My Long History of Outrage Over Gender Identity

OK, chances are, after reading the title, you’ve already cancelled me. But I implore you, lend me your ears for just a few minutes. 

The truth is, I am actually quite indifferent to the current raging debate on  gender confusion, identity and so on. If you are female, fine with me. If you are female and identify as male, I hope that gives you happiness. If you think you are something in between, it excites no great reaction from me other than a mildly benign hope that your confusion gets resolved in your mind sooner than later. In short, I tolerate. I would even go further and say I accept.

 

But there is an aspect of gender identity that has got my goat ever since my primary school days, when CBSE had mandated that Hindi would be compulsory learning for all. No escape. It was smooth sailing for a while, as the initial phase was marked by a degree of leniency arising from a creditable degree of pity as my Hindi teacher saw us struggling with a new language that was imposed on us by governmental fiat. But soon, a major reality of the Hindi language hit me.

 

Up until then, gender was not something that had caused any confusion in me. The concept seemed quite simple and definitive. However, the Hindi language suddenly transported me to the realm of gender confusion with a jolt. Not my gender. But about everything else’s gender.

 

You see, Hindi is a language where everything has a gender. Including inanimate objects! I can deal with the gender of a living thing. As I said, I am open to accommodating any view human beings have vis-à-vis their gender. And this courtesy and tolerance I would even extend to the entire animal kingdom. But a chair? A light bulb? A house? A mountain? An idea? What do you do when each of these have their own gender? And it is irrelevant whether it’s a man’s house or a woman’s house. In the Hindi language, the House stands proud with its own gender that cannot be superseded by yours!

 

I think back on the early days of Hindi and how this would have evolved. Must have been a pretty radicalized bunch who decided that everything is binary, gender-wise. To me, it seems like the conservative world’s first ever strike at the gender spectrum. A clear refusal to consider a more fluid definition of gender identity. I frankly think they went too far by labeling even inanimate objects as “Sthreeling” or “Pulling”, but it was probably a cry of defiance provoked by early signs of challenges to the human gender binary by the liberal side of the mix. The question of the neuter gender was ruthlessly suppressed, virtually neutered! There are a bare handful of neuter gender words in the entire Hindi dictionary.

 

At an ethical level, in today’s world, it poses some disturbing questions. Why is a House masculine? Why should all Houses be masculine. Why can’t some be masculine and some feminine? Every time there is a renovation, why should the House not be in a position to reevaluate its gender? It’s a disturbing and toxic imposition of gender on an object which has no wherewithal to contest the gender that’s been foisted on it. It goes against every liberal value we would like to teach our kids…  

 

So I have a huge challenge. Is it “Mera office” or “Meri office”? “Tera Gaadi or Teri Gaadi”? The process of my speaking Hindi involves multiple sequential steps starting with idea construction in English, followed by the painstaking task of identifying the right words, structuring basis Hindi language grammar, ultimately leading to sentence construction. By this time, my mental faculties are already straining under the load. On this, you overlay the gender question and my brain is just about ready to hand in its resignation with immediate notice.

 

I complain to my Hindi speaking friends, but their response is a usually a little patronizing. How can you figure it out, I ask. You just know, they say, with an unfathomable look that is normally reserved for the backbencher who always brings up the tail in the class tests. A few make an attempt and put out some feeble explanation. OK, anything ending in the vowel “aa” is male. “ee” is female they say, carefully feeling their way around as would a person trying to explain the science of how to breathe to another. OK then, explain why it is “Meri disha” and not “Mera Disha”, I say. At which point, the conversation, rather than diving into the perversions of the originators of the language, veers rather defensively in the direction of my Madrasi accent…(incidentally, “Madrasi” is masculine, not feminine, even if you meant a Madrasi woman – there you go, two strikes already on the “aa” / “ee” rule!). 

 

What complicates things is that two different words for the same object can have two genders!! So, “Saayaa” means shadow and is masculine. “Chhaayaa” means shadow and is feminine! “Jung” and “Yudh”, both meaning war, are feminine and masculine respectively. Figure that out!!

 

I try to reimagine the thought processes of the early creators of the Hindi language and cannot help but feel that they were either viciously sociopathic or were smoking some high quality stuff and consequently were in the mood to really let the fun times rip. In either case, the sufferers have been the succeeding generations of people who try to learn Hindi after getting conditioned to another language. I’ve heard about the dead rolling in their graves, but these creative forebearers of the language must be Rofling in their graves!! 

