinion about me- you're not suited here. Senior colleges definitely thought so- I had to go back to what I was doing before, go full circle and start off again. Another role change and location change beckoned me. 

As I prepared for this, the new year brought dad news right in its early days and the rest of the year will go in getting used to a new reality. The sudden loss meant that I had never saw him an old man- he was full of life, activity and shouldering responsibilities till the end. I never had a chance to create a memory to remember him and all I'm left with are memories of daily life- the list making on things to be done each day, analysis of deposit interest rates, driving somewhere (wouldn't let me drive if he was also in the car!!), taking care of my daughter, supervising the labourer who cleared the land, grocery shopping... 

I'm not able to accept that he's gone, naturally since it's been less than 50 days. But to live on without being able to plan and manage things without his "audit", to take decisions with long term implications without his insights and the fallback option that he provided- it'll be doable but I'll miss him.

A year of challenges thus gives way to an era of even greater challenges and responsibilities. But this time, there wouldn't be the bulwark that my father was. During my last stint in Mumbai, the limited options in terms of housing, location, pay and comforts that came with SBI were set off by him and perks from his job. Going back hence would be a new challenge, but after having faced off once before, I know what to expect. Plus, the constraints of SBI do not bind me anymore.

While seeking counsel on what to do about the situation at home, one of my SBI seniors told me "life must move on" and I realise more scope for those words each day. I need to live, work, take care of family and then one day, put what has happened behind me and begin to enjoy life fully. Might not be this year though, but I need to get ready for that.