An Evening Out with Friends

Considering that we’re reaching the last few days of my internship, and hence my last few days in Pune, I decided it would be great to simply go out with Nanda ma’am & Nilesh (of course Nilesh had to be informed that if he created a fuss of any sort and showed reluctance in venturing out with me he’d be dropped with absolutely no reluctance on my part whatsoever - hard lessons to be learnt at every step). So I gave Nanda ma’am a call and told her we’d be going out for a drive in the evening at 7.00 when she’d be free.

This going out thing is something I had mentioned to her before but she was very reluctant then. Earlier the idea of going somewhere with me, just for fun, was something she wasn’t comfortable with. But like I’ve said before, progress was being made everyday with every visit and every phone call. She finally said yes. When I arrived to pick them up, she made no bones about expressing her concern. She said she hadn’t done anything like this before and was just a little worried. I didn’t have any problems with that - at least she was expressing what she felt instead of trying to hide it. I needed to be gentle and so I was. Of all people I feel I should relate to what Nanda ma’am was feeling. I had to relate her insecurity to the insecurity I often feel when in the company of people I think are more intelligent and experienced than me. However, I’ve learnt from my internship that people do need to have a decent level of self respect and should not demean themselves by thinking any less of themselves with respect to other people (I’ve learnt this, now I just have to get into the habit of continuing to think this way.) This is so similar to what I had been trying to teach Nanda ma’am & Aji about my belief that there was no such thing as the “big man” and “small man”.

Nilesh was very pleased, once again to get his car ride. I took them around Kalyaninagar and showed them my house and Jogger’s Park. After that we went to the Baker’s Basket. Nanda ma’am had been talking about mini-pizzas a few days earlier and I thought I’d treat them to that. Unfortunately they were out of mini-pizzas. We had an enjoyable meal nonetheless.

                                    

                                    

Once back, I dropped in at their home for a little bit to meet Aji. At that point I had a profound feeling of acceptance at their home.

Note - During the drive I told Nanda ma’am that I still wasn't confident about driving at night. As a result, she and Aji made repeated demands that I call them once I reached home safe and sound.

Closure

As my internship with Roabin reaches its final few days I have been asked to look back over the past two and a half months and consider the entire experience. I need to look over the entire blog and everything else that has been done during the internship and then determine what is left to be done in the remaining days to come. I determined, thus, that two things needed to be addressed - 1) Traits of my personality which I believed needed focus/change. 2) Things we had started during the internship and now had to give a sense of definiteness or closure.

Personality Traits -

          1) As I read my various blog-posts and letters, I realized, from words here and there, that at times I was overly apologetic. Analysis brought us to the conclusion that this may be attributed to my characteristic cautiousness and/or my lack of self belief/confidence. Therefore, this is the first thing I realized needed to be handled. Roabin and I have started this interesting exercise wherein I will be penalized by way of a monetary fine whenever I am overly apologetic are show a lack of confidence in my thoughts and ideas. Maybe this method will work miracles.

2) I am admittedly self absorbed. This is the second personality trait that I believe needs to be addressed. I am so concerned with my limitations, my problems, my issues that I fail to see that my lack of self belief finally affects the work I’m doing with other people. I need to get over myself.

As far as things started go, I thought of 3 things in particular., viz. change in Nanda ma’am & Nilesh, change that Roabin and I wanted to bring about in a few of the members of a particular organization, and change in me. Though progress has been made on the first and last of the three I still need to give closure to these changes, i.e. a sense of completeness and wholeness. I do know positive changes have taken place in Nanda ma’am. She’s shown her generosity by giving. She has also shown an understanding of the belief that all people are equal (a deserved defiance of the Big man - Small man theory). She has shown the ability to reflect and think. Changes in me too are quite noticeable. I’ve done things over the past half and two months that I would have never imagined I’d do. I’ve even develop good friendships. While I still need to work on my self-absorption and lack of confidence I do realize that the answers for these are within me.

Closure may not be too far away…

Gaining in Return

Last Wednesday was a tough day and resulted in me feeling quite low in spirits. These feelings carried over to the next day and the day after that. It was at this point that I decided that I would meet Nanda ma’am again. Roabin and I discussed a few issues and we arrived at the conclusion that this meeting with Nanda ma’am would serve several purposes. I could unload the pain just by talking about the issues I had faced and we could see whether Nanda ma’am, who happens to be very busy, would listen and try to give back. In other words we could determine whether this relationship constituted a unidirectional charitable relationship or a mutual friendship.

            For starters, Roabin had a conversation with Nanda (though I’d have preferred it if I had been the one who talked to her first) and told her that I was feeling miserable and that I needed someone to talk to. As expected, she questioned him as to why I wanted to talk to her of all people. Roabin’s response was that Nishant connects to very few people (being a social introvert) and since he had connected to Nanda he felt like talking to her. Still a little surprised she agreed to meet me and what a meeting it was.

            Once there, I was offered a lunch of rice, dal and fish curry (that typical coastal fish curry made with kokam which is so delicious). Having stuffed myself before the meeting I refused. It turned out to be a remarkable meeting because we had thought provoking discussions which I could never have imagined would have happened 2 months ago. People of Nanda ma’am or Aji’s background have an ingrained belief that the “sahib” is the “big man” whereas they in terms of self-worth are “small”. Aji was very vocal about this opinion of hers. Having worked at many homes she proudly proclaimed the formal distance she’d maintained from her employers as a sign of respect for the “big man”. Her point of view was that this distance needed to be maintained and that it didn’t mean that there were no feelings of fondness or devotion towards the family she was working for (after all she was also a mother to every child at every home she’d worked in). I told her my opinion was that there was no big and small and that Roabin was also of that opinion. Surprisingly, Nanda ma’am agreed wholeheartedly(Progress?? Learning??) At this point Aji responded by saying something to the effect of that old English saying “The Colonel's Lady and Judy O’Grady are sisters under their skins!” Her point was that the respect she gave to her employers was a respect for all that they had achieved in their lives.

            Once I spoke to Nanda ma’am about the issues that were tormenting me (which I cannot mention here at this point in time) she gave me her time and her ears and some sound advice. So to answer the question “Did she give me something in return?” Yes she did.

P.S. - I believe Nanda ma'am has asked Aji to speak to me only in Marathi from our next meeting onwards. That just might help me learn the language and its about time!