 

It's all so patently unfair. What the hell, I slog at learning the language,  expand my vocabulary, learn the grammar, even work on my Madrasi accent, only to get tripped up by some inane gender identity problem. I have universally loved each of my jobs, including during my time when I was located in Hindi speaking cities, however, The Speech was the one event I absolutely dreaded. Conventional wisdom has it that you get the audience to relate to you when you address them in their language. I’m ashamed to admit that I allowed myself to frequently subscribe to this dubious principle. However, from the sniggering that usually occurred during my Hindi speeches, I guess getting the gender wrong is probably the eighth deadly sin that got lost in translation…

 

I recall when CBSE relaxed the compulsory Hindi rule in my High school, I quickly shifted to French. Picture my state of mind when I got to realize that French is one of the few languages in the world that has the same gender identity problem that Hindi has!!!

 

It’s actually not very different from the “Exclusion through Jargon” strategy. Most of my business school education and a lot of what I learnt in my corporate life was that you had to unfailingly use the appropriate corporate lingo to be included. And to prevent unworthy infiltrators, new jargon keeps getting invented, so you have to be updated. I think the gender concept is the Hindi language’s M.O. to keep the club exclusive and outsiders in their place. You may be able to speak, but I’ll always keep you in the zone of discomfort through the gender card, Mother Hindi seems to be saying…

 

Anyway, I’m not making a case against Hindi here. I benefited much from learning Hindi. Clearly, anyone aiming to make a career that may take him or her or any other thing (told you I am tolerant!) to different parts of the country will be well served by learning the language. Just keep your objectives simple, don’t attempt mastery of the language, that will be a futile effort. There are too many words in the Hindi dictionary and each of them has some arbitrarily assigned gender.

 

Just go with the flow, develop a thick skin and make an apologetic half smile a permanent facial feature whenever you set out to speak Hindi…

 

*****

Friend turned Foe : The Treacherous Ceiling Fan

Along the journey called life, I have had my share of friends and foes as I’m sure you have, too. Some friends, over time, become foes and vice versa. It’s a part of the grand cycle, we accept it as our reality and learn to deal with it…

You would however think that such emotions are reserved for living beings, that it is not possible to feel strongly one way or another about inanimate objects. Before making up your mind however, I urge you to listen to a story about me and a device. A device which used to invoke pretty cordial emotions in me, but which I nowadays view with an extreme degree of hostility and even trepidation.

 

I am talking about the ceiling fan. Or indeed, any fan for that matter.

 

In my younger days, where air conditioners used to be the marker for luxurious living much as owning a Lambhorgini is today, the ceiling fan gave me many moments to savour. I still remember the bliss of returning from a cricket match in the scorching Chennai heat and plonking down under the ceiling fan. Or the thrill of using a ball point pen through the grill to manually start the fan in the train compartment. Or jostling for the seats directly under the fan during general class in school. I wouldn’t be going too far in saying that the fan had always been a life saver. 

 

One would have thought that over time, with A/Cs being quite prevalent, both the need for fans and the emotions they provoke would have moderated. Which was the case with me as well for a while. Of late though, fans are intruding into my life in a very nasty, unwholesome manner and causing substantial distress. 

 

Here’s the thing. Whenever man sets out to create anything, there are always ramifications. While the primary purpose of a fan is to circulate air in the room and cool the skin, which are both noble objectives, the process inevitably involves forcefully blowing a fair amount of air in different directions. Now we come to the nub of the issue… 

 

Till a point in one’s life, one’s hair tends to withstand a certain amount of disturbance. Simply because there is enough of it. Hell, wind ruffled hair after a bike ride even used to be a thing in my younger days. However, with the irrevocable coupling between between advancing age and receding hairlines, the sheer quantum of hair on one’s scalp tends to be a very natural casualty. Now, to drive the point home through an analogy, picture a strong banyan tree with lots of branches and leaves, proudly holding its ground in a storm and then a small, frail plant trembling under the onslaught of the same storm. The banyan tree carries on through life post-storm with scarce a stutter, while the small plant will need to go through the process of rebuilding its tender structure…

 

And so it has come to be for me! Just creating order in my hair is complex given it is nowadays a weakly held edifice with poor support structures; support which had been earlier provided through sheer strength in numbers, much like how stability is achieved in a jam packed Mumbai local train. So now, every time I pass under a fan, I need to hold out my hands protectively around the contours of my hairlines to prevent mayhem in the painstakingly established arrangement atop my scalp. And whenever my hands are unable to rise to the task of self-defense, utter and complete disorder is the usual outcome. The good old days of just running my fingers through and smoothing my hair are a distant memory. So now the entire formation has to be reconstructed from the beginning. I used to smirk with contempt at people who carried around a small comb in the back of their trousers in the 80s. Such a filmi thing to do, I thought then. Now of course, I feel like I’m some poster boy for Karma… 

 

