My family and its values


Patience is a priceless jewel, said the old Chinese philosopher Confucius. Well, when my family came into existence, they probably chose this jewel over the other…stones. This I say about my maternal family because I rarely had any contact with the paternal one. Two things have always dominated the fortunes of my family- that quality, as I said before, of patience, and politics.
My mother had been married in Maharashtra and had come home to Goa for delivery. When I was born and my father came to seem me, the Goan people decided to agitate over whether Konkani or Marathi should be the state language of Goa and the state’s borders were sealed. So, my father never went back and decided to stay in Goa.

I am not a man of numbers but my mom has around 25 brothers, cousins and all included and all of them are into business. Grocery stores, clothing stores, electrical appliances, modular kitchen showrooms, lathe machines, you name it and one of us will be selling it.  Almost all of my uncles are shop-owners and shops are opened and closed at fixed times. Hence, we place a high premium on discipline. I am the black sheep in my family who has chosen a job and works during afternoon in criminal violation of the afternoon ritual of siesta.

So, business, as we know can be pretty stressful and you can forget some minor things in your daily life while important transactions occupy your mind. So what if the uncle mistakenly locked his servant inside his warehouse? No big deal. We didn’t even think twice when my BITS-educated cousin forgot the keys in our second-floor flat and we called in the fire-brigade to fetch the keys. We are respectable businessmen. We don’t climb on pipes and break into our own homes or waste time figuring out common-sense things when our minds are fully occupied by business and politics. Of course we were fined for troubling the authorities for no reason but money is ’fine’ as long as it is not too much trouble. 

Five of my 25 uncles are into politics, working with various political organisations or parties in responsible positions. The slightest shift in politics can affect our fortunes. So, during family functions, one hears lots of politically correct political talk and gets asked about one’s affiliations. We talk only when necessary and only if it is politically correct. (I am not saying only if it is true)
That is who we are. Businessmen and politicians.  Apart from patience, discipline, and political correctness, all other values are pretty much flexible.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Letter to dad

Dear dad, Yes, you work hard to give me the relative prosperity we have today compared to your times, yes, my life seems more comfortable in material terms, but I also face issues. Please, try to understand. Yes, you are right when you say, that today’s generation cares more about practical life than emotions and relations.   Yes you are right when you say today’s generation is confused. We are confused because we witness the differences that exist between the values you taught us and the ways the world operates. We are confused because we live in times markets and sociopolitical situations are fast changing. We value our culture with the same zeal and passion that you do but we do not hesitate to make pragmatic decisions and welcome that change if it benefits us.  Yes, I am always on phone or the Internet, Yes, I know its not always good. but dad, its the need of the hour.   The Internet has opened the doors to infinite knowledge. It h...
Read more

The battle over 300

Today I sit before my p.c. hammering my brain for ideas. My blog has led me into the jaws of wolves that disguise themselves under the sweet name of ‘fans’. Their demand for more writings on the blog is about to turn me into a seasoned writer! However, when I opened this blog, I had no idea that it would be such a great success. The credit of my success goes to a person hereafter referred to as ‘One Certain Official ( OCO ) to whom I also dedicate this article revealing the secret of my success. As the title suggests, it was the famous battle fought over the post ‘300’ that carved out my literary empire. The warring parties - ‘one certain official’ from ‘one certain department’ of Goa University, pitted against ‘the protector of innocent, defender of the weak, man of ladies, patron of studies, the one and the only, the great, Jay Joshi . OCO took great trouble to shape my career as a writer and to demonstrate that freedom of expression can be challenged and crushed in a departmen...
Read more

B2.1 The unfair game

I started learning German out of curiosity but it is becoming a hectic exercise as I advance throughthe levels. Teaching style of the Germans does not match my learning style. Six hours a day, six days a week, one just takes in new words, grammar and culture. While class work focuses more on group work, I tend to be more of a pause-think-observe-learn person. I am simply overloaded by the content and my classmates rush ahead with work while I am still busy thinking about how can one get more creative with the given assignments. One only finds time on weekends to focus and 'digest' the language, working in peace and solitude. However, the very teaching and assessment mechanism of the Germans works in my favor. They believe that language is learned best in a group as it gives you lots of opportunity to talk. It gives me lots of opportunity to observe. Secondly, while classes focus on group work, exams are held in a different class than usual. Oral exams are hel...
Read more