FOBU, the fear of becoming Unnecessary: 370

 He felt bad thinking about the way he had brushed aside the friends’ concerns during their previous meeting. Bystander entered the park with purposeful strides, determined to set the score right. The calm atmosphere in the park did not pervade in to his mind as he had a heavy subject to discuss with his friend.

When the friend poured out his woes that his children are not willing to acknowledge his struggles and instead of appreciation, they are treating it as a bad loan to be written off. As a friend, he should have comforted him but had said, “Before you want to criticize someone, better walk a mile in their shoes.” He could have stopped there but pointed out the friend’s sardonic quip “That way you will be a mile away and you will have the shoes!” He did not know why he had repeated his friend’s own words, to him at that time. 

He had continued and lectured him by asking, “Really, can any of us tell the universe to behave as we want it? How incognizant it would be? We extend help thinking someone needs it, but in reality, they may not be. Don’t you realise why in a family, the medal of appreciation is not given?  The children’s valid reason could be to discourage you from continuing with such activities beyond a point.” 

The friend, who was glum became gloomier. With a late attempt in comforting, he had said, “Many of us could understand this unreadable googly. In this situation, I would get off thinking that the inside of my own head would not be the reliable place to hear things I have been refusing to hear. Though, this might sound like an advice cum admonishment.” 

Unable to take it anymore, finally the friend for this friendship’s sake, had silently swallowed his own caustic retort, “How a person standing on his hands could entertain the thought that he is holding the world in his hands?” Of course, Bystander did not know that. 

He greeted the friend and said, “I am really sorry. I should have been more considerate to your concerns, the last time we met.”

The friend replied, “Forget it. I too should not have burdened you with my confused thinking.”

Bystander replied, “All said and done, I should have been more receptive. The last few days I have been spending on reading what other people are saying about this sort of situation. Is it alright to discuss about it now?”

The friend said, “If I am permitted to ask my doubts, go ahead?” 

“Then answer this one. Why did you, knowingly repeated my own words to mean as if I was only interested in getting a pair of shoes, though the context and content were unrelated?” 

Getting a chance to set it right, Bystander said, “I intended it as a suggestion to apprise your situation from a distance. The shoes mentioned was to allude to the other person’s perspective. Hear me, I will discuss what my reading materials say about the FOBU (fear of becoming unnecessary.) 

Generally, parents who can't stop helping their adult children may be struggling with the FOBU. Be it the mother or the father who extend unprompted, unsolicited help just to make sure. This helping does not stop there but continues by taking care of doctor appointments and extending to financial assistance.  The parents call it love. The whole culture is set up to call it love. It often isn’t.”

The friend queried, “How can it be not love?”

“Because love is imaginary in the sense that the real person acts as the template for the mind to construct that lovable personality as it wants or comfortable with. And it does not stop being only love, but becomes an expectation for reciprocation. This combination sows the seeds of FOBU.

Underneath this visible kindness there is something that the parents fail to see clearly - a quiet, accumulating fear that if they stop being needed and then they stop being anyone at all. This is the fear of being left alone. When twilight fades, stars become visible but when dawn fades what you feel will be the harsh reality of life.” 

The friend asked, “Are you trying to blame me for this situation?”

“No. It is the helicopter parenting, of course with love, of children during their emerging adulthood. It only undermines, their natural development. But how this helicopter takes to the air? By the parents fueling it with their regrets, anxieties, driven by prevention is better than cure focus, and fearing a failure in their own parental efforts.”

“Why this fear of parents should be blamed for this situation?”

They fear witnessing the failures of their children. Fear of receiving the call they don’t want to get. There is one thing that they don’t say out aloud - what they themselves would become when the children no longer need them. For parents, being needed actually gives a clear, continuing reason to exist. They try to cling on to the ‘something’ acquired from about twenty years of parenting which ‘something’ the rest of their life rarely might bring.

What is that ‘something’? Satisfaction of solving small problems, signing of forms. Attending to a scraped knee, comforting after a bad dream., averting a pending homework crisis and so on. The needs roll in, one after another. This leaves no room for the doubt whether this parenting life has meaning or not as the meaning itself shows up in person, three times a day, asking for things. This is the most direct evidence for a parent’s purposeful life. Though parenting is exhausting, this regimen leaves a parent with the most solid sense of self.”

“Why do the children push back and don’t appreciate the efforts of parents?” 

“A good question. Being part of nature, don’t we have to cope up with its vagaries? How can we escape its influence?  We help thinking someone needs it without ascertaining the necessity, when the individual might be capable of managing without that help. In a subtle way, the children signal the parents to stop such activities by not appreciating and bestowing medals.” 

“When nothing has changed with the parents, why the children must change as they grow up. Is it not hurting?”

“The expert opinion here is, the needs of children taper out and the dependence on parental help becomes sporadic. It is time for the parent to retire from the job of parenting, though it helped the parent to accumulate twenty odd years of parental identity. This destined-to-occur retirement quietly takes away that identity without substituting with another similar task insight.  This begins the hurt and fear of becoming unuseful.

The now-free parent starts to think, who am I, not needed anymore and if I let it go, now what would be there left for me? This worried mind unconsciously begins to bargain for opportunities to be once again useful. As a parent am I not ready to find things to do for them and play an active role.? From your outside perspective this readiness might look like generosity. From the insider’s perspective much of it is a quiet defense against the doubt and dilemma – What have I become to them?”

The friend who remained quietly listening asked, “What would you do in such a situation?”

“This dilemma occupied my mind for some time, but by accepting this natural outcome, I changed my approach with diversions.  There are many innocuous ways one can occupy the mind. My thinking after this pause was to fill up the chasm with grandchildren and without becoming a helicopter grandparent. Once was enough, remembering these kids too come with their own priorities.

It was quite a revelation to the friend’s facial expressions did not hide it. He might be hastily reevaluating his perceived opinion about Bystander as a person - condescending and curt.

Becoming eager to know more, he asked, “What goes on in the adult child’s mind to bring a parent this dilemma?”

