Sunday Blues and our perpetual fight with Procrastination

It’s a Sunday afternoon and after the post-lunch siesta, I wake up to a mixed feeling of having lost out, being left behind, guilty, and filled with self-doubt - a sense of dejà vu.

Familiar with it; deep down I know that this will continue till I reach the office and start taking up things. I have lived through this feeling since my adolescence and only recently realized that many adults like me do undergo this feeling routinely and it has a name.

It is called ‘Sunday Blues’.

Research shows that about 66% of the respondents in the UK experience ‘Sunday Blues’ anxiety triggered by thoughts of work the following day. Things are also the same here it seems. For someone who has a punishing 6-day work schedule wasting 50% of his weekend time in a state of gloom is not happy news. Also, not good news for a professional who is suffering from work-related anxieties regularly.

What we are seeing here is the beginning of stress.

In our professional lives, we have to commit ourselves to some delivery. At the beginning of our career, we are pretty comfortable delivering and very few works get postponed. But as we grow in age other important tasks of personal nature like health issues in the family, social commitments, and many unforeseen events make us defer things more. In the process, only the ‘Urgent’ ones get the attention and the ones that are also ‘Important’ gets postponed. And one day the long list of unfinished ‘Important’ things jostles for engagement with the ’Urgent’ things of that moment causing what is called Stress.

Simply put, Stress is our inability to deal with the task which we have committed to do on that day.

And staying under a long period of stress does irreparable damage to one’s mind and body affecting his personal and professional life. A huge industry exists to solve this problem because a large number of people can’t get their acts together to refuse what they can’t deliver what they are expected to by the scheduled days. The sincere types who are aware of their postponement acts suffer the guilt of doing so and start seeing themselves as habitual ‘Procrastinators’ and resign to that nomenclature.

Experts say that there are no Procrastinators but there are many who are in the habit of procrastinating.

What then is the habit of procrastinating?

The anatomy of habit has three basic components. There is a Trigger, there is a Pattern and there is a Reward for doing so. Here the jostling of 'Urgent’ and ‘Important’ fight for space and attention and that results in stress. This stress acts as a trigger for the Reaction. As deferring some of the not-so-urgent tasks gives us temporary relief, it acts as a reward for someone to develop a pattern of such deferment.

We all know how the act of organizing the cupboard, our wardrobe, the file cabinet, or the travel documents for reimbursements gets deferred for months and months and we develop some fear of touching it. But one day it confronts us to be taken up because by then we would have exhausted all our excuses, it adds to the existing stress. Once we give in to the pattern of procrastinating it results in our feeling guilty, which causes panic and makes us take more and newer excuses to procrastinate further.

Many of us helplessly surrender to a downward spiralling loop of stress and guilt unless something throws us out of it. Many people in the creative field suffer from this infamy as more mental focus and discipline are required to deliver creative content as opposed to those who do repetitive and routine work. 

Experts say that nothing can help us come out of this loop unless we help ourselves out of it.

They say that the core of the problem lies in giving in to the stress and reacting to it by deferring the pending tasks and enjoying temporary relief. 

They say that of all the tasks which you are too tempted to defer, at least if one task is accommodated in that days scheduled and pushed to some start; one can complete the task soon if he gets over the fear of restarting it. And completing one such task fuels the confidence to complete all others.

That is the only way to deal with it - to take the bull by its horn.

Kutta-Dutta Rigmarole

Sri Kutta! Does it sound weird?

Yes, that’s how he would have been officially addressed because the spelling of his surname in the official record tells just that - had Sri Srikanti Kutta (Dutta) of Bankura not protested. 

 

Dutta was determined and was made of sterner stuff.

 

After repeatedly failing to move the authorities to make a valid change of the name on his ration card, he chose to stage a protest in the most non-violent and creative way. He took his appeal to the head of the organization for the fourth time and instead of requesting the authorities with folded hands wearing a hangdog look, he yelped and whined like a snarling dog much to the chagrin of the BDO in the full public view. The video became viral on social media. 

 

The visibly upset BDO took up this urgent matter personally. Not reported in the press; the matter must have been sorted out in hours. Our experience says that things get done once you make it too hot for them to sit over it any longer. 

