2019 comes to an end

#157

On the surface this was a bumper year. A 50 years old man couldn’t have asked more than an earning skills and some real estate purchases that dropped out of the skies – out of the blue. So I must be happy and ecstatic; not exactly true.

            Just an hour back, Thangam had a last day at work. I felt sad and somber. I gifted her a brass lamp for ten years of loyal and efficient service. She promised to visit me at the new house when there is a formal puja ceremony. I have observed Thangam for ten years and she is a woman of character, who knows how to build a family from straws. She raised three daughters with a drunken non-productive husband; all three are graduates and married to families couple of steps higher on the economic ladder. Any time I think of a Meera or a Thangam in my mind, it is with respect and honour. 

            2019 had lots of Mumbai trips, couple of Vipassana retreats, and I engaged my time on learning and mastering to an extent on stock trading. Today I have a skill which will never see me hit the roads. More than just money – which is a great skill for those starving in India – I am obsessed by the game of numbers and probabilities.  

            At my mind level, I see all too clearly that I am in the finishing line of life. I have run a hard race and I could do with somnolence. I have fared as very few given such a lousy start – my parents inflicted such childhood traumas that I have taken a whole of my adulthood on a repair job. Now there is no one to blame; blaming others for your failures does indeed have an expiry date. As for me, the lessons forward are crystal clear – practice more of self-compassion, more energetic and get outdoors for I am as recluse as a cattle in a dairy farm or a chicken waiting for slaughter in a coop. I still store enough strength of mind to make something out of my life yet, but like the unpredictability of a Tata Steel or Yes Bank I am as much clueless as to what bread my life would bake. I am world class in four domains: writing, soft skills training, mindfulness and stock trading would be the latest addition. Even with such formidable skills you need a tailwind for any bakery of life in an oven. At 50 I know this with a certainty; not a blade of grass moves to the wind without divine grace. And grace is not something you beg or plead; it flows or it doesn’t and your job is to keep pegging. The universe is under no great compulsions to fabricate a purpose for your life; your destiny is revealed to you at its pace. Your job is gob up and keep doing what’s on the menu which calls for patience and more whips on the donkey’s back. So humility is a given; uncertainty a fact and ambitions as futile as those crushed cigarette buds after a smoke.

            In 2020 there will be less of dauntlesssathya blog posts – I find it nauseatingly self-centered. I hope to write on new interests and experiences in thinksathya but in 2020 there will be a conscious effort to be less self-centered in my blog writings. 2020 begins in a new apartment in Palavakkam, and a 3 days Vipassana course in Dindigul. I am ever the trier!!! And I sign off with heaviness in my heart: this is my last blog post from Besant Nagar which has been my home for three decades.  I am happy to go, it did serve me well though. 

M91/6 was very lucky

#155

The apartment I currently reside is bang opposite the famed RBI staff quarters. Besant Nagar was as suburban in 1960s than a Thoraipakkam or Siruseri today before RBI opened a residential quarter for their officers in the late 1960s. Besant nagar was famous for three things at the dawn of 1970 – RBI staff quarters, Astalaxmi temple and the cremation ground. Then in the 80s-90s this part of city became SUPER PREMIUM for its proximity to the Beach and later in the 2000s with the advent of Tidel Park and IT parks on ECR and OMR. Today Besant Nagar is perhaps the hottest place for a youngster, he/she finds the beach an ideal dating place with every kind of fast foods and eatery in the vicinity, the New Year celebrations in Besant Nagar is on a global scale (meaning every Chennaiite anywhere on the planet will talk of Besant Nagar New Year celebrations). In these 4-5 decades this part of the city has grown astronomically – one of my friends bought two and half grounds in Palavakkam for 30-40 k whose market value is over 9 crores today.

            Anyway I got distracted singing the glory of Besant Nagar but for a justifiable reason. I am finally moving out after spending the last 3 decades of my life here. Strangely I am happy moving out, there is too much vehicular traffic here, too much people movement and my heart aches for a bit of solace and quietness and a lot more trees which my new residence accommodates. As for me, my photographic memories of Besant nagar is walks on Theosophical Society lawns (I was a regular for years) and Swami Paramarthananda’s spiritual talks.

            Now let me get focused on what I had in mind when I started this blog post: my current apartment has been very fortunate, in the 12 months I spent here I have grown as a person and importantly on the wealth front. For the first time in my life I have a money making skill; Gods be infinitely thanked for this. I also had a lot of travels in 2019 and I will put down this apartment M91/6 in 2019 as the best of my three decades stay in Besant nagar.