Obviously, while the ceiling fan is the principal target of my ire, causing similar aggravation are all forms of the appliance fraternity that blow air with some degree of force. So much so, till a while back, the one thing I used to hate most was the painful security check process at the airport. Not anymore. Now I am petrified of the air curtain when I enter the terminal building. This is an evil device that blows a vigorous jet of compressed air directed from upwards and designed to land precisely on your scalp, from which there is no escape. And since I’ll normally be carrying some luggage, my hands will not be able to rise to protect the carefully constructed house of cards. Result, ruination! I can actually understand how embarrassed and exposed the Red Sea would have felt when Moses parted its waters without consent or warning, laying bare its naked seabed…

 

Hell, recently, there was a group photo being taken during a reunion. Technology having arrived at the advanced station it has, apart from a human being with a camera desperately exhorting us to say Cheese, there was a drone that was flying perilously close to us as it took candid pics from all kinds of angles. And soon enough the cry “Dai, Mudi Parakuthu daaaa…” (“My hair is flying!”) rung the air from multiple corners with the blades of the drone, rotating at a furious RPM, leaving destruction in its wake…

 

The lesson has been internalized to the extent that, while taking a helicopter ride had always been on my bucket list, I recently had to regretfully scratch it! Those rotor blades are so damn powerful, they may not just rearrange the hair, but may actually uproot and create irreparable damage…

 

I have observed there is something about thinning hair and the pathway to baldness that evokes scorn in the fairer sex, who seem to have got off lightly in this department. Nature, which has burdened the female of the species with menstruation, child bearing, unreliable domestic help and various other constraints has, in one fell swoop, over compensated through accelerated hair loss of the male! 

 

It's bad enough that you are forced to face this gradual erosion on a daily basis when you stare into the mirror. However, even close friends seem to feel like they are under some fraternal obligation to bring to your attention the fact that you’ve lost hair since they last saw you. Same with my hairdresser. Each visit leaves him more visibly shocked at the ravages wrought by time on my scalp. He recovers quickly though, and indulges in some aimless conversation that drags out the session, but I am conscious that the mix of work and talk is significantly veering towards less work and more talk with each passing visit. One of these days I am going to renegotiate the rate for my haircut which increasingly seems to consist of randomly snipping the scissors in the air and talking about the world hunger problem…  

 

I even considered shaving my scalp and going bald. I’m told it has some advantages. Ostensibly, you take the hair out of the mix. Very specious reasoning, though. For someone who faces up to the chore of shaving one’s face with resentment, I think dealing with stubble on the scalp is a whole other level of aggravation!

 

Anyway, at this stage of life, we men are children of a lesser god and we are reconciled to it. Just so you know, we are not looking for sympathy, we just want to be understood. The next time you see us weaving a circuitous path from point A to point B, don’t immediately assume the worst and jump to the conclusion that we’ve downed one too many or are trying to achieve proximity with some hot looking thing through the detour. We may just be charting a path that doesn’t put us in harm’s way from some sinister appliance that’s spouting out a gust of air…

 

*****

A picture is worth a thousand words

“It is not enough to act. You need to be seen to act.” Immortal and prescient words from one of my bosses some decades ago…

Just returned from a holiday in Maldives. Absolute paradise on earth. The island resort we stayed in was amazing, the staff were fabulous and we had the most enjoyable vacation. Mainly, we have the pictures to prove it; and that’s actually the story I’ve come here to tell!!

 

The early signs were visible even in the farewells as we left for our dream vacation. “Have a great time and post pics in the family WhatsApp group”, said my sister. Words that I took as seriously as a “send us a postcard” remark back in the days. 

 

Landed in Maldives. Traveling by a seaplane for the first time. It was quite an experience, watching the plane plough through the water, foam splashing all over, scything through the blue green water at a fast clip. As I cast my eye around, I could see that I was the lone passenger who was seeing what was going on with the naked eye. Everyone else had their phones out and was recording the event for posterity. The moment we landed in the resort, there was a veritable stampede towards the reception area for a wifi connection so that the seaplane videos could be shared with the rest of the world…

 

Even as I was checking in and enquiring about the rooms, cuisines and  other amenities on offer, my wife and daughter were already scoping the place out for the various photoshoots that would happen over our stay; the locations, the light angles, time of day, the dresses to wear and all the other seemingly infinite number of calculations that had to be factored in. So now the entire holiday schedule of activities had to be woven around the photoshoots!

 

The only consolation to me was that this was apparently a full blown epidemic. Vacationers of all hues, ignoring the ethereal and idyllic surroundings, were into this frenzied capturing of moments and transmitting them to the world real time, with some inanely hypocritical comment like “Humbled by mother earth’s beauty!”, displaying scant regard for what some dude or dudette, sitting trapped in some gloomy office with looming deadlines at work, would do when they saw a video of you paragliding over blue green waters! And then the post dinner activity of counting the “Likes” against each picture that was posted over the day!!!