 

This ‘non-important’ matter involving a ‘non-descript’ man became ‘urgent’ not because the officer was appalled on discovering the rot of inefficiency in his office but because he saw the rage and determination of Sri Dutta to take on the system and embarrass all of them publicly. As the adage goes ‘The creaking wheel got the oil’. Just assess the harassment, wastage of time, loss of reputation, and human efforts involving so many people for such a small thing.

 

Why did such a small issue reach this stage? Was it necessary? 

 

Quirky stories like that of Dutta’s keep appearing in the newspapers regularly. News like - Man wins a 25-year-long litigation to recover the two rupees he was charged extra by the TTC. A man letting loose a sack full of snakes in the office of the revenue officer who was not heeding his request. 

 

This news of Mr. Kutta (Dutta by now) might have given us a few mirthful moments on the morning of December 19th, but a much bigger and painful truth hiding behind this incident should not be brushed aside. Why a sense of duty and responsibility are not the tracks on which the administrative juggernaut moves automatically? Things move either out of someone’s goodness, or interest or under pressure. Why? 

 

What are the organizational safeguards against it?

 

That incident is a commentary on how our official machinery works without a built-in responsive redressal system and how a common man is pushed to resort to active or passive violence out of sheer frustration of not being heard or served. 

 

Some react like Mr. Dutta, some exert pressure to make things move, and the wise ones devise ways to manage (sic) the obstacles and get their thing done. But no one talks about what to do to institutionalize responsibility and accountability for performance and prevent the officers in charge to go scot-free of their delinquencies. 

 

We are socially conditioned not to see the elephant in the room. But how long?

 

To explain what I mean let us discuss this Kutta to Dutta resolution episode. Did anyone (The BDO in this case) ask his office the following questions to permanently solve the problem in the system?

 

- Why was his name entered erroneously? 

Was the person recording the names not familiar with the Bengali surnames?

 

- Why were his first three appeals not responded to? 

Who was responsible and what was the valid explanation for not effecting the correction?

 

- What do the rules say about such wilful negligence? 

Does it go to his performance assessment? At what stage does the feedback from the public form a part of his assessment? 

 

If the BDO could resolve the issue in hours what disciplinary action was taken on the people who were plain deaf to the first three requests? What did their departmental inquiry unravel?

 

We all have some experience of dealing with such stone-deaf people for whom your reason, duty, and responsibility are not strong enough to make him lift his pen to a piece of paper to put his signature below a half-page note. He can sit on mountains of unattended files for months and no one has the power to ask him about them. It doesn’t matter how convincing or valid is your request, or how acute your situation is; your fate is determined by the whims and fancies of the person you are dealing with. 

They feel empowered by their power to harass the common man. Harassments like this can turn one murderous if one is passing through personal difficulties.

 

We all know that there exists a world where the words like duty, responsibility, and accountability are nowhere mentioned in one’s job description. KRA and KPI and efficiencies are a strange composition of alphabets. 

 

Not long ago to qualify as a capable householder in a city, you had to have contacts in the Civil Supply Department to get some extra kerosene or sugar beyond your quota, DoT JE to get your telephone line timely repaired, an electricity linesman for ensuring early response to a fuse-off the call, LPG distributor for that out of turn gas connection or a refill, cinema hall manager for blocking tickets of a hit movie. Many hobnobbed with the MPs for an LPG connection, telephone line, and a seat in a Central School. 

 

Things have changed for the better and one can lead a respectable life without having to develop a friendship with such people for ensuring their legitimate rights for basic service delivery. Now only the PhDs in most of the state universities are dependent on such personal contact with your supervisor and his relationship with the clerks, big and small in the department. You earn a degree not on your merit as your right but are rewarded for your good relationship with the powers in the system as gratis. Hope it changes soon.

 

This type of harassment is not limited to state-owned organizations, most of the big organizations are blind to their vendor management practices or after-sales service performance. Try calling a toll-free number of a big bank to block your lost credit card or an IVR system of a big white goods company you are to get certain parts not available at the local dealership dispatched to understand what I mean. 

 

If something has worked so far, you are lucky, if there is a hitch, you are plain unlucky. 

 

Just buying a flight ticket in a deal, having a hotel booking in hand, or buying health insurance online won’t give you the expected service assurance, one as to be prepared for their denials citing various clauses and terms and conditions written in fine print somewhere in their documents and have a plan B for those situations.

