Natural Born Leader

It was 6 30 in the morning when I got the call. I know it sounds like the precursor for some tragic emergency - it is not

The call was from the guy who was coming to collect my sofa chairs for re upholstering. He was standing at the wrong apartment and asking for directions. Usually I would have gotten impatient, considering I had given the address in writing AS WELL AS the google pin.

But for some reason, maybe because his voice sounded so energetic and confident, I found myself smiling and explaining how to get to my place. 

He asked - no -TOLD me  to stay outside and keep a look out for him.  Ah the voice of a man used to being in charge. A whimsical thought caught hold of me - Maybe this was a natural born leader. 

As I stood in the balcony, I saw him roll in. I was expecting a mini van. Instead what I saw was a trolley rickshaw !! - the kind that has a flat open base at the back. See image below

My eyes narrowed in speculation . How in the world was he going to take my large sofa chairs on that ?? When i voiced my doubts he said "Let me come up and see the chairs." The tone which was a blend of cockiness and caution, brought a smile to my face.

I opened the door to my apartment grinning and the lady in the opposite apartment who opened the door at exactly the same time, smiled back at me. I felt compelled to explain.

" I am getting two of my sofa chairs re upholstered and the guy has come in a trolley rickshaw. Don't know how he is going to take them" She stepped across and peeped into my living room (which of course looks like it has been hit by a cyclone). To her credit she reacted only to the chairs and not the cyclone after effects. She joined me in chuckling about the foolishness of these delivery people. 

To interrupt this shared moment of mirth, came in Krishnamurthy, the rickshaw guy. He was a lean wiry man with a ready smile.

"Where are the chairs?" he asked in that confident voice that I was beginning to like. I invited him in to see them. His face took on a serious look and he said "hmmm.. you have two of these ?" I said 'yes" 

"OK, who will help lift them and take them down?" 

I thought he was missing the point. Being the clever person that I am, I said " But will it fit on that rickshaw?"

Krishnamurthy brushed my doubts aside and went back to his question. 

I said "I will help you carry them" That's when his face got doubtful. It was obvious that he was tallying my gender, social standing, age and who knows what else with my ability to do some physical labour. 

It was my turn to brush HIS doubts aside. "It's ok. I am used to carrying and lifting stuff. Let's do this."

I am not sure if i was seeing things but i saw a flash of approval as I hefted the large chair smoothly from one end.  (Obviously my cue to thank Mari, Sathish, Gopi and all my trainers who have helped me get to this place) We stepped out of the apartment and Krishnamurthy turned towards the lift,

Clever me piped up again. "This is a large chair , it won't fit in the lift"

Krishnamurthy said "Put down the chair with me" and then strode across to the lift , opened the door and looked inside. He then went inside and did a cute comical air calculation - well to my eyes that's what it looked like.  :) 

He held his arms apart - matching the width of the lift opening and squinted at the chair, then whirled around and tilted his hands like he was turning around a large object. He let out a satisfied huff.

He strode back to the chair and said "Do exactly as I say. It will work"

And he proceeded to guide me to lift, to turn, to swivel to push. And voila , the chair fit exactly inside the lift.

At my look of delighted surprise, he smiled back at me and said "If you plan things correctly, everything is possible"

It really was like magic. My mind had not been able to visualise this until he showed me. 

I said happily "Thank you , I have learnt something new today. this is so cool"

Although I spoke in Tamil, I said the last line in English and I thought it was ironic that Mr. Cool, most likely didn't understand what I meant when i said "This is so cool"

We maneuvered the second chair as well into the lift - my skepticism by now laid to permanent rest.

We unloaded them from the lift and carried them to his rickshaw . By this time my confidence in Krishnamurthy's judgement was complete. If he could fit two large sofa chairs inside that tiny lift, he could fit them in his flat rickshaw. 

And I was right. 

He said " Lift the chair with me and place it at the other end " 

I did 

He then said "Now we turn this chair upside down "

We did.

"Now we lift and place it on top of that chair"

We did

And I looked at how neatly the chairs fit. Like a jigsaw puzzle that had found the right person to come along and solve it.

"there it is done" Krishnamurthy's cheerful voice made me smile again.

This man was indeed a born leader. 

You think I am mistaken ? well, look at this - 

He was lost at 6 30 am but cheerfully asked for directions in a way that COULD not be met with irritation. 