 

At some point in Man’s journey, the power of the idea became supreme and the Pen was indeed mightier than the sword. Clearly, we are now in the era of the Camera relegating the Pen from its preeminent position, where everything needs to be caught in pictures and videos. The oral or even the written word no longer suffices. If you claim to have bumped into a long lost friend or a celebrity, you need to provide pics to meet the evidentiary standards prevalent today. “In God, we trust”, the world seems to be saying, “but for everything else show me the pictures”. 

 

We get all contemplative when we talk about the moral dilemma that the folks who split the atom were faced with and how it apparently destroyed their sanity. I would like to someday conduct a mental assessment of the person who put the camera in the mobile phone and wrought such havoc upon civilization. 

 

At a more mundane level, when these paradigms change, there are some winners and some losers. My pathetic inadequacy at the language of the camera lands me very squarely on the wrong side of this divide. I am not camera friendly. Maybe even a little scared. Scopophobia, I believe it’s called. On the bright side, the fact that someone went through the trouble of coining a word for this indicates that it is not all that rare. However, most people seem to intuitively get the basics of Photogenicity 101 – that smile that you reserve for the camera and camera alone, that quick sucking in of the paunch, working that precise sideways angle so that the you lose a few pounds to the camera and such things. My sister, for instance, doles out pro bono tips on this topic in our family whatsapp group, in the process commanding the kind of respect and attention that even none of my college professors were able to. I am unfortunately stuck at level zero - every time I know the picture is going to be clicked my brain freezes, with the only movement coming from my eyelids that have this uncanny ability to dead heat the blink of the eye with the camera click. 

 

The Selfie makes a bad thing worse, adding further dimensions of complexity to a difficult situation. The absolute worst is when I have to take the group selfie. What with holding the phone with one hand, getting the palm position right to cover the angle and ensure no one is left out of the frame and finally making sure that my thumb is situated so that I can click the picture without shaking the camera, I’m guaranteed to be a spent force. Invariably, I will be squinting at the screen trying to locate the click button. In all the selfies that I have clicked, it will look like I’m peering over the rim of some container observing some gross things swimming inside. And don’t even get me started on the inevitable request from at least one person from the group to retake the photo as she doesn’t look her best. Or a he. Though, it’s usually a she! 

 

Not surprisingly, to add affront to insult, the number of times I’ve been cropped out of a picture are too numerous to count. And by those I would normally consider my near and dear ones! People think we scopophobes don’t notice such things; we do, just that we suffer the humiliation in hurt silence…

 

Even existentially settled issues like the function of Food are being called into question. The first reason the buffet plate gets carefully compiled is so that an aesthetic picture can be taken. So typically, the caption for the pic gets decided, which then dictates what to load on the plate and importantly, what to leave out. The taste, the nutrition content and other similar distractions don’t figure in the equation.

 

However, I am consoled by the fact that I seem to have got off relatively lightly. A large portion of my life was lived in the days marked by a lack of this animal frenzy for pictures. Listen to this. Very recently, when we were staying in a nearby beach resort, I remember egging my family on to wake up and watch the sunrise. To my bewilderment, there was unanimous enthusiasm for the idea. I was to later figure out that my daughter had always wanted a picture at dawn, where apparently the light effects are quite unique!

 

Anyway, 520 am and we were on the beach. Striking a very incongruous picture on the sandy beach were a couple in full traditional bridal dress and make up! And with them a full crew of people for a photoshoot, a light boy, one with a make up kit, a camera person and a co-ordinator who was barking orders in the still, pre-dawn air. We subsequently learnt that they had got married a few days ago and were here for a pre-honeymoon (more on this pre-post phenomenon later!!). We kept running into the couple at various times over the next couple of days, in the restaurants, in the lawns, lobby, etc., always with the photo crew in tow. Apparently, they were going to make a coffee table book of their pre-honeymoon holiday. Hopefully the book will consist of U-rated content!

 

I look back nostalgically at the ancient photo albums we had lovingly stored over the years, which we used to, once in a while, dust off and reminisce over those, admittedly imperfect, pictures fondly. Paradoxically, with so much digital memory at our disposal, I’m struggling to remember when I last went through my phone or laptop to remember some long forgotten memory. It’s Click it, Post it, Forget it. Bizarrely I seem to be scrolling through my pics and videos only when I run out of memory storage!

 

While smartphones are getting smarter with each release, the universal law of conservation of intelligence, which postulates that the total system intelligence comprising all users and their devices remains constant, gives you some indication about the average intelligence level of people compared to earlier? If you’re scratching your head to figure this out I would have proved my point!

 

There’s no escaping this potent and evil partnership of phone cameras and social media. You might as well grin and bear it. Which, in modern parlance translates to “say cheese and take a selfie”…

 

*****

Sorry Freud. Behaviours are actually ruled by Accounting principles!