 

We know how difficult it is to deal with virtual offices for your insurance claim settlement or get your refund for a canceled flight or hotel booking. I am now in the midst of such a refusal-settlement issue with OYO Rooms where my prepaid room booking was flatly dishonored by their property partner in Delhi. You must have the grit of Mr. Dutta to write reams of emails to get them to work. 

 

But then such determination is not commonly found. And the organizations and their officials know that.

 

In these cases, the owners of the organizations and their representing officials know too well that they can continue to be in business as usual by creating a public perception through advertisements and serving those rare hot dissatisfied voices only to silence them. Changing the system for better service and higher accountability is not needed for business continuity. 

 

Oh, now I am reminded of a chronic problem with my BSNL cell phone connection which I can’t neglect anymore. When my phone is out of the network coverage area, the callers are getting diverted to the number of a certain lady in Basta, Balasore who is treating my callers with the choicest of expletives to vent her frustration. Who likes being inundated with calls trying to speak to someone with an unfamiliar name?

 

To deal with the problem first, I have to draft a long application detailing my problem, then personally go to the right officer sitting in some numbered rooms on the right floor of the right office building, and if I am lucky find him in his seat and in a mood to speak to me, if he believes my story and receives my application then go to him again and again over the next one month to follow up and get it resolved by finally discovering some contact who is at a higher position than this officer through six degrees of separation. This process will take me no less than a month. Am I prepared for the ordeal? 

 

I am not so helpless now as I have a choice.

The choice is either I voluntarily go through the ordeal or apply for number portability through an online portal.

The Real Viswaguru

In 2021, almost a year back when Modi told the world that India had arrived and was ready to take its role as the Viswaguru, some in his constituency, freshly recovering from the first wave of Covid and in a delusionary state of victory over it agreed. A few peppy words coming from the peripatetic PM soothed some lungs. Their faith in illusion and the comfort of staying in a state of delusion made them believe that the panacea to COVID-19 has been discovered in Kadha and its management technique at Patanjali Institute of Management. 

A fortnight later the country was hit by the second wave of Covid with Delta leading the onslaught. That euphoria in a Kadha Cup in Kochi was short-lived and not discussed much after that. 

I don't know about the foreigners, but many sensible persons in India would have fallen off their seats laughing. A strong country that is a role model for others is built silently over decades and stands on its fundamental character, the traces of which are commonly found across its populace in their attitude and behavior.

Great nations in the past were built over human behavioral concepts like enterprise, professionalism, quality, innovation, industriousness, punctuality, integrity, honesty, honor, loyalty, commitment, and many such things and those countries proudly identified themselves with those characteristics and wove their pride and identities around them. It made me search what exactly were those mythical building blocks over which our nation has magically been built overnight which is now presented to us gift-wrapped. 

When in our day-to-day life we don't see these values in practice and their appreciation both at an individual or a systemic level, I insist on remaining a Viswaguru skeptic still.

Today, from early morning various reminder posts of mine and many friends on social media reminded me of the importance of this day as the day on which Mahatma Gandhi fell to his assassin's bullet. Gruesome and disturbing; assassination as a last and desperate method of eliminating a person from that prevailing socio-political equation is not new; both a state and radicals use it selectively. Many great men, as well as abhorrible terrorists, have met this end. From Julius Caesar to Martin Luther King and from Bin Laden to Jamal Khashoggi the list is endless. 

While some are easy to eliminate with just a few hot lead pellets some because of their work and what they stood for remain permanently etched in the hearts and minds of people.

In India which till 2013 had almost forgotten the characters and the contribution of the likes of Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Bose, and Shastri, the new political dispensation has resurrected them in their reinterpreted avatar. The Nehru, Patel, and Boses have been exhumed and their relationship reinterpreted and represented before a populace that stands distinctly divided on their inherited and recently influenced interpretation of these historical characters. In a country that loves to forget its history, the motives are more political than their quest for truth.

That brings us to this question – what the truth was and who knows it. 

Is the documented history which heavily depends on archived letters, notes, and journals as evidence to reconstruct a past event and interpret the role the characters took in it? Role and Contribution, yes; but are they enough to define a person.

