Who will you call today?

"When the lockdown started, all of us from the old college batch made a promise that we will dig up the phone numbers of our teachers from 20 years ago, make a list, and sign up to call and check on each one of them. They were incredibly moved. And so happy to hear from us. Some of them were in tears.

After that we now call up at least two people every week to check on them. People whom we haven't spoken to in years, old friends, distant relatives. Just call. Ask how they are. Connect. Spend at least 20 minutes on a conversation where you are really listening.

And every Saturday we have a quick catch-up with the college batch to share how moved we have been by these calls. How we received more than we gave. It has been life-changing. And it totally raises our spirits amidst all the gloom and disaster all around, the best distraction ever."

We heard this incredibly beautiful story because an old friend and I set up this Zoom call in our apartment complex, on Mental Well-being. She works for the Live Love Laugh Foundation, which is doing incredible service at a time when we are having a Mental Health crisis the world over. 

Of course it was uncomfortable. We don't speak about Mental Well-being in public in India, do we? 😊 But what do we have to lose? Covid has brought mental health to the forefront, ironically. The few people who dialed in completely agreed that we need to talk about this subject now. 

And what a hugely inspiring story we got as a reward! I have been trying to practice this myself. 

What does it entail?

1. Make a list of people you haven't spoken to in ages. Old friends, classmates, teachers, neighbours, acquaintances, distant family members, ex-colleagues. People whom you like or respect, but haven't connected to in ages because you have just been too busy with your own life.
2. Get their numbers if you don't have them.
3. Call at least 2 people from this list every week, when you and they are not in a hurry. Or just 1 if you can't make the time. 
4. Spend a good 20 minutes at least catching up. Listen. Ask the real questions. Get to know what they are going through. How they have also smiled and wept and walked through the fire while you were busy with your own journey. Share how you have done the same. Look beyond and really see the human being behind the words.

I won't spoil it for you by telling you how you will feel at the end. 

Discover it for yourself. 😃 And tell me about it. 

Background to this Post: Walking the Thin Line

Walking the Thin Line

Are you walking the Thin Line? Know someone who is? Don't know what to do? 

There is help all around. Reach out. Talk. It's not a Bad Life. It's a Bad Day. 

Deepika Padukone, a well-known Indian movie star, founded The Live Love Laugh Foundation after she came out about her battle with depression.

 https://thelivelovelaughfoundation.org/

The site is an excellent resource for those who are not sure where they are on the spectrum of mental well-being issues, whether it is time to seek help - and how. They also have programs for various groups, including children. One of our dear friends works there. 

India is seeing yet another amazing wave of positive social change amidst all the disaster, yet another testament  to our incredible adaptability and resilience. More and more people are speaking up about struggling with mental health issues. Seeking help is increasingly applauded as the right thing to do.  

Covid has finally brought in an increased acceptance that we are fallible, we have minds that need to be looked after as much as our bodies, and that the most resilient people are those who seek help.

Join the movement. Make 2020 the year you were an Agent of Social Change, part of the Big Wave that will go down in the history of this country. Tell me, you DO want some good memories of this year, don't you? 😊 

Speak

• Initiate conversations around mental well-being in your close circles - family, friends, office colleagues, apartment complexes, communities
• Of course it is uncomfortable. Change is difficult. Be a Warrior. "What do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"*
• You will be surprised what change you bring about, bit by bit. You never know. 
• The time is right. Strike.  

Share

• Share mental health resources widely across social media
• You never know which helpline will save someone's life

Seek

• If you ever find yourself walking the thin line, seek help. There is a life after this. Believe me.

Why am I sharing this? This is a campaign that came out of Saturday evening calls I set up with ex-colleagues from 15-20 years ago when the lockdown started in March 2020. We hope to contribute to the Mental Health Revolution in India, in our own small way. We believe that it's when everything comes crumbling down that we have to rise, be engaged, go beyond the preoccupations of our own personal lives. 

Has any other time ever proved to us as much that we are all in this together, we are intricately and irrevocably linked?

Please share. Somewhere someday it may reach someone who is walking the thin line with nothing to break the fall. 