“The child’s first priority is to try and become an adult. Meaning “to get out of parental care as quickly as possible’ and I want to manage myself urge. Determination to breathe easy and build up trust and self-confidence to handle things without help.

The root cause lies with the well-meaning parents who have managed to undermine the growing-up child by unintentionally embedding the message that ‘I don’t believe you can do this by yourself’, even when it was not meant to covey it that way.

This actually costs the adult child. The fear of making mistakes or causing displeasure to parents has been growing in the mind since childhood. Losing trust, self-confidence and ability, the child needed the parent’s involvement to feel okay about every decision to be taken.  Becomes habituated to consult before acting. The long-term effect is, as an adult in the thirties, fails to act on own judgement, because someone can be relied upon to verify it. This is a dependency creating cycle. The now-adult starts ruing about the lack of internal resources and own failure to create it due to the habit of passing on the problem to a parent for a solution. Is it not very late in the game for the now-adult to regret?

Now, as a result there are two sets of people locked together by a fear, neither of them are prepared to acknowledge and name it.

The competent thirtyish adult feels like one who is still waiting for permission with the fear of making mistakes or causing displeasure or becoming a failure in the eyes of parents.

The parent who steadfastly hold to the feeling that being needed is the proof of their usefulness in life and is still worth something. The parent is not the villain, but with deep love prepared to do anything for the child. Whatever is done is not out of cruelty or desire to control.”

“Do you mean to say the blame lies only with the parents?” The friend asked.

“If you dispassionately think, the answer is YES.  At that age, as a parent their experience and maturity level would have been better than that of the child, they were bringing up. Continuing in the same vein, the parent stands today questioning: Have I become redundant and less useful?

Continuing to help the thirtyish adult is because of the inability of a parent to process the grief over ending of decades long identity and is directionless about what to do with the second half of life when the first half was spent being indispensable. This fear takes over from love and brings up a face-saving logic in the mind of a parent who feels being not needed to help anymore - The helping is for me as much as for them.”

Overwhelmed, the friend meekly asked, “You always quote from a famous personality; have any that fits this situation?” 

“Yes. Try what the great Wolfgang Goethe asked: “If I love you, what business is it of yours?” I will twist it a little like what you did once, to mean, “If you have expectations, what business is that of the recipient? or If you are experiencing trepidations, what business is it of others? and so on. The bottom line is, if you want to encompass everyone, then you have to distance yourselves from everyone! You don’t need permission, validation or even a response. It is too late for us old timers, but the youngsters might well be practicing it right now, starting with the old timers.”

Needless to say, a heavy curtain of silence fell between Bystander and his friend. The former in satisfaction of having set the score right and the latter in trying to understand the implications of whatever he had just heard.

Mischievous miscellany -5 #369 #

 

Head to foot - A retiree’s dilemma: 

 Head to foot the ignored health signals did their homework. Playing the game of patience, they gathered strength, practiced mergers and acquisitions, ready to emerge as symptoms and ailments. Their green signal moment came when retirement knocked on the door. 

With free time on hand, the retiree comes under the relentless attacks of these fortified health signals. One by one they surfaced out of the pack. Like the slow-moving serpentine queue, the retiree catches a mild fever which ends up with a facetime with needles and diagnostic machines. He leaves with a bunch of papers carrying test results and worries. 

Test results confuse the consulting doctor and the patient in equal measures, but the doctor opens his escape route and shuttles the retiree to a specialist. Such is the care, the specialist prefers another set of labs, machines and reports.  After reviewing the reports, the specialist opts for a wait and watch approach, backed by a list of medicines and schedules for a facetime to review the progress, after a week. Due to hectic schedule, the specialist had no time to verify the prescribed tablets/ capsules against the manufacture’s packing. The retiree ends up in a dilemma whether to procure the medicine as per the doctor’s prescription or go with the manufacturers’ packaging scheme. 

With trepidation, for the after a week review schedule, the patient approaches the counter. The receptionist was busy, speaking to someone on cellphone. The retiree casts a quick glance, at the worried and mildly impatient faces squirming in their seats manages to accelerate his heart to exceed its pumping pressure and beat-limit. The retiree, having nothing else to do, skims through the reports pertaining to the first consultation comparing it with the current reports, hoping to dig out the clue to the ailment by himself. 

He spends time in trying to decipher the test values against standard parameters to end up with a list of possible syndromes and diseases. Becoming sufficiently frightened, he powers down the cellphone, shoves the reports into the folder that came thoughtfully as a free issue to get free advertisement. He reached the pinnacle of his nervousness when the staff nurse came to take BP measurements and quietly vanished without telling him the marks he had scored. The retiree encouraged by his heart beating against the rib cage, suspected that the staff nurse was walking away with a faint shaking of her head. 

As soon as the retiree entered the room, the specialist indicated a chair and turned to look at his desktop. Seconds silently ticked to accumulate into minutes. The facial dynamics of the specialist sent scare-waves into the patient's mind. How would he know that the doctor was looking at another patient's details? Then pulling out the test reports he underlined, queried and circled some parameters. Though still under the grip of nervousness, the retiree allowed himself to silently mouth a satirical comment “How many marks are you going to award the test reports.” 

The suspense came to an end, when the doctor once again glancing at the spread pages of the reports, gave his opinion – “let us review after another week, as I have modified the list and dosages of medicines. The retiree only hoped that this time himself, the doctor and the manufacturer of the medicines would be on the same strip of tablets/capsules! 

The specialist was still tinkering with the prescription and by now the retiree settling into a predictable, rhythm, had started to like the harmless doctor (he had not come up with a surgical strike suggestion) and the cafeteria.  More often, they met in the cafeteria either in it or entering it or exiting from it. Waiting for a favourable day, his better half developed a dry cough. They chose the same lab, testing machines and with reports opted to consult the same specialist. Initially, the specialist thought his regular patient had come for an out of turn consult but was taken aback on knowing that it was the wife who would be his patient. He right away dismissed the reports commenting, “These reports are ok. But I would be confident if you complete these tests in this lab and by these machines and be back tomorrow.” 

