The downs of life

Khaleej Times (LIFE) / 15 December 2012

Thoughts about disease and death are awfully frightening; talking about it is even worse.

But that was precisely what the insurance consultant sitting in front of us was doing – telling us about the two most imposing reflections that our mind chooses to sidestep, while we merrily dig into the meatball of life. We behave as if the two big D’s were things that could happen only to someone else, even as our core instinct prompts us about the possibility of the former and the certainty of the latter in our lives.

“I am sorry, but I have to be a little raw about this,” he announced, giving his audience a grating presentiment of what was to follow. We felt our stomachs tighten as he spoke of all the things that we had to know about ‘possibilities’ and ‘eventualities’, but had chosen to ignore for obvious reasons. The session wasn’t as innocuous as it had been when we had taken our Life Insurance policy many years ago from the ubiquitous LIC agent back in India. It is strange that the phrase ‘in the event of death’ did not sound so sinister then as it did now.

With a health insurance card from the company that takes care of medical expenses here, there was little else that weighed on our mind until we cruised into the mid-forties and the shades of grey started showing up. We realised that old age (albeit, still some distance away) was not just ‘a natural occurrence that we could handle when we came to it.’ Instances of critical illnesses among old people (and some younger) we knew and the utterly prohibitive cost of quality health care and treatment that we heard about forced us to do some serious reality check. It wasn’t an easy exercise, but who said life beyond the glam years was so easy?

The literature that we were handed out blew the living day lights out of me. It gave us a heads up on the worst possible ways to die. I felt as if I was being asked to choose my most (in)convenient way to do it, and then I was being given not a clever way to buck it, but a fair chance to beat it. There were, of course, no guarantees on coming out alive and well, but we all have the right and responsibility to put up a fight, and to do that, it is now not enough to have guts and gumption. We need lump sum cash in our pockets.

My grandpas and grandmas ended their run on this earth so peacefully that not even the seasons noticed their passing. The paper in my hand suggested that things might not be so peaceful. Along with new inventions for better living, there are now newer, mysterious and often unpleasant ways of quitting this world. Blame it on life style shifts, natural inequities or plain irreverence to the cosmic law; we may, for all you know, get the short end of the stick, and we had better make ample provisions for it. 

It is certainly not a jolly thought to dwell in, especially when life is riding the crest and things are gung ho, but it helps to swallow the bitter bill and be prepared. Not all of us can boast of chunky bank balances to support our future medical needs. We often scrimp and save for our children’s future, our retirement, a world tour, but very seldom for that prospect of falling grievously ill.

It will be tough to convince the irrational mind that taking an insurance cover against such a contingency doesn’t mean that we are going to contract something critical. Far from it. It is only like carrying an umbrella in our bag even when the skies are clear, for, as Forrest Gump’s mama often said, “Life is a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.”