Gandhi in his myriad of dimensions as a person, humanist, husband, father, lover, politician, political strategist, social reformer, labor leader, journalist, and leader of the independence struggle is now ripped apart and dissected under various microscopes whose lenses are colored from the manufacturing stage. 

Will we ever get to the truth? Or does it matter?

Each of us - those who have a perception of him through secondary sources and - those who knew him personally in his various dimensions naturally would have different stories to tell. Both sides are not fully right and not fully wrong in their opinion. We have to limit ourselves to what his contribution to our nation-building has been. To me, 

- He gave us our identity as citizen of a nation rising above region, language, faith, caste, and class which was missing. 

- He is still our moral and ethical role model and in these seventy-odd years, no one has come anywhere close to him. 

- He gave us a purpose and rallied the nation around him in the freedom struggle. 

- He helped us rediscover the merit of our traditional values and mixed it with other great nations' practical and professional principles to build a great nation. 

Sarojini Naidu, on 1st February 1948 few days after his assassination addressed the nation to remember his death as a pledge to right action. She told - While we all mourn—those who loved him, knew him personally, those to whom his name was but a miracle and a legend—though we are all full of tears and though we are full of sorrow, I feel that sorrow is out of place and tears are a blasphemy. How can he die, who through his life and conduct and sacrifice taught the world that the spirit matters, not the flesh, that the spirit has the power greater than the powers of the combined armies of the earth, combined armies of the ages? He was small, frail, without money, without even the full complement of a garment to cover his body … how was he so much stronger than the forces of violence, the might of empires, and the grandeur of embattled forces in the world? It was because he did not care for applause. He only cared for the path of righteousness.

Continue maligning him; he doesn't care when he is alive or when he is dead. 

If this country ever will become a strong nation and be the Viswaguru, it will be only by practicing the precepts that he espoused. If the world recognizes this subcontinent today, it's because of him and Buddha because what they stood for is not relevant to us as a country but to humanity as a whole. Such people are forever.

The Same Dawn

Predawn sky.

Motley birds waking up building up a chorus of their own,

Few morning walkers on the road,

Few minutes left for us to grab the fresh air before the city wakes up.

The bleating of a herd of goats as they are eased down a carriage,

The eerie sound of the chopper grinding against the sharpener,

Few minutes left for the goats to breathe for the last time before the city wakes up.

The same dawn!

Balance Sheet 2020

As a year draws to a close, one is always tempted to look back at it with clinical detachment.

Towards the end of 2019 with 2020 on the horizon, I saw the approaching period perhaps as our time which has come. I have always been partial to a number composed of 0s and 2s – 2020 was simply perfect in its composition. 2020 with its rhyming and symmetrical look somehow assured me of a better time ahead.

2019 was a mixed bag of personal losses and successes. Many events in the first few months of the year reaffirmed my hunch that good times are indeed ahead – the bounce in my gait was visible. And towards the end of March what hit us like a tsunami was unprecedented in its global impact and unbelievable - now even after 9 months of being thrown under it. But the most amazing thing is that we have survived underwater.

That is a victory of human survival instinct and resilience. I must thank my clients and colleagues and friends who stood by us. 

If there were occurrences of unexpected deaths of close relatives rattling us at the core for a moment, the calm composure of their nearer ones in accepting the inevitable was inspiring; giving us the message that life has to go on and the story of life is made of such episodes.

All our masking, sanitizing, bunkering in our own silos, distancing from everyone to escape the dreaded virus came to naught when my whole family along with most of my colleagues were found positive in a gap of a few days – almost collapsing our organization structure.

The source of infection is still a mystery but our spirit and ability to fight together and win was the new discovery.

We could sail through the period with many friends who stood by us like a rock helping us with our treatment and supplying us things as basic as meals three times a day, forging a lifetime bond. That period also made us see the worst of some friends; their insensitivity and callousness helped us to finally take a call to pull the plug on them.

Removing toxic elements from life is like doing periodic maintenance of your car if you want it to last longer.

If there were voids created by the departure of few close ones, few like Lalatendu Jena, Biranchi Panda, and Manoj Behera breezed into my life giving it a completely new meaning and direction. The road ahead and the journey with them looks so promising and exciting.

Before I realized, they had occupied their space in my heart with their goodness and had almost become family.