The retiree’s familiarity with this specialist had miserably failed to work its magic. What made the retiree to get upset was the suggested tests were a repeat of whatever had already been done, with a few more added maybe to show who among them was the doctor. The retiree decided to do something else worthwhile with his free time on hand, after completing the cycle to cure his better-half’s dry cough. 

A cry in the void (Les Misérables or the miserable ones) 

Honesty costs less, illusion costs much more. Opiniated people mistakenly think that their mere presence in the room guarantees a company of followers.  These opinion-speakers deserve the cautious distaste one would show when looking at a leaking battery. 

The current affairs in the world are like a game of rummy with a deck of cards, liberally populated with jokers. The players could walk-in from any walk of life. The game requires the players to sit on their chosen moral ground with ample flair and capable of conjuring up selective amnesia at the speed of light.                                                      

Adding spice to the goulash, “the jokers" who have no control over their thinking and speaking faculties will join the game. With their conscience floating inside an anatomical jar, they think that anything is passable, as long as it does not concern them. Today’s opinion-speakers are fortunate in that the ever-hungry media is constantly on the prowl, shadowing them with glitz and glare. Media belabours under the fantasy that with print and digital wands it can change the course of history, instead enriching the content of discourse. 

To sustain the population with these nutritional dosages, a variety crop of opinion-speakers emerges and spread like weeds.  Citizens gasp for truth and politicos grasp for straws. The world at large becomes a laughingstock. The opinion-speakers are blind to the fact that mainstream media and its offshoots are making a killing in the process, while hiding their real intent and purpose.  A wise man once said, “Repeat a lie many times over, you yourself would wonder what the truth is?” The pity is the speakers have become immune to even such ancient wisdom and happily go on peddling stretched deficiencies while compressing the positives 

For the opinion-speakers, borders between countries does not exist. They airlift their sympathy and lend support to local issues which in no way concerns them. Slowly, the borders between countries merge and they eye on the nearby continental mass. There is nothing to stop them from en circling the globe!

The popularity of these opinion-speakers catches the eyes of politicos and find them useful as Toolkits. The politicos share their wisdom with the Toolkits, once in a while, to keep the pot well stirred and boiling. Not to be left behind, some elected governments wait for a suitable time, to dispatch a special emissary with a brief (and Toolkits, if not already in position) to make some noise behind closed doors and to carry out mic testing for public consumption. The eyes of special emissary keep sweeping the landscape looking for avenues to expand trade & investment.

Etiquette demands refrain from acting in such a manner but then how a nation will advance its interest! The emissary’s itinerary and agenda (not the bargaining part) are released to the press. The emissary and his/her government fervently hope that the host government has not arranged for a mirror-show to project the real image of the emissary or the government as perceived by the host!

Why people always poke their noses in places where they are ill placed or ill informed? What else will they do after wearing coloured myopic spectacles or being frustrated in not getting the mandate to rule or being humiliated by not being recognised for a Nobel Prize?

Unsolicited advice and policy statements, from guest speakers standing on foreign soils, will it not expose   to the audience the maturity level of the speaker and end up showing their nation in poor light? What would be the reaction of the audience if the same medicine is delivered to the host nation? When will these opinion-speakers learn that geo-politics happen behind closed doors and not in the of midst unwanted ears. 

Regional biases. Fear of being overshadowed. Fear of being ignored. Forced to play along to keep these opinion-speakers on steroids. Need to take personal ego-trips. Compulsion to go on power hunting. Anyone dispassionately digging deep would find many other triggers for this nose-in-other’s affair disease (NIOAD).

The opinionated ones do not realise even the universe has a frame of reference, within which only it reveals its secrets. Driven by I K I A S (I Know It All syndrome), the opiniated people happily make a reference frame convenient to them and judge others with this in-built bias. Objectivity getting subjugated by prejudice does not fit in the working of their reference frame.  They are ready to hold a mirror to others, by side stepping from the line of sight of the same. At least they can learn to practice before it and then speak out their minds.

Would it not be better to leave others to think in their own convenient ways? Is there a single drug to cure all diseases?

Lastly, how these opinion-speakers get traction? The inducted vibration due to empathy or apathy and fueled by simmering bias prevents uncomfortable questions from being asked about the opinion-speakers, their relevance and basis. There lies the answer. By quirk of fate, the opinion-speakers and opinion-echoers come together, over long distances, for want of nothing better to do except airing opinions!

Mischievous miscellany-4 # 368#

The agony of found, lost and critics:

Inspiration and creativity go hand in hand as light and shadow. At times a befuddled mind gets confused to distinguish which is what. More often than not, when an inspiration shows a spark, the needed material like a piece of paper to scribble it on might not be on hand. 

Try to capture it as a point in memory, it plays truant and makes that spark inaccessible. Creativity has no other go but to wait for it to resurface or for another inspiration to make its leisurely appearance. Probably this is the beginning of a writer's block!

The cloud burst or fizzled out rain drops, avalanche or floating snowflakes - an inspired spark can affect creativity, be it writing, art or music. 

Inspiration and creativity pivots around a single objective - admirers. Admirers play the vital role of nurturing creativity in any form.

Inspired imagination makes the child to draw shapes as pleased, admires it as perfect and as an art of a maestro. Parents join only to encourage. A third person might view it as awkwardly drawn lines and a waste of paper and crayon. Here comes another perception in the cloak of a critique.

Creative works by grown-ups is saddled with the weight of carrying the expectations of casual, serious, dismissive readers and critics ready to do a laser surgery. These laser surgeons have no kindness toward a budding creator. The critics might be thinking about ways to reduce the clumps and clusters from the market.

The disheartened creators, hope for another brilliant flash of inspiration. Now, it is the chance for that inspiration to play hide, scoot and then seek in the mind. Words become reluctant not to form into sentences. They have to be dragged out or scratched out to start afresh.

After a few scratched attempts, the surviving sentence reads anaemic lacking the punch. The artist goes through a similar experience with palette and paint on the canvas. The inspired hues do not come out, the picture in the mind refuses to come to life and so on.