My first encounter with Accounting was in business school and it was a rude and  traumatic one. At the core, Accounting is about balancing debits and credits, of course with a lot of other random jargon thrown in to induce an adequate level of awe and fear in a lay person. But what I’ve been increasingly realizing is that, consciously or otherwise, we are all top notch accountants in real life!!! Stay with me while I explain…

 

Once during my younger days, when I used to be a smoker, my friend (a co-smoker) suggested that we try Yoga to kick the habit. In a rush of young blood, off we went and signed up for a Yoga class at 6 am. It did a few good things; we were up by 5 am, we enthusiastically did the Yoga things and were done by 7 am with endorphins sloshing around our insides and an exhilarating feeling that we were ahead of the world. Which led to so much euphoria that we got into the habit of having a tea in the stall nearby. Which inevitably led to a cigarette with the tea. And soon, we were dealing with the fact that we had already had a couple of cigarettes by 8 am, which used to be our waking up time. Normally, one would have expected a bit of guilt to go with this realization; an emotion that was brazenly absent. Bizarrely, the Yoga session had given us a sense of doing something good to the body and therefore the license to ruin it a little bit with a cigarette or two. You get my point? Debits and Credits; it balances out, see? 

 

Emotional accounting is a constant, 24 X 7, running theme in our lives. Everytime I’m at a breakfast buffet and order an omelette, the accompanying hash brown will induce some concern, which I usually offset by grabbing a fresh juice! That levels it out, right? The salad plate at the start of a lunch gives me the sanction to go ballistic at the dessert bar!!

 

Food is actually where this seems to play out so visibly. Thanks to mother nature’s perverse logic (I’m referring to the perfect inverse correlation between anything that’s tasty and anything that’s healthy), it’s distressing to indulge in any sort of guilt free dining – unless there is a way to balance the books, even if notionally. And that’s why marketing managers randomly add the words “fortified with …” or “rich in…” and provide us poor souls an escape door to bite into the unhealthiest of things with not a pang of worry…

 

But the Debit-Credit theory goes way beyond food. Ever thought about who your favorite singer is? Or your favorite actor, politician, whatever. Here’s the thing – I’ve realized it’s impossible to actually be a fan or idolize any personality unless you hate someone with almost equal vigor! 

 

Show me a CSK fan and I’ll show you an RCB hater. How many people do you know that like Sachin and don’t hate Saurav, or vice versa. Ditto Modi and Rahul. Or Federer and Djokovic. The list can go on, but surely the point is made. 

 

Why do we need to hate one to like another? Does our admiration for one increase because we put down the other? Does idolizing someone create so much dissonance that we need to hate someone else to level things out? It would appear so. Clearly, the contradictory emotions of love and hate stabilize our minds, leaving us in a state of salubrious equilibrium!

 

This also intrudes into our behaviors at home. Most often, the reason you get an affectionate ruffle of the hair is that you have just been hauled over the coals a short while prior. If that is not the case, you better bolt – because my theory would postulate that the “hauling over coals” bit is just around the corner. The book will not be denied – it has to be balanced…

 

Or take the work place. There’s a high chance that the team is taken out by the boss for a meal after an especially violent meeting? And you can bet that the boss’s demeanour and cheerfulness over dinner will be the inverse of his or her deportment in the meeting earlier in the day!

 

Moving on, do you recall the post Covid travel frenzy? Revenge tourism, it was labeled as. A very clever name for the same old book balancing. The cooped up nature of our existence was accumulating as a massive entry under the “martyrdom” ledger and it provided us an opportunity to balance it with a similarly huge, contra entry in the “Let’s Go Nuts” ledger. 

 

“OK, big deal, so what?!” I can hear you say. But don’t trivialize this insight as some philosophical rant. It can be applied cleverly to manipulate that part of the universe that is in close proximity to you. Allow me to demonstrate the value of what I’m saying…

 

Let’s assume you want to go to on a stag trip to Goa. Or Singapore. The place isn’t germane. Unless we’re talking Thailand or Kazakhstan, that’s a whole other ball game! The unthinking fellow will put on a sheepish face and will meekly ask for permission that will be invariably denied. Further, he will probably face retaliation of some brutal kind for possessing the temerity to ask. In fact, the uninitiated will wait for the wife to get into a good mood before asking, with scant knowledge of the fact that the good mood is driving your wife off centre and is screaming for a bad mood to quickly intervene and restore balance. Mostly, you’ll strike out. Now, let’s apply the book balancing technique. The way this counter intuitive method works is that you accumulate debits. Ruthlessly. Keep doing harmless things that you know will make the wife mad to the point that she keeps berating you constantly. At some point, your wife is going to get the feeling that she has been very harsh on you. This is the point where you cunningly slip in the stag trip. Trust me, your probability of obtaining permission will improve from the erstwhile 0.2% to about 25%. I’m not kidding…

 

As a clarification, while this example involves a man and a woman in specific roles, the book balancing axiom is actually gender agnostic. It works for males, females and all the burgeoning genders in between… 

 

See how kids have instinctively figured it out. When I see my son or daughter wolfing down their greens, fibrous foods and other perverted creations of mother nature with gusto, I know they are building one side of the book. And sure enough, later in the day or the next day, there will be the inevitable “we’ve been good, let’s order in some pizzas” demand. 

