Grocery, Music, Judgment.

As a faculty spouse, I have continuous and regular interaction with 20 and 30 something graduate students – moving from being on first name basis then to being Ma’am-ed and Aunty-ed now (which I embrace happily). Pickled in this age group for 25 years, I can unequivocally say it is my favourite demographic. These young men and women have strong opinions, are not afraid to speak their minds and are untempered by realities of life. Their unequivocal certainty, for me, at any rate, is refreshing even as my own mind (and my hair) reflects many more than 50 shades of grey amidst stacked layers of anxiety.

A while ago, I had some of these younger friends telling me how I should pay attention to the menace that is plastics and how I ought to be more careful. I listened to them patiently. I could have told them many things but there was no need. We were in different stages of life.

As I stood at the grocery store in Middle-of-nowhere, Pennsylvania, I saw the bagger at the checkout counter routinely pack everything in new bags, no questions asked. Earlier, she would have looked at the shopper’s cart to see if any reusable bags had been brought. The movement to use reusable bags had gained momentum here about a decade ago, and in Chennai, just over the past 12 months. Now, with the mere proximity of fellow humans deemed risky, things have made a complete about turn. One store (this uses only paper bags) has this clear sign explaining their policy of not using shoppers’ own reusable bags. To date, I am yet to see anyone bag their own groceries here. Single use bags are back with a vengeance.

I was one of the early users of the ‘kamba’ for home composting – in rural Africa I grew some of my own vegetables fertilized with home-generated compost and I loved the idea of getting back to it, albeit in big-city Chennai. Living in a multi-generational family where I do not rule the roost, I had to think carefully about how to make it easy for the others to participate in the ‘new’ initiative. Two trash cans in the kitchen! One green for compostable materials and one red for others. I called family members and the house help in and explained the logistics. I even showed the vegetable vendor where I placed the ‘kamba’ so that she could put in all the waste she generated right there herself. Simple! Or so I thought.

Everyday, plastic milk covers would be in the green bucket. The red bucket would have vegetable peels. I gently urged my brethren to be a tad more careful. There was distinct grumbling – “I cannot even put the trash as I please,” for example, and worse. I realized that I had to keep peace amongst the flesh and blood humans at home before I could engage in environmental activism. I continued doing my bit properly but backed off the others.

What we can indulge in at any point in time varies based on our circumstances then. To me, it is no different from how our tastes in classical music evolve over time – from starting off loving speed and calisthenics, one might recognize and appreciate other aspects over time, as we register more – finesse, refinement, the notion of ‘sowkhyam’, technical perfection, uniqueness – akin to progression from sweet milk chocolate to increasingly higher percentages of single origin cacao curated by a master chocolatier.

As a youngster, one can and should be idealistic. As responsibilities increase, it might not be possible to indulge in that idealism, at least not to the same extent, and not if things other than those ideals, such as other people, also matter to us. These are humans we are dealing with after all – full of foibles, inconsistencies, biases and more. So much so that if they accept the same message from someone else after rejecting it from us, one should move past questioning oneself and instead take happiness in message having been successfully delivered. We just have to live and let live.

If I am laying these thoughts down on paper now, it is precisely because I have continually erred and failed on these counts, and will do so in future too – allowing me to ruminate sufficiently. However, by putting these down, I hope to keep a check on myself, on my own biases and opinions, on accepting my fellow human beings as themselves, if not completely without judgment, at least with less of it. One hopes to focus on each individual’s positives.

As I read of Pandit Jasraj’s passing and the many tributes paid to him, I hoped he had heard at least a few sincere compliments himself while alive. As celebrated as he was, he probably did. Most non-celebrities rarely hear the good about themselves, though. In Indian society particularly, it is often an anathema to convey compliments at all, let alone effusively or frequently. There are some who think it can bring in the evil eye or that there is some quid pro quo expected. Once dead though, a floodgate of all the good that the person every did would be mentioned. Every time I would wonder, did the dead person ever know oneself that he/she had actually elicited such positive thoughts? Why not tell them while they were still healthy and alive? How about as and when one felt it? I know it can make a profound difference in another’s life. Life truly is uncertain and indiscriminate, COVID or otherwise.

Let us not jump to conclusions. What you see is very often not what you get. But every human has some good in them. How about we look for that and appreciate it? At any rate, how about we compliment more than we criticize?