Song writers suffer splitting headache by looking at a blank paper, without the words to rhyme with rhythm.  In effect the song writer has to play the role of a word arranger even before a music arranger gets to work with meters and notations that are only symbols to the song writer.

Yet these passionate individuals trudge, toil and produce a work product. In fact, if some experienced writer takes it up to write about their struggles, it would come out as a best seller.

The irony haunting a budding author or artist or song writer, is the indigestion of admirers or appreciators, when it comes to spare a nod, a read or a clap. Their reasons might well be - shy to shake hand with the unknown or have already burnt candles and fingers in an earlier attempt to extend support to a budding clan or thinking why at all to bother with.

The seven layers of “Can we do it?”:

 Taken at face value, a very friendly inviting sentence. Behind the scenes a few traps might be hanging.  If we can peel back the layers, we might get to know the real intent and purpose of this inviting "Can we do it?" 

Layer one: 

Unsure or not having a S O P, the inviter floats a balloon to attract willing minds to help out. The invite might end after shaping the S O P, if further help is not needed. 

Layer two:

It must be something beyond the S O P. Probably to draw willing minds into a brainstorm for the sake of friendship or relationship. Might or might not end here! 

Layer three:

After the brainstorming, the inviter might be aiming to co-opt the energy of the willing mind and hands, in the name of synergy in executing the S O P. A subtle hint that you may have to dirty your hands. 

Layer four: 

If the inviter is after a name for self, a carefully couched, 'I think, I can handle it from here onwards, thanks' to signal a ‘now, get off the train.’ 

Layer five:

Fearing an egg on the face, the inviter cheerfully declares, ' If you don't mind, can you complete it?'. Rejoice. You have been chosen as the eggshell breaker! 

Layer six: 

“Yes, you have the right approach and I fully agree.”  When the inviter does not want to do it but is saddled with the task, then whatever you suggest will be accepted with alarming magnanimity. This is a warning signal to beat a hasty retreat and if you drag your feet, then headache is all yours. 

Layer seven:

This is where you do an introspection. Why did you rush to respond? Why could you not assess the implications of the invite, which could have actually meant a ‘can you do it or ‘let us do it?? Why did not you walk out, when the intent has become clear? 

Don't reply that you are distancing yourself from the above questions! Remember you are not a politician. 

Talk in the park:

Bystander was pleasantly surprised at the beauty of the renovated park. He had been away and thereby a long gap fell between him and his favourite park. Butterflies winging on their flight paths over the flower beds, grasshoppers practicing high jumps and few dung beetles beating their drums with mandibles and antennae gave the atmosphere a kind of serenity. During a leisurely stroll, the flood of memories about many friendly and sometimes heated discussions that took place here, filled his mind. With these thoughts, he started searching for at least one familiar from among the many populating the park.

He was in luck. A friend from that discussion group was sitting on a bench, at the other end of the park. He hurried, brimming with joy, to meet greet and exchange some old yarns. But the not so happy face of the friend stirred a bit of concern in him. This particular friend was always cheerful and tried to lighten the dark moods in others with a bit of humour, satire and philosophy.

Bystander reminisced -

Once, this friend asked, “What is common between a fisherman and a cricketer?” The others present did not reply but with serious faces asked,” Do tell”

With a childlike glee he answered, “Glums, it is the net-practice and catch!”

Another time, parted with this advice to another friend, “Before deciding to criticize someone, better walk a mile in their shoes.”  Puzzled, the other man asked, “Why should I do that?”

Twisting a proverb in to a satire he sardonically replied, “That way you will be a mile away and will have the shoes too!” Needless to say, the irony or satire was lost on the assembled friends.

On the other hand, his philosophy was neither the metaphysical nor materialistic.  Once questioned, this friend had quipped, “You can see something as a material but cannot visualise the underlying metaphysical concept in it. The beauty present in one may or may not be felt by you in the other, is it not?”. 

Bystander noted the absence of these traits and as if the friend wanted to remain reticent, and felt the need  to ferret him out of the rut, even by force.  Settling down, Bystander asked him, “Why are you looking so glum?”

“How else should I look? You are well aware of the struggles I had undergone to get them off on to a good footing? If not willing to acknowledge and appreciate them, at least they should not attempt to begrudge and write-off my efforts as bad loans. 

Bystander understood that this unbecoming attitude of his son and daughter had deeply hurt his friend. Maybe, after enduring all the hardships, he might have been expecting at least an acknowledgement, if not praise. Not to leave his friend to wallow in this pit of self-pity, he hastened to engage him with general platitudes without hurting his feelings further more.  “We think someone needs our help but in reality, they may not. In a family, the medal of appreciation is not given for a valid reason. It is to discourage continuing with such activities beyond a point. The crux of the matter is to find out the “why”. Is it because they themselves did not get appreciated for their current efforts or have they chosen to go in denial mode overwhelmed by envy that you have done it and they could not." 

His friend calmly looked at him and said, “Are you speaking in general or after understanding my family matrix?” 

“My understanding of your family matrix has nothing to do with whatever I have just said. But coming back to the issue, I have only this to say - be more interested in the future as you know the past is not a wall clock that could be reset at will!” 

His friend refrained from asking, “whose future?” fearing another load of future-wise sayings. Changing the topic, his friend asked, “Why people who start with an ideal, pursue it for some time and then abandon it altogether?” 

Now it was Bystander’s turn to blink. Unknown context made him to hesitate, but his nature did not allow him to remain silent. He thought about “How to comfort a person valuing perception over acceptance? Why is he finding it difficult to accept that all the perceptions and emotions border on the metaphysical discipline?” 

Gearing up, Bystander said, “It is like digging a pit and then trying to close it up, without thinking about what to do with the soil that would surely be left-over? When an ideal is pursued and then abandoned, surely that person has to deal with helplessness like the left-over soil. Had the pit digger foreseen this possibility, would we be talking about it now? An ideal should remain locked in the mind, till such time the plan to execute it flawlessly has not been firmed up. Maybe, you would be comfortable with this explanation!” 