 

There is actually no limit to how much you can exploit this truism. For instance, conventional wisdom would have you think that you need to make the boss happy before the performance appraisal. So tell me, has that ever worked for you?? Now try it my way. Engineer things so that your boss cannot help but behave extremely rudely with you for an extended period of time before the appraisal and watch with amusement as your boss’s book balancing leads to that handsome rating for you…

 

I hope you now know how it is. Life is a never ending search for behavioural equilibrium. I offer this insight to you with no ulterior motive. If you are the manipulative kind, you would be able to put it to very effective use and obtain all kinds of desirable outcomes. For the others, you would hopefully find solace in the thought that where you would have once blamed yourself for events in your immediate vicinity, you can now objectively discern that somebody is balancing their books and you just happen to be caught in the crossfire. 

 

And if this brings happiness to my readers, that would be my good deed for the day – which would help me immensely. For, I’ve been wanting to indulge in a couple of mildly mischievous things and this goodwill entry will help me execute these tasks with a breezy insouciance…

 

*****

The Scarcest Resource

It’s well accepted that most resources in the world are limited, some even scarce. Funny thing is, resource scarcity, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder. The youth of today will probably lecture you on how fresh water, clean air and green cover are rapidly approaching the tipping point to becoming the planet’s scarcest resources, with a “how dare you?!” flourish at the end. For my wife, reliable domestic help is the hardest thing to find. Ask my neighbor and he’ll emphatically say that the car parking space shortage in our building is going to be the leading trigger for the next world war. 

 

Interestingly, my own list of scarce resources has kept changing over the course of my life. During my school going days, I always felt that there seemed to be a surplus of everything in the world other than the 45B bus that I needed to get to school. Bizarrely, this 45B shortage only seemed to apply when I was waiting for it; sometimes, when I needed to go elsewhere and would be waiting for 12E, there will be a veritable line of virtually empty 45B buses landing up in quick succession at my bus stand!

 

Moving on to my adult phase, I was strongly convinced that Time was by far the scarcest resource. Everyone had the same amount of time. But despite the equitable supply side situation, some people were achieving superior outcomes, all through better use of this resource, we were told. It looked inevitable that, as the sands of time trickle inexorably down the hour glass, Time would, if anything, become even more of a scarce resource… 

 

Recently though, I have to concede that Time has been dislodged from pole position. Here's what happened. During the Covid lockdown, realization dawned on me that I’d always been taking my health for granted. Health is wealth, say the wise. And lack of it, from a more materialistic perspective, is a ton-load of insurance premium payments. 

 

Ever since this epiphany, I have been a sitting duck for any advice on healthy living. Social media, especially my trusted YouTube feed, has been more than equal to meeting this new found, voracious appetite of mine and has been helpfully dishing out various suggestions on how, despite my late start, I could go about the process of cleaning up my act; and with it, my gut, liver, kidneys and all those other organs which I had paid scant attention to ever since I dropped Biology as a subject in class 11.

 

Now here’s the thing : anything new has an inflated value if it shocks your current knowledge system. And that, these videos have fully lived up to. I’m actually quite boggled at the turn Science is taking. Apparently, Ghee is now a superfood. I yearn for a return to all those years when I was warned in hushed whispers about the unhealthily intimate relationship between Ghee and Cholesterol buildup. And the bashing that Bread is taking at the hands of these health pundits is almost sounding like deliberate victimization. Hell, bread and milk used to be the staple “sick” diet in my younger days! But anyway, all this is not very germane to the story…

 

The net upshot of all those hours invested in watching these videos is that I now possess all kinds of random information on the nutritious benefits of turmeric, cinnamon, vegetables, fruits, fermented foods and stuff. I know consuming a tablespoon of ghee is good. So is raw garlic. Ditto for a glass of lime juice. And so on… 

 

But here’s the nub. All these health videos, though they deal with a diverse range of things we ought to be consuming, are unanimous about one thing. It has to be consumed on an empty stomach. Period. That’s apparently non-negotiable!

 

That puts me in a bind. I’ve tried to think of various work arounds, but approach it from any angle, the inescapable conclusion is that you only have one empty stomach per day! You can try things like intermittent fasting, or multiple meals  a day or whatever. The number doesn’t budge an inch… 

 

Exactly one empty stomach per day per person - the math is solid! How many things can you consume on an empty stomach? Technically, the minute I consume even one of the above things, my stomach is no longer empty, rendering any further consumption a wasted effort. For, the videos communicate one thing with complete clarity – for best results, consume on an empty stomach. And why would I go through the masochistic ordeal of consuming raw ghee, crushed garlic or soaked fenugreek if I wasn’t going to get the best results? 

