Since FB has stopped bugging me with its “Year in Review” stuff, I figured I will make one of my own….

Original short story by Bob Perks (I got to read this, thanks to a great guy and a personal friend – Larry Mason)

—
I never really thought that I’d spend as much time in airports as I do. I don’t know why. I always wanted to be famous and that would mean lots of travel. But I’m not famous, yet I do see more than my share of airports.
I love them and I hate them. I love them because of the people I get to watch. But they are also the same reason why I hate airports. It all comes down to “hello” and “goodbye.”I must have mentioned this a few times while writing my stories for you.

I have great difficulties with saying goodbye. Even as I write this I am experiencing that pounding sensation in my heart. If I am watching such a scene in a movie I am affected so much that I need to sit up and take a few deep breaths. So when faced with a challenge in my life I have been known to go to our local airport and watch people say goodbye. I figure nothing that is happening to me at the time could be as bad as having to say goodbye.

Watching people cling to each other, crying, and holding each other in that last embrace makes me appreciate what I have even more. Seeing them finally pull apart, extending their arms until the tips of their fingers are the last to let go, is an image that stays forefront in my mind throughout the day.

On one of my recent business trips, when I arrived at the counter to check in, the woman said, “How are you today?” I replied, “I am missing my wife already and I haven’t even said goodbye.”

She then looked at my ticket and began to ask, “How long will you…Oh, my God. You will only be gone three days!” We all laughed. My problem was I still had to say goodbye.

But I learn from goodbye moments, too.

Recently I overheard a father and daughter in their last moments together. They had announced her departure and standing near the security gate, they hugged and he said, “I love you. I wish you enough.” She in turn said, “Daddy, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Daddy.”

They kissed and she left. He walked over toward the window where I was seated. Standing there I could see he wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on his privacy, but he welcomed me in by asking, “Did you ever say goodbye to someone knowing it would be forever?”

“Yes, I have,” I replied. Saying that brought back memories I had of expressing my love and appreciation for all my Dad had done for me. Recognizing that his days were limited, I took the time to tell him face to face how much he meant to me.

So I knew what this man experiencing.

“Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever goodbye?” I asked.

“I am old and she lives much too far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is, the next trip back would be for my funeral,” he said.

“When you were saying goodbye I heard you say, “I wish you enough.” May I ask what that means?”

He began to smile. “That’s a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone.” He paused for a moment and looking up as if trying to remember it in detail, he smiled even more.”When we said ‘I wish you enough,’ we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them,” he continued and then turning toward me he shared the following as if he were reciting it from memory.

“I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright.
I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.
I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.
I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much
bigger.
I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.
I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.
I wish enough “Hello’s” to get you through the final “Goodbye.”

He then began to sob and walked away.
—

My friends, on this day, again, I wish you enough!

(Okay, maybe I did review my year seriously, unlike Facebook 🙂 )

Many years back, my dear wife had publicly called me “weird”. Without any complaint, I decided that, that is exactly what I wanted to be. Thereby proving her words correct. (I think there is a self recursion call there somewhere).

Anyways, the idea has been to “Be Different. Make a Difference.”

So let’s see how weird have I been this year…. the making of a difference is questionable though

1. Prepared my family and my boss (the latter was far tougher) that I would (once again) quit my cushy job to take a year off. And just when we had all my plans and financials lined up and had reached alignment with family and boss, ditched the whole plan. To take a role that I have never performed, in an industry that I did not even know how to spell, for a class of owners that I had only heard very tough stories about. I figured if it was worth taking a risk, it was when the entire dice is loaded against you. At least that way, in the small likelihood that I succeed, I would prove something to myself. If not, my Plan A to take a year off was not that bad, at all 🙂

2. Walked up to way too many strangers at bars and airports asking them “What is your life story?”. Many brushed me aside. But those that did not, left with incredibly inspiring and valuable lessons for me. Someday, when I grow up, I want to be as resolute as them. Till then, I am going to at least collect the stories.

3. Somewhere, I decided, I needed to work at a bar. (BTW, a CEO working at a bar for relaxation, even my wife agrees, is the weirdest thing she has ever heard of). Just to mix drinks. For whatever reason, this completely weird impulse has become a big passion for me. From a guy who did not know the difference between gin and vodka, I can actually tell you what the three coffee beans that you set on fire in sambuca stand for. Let me put it this way. My year end gifts from both the young daughters were bar items. And they are not even allowed to sit at a bar 🙂

4. Against everybody’s counsel – my wife’s, my in-laws’ and my brother-in-law’s – I managed to coax my FIL and MIL to come to the USA. In our house, I was the one who could not wait to come back from office and take them out. Admittedly, mostly for drinks 🙂 Hey, they did not complain!! While they were here, I even managed to construct the family tree on my wife’s side four generations back through our conversations!! And found out that one of our dear friends in Dallas is actually a relative of mine!! Go, figure!!

