How appropriate that my Jewish mother sent me this. I thought it was hilarious & timely, since I’m coming to terms with certain issues related to the theme of kvetching.

I checked out her son’s article in HuffPost, Frame It With Gratitude:

“One way to describe your experience would be to say, ‘This is so annoying I could scream!’ Or you could say, ‘This is so annoying … and my life is really very blessed.’ ” She agreed that could make a big difference.

“But I don’t think I can remember to do that,” she sighed.

To my delight and amazement, my mother has continued doing the practice, and the change has been revolutionary. Seven months after my visit, she sent a card for my birthday. As is our family tradition, it contained a poem she wrote for the occasion. This one I especially cherish. Even though she started losing her sight during those months, the effects of her gratitude practice are evident in this poignant excerpt. And it goes to show you that you can teach an elder human new tricks!

Ninety is just fine with me, I no longer rant and rave
About where the world is heading and my exclusive job to save.
I wallow in contentment and know that I am blessed
Awakening to the joy of living at its best.
I’m happier than I’ve ever been and truly mean each word.
The thoughts that caused the worries now all seem so absurd.
Though my eyesight has been dimmed I see clearer than before,
The glass is not half empty, it’s overflowing to be sure.

Why is it that we have to complain or criticize about what’s there? Even if you want to improve something, surely there are more effective ways of going about it.

Not all of Jaipur looks like this...

Recently, I keep starting out my posts with numbers. Perhaps it helps me to establish the landmarks, to measure my success on this uncharted path. For me, these three years are the longest ever time that I’ve been settled in one place since I graduated from high school in 1999. I’m discounting the four years of college because I moved a lot from year to year.

True, I haven’t been in Jaipur for three years straight, either. I have left for at least 2 months every year to visit family, and last year I was hardly home since I spent almost half the time at the ashram or travelling. It’s probably the only way I could’ve survived.

Nonetheless, three years with my stuff in the same apartment, with or without me. Three years of having Jaipur as home base, ready for me when I return. Three year of having pigeons as my closest neighbors.

It was in April 2007 that we came here. I want to be able to say something very insightful about my experience here, a neatly packaged byte of wisdom. But in my stupor of disbelief that I’ve made it here this long, I’m struggling to make much out of it.

Actually, perhaps the real motivating force behind writing this post, behind even the realization itself that I have been here for that long, is that we are most probably leaving Jaipur. I hesitate to give more details because that deserves its own post. But the impending departure certainly has made me recognize how settled I’ve become here, and dare I say it? Attached.

To be honest, I can’t think of things off the top of my head that I particularly like about this place, but to do Jaipur some justice, I will put some effort in and make a list:

1. Central Park
2. seeing Nahargarh Fort from my window

Ok, the list idea is pointless. It’s sounding horribly negative, which has nothing to do with Jaipur in itself–it’s more to do with my own perspective and judgements.

While now I can say that I’m in a positive frame of mind, much of my time here has not been spent in that way. Furthermore, I can say that I’ve come to terms with my previous negativity, and have reached more of a state of acceptance of life, of being here, all the pros and cons included. It’s been a sacrifice, but has held certain advantages. They’ve pretty much cancelled each other out.

Pros include low cost of living, nice apartment, being close to in-laws, being close to Delhi. Cons: difficulty in going out (weather & logistics combined), weather, lack of social circle, weather, being close to in-laws, weather…

Dear Jaipur, you’re too hot and I can’t think properly. You’ve made life difficult for me, but I forgive you.

It took a long time for me to process that culture shock–perhaps I am still–but one thing I know is this: The conversation is dynamic between an individual and her environment and just as it would be absolutely absurd to respond in a conversation with your friend with the same one line, it is absurd to respond to life experiences with the same old line. To be engaged in this narrative with others, our environment, our religions…requires creativity, expression, and risk. This is what I think. What about you?

Life can be so contradictory, whenever we form fixed opinions it has a way of proving us wrong, if we’re open to it. Otherwise we remain stuck and suffer.

What is required?

Fluidity. If you try to cling to your old beliefs and habits, you will end up missing all that the new place has to offer. You will close yourself to any possibilities of exploration. You will become lost in translation as you search for a meaning which computes with your preconceived notions.

Willingness to laugh at yourself. To look deeply and acknowledge that so much about you is unconsiously shaped by where you have grown up.

Listening, openness. Even if you don’t understand the what or why, acknowledging the universal humanity in others.

