A New Year

A friend wished me yesterday  - "advance wishes for arbitrary day on roman calendar." The thought had occupied my mind for some time - that we celebrate what is an absolutely arbitrary day of the year. However, extend that thought and any day that is celebrated would seem arbitrary. The point, therefore, would be to celebrate a year gone by. Be it new years', birthdays or religious festivals. It is a time to look back and reflect. Also a time, perhaps, to look forward and plan.

The year gone by has, again, been very eventful. I started the year spending a lot of time in the gym and doing my now notorious '100 surya namaskars each day.'  March was the time of travel - Israel, Turkey, Athens and Budapest. The summer was a glorious one spent in London, with more travel - North Italy, Brussels, Lyon, and Copenhangen. There was love, visits by family and friends, getting back to Oxford and all of that. Through all of this, I have been moving towards a holistic idea of who I am, and what I want to do in life. It has been challenging because I haven't looked back and asked such fundamental questions. I have followed an idea of success - primarily academic success - that took me to the places I went to. Simultaneously, I have been exposed to a certain idea of morality, to a certain notion of right and wrong. The idea, therefore, of finding the 'true self' becomes complicated. Is the 'true self' dependent on my history, and dependent on the ideas society has instilled in me? Or is it more innate - was I born with certain strengths and weaknesses that I can use to live a happy, purposeful life.

I suppose answers will come in due course of time, but I also want to have the process move a little faster. Therefore, I reflected on the two things that reflect what I want to do this coming year. One could call them a type of new year resolution. The two works I came up with are empathy and action. These two works, I hope, will serve as reminders of what I seek to achieve this year. The two also encompass a lot of other traits I thought desirable. For example, empathy includes humility and patience. Action includes discipline and perseverence. I want to move towards my goals this coming year, but always keep the good of other people at heart.

To start things off, I also made a more pragmatic new year resolution - to give a part of my scholarship money to those in need. Today I made another contribution to Milaap, this time for a village electrification program. For long, I thought that giving money was a lazy way to contribute. However, I now view it as a great commitment device that will help shape my non - monetary work, and be shaped by it. It is about putting my money where my mouth is. Plus, the Rhodes Scholarship is far too generous, and one that I received due to my extreme privilege. Like capitalism itself, I need to turn this scholarship and the associated opportunities into a machine to create greater surplus, and then send it back to the country and society I come from. A bit like the conscientous capitalists that Gandhi envisaged.

Michaelmas, 2015

I remember the first time I watched English Vinglish. It was one of the few post - college movies for which we could mobilise almost our entire group of friends, and we went to Connaught Place, watched the movie and then had birthday celebrations on the street. At the end of this fantastic scene from the movie, Sridevi says something that stuck with me since then - that when you don't like yourself, you tend to dislike everything associated with you and new things look attractive. When you learn to love yourself, then the same old life starts looking new, starts feeling nice.

That has been the story of this last term at Oxford. I did precisely the same things that I did last year - met a lot of new people, started living in a new house, took new courses, and partied a lot. And yet, whereas I remember last Michaelmas as very melancholic, this one seems joyous. The world around me has, of course, not changed much. It is the outlook that seems to have changed.

Positivity is a word one hears a lot, but I certainly didn't understand its potency till very recently. I like to believe that I climbed the ladder of success with blood on my hands. This 'blood' refers to feelings of envy, anger and frustration that has characterised my journey from Visakhapatnam to Oxford. I reacted very strongly to negative emotions, and worked very hard to fight with them, and that helped me professionally. I am at a crossroad now, have been for a year. I have come a long way, and I need to reset and start a new journey where laurels of the past willl show diminishing returns very quickly. And therefore I need to choose how to motivate myself.

The summer helped me let go of a lot of emotional baggage that I had been carrying. The feeling of hurt that I had accumulated over the years made me look at the world, and people around me, very cynically. I became sensitive, became afraid. Over this most beautiful summer, so many things and so many burdens from the past have been let go of. And I can finally once again engage in the activity of making myself a better individual. The fear of failure holds back the first step. With that gone, I feel ready for a marathon.

Profesionally, I can engage in things I want to do. I have spent much time this term working on RSSAF's consulting work. It brings back memories of St. Stephen's College and building institutions from the ground. I'm also taking my time looking for jobs, and am being more risk - tolerant in my job search. I also feel more confident about what I want to do, and preparing for the long-drawn task of looking for something suitable. Not much has been gained over the last year to explain this change. Except positivity.

The most important thing has been to treat myself as kindly as I tend to treat others. When my reaction to others who err is to forgive, why be needlessly harsh with myself? When I provide comfort to someone who messed up a relationship, why shouldn't I comfort myself similarly? The same logic should be applied the other way round - to treat others as one would like to be treated. When I expect empathy and kindness, why not give the same to others? I am trying to push the boundaries of my empathy, trying to see things from others' point of view. It's an ongoing journey of discovery. I'm excited.