             The registration for GREEN PARK is getting pushed by the week. If I get a HDFC housing loan, the papers will be signed tomorrow. If I don’t make it to the loan – strangely banks lend on the basis of salaries of employees or IT returns of businesses when more people are getting fired and more businesses turning red. I have a skill which is only now showing good returns but “banks play by the safety of numbers” than make an allowance of skills- then I borrow 5 lacs for a personal loan and finish this matter. I most certainly will shift to GREEN PARK in Palavakkam before Christmas or on 31/12 as the last of my Fixed Deposit matures on 28/12. So that’s how things stand today. I am comfortable with both though a housing loan would make my life infinitely easier.

            I narrate this personal tale just to make this point. Raghu who I befriended just a little over two months said of his own volition without any nudging, “Sathya, if you fall short of 4-5 lacs, I will be happy to loan it to you.” I was talking about GREEN PARK housing finance as I briefed him on the  HDFC housing loan before he made this voluntary offer. No one in my life has placed such trust on me. I will never risk such a confidence, I will go for the Personal loan but Raghu’s words cooled my hearts like never before. Here was a person who is extraordinarily good in today’s rat race world of selfishness and it is that act that I wished to record for a blog post.

            I visited my mother this Sunday and she looks on the edge. Her face is shrunk from no teeth at all. I was there only for 30 min fearing that my sister would make an appearance any moment and my mood was revolting against that encounter. So I sneaked in like a thief and sneaked out. Next day I spoke to my sister in ages saying, “I am buying an apartment and would you come if I invite you for a puja in the middle of January?” This is no noble gesture from my end except a little warmth with a sister which will not make me feel like a sneaking thief in my next month’s visit to Adambakkam.
            I feel sorry that Thangam's tenure as a cook comes to an end with this shift to Palavakkam. She is a classy person though she was plagued with bad health this year. I gave her a 25 k bonus for 10 years of faithful service, also an assurance, "Please contact me anytime if there is a financial emergency. I will be more than happy to lend." Thangam speaks little; there's a lot for me to learn in terms of daily discipline, commitment to family and she carries more grace than I can ever muster in any social setting. She was good, even great and it will be sad missing her company. Now I pray for a new cook with some proportion of these qualities; it's vitally important that a person with a good heart cooks your daily food. 

            As the year comes to an end, I spent over Rs. 3,000 on books – I got one on Alexander the Great and another on Hannibal. I also ordered some stock trading books. This is one domain I have thirst for learning, I don't wish to squander this state of mind by distracting myself elsewhere. I have a wish in 2020 – buy one BBC documentary or a National Geographic Special each month I gross 4 lacs in monthly earnings. These DVDs don’t cost much except a delivery service from a UK or USA but I would treasure them with my life. I also have a couple of material goals for 2020 – finalize the Kumbakonam villa deal, then have a two wheeler for transportation to gyms and nearby restaurants (in Besant Nagar everything was walking distance) and finally afford a car. Car is a luxury I can live without but I would like to have that experience before I can cast it aside. The purpose of this post was 2019 was an extraordinarily good year for me, M91/6 was inordinately fortunate for at long last I got something out of the marketplace for an earning.

Life’s trivialities – 3 insights

#154

I checked the meaning and it says “of little value or importance” but nothing gives more insights on life than normal mundane living.

            First tale: Thangam, my cook, was scrupulously duty conscious in the first 9 years of service. The last 12 months has been a horror.  She entered my services in January 2010 when life was throwing all kinds of bouncers at me. I was unemployed the whole of 2010, I was boiling inside after a woman dumped me in October of 2009, I still had fantasies of publishing fame. Thangam is a taciturn character to the friendly Meera, the earlier cook. We took more than a year to speak more than two sentences. In the initial years I was content that my food problems were fixed. Thangam is quiet German efficiency.

            I am very liberal as an employer - I give 4-5 days a leave a month without question. I also give my cooks the use of the ration card from which they get 4 kgs of sugar, cooking oil and other pulses at subsidized rates. Thangam is now 60 and fast ageing. For one who was never late by more than 15 minutes in the first 9 years of service the last 12 months have been a horror show. She takes more leaves than I can digest, irregular timings that rattles my cage. If you are supposed to come by 9 am, 30 minutes late is acceptable but not 11:00. This happened 3-4 times this month. Her reason is using this prime cooking time for her physiotherapy sessions for a sprain in the arms. This sloppiness makes me feel like reducing her bonus from 50 k to 20 k,  a gratuitous gesture,  as I shift to a new residence when dispensing with her service. What pains me that she just does not care or give an ear to my censures. I tell her gently, “You have worked for 10 years here and you have earned the right to take as many leaves as you wish. But please don’t promise to come at 8:30 am and call me at 10:00 saying you’ll be an hour late.  Please remember that there is a person waiting for breakfast and any delay after 10:00 is rats in my stomach.”  She just doesn’t get this simple message soaked in thick layers of SELF-CENTEREDNESS (Thangam has a rich selfish vein of selfishness). If I am having a cardiac arrest and were to call Thangam for help, sure she will respond but not if she is attending a physiotherapy session. There is an insight that Thangam taught me unwittingly: How much ever you are absorbed in your work or physiotherapy sessions, please spare a thought to the other person. Don’t be so selfish and self-centered as to earn the wrath of a very hungry man. 