Bystander continued, “None of us could understand this unreadable googly and yet cannot remain passive. Think of these two things – How could you get the oil out, without digging a deep well? In reality, can any of us tell the universe to mind its business? How incognizant it would be?” 

The friend regretted   opening the can full of condescending worms. He did not understand any of the above explanations as to content or context. He played dumb and asked, “In this situation what you would have done?” 

Bystander’s reply was prompt and confusing. “I would get off thinking like this. My own head would not be the reliable place to hear things that I have been refusing to hear.” 

The friend did the next best thing possible. He bade a hasty goodbye and left Bystander wondering “did I annoy him?”

The friend thought to himself, “I should have told him that a person standing on his hands should not be carried away by the thought that he is holding the world in his hands!” He dismissed the idea as it was too long even to say it within himself. But by that time, he decided to say it aloud, Bystander was a diminishing figure in the distance.

A bridge over the generation gap: 367

ChintaMany is driven by two things. Worries in the first place and curiosity coming in the second place. When getting tired of worrying about worries, he turns his attention to curiosity to relax the frayed nerves. Curiosity time took him on a visit to the realm of science & technology and the subject it picked up was on bridges. Dismissing further suggestions from his curiosity, he chose the Chenab rail bridge to let his mind to dwell up on the world's highest railway arch bridge. Looking down from it, he stared at the 359 meters drop to the flowing river and from the riverbed. From the ground up, he knew it stood 35 meters taller than the Eiffel Tower. Its span length of 1,315 meters and includes a 785 m arch span. A bridge bridging the gap with steely determination. 

Built to withstand extreme wind speeds up to 266 km/h and engineered to withstand major earthquakes up to magnitude 8, blast loads equivalent to 40 t of TNT, function in extreme cold down to -20°C with an estimated service life of 120 years. Along with other major engineering structures it completes the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL) for operating train services across the region to connect people and trade. 

The arch span of 785m and the longevity of 120 years under severe service conditions, set him to think about the bridge of a different kind.  He repurposed his curiosity to explore the characteristics of this bridge built with human emotion and, if fortunate, having the possibility of serving generations up to 120 years during the constructor’s lifetime. 

Grandparents have been acting as the bridge between their children and grandchildren, spanning over the generation gap. The bridge on the Chenab might be the tallest engineering marvel but looks ordinary when compared with any grandparents’ biological marvel. 

This biological bridge conjured up by the grandparents is built with emotion and is by far better than the one constructed with cold, feelingless iron over the river Chenab. Water flows under the Chenab bridge while feelings of love and care engulf the bridge itself. ChintaMany imagined that at the most 3 sets of grandparent-grandchildren combination will be using this bridge. The question of how it is possible was deftly answered by him, “Considering the parents of Mother and Father of the children the head count of grandparents increases thereby improving the probability!” 

The bridge of the grandparents has its positives and headaches. With the free pass a grand child gets from grandparents, the child finds itself in the world (universe might sound a bit cliche) of toys, books, dresses. The grandparents are ever ready to fire this time-tested missile, whenever the grandchild finds itself in lukewarm or hot water – “at that age while toting a lighter schoolbag what did you manage to do, better than this? The truth that the parents might have done better just got devalued to come out in support of the grandchild. 

On becoming a parent, the same child which enjoyed many grandparental parachuted bail-outs and having had a free run during the academic years, straps this “now” child in a rollercoaster. For this ‘now’ child, the after-school hour timetable becomes longer than the school schedule. Here is where, the ‘now’ grandparents chose to step in to give a breather. "Don't rob the childhood in order to catch up with the buses you had missed. You plodded through a lighter curriculum. Standing on the shore, you cannot judge the depth of an ocean and likewise don’t try to fathom what a child thinks!"

This “now” child on becoming a parent, after enjoying as many free runs as the grandparents allowed, now tries to secure the child in a warp drive zipping onwards on the academic travel. The child finds the coaching classes and competitive exams take more hours than a day has and wonders whether to borrow or write it off. When off key academic performances and overstaying in the realm of Smart devices disturb the parent, the grandparents provide an umbrage – “Cool your jets. In your times neither you nor these devices were smart.  Don't rob on the silk too much, static charge might sting!" This safety net of a Kevlar vest and an Iron dome defense very effectively takes care of the bullets and drone attacks launched by the parent.

For this child of the warp drive fame, it is change of guard time. On becoming a parent, invoking amnesia the parent subjects the child to a regimen of academic processes. This quarter-master sergeant turned parent gets out ranked by the child’s grandparents wielding overruling batons. The grandparents metamorphose and swoop in like a transformer character to help the child in distress. “Don’t you people know that times have drastically changed from your textbooks to the ‘now’ books? What you struggled to understand in college, now they do it in 5^th or 6^th grade. Help the child to grasp and cope up without pouring out your vintage gripe”

For good measure the grandparents asked. " Will not the present ‘now’ become the later and carry this forward? Do you want that the later should become the now, starting an unending cycle!" The child did not grasp the grandparents’ convoluted philosophy, but it appeared that they are intent on keeping the bridge passing overhead of a generation, without bumps for a smooth drive. The child wondered to which parents’ side of grandparents this philosophy will get attributed to?”

Grandparenthood could happen at the age of 55-60. If this being the case, ChintaMany felt the need to work out the math to find out whether this emotional bridge will last 120 years as he had thought earlier. Losing further interest in the curiosity, he picked up the worry where did he go wrong?

Are the grandparents trying to correct how they had dealt with their children?  If feelings belong only to that person, can someone else scrutinise it? Is an emotion valid only if someone allows it to be shown? Who can judge the act of a loving someone, without demanding anything in return, as beneficial or not? Don’t they have the child’s mental wellbeing also in mind?

Are the parents trying to implement what they had been subjected to? Or the overly concerned parents appear to act tough to secure the child’s future?

Whether the “now” children will ever think of following a different approach? Who would know, what this ‘subjected’ child thinks?