Appreciating the diversity of experiences. Humility in seeing that there are many rights and wrongs as shaped by place and time.

This thing we call life can be so complicated! Or so simple.

I’ve been feeling a bit nostaligic for France, and this video popped up as I was searching for French films. It offers some seemingly frivolous insights, which are actually at the heart of cultural differences between Americans, French, and whoever else.

For example, Mireille’s observation that American women don’t drink water (because they’re probably too busy drinking diet Coke!), or don’t taste a banana if they’re eating it because they would be multi-tasking. That we don’t like to cook!

And that we should have many small pleasures throughout the day.

What impressed me so much about French culture was their apparently  innate ability to enjoy the small things in life. Sometimes the slow attitude would frustrate me; if I had to get groceries during the 12-2pm lunch shutdown, or on Sunday. But mostly I was in awe.

The movie Amelie was an eye-opener in this regard, when I watched it in 2001. It was so inspiring that I eventually stole her haircut (in an attempt to be as inspiring as the character?).

Often people mistake me for being French. I don’t know how they got that idea in their head, but it makes me laugh. Maybe somewhere they caught a snippet of the story that I lived in France, and made an assumption…?

To conclude this rambling and disorganized post, I will say that a lot of French people like visiting India. Could be because things are rather slow-moving, yet culturally intruiging. Let’s leave the last word to Amelie:

Determined to find their own expression, women in Jaipur are increasingly taking up writing as a serious pursuit. Despite cultural challenges and family responsibilities, they are living their passion as successful authors. Today, most of them have to their credit, several books on intriguing subjects and are fast impacting the national literary arena. Busy penning some new tomes, these spirited multitaskers have broken stereotypes and proved that women writers are no more anomalies in Rajasthan.

Tripti Pandey, a journalist, says

“Being a woman, I am blessed with an innate sensitivity that helps me reflect on the nuances of the places that I visit. Village women unveil their faces while interacting with me, share bits of their lives without any inhibitions and happily pose for my camera.”

Lecturer Aradhana Singh says

“Writing gives a woman the strength to break free from cultural bondages. An opinionated woman, however unwelcome she may be, has the power to alter the power equation of a society. I wish more and more woman in my state take up writing and experience the mental liberation it brings.”

Corporate executive Shivali Singh says

“Writing buoys up the self esteem of a woman. I am confident that women in the state will achieve greater heights if they keep on striding towards their goal.”

We lost ourselves the day we were born

Since then the search began

To find those of our family

We were confused

For we were given a family of birth

We had friends from our situation

In this funny place called “society”

We travelled

And felt the semblance of the primeval sensation of life

We wondered why we felt at home on the road

We were made to believe we were a little strange

For how many stay away from “home” for so long?

How many become the rebels we did?

We wandered on empty streets in the night

Feeling the wind of the sea, the river, the mountains of wherever we lived…

We had so many questions and no answers we found

We searches, always searched

We searched even for ourselves…

We delved in unfathomable depths of the being

We rowed for months in strange alien seas

We searched for friends of the soul

Somehow no friends we had, ever

Seemed like friends enough…

How could we explain what “friends” meant to us?

Friends were beings so akin to us

They could read our minds

Walk in step with us on those roads of life

Friends were those who travelled with us

Climbed mountains, forged rivers, conquered seas…

Friends were one life breath, strangely

Such few “friends” we ever found in this world

We stayed aloof…from so much

The norms, the religions, thought processes of the world

We risked our lives, our positions, our family relations for our beliefs

We did the things we believed in

Worked for none but ourselves

We were called selfish for we cared

About our own well being…

We fought, we battled,

We ran like mad from so many, so much

We hid, we absconded, we hibernated

Some of us found our soulmates

Some of us didn’t

Some of us had homes, children, love

Some of us lived lonely in far away homes

Some of us were fulfilled having found the love

The understanding we seeked, the minds akin to ours

Some of us…after a long time stopped searching having understood that in some lifetimes we were meant to be alone

Our soulmates parted from us, living another life…

May be in another world, probably another time zone…

We, the seekers, the thinkers, the rebels

We ache to get together for nowhere seems like home

We long for company of similar minds, sensibilities

We hurt, we bleed, we pain, we die…

But we live completely, every moment of our lives

Live the good and bad as same

Give all of ourselves to the world…

To nature… to art…

For there is no other way to live we know

We seek answers all the time

We question all the time

We are probably the only ones who know how deep pain carves its being into us

And how full happiness makes us feel…

We are comfortable with extremes

We are comfortable with tears, with abandonment, with aloneness…

We, the unknown ones

We, the misfits

We, the seekers, the thinkers, the rebels…

Some new research featured in the NYT on the gender gap contends counterintuitively that more traditional societies have smaller gender differences than modern ones.