            Second Insight: One of my pet scratching emotional wound is "try to hurt my siblings" with couple of stinker mails annually. My grouse against both my sisters is they have not included me in festivities for 3 decades knowing full well that I am a loner and zilch family support. I tried hammering in their heads that they owe me a certain hospitality but a drilling machine to make holes on a concrete slab would have been easier than putting any noble thoughts on their heads. I also realized that I get no support from them when I am sick (both my sisters never visit me in decades, so absorbed they are in their pre-occupations with their husbands and sons and daughter-in-laws and grandsons that a poor brother can’t fetch even a fleeting glance of concern).

Normally I write a stinker mail to them around Diwali for a yearly ritual and include in the "cc" their kids and their samadhis as my outrage and shaming them to people they hold near and dear. Yesterday I was tempted to write "both of you have such stone hearts that it will do you good to work in a crematorium. Your task would be collect the bones and ashes after the bodies are cindered to ashes. A few days work and you will realize the wealth and flesh are ephemeral." I kept debating in my mind before this thought stopped me in the tracks: In this world there is so much misery and sorrow, let no one - however much I am provoked - suffer on account of my words or actions. It's a nice thought to remember, so I repeat: I will not do a thing to wipe out sorrow in others caused by million myriad factors but I will not be the cause of someone's sorrows.

            Third tale: When I started the TOI job in February, 2007 I was asked by the HR department to open a salary account at HDFC bank which I promptly did. Though I have a savings account at SBI, HDFC has been my main operative account since then. When I sold an apartment last December and those people saw 1 crore in my account, the VP (investment) invited himself to my residence. We had elaborate exchanges on my risk appetite and expected rates of interest. Those blokes drew up an investment plan that to my rank amateur eyes looked hollow and out to suck me. For instance, they were giving me a 7% interest on Fixed Deposits when the outside market gives 8%. So I told the man in suits, “Thanks for the trouble. I will manage my funds myself.” My thinking was simple: It is better that I risk losing my monies out of my own steam than get someone who will tell me after a year and in the meanwhile enjoy fat salaries and foreign vacations signing up dumb goats like me.

            Last month I sought an appointment with their relationship manager asking for an overdraft facility or a home loan. They simply refused despite me having 10-15 lacs parked in my savings accounts at any given point in time.  I wrote to HDFC Bank CEO on the level of pathetic service and the branch manager called me saying, “Can I come and meet you at your residence?” The lady did not as much take any initiative to meet me in 12 years of banking that a simple complaint mail to the CEO got her jumping out her seat.

            In the meanwhile my builder Mr. Mugudavel, an enterprising man, urged me for a home loan to consummate the transaction as quickly as possible. He banks with HDFC, Kottivakkam branch while I bank at Besant Nagar. He requested those people to contact me. Those chaps visited me, saw all my documents and are now willing to give me a home loan which makes my life incredibly easy. The insight here is simple: Those who have known me for a decade just don’t care while a stranger sees merit in my case. The Kottivakkam team is speed-rushing my application and for once I thank them of their competence and decision making process.

Busy as a bee

#153

These are fast-paced crazy times. Too many things happening and I am just waiting for this week to lapse to get my breath back.

            Buying an apartment is as tough as getting a daughter married is an age-old Tamil proverb that I am now facing the full brunt of it. I have just the money for the purchase but some of it is locked up in Fixed Deposits (one is maturing this month-end and I hate to lose out on the interest part especially when it on the last month of the finishing line). A friend once insisted that I handle 75 lacs of his money after realizing that I am going at A+ levels in the stock market. A month back I was cavalier and dismissive for it is “infinitely better to win or lose one’s money than play with the trust of a client. But now on the last stretch of an apartment buy I reverted back to him, “I can’t handle 75 lacs but I can promise you 20% return for 25 lacs which is a mental pressure I can handle without changing my trading style.” If he agrees, I get the apartment without any overdraft or loan otherwise I empty out my pockets for the GREEN PARK apartment at Palkalai nagar. This week should answer that question: whether I go for an overdraft or being an investment specialist for a neighbor.

            I don’t really fare well under any kind of pressure. I am like an African native who does not mind waiting for a bus in a bus stop for two days. I want time to pause, reflect, masticate. It’s not in my grain of genes for a thoughtless, heedless rush of time where I am simultaneously doing two dozen things in a moment and tick-off items of a checklist kind of living.  It’s fun for a month or so beyond that I can’t take that load of baggage.

