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.
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