He listened to my doubts, did not lose confidence in his ability and judgement and yet held back from jumping to conclusions until he assessed the situation.

Although his own doubts that were a product of stereotypes reared their head when it came to having a woman help him carry a large sofa chair, the moment he saw ability, not only did he simply cast stereotypical doubts aside, he also refrained from giving me any patronising compliments .

He gave clear instructions all the while carrying his share of the load.

And he taught me something new and gained my trust and confidence.

If those aren't the qualities of a natural born leader, then I don't know what is.

Reconnect & Recharge - Aarey Falls

 

Do you want to come for the Reconnect and Recharge retreat? 

For someone who has always been more at home amidst trees and mountains, this question was a no brainer.

I was beside myself with excitement the previous night. I must have woken up about 6 times to check if it was time to leave :) 

“What is your expectation from this retreat?” Sathish asked me. My response: “Trees” I just want to be amidst trees.” 

And I got what I wanted - and more. 

As we made a human chain and walked along the stony river bed, all around us were trees standing mute testimony to the scores of others who have probably done the same. 

Although this was only a  Level 1 retreat, Sathish was worried about my knee. 

As for me, it was not the knee that I was concerned about. It was my feet. And I was right. After years of being mollycoddled with soft footwear, my feet hurt like the devil. 

Usually in such situations, the thought in my mind is not “come on! you can do it” 

It is a much more gentle “Let’s see how much of this you can handle. If you can't, you can step out”

Except in this case, I was leading the human chain and I knew that if I gave up, it would affect everyone’s mood too. Sometimes moods have a domino effect, especially when we are out of our comfort zone.  I had to reword my usual statement. So what did I tell myself? 

“This is not an endless walk. Be careful and focus on transferring what you learn to others by making their journey easier. You have a good pain tolerance. Use it”

And it worked. I clambered on to the bank with not a small amount of relief. As I pulled on my hard trekking shoes, I felt more secure.

So what did I learn from this? It is possible to push your boundaries and tolerance a bit more when you think of more than just yourself. 

Then we reached the second task. That was collecting stones from the river bed and walking across along the river bed, to a spot to arrange them on top of each other. 

My immediate response was “I am sitting this one out” And Sathish said “ok” But as he continued explaining, a little voice said “It sounds like so much fun. Don’t you want to do it?” 

Now people who know me, know that the moment I think something is fun, it is hard for me to resist. So off came my boots and I set off on the task. My feet of course protested even loudly but my mind, occupied by the strategising and  the fun of the activity, overrode the protests.

I was also carefully noting the pain levels to see if it was escalating. To be fair it was not. But between that and the fun I was having, I didn’t realise that I was not giving my partner enough of an opportunity to try balancing the stones.

What did I learn? When it is a team activity, we can turn our focus inwards, and use our love for fun to push past pain, but in the process we must be aware that the journey isn't ours alone. 

It is always a balance isn't it? Between thinking about others and thinking about self?

And it is ok to swing between the extremes as long as you can find the middle every now and then. 

The third activity was something that was different for me. We were asked to pick a tree and connect with it. Everyone made a beeline for one tree or the other. But for me I felt those tendrils of connections coming from everywhere. Every tree was the same connection. I waited for the tree to find me. Sathish came up to me to ask “You like large and big, right? Look, there is a large tree. See if that connects”

I walked across to the tree he pointed . As I approached it I reached out to another trunk beside it and thought to myself  “I will use this one to get to that tree” and then realised that this was also part of that same big tree. 

And i felt as if the tree said “That is also me” 

I smiled at the whimsical thought . How many such interconnections are we missing in this world ?

I felt a rush of gratitude for this large giant tree that had sparked off this thought. And I looked around me with this altered thought and I could see how everything in the forest connected and supported each other. I felt a kind of magic in what I saw and the voice inside teased me gently for my willingness to see magic everywhere. But then it is this willingness that has given me the energy to move past many situations in life. So I was not going to get rid of that in a hurry

We had almost reached the end of the Level One Experience. Until then, there had been no noisy tourists. This changed when we reached the falls. 