            Tirupati trip was a miracle thanks to Thirumalai the driver. I also learnt that I talk too much in a coach kind of setting. We were 10 of us and I was sizing them up to the extent of doing a blog post on each one of them. But yeah there is too much noise I bring to the atmosphere and there’s no excuse. But my only weak defense is I rarely venture out of my apartment and so make the best of a talking opportunity. But when I do an overdose of it, I end up educating others. I see myself as a sage and philosopher by accident, my life is so far removed from the usual humdrum. I also feel so much superior in the midst of people when I see moans and groans of “I did not get the promotion I deserved” or “I cannot afford French perfume or the latest winter collection” or “I am having a tough time deciding on the curtain’s colours” kind of lifestyle living when I am very comfortable living without power supply for hours of a hot humid Chennai skies or warding off mosquitoes that has drawn first blood on my skin. Life the eternal courtesan, I find it attractive and drawn to it like iron filings to a magnet. Life as it falls on me and others. Everyone I meet is a puzzle my mind wants to crack (I have this ingrained Holmes streak since childhood!!!), each one of us have whales of stories to tell. There is no such thing as normal which is what you will find in a TVC where a happy couple is selling insurance with a playful boy and an aspiring girl all doing aerobics in the living room. Life for most part is tough, not at all easy in our times.

            Then I had a three days Vipassana which one would have thought was a breeze. We had the biggest rains of the season and “how I managed to reach Besant Nagar in one piece after being stranded for three hours on the road in the middle of nowhere” is enough material for a blog post by itself. Point is, each time I go out of my house, there is a story that descends on me.

            2019 has been a fabulous year – possibly my best. 1998 was a great year where I had a heart surgery that led me on a journey of wastrel idleness through weekend Vedanta talks and a king’s walk on the Theosophical Society lawns. These were the main courses in the day and I loved it without the pressuring of earnings or placating irate clients or fire-fighting or any stupid glory at the corporate.  Then 2007 everything seemed to fall in place; my first writing job and my first & last tryst at romance. But 2019 is special because this is the first time I was not short of money and I made the best use of it – four trips to Mumbai by flight, a holiday in Delhi, Vipassana courses in Igatpuri and Banglore and now these short trips to Kanchipuram and Tirupati. This year I had a lot of outdoors and they have definitely impacted my mind on how others cope with a witch called life.

            My mind is so full of trading that I am having little time for these blog posts. I wanted to write “Adventures in Trading” for sharing my experiences on Tata Steel and Bharti Airtel. I also have a pending blog post on “Vipassana @ Chennai” which I should fit in by this week. I record my thoughts on a mobile so that I don’t forget the raw data as it were of life memories and that’s when I realize the power of a written word. Nothing comes close to writing, not even a high quality audio recorder.

            2019 gave me a glimpse of life that I have chosen after trading. There will be more trips and even monthly 3 days Vipassana breaks in 2020 from the stress of the stock market. I am planning a weekly planner where I can jot down the daily BPL (Booked profits or loss) and total MTM (Market to market) gains on a day. Then have a schedule of 3-days retreats at BLORE, HYD and MAA (Chennai code is MAA in Airlines book) for a monthly Vipassana break and weekend travel in South India to compensate for the stresses of the week.

            I am thankful to Ganesh Shenoy for his boisterous cheer, Raghu, Gopalan, Iyer mama, Manisha, Yohanan give talking and listening pleasure. Yesterday I got home with a heart as excited as a formula-1 car driver after battling the rains and spoke to Ashish Bansal for a sounding board. He really is wise beyond his years; each time I speak to him I am richer with an insight. Said he, “Sathya, you seem to be living without any baggage of past while most us are limited by our experiences.” That, my friend, is due to the daily practice of mindfulness. In the end nothing counts as much as love and trust you confer on yourself. You are indeed the hero and villain of your life, don’t allow any frilly petticoats with shaved legs and western skirts baring thighs to disturb the peace that is inherently gifted to us by creation.

            As for me, I am just waiting to make the final payments for securing GREEN PARK and then shifting into it. The rest are mere details now. I have done very well in 2019 for this is the first time in my life I have a money making skill. Gods be finally blessed for liberating me of this plight for decades. 2020 should see me get a villa in Kumbakonam and maybe even my first car. But there is no woman in my mind for a determined resolve. Life is good as it is, there is too much risk losing my new found wealth and freedom. Finally there is also a growing insight that "Whatever I do, I am world-class" - be it creative writing, soft skills training that never got a platform, mindfulness literature and now stock market trading. Which is a comforting thought for a mind which is genetically rich in diffidence. Gods be blessed for making this year so packed with activity and purpose.