5. The weirdest of them all – kept on digging up family and friends from my past and visiting them….From the gentleman who used to round up the kids in the neighborhood and organize us to play 35 years back, to discovering my first friend of life from 43 years back to walking up to somebody’s house and greeting the surprised lady saying “You won’t remember me but you sat next to me in second grade”!!

And now where I could have been weirder…

1. For all the running I did, I never did something weird or different from others. I need to think of a goal.

2. For all the humor I love, I never did something weird or different this year. Maybe I should go back to performing on stage.

3. There are many other things I love – playing the tabla, listening to qawwalis, taking random pictures…. but never did anything to a level of weirdness that would make them memorable….

Maybe I should think about setting some more really weird goals for the new year…

Any ideas? They have to be weird for a guy who is soon going to be 48.
Growing old for me is inevitable. Growing up, though, I would like to keep optional.

Hal Boyd, an old professional associate and a personal friend wrote something as a response to my last blog, that was very succinct and put a complex message into a compelling visual. I felt it deserved a blog post all on its own. Slightly modified, his words were:

“Life has no warmups – only one time around the track, and not all will get a full lap”

In two days, I learnt about the passing away of the dad of a dear friend of mine from first grade and then the young wife of somebody that I was introduced to barely months back.

There is something about death that absolutely stops me in my track. Not sure whether it is the finality of it all or the incredible mystery of the unknown or the the fear of the inevitable… But I do realize that as the years roll by, that finality is touching more and more people I know around me.

And I have always wondered what learnings should I derive from that understanding of finality.

There is a old poem that I had once read and written down, but never quite figured out with authority who penned those words….

In any case, the words went thusly…

DO LESS
————–
Do less thinking,
And pay more attention to your heart
Do less acquiring,
And pay more attention to what you already have

Do less complaining,
And pay more attention to giving
Do less controlling,
And pay more attention to letting go

Do less criticizing,
And pay more attention to complimenting
Do less arguing,
And pay more attention to forgiveness

Do less running around,
And pay more attention to stillness
Do less talking,
And pay more attention to silence.

Certainly, by that above yardstick, I need somebody to postpone my death by a long time!!!!

[This is a little more serious and thought provoking than my usual blogposts]

I was blown away by a research experiment done by Kiley Hamlin, Karen Wynn, and Paul Bloom from Yale University and published in Nature magazine in Nov 2007. The design of the experiment is very interesting. The results, extremely thought provoking.

They took 56 kids – 24 of them six month olds and 32 of them ten month olds – and divided them into two equal sets and then did the following:

For one set, they showed two sequence of movements involved blocks of three shapes – circle, triangle and square – but each shape made to look lively with googly eyes. In one sequence the googly eyed circle was trying to go up a hill structure without success. A googly eyed triangle came along and pushed it gently up to the top. In a second sequence, the same thing happened except instead of a triangle, a googly eyed square came from the top and pushed the circle down against what the direction fo the movement that the circle was trying to go.

For a second set of kids, they did the same thing except the shapes had no google eyes and therefore did not look lively. They looked like what they were – inanimate objects.

The infants watched this till they got bored as exhibited by they not paying any more attention to keep watching the sequence. Now, the experimenters presented the infants with a tray carrying similar square and triangle blocks (no circles) as they just saw in the sequence. (Googly eyed objects for the ones who saw the googly eyed sequence and vice versa).

In set A, ALL the six month olds reached out for the helpful toy. ALL but two of the ten month olds reached out for the helpful toy too.

In set B, there was no statistical difference on which inanimate object the kids picked up!

These were kids who could not talk or get up and walk!!! Yet they showed a distinct preference – and it was a social preference. They liked helping – not pushing up. They disliked hindering – not pushing down.

The ramification of this experiment is realizing that we are all born being judgmental!! Passing judgment is not necessarily something that is formed later because we learn logic and language. A lot of tribalism that drives our taking sides – e.g. in Democrat versus Republican, Israel versus Palestine etc comes from a sense of morality that is inborn in us over generations of evolutions. [This, however, does not mean that people cannot change positions over time, as further research has shown]

This morning, as I headed towards the airport, I called up my seventh thru tenth grade Geography teacher – Mrs. Bhowmic in India. We talked about those good old days – when I had a full head of hair (I know, it is difficult to believe it today, but trust me, I was not born this way 🙂 ). Evidently, she follows my random thoughts in my blog/Facebook. And she encouraged me to write a book some day. You know, many people have encouraged me multiple times to consider writing a book. One even gave me a book on how to publish your first book. Till date, while I often feel the urge to lend words to my thoughts, I have never felt the urge to publish a book. But I know things change and I change too. Maybe some day…

But here is how much things change. Back in seventh grade, if you ever told me that people actually will want to read what I write, I would have laughed as hearty a laugh a thin-rail constitution could cough up and come back with some smart Alec comment like “Yeah! And someday I will lose all my hair too!!” (I know, I know, I was gullible then).