If the year before we lost Mikey, which we are still trying to come to terms with and get over the grief; this year we had Simba, a Dachshund, and Kai, a Pitbull Terrier enter our family making our house look like a joyous menagerie. What is a torn sofa cover to our guests, seems like a hickey to us.

They still do not comprehend why a torn pair of socks and a gnawed pair of sleepers make us smile?

God has an amazing way of compensating our losses and to make us look forward and stay hopeful in life. Today, on the last day of the year I am in deep gratitude when I see my family unscathed, my business getting back on its feet, and for all the new friends and lovely pets who have entered our life and have come to stay with us.

God bless and wish you all a Happy New Year!

The Rotis which couldn’t be uploaded:

Train runs over 15 migrant laborers in Aurangabad!

The news started appearing early morning on 8^th May 2020. Nothing unusual about this in a country of 130 Cr, with thousands of unguarded level crossings, the train runs over trucks, buses, tractors loaded with people with frustrating regularity.

Finding people crawling under the level crossing barrier with the train barely meters away is a routine human behavior we have seen for ages and have accepted. Sixty onlookers of burning of a Ravan effigy event got trampled as they chose the track as their vantage point on this occasion.

I personally never had any sympathy for the people who fall victims in such situations.

That is India! Where the behavior of people would surprise any man with a minimum IQ. The land where each street provides a thousand opportunities for a photojournalist. The magnitude of the problems in this country is too big and the problems in your own life are not few. You are taught to be philosophical. You are conditioned to hearing such news and to flip back to your own life a few minutes later.

COVID has forced us into our homes – the only shelter to escape the invading virus and the overzealous state which is out to protect us. It has taught to only think of us, our family, our money, our business. It also has taught us to stay positive and to distract our minds from thinking too much about the impending danger and the complete uncertainty. We watched reruns of the old TV serials, learned to cook and clean, learned new skills, connected with associates across time zones over zoom calls. We broke generation gaps, gender, and technological stereotypes. We have rediscovered ourselves.

We are alive fighting our battles in our world.

The details of the accidents start trickling in through the day. A group of 20 migrant labor mostly in the age group of 20 to 35 working in a steel factory in Jalna near Aurangabad, were rendered jobless because of the sudden lockdown, they chose to return to their homes somewhere in Madhya Pradesh. With no public transport in place and with no permit to cross borders, they chose to walk on the railway track which would lead them home and let them evade police and the check posts. They walk overnight, fatigued, sleep on the track thinking that to be safe. A goods train runs over them, killing 16. Some three escape as they were bit farther from the track.

They died fighting their battle in their world.

The picture of the bloodstains, strewn Rotis, used clothes, worn-out sandals on the track gave us a peek into their lives, their hopes, and their aspirations and how small they all were. How small! Both of us are fighting. But how different are our battles! How different are our battlefields! How different are our issues and challenges! How different are our hopes and aspirations! How different are our worlds!

But it was supposed to be one world.

Next time when we bake a cake and the network breaks preventing us from uploading it to Instagram; let us remember that our cake was their roti which never got uploaded.

Raindrop

26th Sept 2015

Tap! Tap! Tap! 

The raindrop taps my windscreen waking me up from my hazy thoughts.

“Remember me Blade Runner?” She says, reminding me of the time I had met her along with the cloud a few seasons back.

“How is the cloud?” she asks. 

“I don’t know well enough” surprised, I tell. 

Saddened but determined she withdraws but clings on to my windscreen but looking the other way.

Minutes pass, “I am sad and bitter,” I say; “I am sad too but not bitter” she replied. 

I describe my life in the last few seasons, how I have not been able to walk and run because I have lost my crutches. How my crutches have become old and frail. She expressed her surprise and told how much she enjoyed seeing me run around the meadows as if there was no tomorrow.

She tells her story. How she had her dreams of floating over mountains and seas and the dream of seeing new countries and pastures…enjoying the weightlessness. How the cloud was suddenly struck by a lightning and had to rain. And she had to drop from the height hurtling towards the ground.

And we both laughed. Laughed at our situations.

“Are you still sad?”, “Can’t we both be happy?” I asked.

“I am happy because I fell on your window screen and made you happy,” she said smiling and slipping down the glass towards the ground leaving a streak of grey and wetness.