There was a group of extremely noisy ones and for someone who had walked up to that point in calm and silence broken by desultory conversation that was focused on the present, the screams and yells disturbed me much more than usual. I knew I had to retreat and this time I DID excuse myself from the activity and found a calm quiet spot away from this bedlam and found my centre again. 

And as usual a voice inside asked me “Why did you react so strongly ?” And I realised it was because I was not prepared. 

I had assumed that we would be the only ones and that we would be able to enjoy the forest in my way. 

This was a reminder that people also defined enjoyment with noise. 

And there came my next lesson:  The best way to go through life is to bear in mind that peace is something that you have to be grateful for when you have it. And instead of being resentful when others disturb it, we would do well to step away and find it within ourselves again. 

There was also another practical thought I have made a note of - Need to add my feet to the list of things I need to sort and manage.

And as we came back to the cars, I was tired but only physically. Mentally I knew it wouldn't be long before my love for being amidst trees pushed me to find those moments and experiences.

And I smile even now when I think of the lessons I had picked up along the way. As always, they were not lessons just for the trek. 

They were for life. 

Good Art

When Amritha of Hindusthan Trading invited me to the opening of the Art Studio in their second floor, I happily accepted.

I love supporting local business and if it means investing time, then so be it. I do fancy myself something of a good human being ;) Or at least better than what I have been in the past.

At the event, I was moderating a panel discussion on the future of art and the role of new mediums . We had some amazing people on the panel - all of them artists who had explored, pivoted and  paved their own way in the field of art they had chosen.

My conversation with Mr. Mark Rathinaraj is what remains in etched in my memory.

At the end of the session, I approached him and said Sir i want to learn water colour painting and he smiled and said "Art is not taught, only the medium is taught" and then proceeded to ask me about why I was interested. As the conversation progressed, I, being my usual unabashed enthusiastic self,  jumped in and said "Can i show you my work?" ("Work" ?? calling the few pieces I have attempted to paint "work" is stretching it but ....well..work it shall be )

Now a bit of background about Mr. Rathinaraj  - he is an incredibly talented artist, who has worked in charcoal, acrylic, mixed media as well as wood sculpting, his work has been exhibited all over the world and some of his works are priced in lakhs.  Just so you know the kind of level we are talking about.

Background about me ? as an artist? errrr well... you get the picture.. or lack there of :) 

To his credit, he didn't even wince. He said "Sure. Show me" and that's when it struck me what I had just done was quite stupid. :) 

I back pedaled furiously saying " It is only a copy. I don't know how to do original stuff" Total face palm moment that !!

He gently interrupted my blabbing and said " Every art is original. even if you copy, you cannot exactly copy another artist's work"  

Somewhat emboldened, partly sheepish I stuck forward my phone to show him my charcoal sketch of a horse. 

A part of me wanted him to say "Your work is great" but another part of me knew I was being silly. And yet another part of me was curious how he was going to wrangle out of this situation with grace. And boy did he do just that!

He looked at the sketch and then looked at me and said "You know what I appreciate most about this? The sincerity with which you have executed it." He then pointed to the two sections below

"You could have just finished the horse. but you took the time and effort to work on these details" I gaped at him. Those were the two details that were NOT on the original . I had added them both on a whim.

As I told him that with a note of awe, he smiled at me and with a twinkle in his eye said "Not bad no? I was able to pick that bit of originality?"

And I was floored by the goodness as well as the honesty in this interaction. 

He could have just said "very nice" or even lied and called me an artist with great potential. Alternately he could have ripped me apart for having the temerity to even show my "work" to him,  that too a copy of someone else's work.

He did neither. He unerringly picked the two things that were truly mine and made a positive comment on that.

I must also commend my grace in not pushing him for a feedback on the main picture ..or was it my intelligence? After all if he had anything to say about it, he would have. 

Something he had said during the panel discussion flashed in my mind. He had said "Art made me a good human being"  And I was thinking how it isn't until you meet someone better than you , that you realise that you still have progress to make!

As I was savouring in the moment, he turned to Mr. Manohar and said "Sir, she wants to learn water colour" and Mr. Manohar said "I can definitely teach you. But you will have to give me one year. And be sincere and focused and do the home work" 

My sheepishness vanished as I realised I was back again in familiar territory. 

I grinned widely and said " Sir, Once I sort some of the things in my life , I am going to come to you to learn. As for practice  and homework, I am very good like that."