 

I hear these assorted health experts spouting their advice and I must confess, my initial awe at their knowledge is slowly giving way to a dangerously simmering irritation. Their conviction, which initially used to induce a sense of trust, is increasingly looking to me like intractability. These experts have no sense of give and take. Surely, knowing there would be other experts like them who would be recommending similar advice, they should have been more accommodative. Possibly, suggesting that raw ghee may be taken on an empty stomach twice a week would allow space for other equally meaningful suggestions to coexist peacefully. But no! These guys are uncompromising. Raw ghee to be taken on an empty stomach every day. Without fail. Don’t miss a day! And same with lemon juice mixed with apple cider vinegar. Bizarrely, the same expert instructs you to consume different things on an empty stomach daily, in different videos. The strategy is obvious - flank yourself before some other expert flanks you. Their intent is clearly to get a stranglehold on your empty stomach one way or the other and not let go. Very ruthless fellows…

 

Meanwhile, and please bear with the digression here, this empty stomach business has me posing some serious questions to my own digestive system. Why does it need everything to be presented only on an empty stomach? Why is my gut so confused and helpless? Supposing I consume both garlic and fenugreek on an empty stomach, why does it sit scratching its head trying to decide which one it should give its attention to, when it should be multitasking and attending to both with equal gusto? And if I consume ghee with rice for lunch, does it ignore the same ghee that it would have received with open arms in the event of the stomach being empty? I’m told that it is sometimes called the second brain. Speaking for myself, the gut, which is so obviously a one trick pony that only works when the stomach is empty, has been a massive let down…

 

Anyway, coming back on track, questioning these health videos is futile. These experts sound so authoritative and believable that I would go with their advice rather than trust my undependable and unidimensional gut. Which finally leads me to the inescapable conclusion. The empty stomach is the scarcest resource as far as I am concerned. Not Time anymore. I actually have enough time as you would have noticed from the fact that I’m watching all kind of random health videos. 

 

I sometimes wonder, how during the process of evolution, Man has actually been given a raw deal in certain aspects. Specifically in the stomach department. Cows, I am told, have four stomachs. Whales have thirteen. Though these stomachs seemingly operate in sequence, I wish Evolution had designed Man for multiple parallel stomachs to address this resource scarcity. I’m sure Raavan would have occasionally ruminated over the fact that instead of ten heads accompanied by one stomach, a trade off comprising more stomachs with fewer heads would have been beneficial. 

 

While my business school training has conditioned me to always present a solution and not leave a problem hanging, I must confess this one has foxed me. Why the great Creator, who so benevolently gave us two kidneys instead of one, thought it fitting to play a cruel joke on us by giving us just one stomach, is beyond me. My only, admittedly tenuous, theory is that on the sixth day of Creation, as God created Man, He unfathomably decided to sacrifice utility at the altar of minimalism…

 

*****

Why am I in the doghouse??

Besides possessing a variety of Good Conduct certificates from my school, colleges and various employers, I have always been acknowledged as a person of generally acceptable character and personality traits. However, over the last few years, I’m observing a growing tendency in my social circles to suspect me of deep and dark character flaws. And the root cause of their warped worldview stems from just one single aspect of my multi-dimensional nature – that I am not a dog person!

You see, I suffer from Cynophobia. Fear of dogs. I don’t know why and where this came from. Maybe a flawed childhood. Probably a traumatic incident early in my life which I have mentally blocked and cannot even recall unless I go through hypnosis. Whatever the reason, it’s there and it’s very real. 

 

Funnily enough, I do seem to be part of a shrinking minority. Every time I’m in a group with a dog in the vicinity, most people can’t wait to break the touch barrier and start scratching the canine’s ears while allowing it to violate all rules of civilized deportment with its tongue. This normally segues into an extensive conversation about dog care which automatically eliminates me from any meaningful contribution, sprouting all kinds of inadequacies in me. Invariably, sensing my exclusion, someone will offer to donate one of their puppies to me with an evangelical fervour, at which point I would have to come out of the closet and reveal that I am not really a dog person.

 

It’s patently unfair. Usually, the reaction to phobias is very neutral. You could even say understanding. Claustrophobia, Acrophobia and other such phenomena don’t offend. In fact, one is pitied if affected. Cynophobia however, appears to impact the dog owner viscerally. I have seen people who can stomach a joke about their kids, but not their dogs. That red line you cannot ever cross! So, when I studiously ignore the pride of the home, the host completely misreads my uneasiness as a general dislike of the subject. Usually a liberal dose of cold shouldering results, making a long evening longer…

 

Let’s face it. Popular belief seems to be that not being a dog lover is a signal of a deeply flawed, sociopathic mind! Dog owners seem irrationally stuck to the position that a non-dog person is someone you would want to keep away from the kitchen knives.