*Mary Oliver, 'The Summer Day'

Foul!

My good friend Venkat doesn't get on Chat with me much these days. Wonder whether it has something to do with this conversation that happened more than a decade ago...😀

Discussion on Chat with Venkat. He wants to know about the films happening at the Indo-German film festival.

I tell him he missed the German movie called Wild Chicks at 3 PM.

I also tell him that some day I will make a movie called Wild Chicks. [Vild Chix, to prevent copyright problems]. It will be about this military coup in a poultry farm.

Since I need to somehow get people to watch/buy the film, I will have a few women in it. (this was pre-political correctness!)

But guess where they come in the movie, apart from all over the DVD cover and the posters? At the poultry farm the chickens watch this educational program called Reproduction in Humans. That's where these women come in.

But just when it gets interesting, Grandpa Chicken will come and switch off the TV.

Yes, I need to get an A certificate for the movie - otherwise no one will watch it. I'll get one - for the abusive language the chickens use when they fight!

At this point, I think Venkat is pulling his hair out. There is silence in the Chat window. He says he's going to watch F TV.

I say that there is an F TV in the poultry farm movie too - the chickens watch this channel called F TV - Fowl TV. Ooo ha ha ha ha!!

Though old-fashioned Grandpa Chicken calls it Foul TV.

I think it was at this point that Venkat abruptly closed the Chat window and went out for a drink.

Duck!

That was a warning. In case you didn't notice. 😛

Mr.Watter and his family lived with their best friend whose name was Duck. Duck's name was Duck because he was a duck. Duck lived in a small wooden house on stilts which Mr.Watter built for him near the porch.

Whoever made the word "weird" did so after meeting Duck. Every morning when one of the Watters opened the front door to collect the newspaper, Duck would be waiting on the small ledge under the porch roof with bated breath. Just as the person bent to pick up the newspaper, Duck would jump on his back cackling loudly in wicked glee. You could duck other ducks, but not Duck. He was as good as a heat-sensitive missile.

This drove Watter mad, but he didn't beat the life out of Duck or have him for dinner - he knew that in life, having to put up with some weirdness was a small price to pay for having loving, faithful, and forgiving friends.

So he came up with this solution. Whoever came to pick up the paper would wear a trekking jacket. So when Duck landed on them like God's wrath early in the morning, he would not get a grip and would slip off and land on the ground with a surprised cackle, and waddle away shaking his bottom furiously.

Now, Duck, either due to genetic unfairness in the department of Logical Deduction from Predictable Patterns, or having read just the first few chapters of too many philosophy books and therefore treated each new day as a fresh blank slate, unsullied by the experience of yesterday, went on jumping off the ledge on Watters' backs and falling off each time.

This went on so long that in the neighbourhood, when anyone wanted to say that something didn't affect him at all, he would say " It fell off me like Duck off a Watters' back!"

End of Story.😬

For life ought to be rich and abundant and full of love

Sonali and me and her folding chair at my Silk Cotton Tree

Twenty years ago, I used to be part of this group of strangers who used to meet up at an old house on Lavelle road in Bangalore on Sunday evenings, for "Culture Cafe" readings. The lovely Jyoti Makhija of the British Library set up this Yahoo group for people who loved to read. We met up on Sunday evenings and sat in a circle on the cool red oxide floor of this old empty house and read excerpts from books we loved. I met some very beautiful people there. Like Sonali. 

From whom I got a letter on Friday - ON PAPER - with big pictures of owls, in crayon. She lives a few kilometres away, but is reviving this old "art form", the written word on paper. It so happens that I get it the day before my birthday. What a lovely gift! 

And in the letter she mentions a particular passage I read in the group - 20 years ago! She said she could never forget the bread and the cheese, the thick chunks of it. 😃

Sonali, of the incredible strength, and the knowledge that Joy is something you got to create, like a home-cooked meal, not something you wait for to be delivered on a platter. 

It was easy to find that excerpt. This is where I got the name for my recipe blog - Abundance. It is the very first post on that blog. I had forgotten the details. But in a way this line was seared into my brain, and defined everything I believed life should be. 