Iterating everything in his mind, ChintaMany came to the conclusion that it is best to leave it to the grandparents and the parents who think and act with the best interest of the child in mind., hoping the child would make the best use of both!

The road to nowhere: 359

The sweltering heat made it impossible to have his forty winks, drenched in sweat. Imaginch did not know who and what to blame – the El Nino or La Nina. Both being Spanish citizens, continental hopping did not appeal to him.  He did the next best thing- squirmed left and then right and then left on the bed, curled and stretched to end up with cramped leg muscles.

Getting nowhere near the comfort zone, he blamed the very reluctant and delayed onset of REM cycles. Subconsciously, he had used the operative word ‘delayed onset’ preferred by weathermen to be vague in order to escape from the heat of the population being scorched by relentless heatwaves. The weathermen did not dare to include “what has gone up would come down eventually or try forcing the clouds to shed the hoarded rain, if you could?” in their bulletins.

Somewhere in the no man’s land between El Nino - La Nina combine and the REM cycles, the ‘delayed onset’ of sleep reluctantly enveloped him. His last thought before drifting off in to sleep was about the probability of a power outage playing spoil sport. Not wanting to look in the mouth of the gifted horse, in this instance - on falling asleep, Imaginch promptly sidelined his concern about probable power outage, to let the REM cycles do the rest.

Since he had lost track of time, he did not know how long he had slept. As a super senior citizen, he could sleep when he wanted to, eat whenever hungry and do it in whatever order he wanted to. He had no office to hurry to and no schedule of activities to follow.

He had a reputation in the family - to dole out stinging comments right out of an acid bath. The family members suffering under similar spell of El Nino-La Nina induced REM cycle disturbances, and ‘delayed onset’ syndrome became wiser and simply let him have that much freedom. Sanity sans sleep was not a comfortable option for them!

At the fag end of a particular night, Imaginch picked up a slight change in the atmospheric pressure around him. Still not fully awake, an audio-dream started playing in his mind. His interest perked up as he heard his friend intoning, ‘Don’t expect the road to take you wherever you want to go; instead take that road which goes wherever you want to.’

Hearing his friend’s voiceover forced his subconscious mind, caught there in the no man’s land between the layers of dissolving sleep and wakefulness, to ask, “Are you awake, what is time now?” Instead of a straight answer, he heard his friend saying, “If you have not asked me, I know what it is. Since you have asked, I do not know how to explain it.!”

Still struggling under layers of sleep, Imaginch’s subconscious mind became curiously irritated, to hear the explanation that was sure to follow.  That much his subconscious mind knew about this friend, while hedging its bet on whether it would be about time or something else.

Predictably, the recital started with “As a kid, I used to imagine that the road in front of the house would take me to unknown places filled with amusements. The windowsill provided a perfect perch to watch it whenever I wanted to. At that time, this ruse helped me to postpone doing the homework. But the road had other ideas and the only place it took me was to the school and back. The amusement part was an occasional sighting of a vendor with a stock of balloons or sugar candy in different colours. One exception was the ice (frozen water) in orange or brown colour and the milk-ice (milk powder+ water?) on sticks. The vendor blew a horn which always sounded funny and off key to my ears.”

Imaginch sleepily murmured, “Why this story at this time?”  Turning philosophical the friend said, “Clearing your doubt may not bring clarity but it may leave you with an appearance of clarity”.  Concerned about his friend’s frame of mind, Imaginch waited for the narrative to continue 

“Secondary and higher secondary education meant another school and travel by a different road.  I had hoped that change would take me to places but it turned out that I had to ride a cranky old bicycle to school. A puncture or the chain jumping the rear gear or chainring, was all that the road had in store for me.

In front of the school, vendors sat or stood with push carts selling Indian black berry, Indian jujube or plum, wild date, strips of raw mango cut to resemble a linear gearwheel and fried or steamed ground nut in paper cones dispensing more paper per ground nut. The local ice factory products came in insulated boxes mounted on bicycles. I could only yearn for any of them as the concept of pocket money was not encouraged in my house! Window shopping was the only amusement I enjoyed.

During that grind of schooling, I upgraded my focus to dream about a college set among sylvan trees and the branches of well grown trees forming an arch of welcome on the road leading to the campus. Where I got enrolled, that college sat inside a dusty bowl of earth and only overgrown thorny bushes stood on the sides of the road watching my progress to the campus.  But this desolate geographical feature did not deter me from hoping that there definitely would be a road, to take me to places where I wanted to go.

With a degree in hand, I aspired to land a job that would throw open the routes to take me to foreign countries. I had a bag full of these dreams dwarfing the efforts an avid philatelist collecting rare stamps or a phillumenist colleting label of matchboxes. The job market, breathing like a beached whale under global economic stress, threw up a position. I grabbed the offer as it was from a subsidiary of an international conglomerate.  The company gave me a hand grip loaded with samples, brochures, a box of classy looking business cards and an order book. You guessed it right, as a sales rep.

Weighed down by the grip and with a heavy heart, I trudged along the roads, climbed stairs and gave my spiel singing the praise of the company’s products. Whether the order book got filled up or not it helped me to improve my oratorial skill.  To keep my dreams alive, I took the logo of the parent company as equivalent to an international travel visa and the stairs I climbed as the travel to exotic places in foreign countries.

The food laden carts on the roadside, take aways from crowded joints and a mess hidden away in bylanes became substitutes for food courts, cafes and restaurants filling up the gaping blanks. My hopes kept crashing like waves on those beaches in those foreign countries. I don’t know where I had missed that road that would take me to places where I wanted to go?”

By this time, Imaginch understood where his friend was going with this rant and still was eager to know about the roads that have not taken him to where he wanted to go.

His friend continued, “A few years after toting the grip of a representative, I decided to strike out on my own. I was confident that my combined Technical, Commercial and Sales experience would surely put me on that road. It did but within the same localities where I had studied and worked as a rep. I understood the mistake only after painting the ledger book in red. An unmistakable signal to actively search for opportunities in a foreign country to once again become an employee.