 

In the golden days of the past, there was some empathy for people like me. Dog owners will considerately put up a sign saying “Beware of Dogs” or something equivalent that enables you to steel yourself as you enter the hazardous zone. Such a decent thing to do. It gives you ample time to plan your strategy, whether you want to abort the visit, steel yourself adequately prior to entering Jurassic Park, or adopt some other course. In my case, I usually repeat to myself, about 10 times, the words “dog is man’s best friend” and that usually gets me to the threshold of, albeit with a trembling finger, ringing the bell. In recent times however, the dominant view seems to be that there is nothing to beware of. Would you put up a sign saying “Beware of kids?” is the popular, but to my Cynophobic mind flawed, refrain. Clearly, dog owners have graduated from defensiveness to pugnacity, thereby adding an element of unpredictability to an already complicated mix …

 

This is not restricted to the close social circle. Complete strangers are equally quick to take umbrage. Many a time have I found myself getting into a lift and getting ambushed by some random person taking the dog out for a stroll. As I back into a corner and try to put the maximum distance between myself and the four legged friend, I can feel the stranger’s eyebrows rising in hurt surprise followed by a reassurance that the noble animal doesn’t bite. Whether the creature in question is in sync with this sentiment is very moot. Soon the reassurances morph into a haughty and cold silence as my lack of trust in one of God’s creations is publicly exposed. There has even been an instance when a lady had to comfort her dog which was possibly feeling hurt by my rudeness. I think I caught the words “Ignore him, Caesar…”. Really? I concede that poor Caesar may have been left anguished by the episode but what price my palpitations? 

 

There is some economic good out of all this, though, with the evolution of the pet ecosystem. Other than the usual pet foods, pet accessories, vets, pet homes and stuff, there is a new breed of specialists. Pet Psychics. These are allegedly clairvoyant human beings that can glean what goes on in the mind of your pet; they apparently hold a remote mental conversation with your pet and let you know what your pet has on its mind. Everything from its diet to its sexual orientation can be figured out, I’m told. 

 

Which brings me to another point. I am not supposed to use the word “it” when alluding to a dog. People take offense. I’m supposed to say “He” or “She” as the case may be. And this, I don’t get. Pet owners are predominantly the liberated and enlightened kind who should know that the gender binary is causing great distress in the case of humans; why should dogs be any different? How can we classify them as He or She without their consent. At least consult the Psychic before pigeon holing the gender, I feel like telling these people…

 

Making things murkier is a nomenclature issue – apparently “dog owner” is perceived as not the best way to refer to, well, the owner of a dog. See, we are all God’s creations and no one being can own another being. That stuff was abolished in the 19^th century. So, I believe these people who have dogs in their homes prefer to be called “Human Carer” or in some extreme cases, Parent. Which, if I were a dog, I would resent as the former seems very close to Patient Caretaker, conveying that I need intense monitoring of some sort; which is rich considering I’m the one guarding the house, its inmates and its treasures; while the latter disturbingly reopens some settled axioms of Biology.

 

I gaze into the crystal ball and can’t help feeling that the future looks bleak. India’s dog population is said to be around 85 million, but the kicker is the growth rate of 11% per annum! That’s more than 5 times the human population growth rate. Clearly, data indicates that there will more dogs in my life with each passing day. 

 

It's a rather hopeless situation. Clearly, my non-dog personness is beyond repair. Despite binge watching Youtube videos like “Get over your fear of dogs in 11 simple steps” and “Beat Cynophobia – Parts 1 & 2” and so on, I make no headway. Every time I come to terms with being a “Good person, unfortunately just not a dog person”, there is some chance encounter with some proud Human Carer and associated caree that leaves me bruised and battered all over again. 

 

I must confess that the constant disdain I’ve had to face has left some permanent scars on my psyche and actually led me to question my own character. Am I really as flawed as I’m made out to be? Is my inability to love the dogs around me an indicator of some sociopathic streak that had escaped detection all these years? At times I even toy with the idea of conforming and taking on a dog and become its Human Carer. Luckily, thus far, those weak moments have passed before I could act on the impulse but I fear someday I will reach the tipping point. My only check and balance is my wife, who as non-dog persons go is far more “non” than even I. Hopefully she will ensure I don’t succumb. 

 

Which reminds me of the silver lining in all this. Marital compatibility. They say common interests unite spouses, which is kind of true. But I hold that common phobias unite even more effectively. Whatever differences my wife and I have, the mere sight of a dog in the vicinity is all it takes for a grand reconciliation. 

 

Phew! Imagine my life if I’d gotten married to a dog lover!!

 

*****