I read this 1963 Norwegian novel just before I turned 20, those years of suffering when you are coming out of your cocoon and you are Neither Here nor There. 

I am not a foodie. If you ask me what I want to eat when we meet, I will probably say, "whatever". I don't really care. I care way more for Conversation and Connection. I will most probably not remember a single thing we ever ate together, unless of course you cooked it for me. But I will remember every single story you told me. And I believe in Generosity. And the Giving of Oneself without holding back. 

“…..For life ought to be rich and abundant and full of love."

Through all the years when life was neither rich nor abundant nor full of love, I still believed in this ideal vision. Just because I can't see the stars does not mean they don't exist. 

Nothing is ever promised. But "only if there are angels in your head will you ever, possibly, see one" as Mary Oliver said? 

"A piece of bread and butter must overflow with joy and enthusiasm, with generosity and love."  

Ash Burlefoot, somewhere along the way, I have become you. 

Abundance: http://noodlesandmangopickle.blogspot.com/2009/08/abundance.html

There are no edges to my loving now

"We are drawn to edges, to our own, parapets, and sea-walls."

'Apart', Robin Robertson

They say everything is Freudian. Everything has a reason which our poor old slow Conscious mind is yet to catch up with. 

I still remember the taking of this photo. The exact spot where I rode up to, with two dear friends. I was riding into the sea, from a steep steep hill top, as a joke. Just stopping at the very edge, and looking back into the camera.

This picture sums up my entire life.

Yet another birthday. And I am still around. Thank you. For making me turn back and look. In your own individual ways. 

There are no edges to my loving the world anymore....

There are no edges to my loving now
The clear bead at the center changes everything.

There are no edges to my loving now.

You've heard it said there's a window

that opens from one mind to another,

but if there's no wall, there's no need
for fitting the window, or the latch.

Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi

Translated from the original Persian by Coleman Barks

Listen to Albert Cadmore's Show on Harbour Radio :)

The most delightful thing happened to me two Thursdays ago! 😃A dear British colleague's father Albert Cadmore hosts this lovely music show on the Great Yarmouth Community radio every Thursday 2-4 PM UK time. And he played a song for me  - Sway, by Dean Martin! And spoke about me on the show, saying I am his first listener from India!

The 2-hour show is full of anecdotes and short interviews, and appreciation for all the great things people are doing locally during these difficult times, amidst a collection of beautiful old songs - many of which are requests from listeners, often dedicated to someone. It's two hours of peacefulness amidst all the anxiety going on all around. You can keep this running while you go around doing other stuff. 

Please listen to his show, it's such a lovely way to relax - and we could all do with some de-stressing right now. I have a recurrent reminder in my calendar now, and I wait for Thursdays. 

Do let him know if you enjoy the show - he will be thrilled, and also mention you on the show. 😊They are very eager to connect with people across the world, so do spread the word. 

How to Listen

1. Open Play Store on your phone's Home screen, if you have an Android phone. See picture above - that's how the Play Store icon looks like. For iPhones, you will have something similar that allows you to download apps. 
2. Now search for Radio Garden, or the TuneIn app in Play Store Search. When you find it, click Install.
3. Once it is installed, open the app and locate Harbour Radio.
4.  You can also look for Great Yarmouth on the map that it displays. It's on the East coast of England, see picture below. You will see Harbor Radio once you locate Great Yarmouth. Save as Favourite, the Heart icon. 
5. Play Harbor Radio at 2-4 PM UK time every Thursday. Which is 6.30 PM India time now. You will hear Albert Cadmore presenting his show. 
6. Create a recurrent reminder on your phone/Gmail calendar if you use one, so you get a reminder every Thursday. Or some other reminder that works for you. 😊

Requesting a Song/Dedication/Contacting him

• You can send requests or message him on the number given on their Facebook page: 
• 0-79-42-64-10-74 (+44-79-42-64-10-74 from overseas)
• If you liked his show, you can also leave a comment/message on their Facebook page.

Follow their Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/harbourradio

Do let me know if you enjoyed the show. 😊 If you would like to mail him, do ask me, can share his id.