But other events like marriage and kids intervened. The desire to find that road that would take me to places had hit a roadblock. The ledger book in red slowly grew into an economical nightmare. I took a diversion and found the route to fly into a country sitting over lakes of oil. Settling down in the job, I thought this would be my dream opportunity to let the roads there take me wherever I wanted to go. After a few months I brought my family over to collectively sit over lakes of oil.

I belatedly understood that the fragile world economy was not built to tolerate hiccups.  Regional flare ups, blockades and missile hurling overhead gripped the world in fear of an economic hardship, spreading like a cold without immediate cure. The triggered cascades weakened the financial foundation of countries, though a few managed to reap some windfall gains. But in ordinary households like mine it hung over an inconvenient and incurable cold. The cautionary signal blinked a warning, urging me to take another road that might take me somewhere but not to where I wanted to go.”

Becoming partially awake Imaginch, asked him, "Why this call, all of a sudden?" 

"Not getting sleep with all those aerial disturbances. I regret chasing a dream and landing here following currency signs instead of road signs." 

Why the audio-dream from the friend, who rarely contacts? Is he also affected by El Nino - La Nina effect along with the aerial show? Is the audio-dream a trailer and request to listen to his further woes? Imaginch could not hold it any longer. Since his friend had disturbed his sleep with this audio-dream, he wanted to unsettle him. 

"Initially you followed a road map that did not lead where you wanted to go. Afterwards you tried to follow another road map that took you where you did not really want to go and now you are standing at the crossroads.  why don't you reconcile and believe that the roads have taken you wherever you wanted to go? Why don't you call it a dream come true?  Imaginch finally fired the question, “Why don’t you come back?” 

Imaginch being a close friend, there was no scope to misunderstand the advice, delivered with shades of anger. The friend replied “Now, having understood that roads by themselves do not take you to wherever you want to go, I will decide soon.”

With the last layer of sleep dissolving without a trace, Imaginch got up to invite the new day! He wondered, “Was it a midsummer’s night dream” or Shakespeare’s “A midsummer Night’s dream”?  Was the audio-dream a reminder of his own failed dreams or because he was closely following the international conflicts wherever they were taking place, to keep his time ticking through the day?

From the pigeon’s post: 358

The Rockface pigeons under discussion, have happily shed the tag of “living in pigeonholes” and the centuries old word 'pigeonhole’. The high-rise buildings offering rent free spaces, why would they settle for less? With them focused on a mission in life to survive and proliferate, it becomes next to impossible to evict these two-legged squatters.

Reluctant to go outdoors, I decided to study the roosting pigeons by adopting this observation-questions -published information technique - a Q&A with self-study. I chose three all-weather observation posts, with guaranteed visibility, that are within a few steps of each other for this purpose. The O.P1 is on the sunshade, below an outdoor ac unit of the opposite apartment, with a view from my bedroom window. The O.P2 is on a similar sunshade of the same apartment, just in front of my standing room only balcony, though sighting is through defensive nylon net backed by a grill work intended to keep away pigeons. The O.P 3 is on a sunshade of a neighbour’s apartment, with an anytime view from the common corridor.

The male pigeon struts around and waddles on the sunshade moving its body from left to right, bobbing its head back and forth as if practicing its own brand of ramp walk. On the other hand, the female, smaller in size, appears calm, unhurried and cautiously moves around. Sometimes, for the fun of it, both keep tracing imaginary circles, without their bodies touching each other like the spools rotating in a tape deck.  To impress the female, the male flutters its wings and puts up an impressive airshow with take offs and landings.

Physical attraction having been established, the pigeons start working on the body chemistry and then move on to biology classes. Intuitively knowing the purpose of their life, the pair selects a location to build a nest with slender reeds, sticks from broom, fibrous material or simply use any depression on the surface of a sunshade. Their objective is to have a nest with protection from the elements and a safety net for the eggs from rolling off the ledge. The roosting pair has to remain alert to danger from the cheeky squirrels. These fury-tailed villains think that the unguarded eggs, or squabs are fair game, for fun or pizza.

I gave up identifying one pair of pigeon from one another as it was like saying this and particle is different from that sand particle. The pairs of pigeons come home to roost at the same location, driven by the motto -   Familiarity breeds squabs.

The twin mysteries, why they choose to rest - perched precariously on drainpipes, edges of sunshades, and other uncomfortable niches and in this position how do they manage to sleep without falling over?  The pigeons must have gone scientific by adopting a unihemispheric sleeping technique, where one-half of the brain is resting the other half stays awake & alert to threats and falling off from the perches.

To be on the safer side, I confirmed with the published materials that my observations cum conclusions on gender identification, distinguishing pairs and their courting rituals are more or less correct.

The story from O.P 1:

A pair of pigeons made several flybys to select the sunshade under the outdoor ac unit. Their logic must have been to make use of some of the machine generated heat for use in hatching the eggs. Since this Observation Post was not under my constant surveillance during courtship and the delivery of eggs remained like an unread   chapter to me.  Returning home after a few days of absence, I noticed a solitary egg, carefully set amidst some trash material. One of the pigeons was maintaining the line of sight while the other kept the egg warm.

Given little more time, I would have understood that the pair shared the duties in the nest. The single egg was a pointer towards two possibilities. The female is yet to fully mature and build up stamina or has past its prime with depleted strength. Due to my inexperience, I had missed the important physiological indicators like colour of feathers or other physical characteristics.

Left to its own devices, when the parents were away from time to time, the egg had started to change position every day till the shell started developing hairline cracks. Finally, when the shell broke into two halves, I was able to view the dark lump of a squab. An ominous development occurred when a squirrel emitting squeaks had decided to investigate the site for its own nest, on the wall mounting bracket behind the outdoor unit.

By this time, the pigeons thinking that they have done all they could do, started to keep irregular visiting hours. Unaware of this lurking danger, the squab in the eggshell continued to shift around. The squab residing in the broken shell must have presented a tempting opportunity. Emboldened, the squirrel seized control of the situation. Belting out loud ‘squeaks’, it scurried down on to the sunshade a few times, to assess and plan its move but tactfully withdrew sensing my presence.