What I didn't tell him was that i knew i wasn't good enough at something else - that I was also hoping that Art would make ME a good human being too. Better than what I was at the moment. 

Only time will tell. 

Little Warrior

I have been quite aware that with ageing, there is loss of muscle mass, that sense of balance deteriorates, there is loss of energy and that memory gets a bit fuzzy. 

I thought I was prepared for all of the above and that I was actively countering each of them. I was doing my weight training and natural movements to help with the muscle gain and balance training to retrain and retain sense of balance. I was doing meditation and vitamin supplements ensuring good quality of sleep and playing PEAK ( a memory training game).

When I wrote the above paragraph, I couldn't help smiling at what a little warrior I am. An ageing one but still a little warrior. 

I love that attitude. Doing the best I can to counter whatever cards I am dealt . And if my best is not good enough, accepting the cards in my hand. I was feeling quite pleased with myself when something happened that reminded me that I needed to have a bit more clarity between when to counter and when to accept.

I had lost my driving license some time back, and although someone on social media messaged me saying they had found it and that they would send it to me, it never happened. And I could not find the message in the melee of messages in my inbox and so I thought maybe it was a fake message and the license was lost after all. I  applied for a duplicate and got one. 

Then I went on my road trip . Some of you may have seen  the videos I had made covering Pattiveeranpatty and Talayar Valley Bungalow.  as part of my #UlaghamAnuAnuVaagha series.

At Talayar Valley Bungalow, I was checking in and I was asked for ID. I gave my ID to Jiyesh, the manager,  and I distinctly recall telling myself to be mentally present, and not absent mindedly drop it somewhere, like I have done in the past. I recall taking it and putting it back in my wallet.

I come back home and ten days later I had to go to Hyderabad for work and my license is nowhere to be found. I check my purse - not there. I message Jiyesh and ask him to check if it has fallen in the room - it is not there. I check my suitcase and even my unused socks, it is  not there!

And this was the duplicate license that I had applied and received not more than two months ago! 

My first thought was what will the RTO think? second though was how can I ask the same person to get me yet another duplicate. Puppy shame. :) 

So I did what every sensible person would do. I relegated it to the background and continued with life. :) :) 

Until I could not postpone it any longer. At which point, (after I looked in a few  more improbable places - like the fridge, ) I asked a friend to find me someone who can help get me a duplicate license. Different person of course, to save me the embarrassment. I was not looking forward to the RTO people's reaction but hey!one embarrassment at a time -  we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

This morning, my friend messaged me, asking me to send two photos, my aadhar card copy and a copy of my license. I had the first two - but when I searched for the copy of my license , I realised I did not even have a copy of the newly issued license. My heart sank. This was going from bad to worse! I  told him I was looking for the copy of the latest license and sat there pondering.

And then I had a brainwave - Jiyesh had taken a copy of my ID, he would have it! After all, that is the last time I thought I had seen my license. So I messaged Jiyesh asking him to send me a copy of the driving license he had taken.

And guess what the response was? "Ma'am you only gave me your aadhar card for registration. Not your license." And my inner voice went "what???"

Talayar valley bungalow was the only place that needed to see my ID for registration. They had been given Aadhar card . And I had never taken out my license anywhere else. So if my license was not in my purse, after the trip, it could only mean one thing -  It was never there in the first place. Step aside Sherlock Holmes!

I felt hope surge in me. I scrambled to the cupboard where I keep the RC card copy and opened the pouch and voila! there  it was ..my driving license!

I was delighted. I thanked Jiyesh and told him I had found my license. Then messaged my friend saying I had found my license and does he still want a copy :) :) 

He sent back a face palm emoji . I grinned and replied "sorry for the trouble but you can thank me for the comedy" His response "goodnight" (it was 8 am) I smiled at that and sat there for a while savouring the relief.

As the grin faded my usual pensive thoughts floated back to the fore front. There was something to pay attention to. I had not realised that my confidence in myself was also deteriorating with age. 

I was quick to assume I had lost my license because I did not trust myself . It was true that I had forgotten which ID I had given but I had preempted my absent mindedness and kept the license safe in the correct place. Hmmmm.....

So, NOW,  I think I have to add one more to my list of things to work on as I age - a realistic perception of my own reliability. Read that again..pause ..see what I mean?

ah now that is going to be a big one :) 

Did someone say little warrior?