Finding a perfect Recipe

Khaleej Times (LIFE) / 8 December 2012   I am a lucky wife because I have a husband who makes my morning tea on the weekends. That just means two days of tolerating a concoction that he has fondly labeled garma garam chai (piping hot tea). Truth be told, he has never got it right despite all my efforts to teach him the recipe; yet every time he asks me to comment, I exclaim, “Super!” He smiles thankfully knowing that I have lied yet again. The only thing he hasn’t ever figured out is whether I lied out of obligation or love. This charade between us has gone on for years now, even as he asks me, “What exactly do you do that I don’t to make it so well?” I want to shrug and say “I don’t know,” but I cock a brow and say airily, “extra love, perhaps.” I have never tried to master the art of cooking, thanks to the undemanding palates of my family. Like many other skills that I possess only in passable degrees, I have just got by with my culinary capabilities. With no fixed methods, it has always been a little bit of this and a little bit of that going into the pot, with the result that I turn up different versions of the same dish on different occasions. Mind you, they have not always been as delectable as I would have liked them to be. I am as clueless about a lip-smacking outcome as I am of a disaster — no credit to the cook or blame on the book for either. I have often seen cookery as a parallel to life, especially when taken within the constructs of success and failure. Mitt Romney must have spilled as much man-hours and money on the campaign trail as Obama, yet the outcome we had on the election day would see the former spend a life time contemplating on what went wrong. There was something missing in his recipe that he would be at pains to fathom. Obama, for his part, would still be wondering through his worry-tinted smile how he got those ticks in the electoral boxes. Ask anyone who has won life’s grand slams and he would rattle off platitudes likes persistence and planning as the stilts that raised him to glory. A discerning few mention grace as the catalyst. A team at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, recently claimed to have cracked the code to achieving box office success for Bollywood films. It beats me to think that one can win handsomely with some smart number crunching alone. If only success was so easy to compute and arrive at, if only it was math and not a matter of how the dice fell, many of us would have been bestselling authors or screen scorching stars or globe-trotting entrepreneurs. While it is within everyone’s individual capacity to slog and stretch one’s limits, the abstract ingredient that we call ‘luck’ is something that one doesn’t find in recipe books and road maps to success. It is something that plops into our cooking pan and makes even the humble porridge a contest winner. It certainly helps to take tips from the experts and add value to our methods, but eventually we make our own dish with a unique taste of its own. It is nearly impossible to say what makes some enterprises so wholesomely successful although one can ascribe several variables to it; just as it is impossible to say what makes my tea taste better than the one my husband makes, although I can claim a dozen things, including the love ingredient. The truth of the matter is that there is no perfect recipe — either to cooking porridge or brewing tea or crafting success. We all follow our own recipes to make our meal and in that lies the relish.

It's our second home

Khaleej Times (Issues) / 2 December 2012

It is that time of the year when my nationalistic sentiment stands deeply divided – this period between Diwali and the UAE National Day.

It is almost impossible to not feel the joy of belonging to a country so doused in the gaiety of a festival that makes entire neighbourhoods in Dubai take on an Indian avatar. It is equally impossible to be not in awe of the euphoria that sweeps the UAE in hues of red, green, white and black in the days ahead of December 2 every year. 

For an Indian to who Independence Day and Republic Day back home just meant two days off work and the national parade watched on TV, the fervour that is displayed here in the days leading up to National Day is a source of wonder, and many times, acute envy. As I wade through the sea of national colours now spurting in all possible forms, I put my patriotic responses under the scanner and fetch results that might explain the ambivalence prevailing in my heart.

There are no two ways about the fact that I love my country, but it is like the love a parent has for his or her wayward son. You love him because he is your flesh and blood, and it is not within your capacity to hate him despite his deficiencies. You censure him for his errant manner. He doesn’t give you sufficient reasons to compliment him yet you celebrate his birthday because you can’t disregard the congenital link.

You can’t disown him because he defines your existence in many ways. Often, you conceal your parental love and berate him, even as you wish that he gave you a chance to put him on the pedestal and raise a toast to him.

And then you have a friend, whose son is an epitome of virtues, and you almost wished that he was yours. Over a period of time you establish a bond with him that nudges and dislodges your parental leanings. A war in the heart ensues. Your affection is put to test. You have to choose between your son who went astray and your friend’s boy who gave a new meaning to your life with his charming ways and endearing company. You loathe making comparisons between them, but you do it anyway. For all the admiration you have for the latter, you know he can’t be yours. Sooner or later, you have to return home and share the roof with your incorrigible brat, in the hope that someday he would turn the corner.

Year after year, during vacation, I suffer the pangs of my divided love between the land of my birth and land of domicile. Just a few days into the holidays, once the early charm of homecoming wears off, I long to return to Dubai. The reasons are too stark and murky to merit detailing in the present moment. Back here, life acquires a rare charm and quality. It gains an even tenor, making monsoons and monsoon weddings in the family a distant memory that I cherish, but don’t sigh for audibly. Even my houseboy who shares a ten-by-ten room with seven of his friends and slogs for more than 12 hours a day says life here is a fairytale for many reasons.

Every expat here has more than one reason to love this place. Like the friend’s son, it cannot be completely ours, but while we are here, we owe a large share of our happiness to this land that we have nested in.

For this reason, l’m going to don some merchandise in the Spirit of the Union colours this weekend to express my gratitude and appreciation towards the nation that makes me smile every time I get off the plane. Sometimes, it feels good to wear your heart on your sleeve.