Next morning, alerted by the unusual noise, I hurried to the window. The agitated pigeons were flying over the spot where the squab should have been.  The loss of the squab must have formed an emotional storm and waves of distress in their tiny brains. They could do nothing but aimlessly walk on the sunshade and emit repetitive moans, which sounded tragic & forlorn. The grief-stricken pigeons were trying to understand what had gone wrong, probably thinking that their agitated pacing would bring back the squab well and alive.

Oddly, the metallic sounding squeaks and the squirrel have gone silent. I could only guess that either the squirrel has pushed out the squab in the broken shell, to prevent the pigeons from disturbing its nest or might have feasted on a free meal.  A heart wrenching sight for any human observer. I watched them for some time lost in thoughts as to what could I do to console them.

The story from O.P 2:

The neighbours did not pay heed to my concern about the health issues attributed to these squatters. Unable to sleep under the unrelenting heat wave, I migrated to my stamp sized balcony to appeal to the clouds to stop debating and start raining. Undisturbed by my presence, pairs of pigeons clung to drainpipes, wall mounted brackets, exhaust fan frames, windowsills and sunshades as their sleeping quarters.

Next day morning, I noticed a pair of pigeons busily engaged in spreading sticks of a broom, on the sunshade opposite to my apartment. Correcting my earlier mistake, I easily identified the male pigeon by its body build, strutting, loud coos and puffed out neck and chest feathers. To actively court the partner, he attempted to dazzle the female with bright iridescent feathers on his neck. 

The sleek female pigeon, with not so iridescent neck feathers, participated enthusiastically. At times she refused to play along by crouching down flat on the sunshade to discourage further entreaties. After some more cooing and ring-a- ring-a- roses dancing, the female pigeon playfully attempted to adhere to the wall.

 Piqued by this act, I stood rooted to my spot, recollecting the published facts that being monogamous and in their prime, the pigeons continue with the courtship which triggered the ovulation cycle in the female pigeon, signaling her readiness to start a family.

After a few reruns of this episode, the pigeon playfully attempted to adhere to the wall, delivered an egg after a few days and by pure chance I happened to witness the egg being delivered, in real time. Then, using her beak and legs she started to nudge the egg around to keep it safe behind the barricade of arranged broom sticks.

I geared myself to clock the arrival of the second egg and chronicle the hatching event. Unaware of this developing situation, a squirrel was sprinting up and down, along a vertical drainpipe with whatever mission it had in its mind. I called it a day after verifying that the second egg has not been laid yet.

The next morning, the vacant space told me the sad story. The egg and the sticks of the broom have been swept off the sunshade. The clueless pigeons, vainly searched for the missing egg and the sticks of the broom. Tragedy notwithstanding, the female pigeon was on a clock to lay the second egg within 48 hours, before it gets air dropped. Their plan to hatch a male and female squab at that place going terribly wrong, the heartbroken parents might have departed in search of another location.  

Who stole the egg and removed the sticks of the broom? Whether the second egg was laid in time, in another place? Mysteries fit to be solved by Sherlock Holmes! Needless to say, I closed my observations with a heavy heart.

The story from O.P 3:

This neighbour had refused to clear the debris and fill the shallow pit on his sunshade. I had even pointed out the pair of pigeons eyeing the shallow depression and debris for a possible hatching site. For good measure I reminded him that that a pair of pigeon or the bulbuls chose the same place again, perhaps for sentimental reasons after having completed a successful batch. I drew his attention to the bird droppings already on the sunshade to drive home my point.

After a few days, my apprehension became a certainty. The female pigeon was calmly doing sentry duty guarding two eggs. The debris, the depression and pigeon droppings had become home for the eggs.

Whether the pigeons counted the days or not, I did. In the interim, I learnt that a mature female pigeon is a fast breeder reactor, brooking no delay or disruption in her egg laying cycles. She can initiate her ovulation cycle at will. Typically, she delay-starts the hatching process by 2 days, to match with the arrival of the second egg.

Within 4-6 weeks and at times even when the hatched squabs are still in the nest, she is ready to lay the next clutch of eggs. I started to wonder whether the pigeons are targeting to achieve the maximum number of hatchings like the possible number of New Moons or Full moons in a calendar year!

With such energy consuming activities ahead, the parents share the workload in nest keeping duties. The female stays with the eggs/squabs from late afternoon till about mid-morning and the male takes over for the midmorning to the late afternoon shift. This shift rotation allows the female pigeon to recuperate and refresh.

On the fag end of the 3^rd week, the broken shells announced the increase in the population of pigeons, with at least one female squab. A squab of Rock face pigeon starts as an indistinguishable lump, with pale yellow or yellowish gray coloured feather, at birth. As it matures the colour gradually changes to gray.

The squabs must be feeling lucky as both the parents take turn to feed them with specially secreted crop milk. As the squabs age, the frequency of parental visits becomes sporadic as the squabs have been fed with enough nourishment.  The parents have done their best. The infrequent visits and hunger make the squabs to leave the nest early. The absence of the marauding squirrel remained a puzzle, but it had helped the eggs to survive, avoiding a heartache to the parents.

After building up sufficient strength to survive on their own, the fledglings fly away, probably vacating the space for their parents to start the next batch, though I am yet to confirm this. In the world of pigeons everything has to run like the parts of a Swiss clock.

The squabs mature in about eight months. But within 4-7 months, the yet to fully mature female pigeon might start laying one egg per clutch signaling the arrival of another fast breeder reactor. Older or under nourished female pigeons adopt this one egg per clutch rule to ensure survival of the hatched squab.

No doubt, the pigeons proliferate and use our premises as their washroom facilities. The stink arising from their droppings and fallen feathers ranks alongside the foul smell that assails travellers as the train approaches the outskirts of a typical metropolitan city.

Setting aside my deep-rooted pathological aversion to the pigeons to take a closer look at their life cycle was immensely rewarding.  It forced me to learn published materials, become a Zoolinguist and an avianliguist to understand their feelings on my way to become an indoor ornithologist!