For evolutionary psychologists, the bad news is that the size of the gender gap in personality varies among cultures. For social-role psychologists, the bad news is that the variation is going in the wrong direction. It looks as if personality differences between men and women are smaller in traditional cultures like India’s or Zimbabwe’s than in the Netherlands or the United States. A husband and a stay-at-home wife in a patriarchal Botswanan clan seem to be more alike than a working couple in Denmark or France. The more Venus and Mars have equal rights and similar jobs, the more their personalities seem to diverge.

These findings are so counterintuitive that some researchers have argued they must be because of cross-cultural problems with the personality tests. But after crunching new data from 40,000 men and women on six continents, David P. Schmitt and his colleagues conclude that the trends are real. Dr. Schmitt, a psychologist at Bradley University in Illinois and the director of the International Sexuality Description Project, suggests that as wealthy modern societies level external barriers between women and men, some ancient internal differences are being revived.

The biggest changes recorded by the researchers involve the personalities of men, not women. Men in traditional agricultural societies and poorer countries seem more cautious and anxious, less assertive and less competitive than men in the most progressive and rich countries of Europe and North America.

Utterly fascinating. While I’m loathe to just take the latest study at face value, it certainly is thought-provoking–especially the bit about how the men differ. I can’t help but think of the white man’s burden: how the imperialists portrayed the colonised men as alternatively ‘effeminate’ (in India) or ‘lazy, savage beasts’ in Africa. Yet this research could be interpreted as saying that the imperialists were the brutes (as indeed I think they were)!

Personality is more complicated than height, of course, and Dr. Schmitt suggests it’s affected by not just the physical but also the social stresses in traditional agricultural societies. These villagers have had to adapt their personalities to rules, hierarchies and gender roles more constraining than those in modern Western countries — or in clans of hunter-gatherers.

“Humanity’s jaunt into monotheism, agriculturally based economies and the monopolization of power and resources by a few men was ‘unnatural’ in many ways,” Dr. Schmitt says, alluding to evidence that hunter-gatherers were relatively egalitarian. “In some ways modern progressive cultures are returning us psychologically to our hunter-gatherer roots,” he argues. “That means high sociopolitical gender equality over all, but with men and women expressing predisposed interests in different domains. Removing the stresses of traditional agricultural societies could allow men’s, and to a lesser extent women’s, more ‘natural’ personality traits to emerge.”

I can definitely agree that our current state of civilization is unnatural, but I guess I have a hard time seeing how ‘modern progressive cultures are returning us psychologically to our hunter-gatherer roots’. Well, certainly the jury’s out on any hard and fast conclusions, but I like the way the article finishes:

Things could get confusing if the personality gap widens further as the sexes become equal. But then, maybe it was that allure of the mysterious other that kept Mars and Venus together so long on the savanna.

Allure indeed…

For more, see Broadsheet’s take.

“A patriarchal ethos dominates both the societies, American and Indian, but they operate in different ways. In India, despite the patriarchal ethos, powerful women leaders have emerged,” says political scientist Imtiaz Ahmed.

The most famous examples are BSP chief Mayawati and AIADMK head Jayalalitha. Both emerged from the shadow of iconic godfathers, to establish themselves as leaders with grassroots support.

It is not enough to be someone’s wife, sister or mistress in Indian politics. Neerja Gopal Jayal, professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University’s centre of law and governance points out that “Even at the panchayat level, we have had women from the member families being nominated. But the first time, patronage may work but not the second time. And this is true at the national level too.”

I myself have often wondered how, especially in the super-conservative state of Rajasthan, female leaders have established themselves. (See today’s article about Sonia Gandhi criticizing “the corrupt and inefficient [Vasundhara Raje] government.”)

Ranjana Kumari, director of the Centre for Social Research says, “What is unique to India, is the fact that women have the space to grow as leaders. Maybe, it has to do with our cultural ethos, where women are worshipped as goddesses.’’

I’m not so sure about the goddess worship argument, considering the low status of the majority of women; I think it could be more likely the ethos of ‘Mother India’ and the self-sacrificing stereotype of mothers/women.