However, every time somebody encourages me to write, my thoughts go back to my desk mate in ninth grade – Dibyendu Dutta. As I said, he sat next to me a whole year on the same bench. He was my hero when it came to composing in English. At that early age, he had mastered the art of writing just about anything in the most beautiful way possible. His command on the language English, his ability to stitch various thoughts together and his great ability to pun almost always produced essays that flowed like some mellifluous music.

There was this weekend homework our English teacher – Mrs. Biswas had given us to write an essay on. The subject was “Sound”. As you can imagine, I approached the topic with clinical and yet scientifically sound approach. I was not much of an English writer, but I knew a thing or two about Math and Physics and all that. So, my output was extremely dry but unchallengeable. It started something like “Sound is a form of energy….”. If my memory serves me right, I immediately followed up my impactful first statement with “It travels at the speed of 330 m/s in air” 🙂 or something like that. Again, any Physics teacher would be proud of me. An English teacher? Not so much!!!

Our teacher had talked about Dibyendu’s essay and how well written it was. In fact, she made him read out his essay to the whole class. He got up and started ” ‘Waaah’ wailed the baby as soon as it came out to this world. And what a beautiful sound it was to everybody present around the baby”…. and so on. And of course, I was like “Dude! what has that got to do with writing about Sound? You forgot to mention that it is a transversal wave form of energy. Remember last year, our teacher told us sound cannot travel in vacuum? Man, I need to talk to our Physics teacher about you”… 🙂

What an idiot I was!!

Dibyendu Dutta, if you ever read this blog in the future, I just wanted to give a big shout out to you. You were not only outstanding, you certainly have served as a great inspiration to me till this date. I fervently hope that some of your talent eventually rubbed off on me. After all, we sat only a few inches apart!!

I have a certain routine in the morning in those days that I do not travel. I usually get up in the morning, remind myself that this might be the last day of my life (I know it is not exactly the most upbeat thought but certainly good for me since it makes me to pause for a second and remind myself who and what around my life are truly important – as I feverishly brush down my teeth 🙂 ) and then before I go for my run, coffee and quiet time, I usually volunteer to drop one of the girls to school.

The journey to school is not exactly the most conversation-filled trip you will experience. Usually they are half asleep (Niki) or have their ears plugged with some music (Tasha). Regardless, it is good to be just next to them for a few early minutes of the morning. As Tasha has started driving, it has quickly dawned on me that driving them around is a privilege that is soon going to be taken away from me. In my house, therefore, I am almost always the one to volunteer first to ferry the kids around if I am at home.

Every single day when I take one of them to school, there are the familiar scenes on the road – which, no doubt, you experience too. The long queues of cars at the intersections, the impatient parents speeding up and cutting off – they are late for class, I presume and the serene beauty of the early morning – harshly interrupted by the occasional car with high beams on your eyes coming from the other side.

And there is that massive traffic jam in front of one of the schools that we cross on our way. There is no traffic light there but usually there is a local policeman or policewoman who is there to direct traffic. The concentrated rush of people wanting to go in or come out can back up traffic for some time. In any case, my usual habit is to lower my window as I approach that point and wave at the police(wo)man as I drive by (as I said, that one is not our school). I readily get pulled up by my daughters that it is weird to wave at strangers and that anyways it is too cold outside to pull the windows down 🙂

Today, in that dark early morning, as I was passing that gentleman, as usual I waved. Most of the days, they do not notice it – or notice it too late – they are so focused on the oncoming traffic. I am sure those screaming headlights do not make it any easier either. (In my defense, I do have my neon color running shirts on to make it a little easier for them to spot me 🙂 ). But, something different happened today.

Imagine the gentleman in the middle of the road. He has his left arm raised to stop traffic from the other side taking a turn into the school and his right arm was constantly making that “keep moving” gesture to tell us to continue on while frantically looking left and right to make sure that he was aware of all the vehicles coming from all directions. And then for a split second, he saw me waving at me. With his hands completely occupied with his traffic duties, he instinctively bowed as I sped past him.

That was very powerful. He had all the reason to keep focusing on his work. He certainly had no ability to wave back. He obviously did not have much of a time to react. His instincts took over and he simply bowed.

For some reason, I felt unbelievably good. And the rest of the drive to my starting point for running, I kept on trying to understand why was I feeling so good. And I concluded that it was because of his simple gesture to acknowledge my presence. It was like “Hey, I do not know who you are. I do not know if I will ever see you or get to know you ever. But you know what? You are a human being. As am I. Life is beautiful because the paths of strangers cross each other and create opportunities to enrich each other’s lives. Let me enrich yours by acknowledging your presence!!”

The rest of the run, it bothered me that so many times I simply forget that sometimes the best gifts in life can be given without much cost, time or even thought. How often I get lost in my own stuff and forget to acknowledge the presence of all those around me. How often I forget that this might be the last day of my life.

I think I should brush my teeth more often!!