I am right and I am wrong

There are many times I wonder if we are looking for happiness and joy in the right places. 

When someone commented that you cannot travel and see beautiful places without money, I felt she was right and she was wrong. Some places, yes, you need to be able to afford to visit. But there are many beautiful places within our reach.

When I left all that was familiar to me and moved to the UK, I thought I would find happiness there. I was right and I was wrong. When I invested in friendships and relationships in my search for happiness, I was right and I was wrong and when I ended them, I was right and I was wrong. 

It has always been a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And I think it is exactly this that has fostered my ability to have a realistic view of life (and my melodramatic reactions to it.)😀

When I set out for a walk this morning with Aarti to Semmozhi Poonga, it was with the surety that what I was about to share with her would be beautiful and would bring a huge smile to her face as well as mine. And I knew that that would make me happy.

I was right. The park was even more gorgeous after last night's rain - all the leaves bore a freshly washed look. The flowers with the little droplets of water clinging resolutely to them offered plenty of opportunities to me to take the pictures that I am so fond of. The bed of pink lilies around a tree reminded me that sometimes there is incredible beauty right next to us. 

We paused and looked up at the huge rain tree whose roots solidly grounded her as she reached up to the sky in all directions. I wondered if the roots held her steady as she reached for the stars or if they trapped her in place when all she wanted to do was fly. Which was right and which was wrong?

Whimsical thoughts that make me smile.

As we walked around admiring the flowers and trees, I felt I had validated in the assumption that I had set out with today.

My next planned stop was breakfast and I parked the car on a side road and started to walk towards the hotel. We were chatting to each other about how beautiful the park was .

In front of us was a stationary bus waiting for passengers to board. I hardly gave it a thought as I approached it . 

Just as we were about a foot away, we heard a honk. I didn't pay attention to it at first but when the second honk came close on its heels, I paused my chatter and looked up at the bus.

I could have reacted in so many ways- I could have ignored the honk, or I could have gotten offended that I was being honked at, or I could have been irritated and asked him why he was honking at me.  

I am so glad that I had none of those reactions, because when I looked up curiously, through the windscreen of the bus that reflected the branches of the trees, I could make out the driver grinning widely at me and waving!

I felt such a rush of joy, that it exploded out of me in the form of my usual unbridled laughter and I enthusiastically waved back at him . Aarti was laughing as well. I exclaimed to her "My day is made. That bus driver honked and waved at me!" 

The whole incident only took a few seconds but do you realise how much joy there was in this little interaction? ( I am smiling as I type this)

It was two people connecting to the child within each other. The bus driver happily honking almost as if he was saying "look at me , I am driving a bus" and me getting delighted that he honked at me and happily waving back at him. It was also him telling me "I see you".  And me telling him "I see you too!" 

It took a good five minutes for me to calm down :) I told Aarti "I am so HAPPY that incident happened" 

She replied " It is more than just happiness , no?" and I said "You are right - this is joy" and that was what it was - pure unadulterated joy about a simple interaction that did not conform to what we typically assume gives happiness and joy. 

So, to the driver of 29 C who was at Cathedral road bus stop at 7 30 am  on 24th Jun 2023, I just want you to know, you made my day when you so happily honked and waved at me! Thank you !

And to Life, thank you for reminding me that joy can be found in the most unexpected of places.

I thought today my happiness would come from sharing the beautiful walk in the park with a friend.

I was right and I was wrong. 

Lessons from Natural Movement

When I started my sessions with Sathish, who runs Fit O Crazy..I don't know what I expected but it certainly was not  a deeper understanding of what my life lessons have been and how it was time for me to cast away some of the protective mechanisms that were not needed.

The other thing was - I had always thought I was a playful person. What I didn't realise was that while I knew when to be playful and when to be serious, I hadn't yet managed to use the transition from serious to playful to my advantage.

Sounds confusing yes? let me elaborate.

It was a simple exercise on balancing on the swiss ball. I had done it years ago and naturally, while I struggled with it due to lack of practice, I was not demotivated because if I had done it before I knew I would figure out a way to do it again.

I kept trying and the more I failed the more determined I became. Sathish suggested I use the wall for support to understand about the balance and that is when I got Lesson no:1

My instinctive response was "No I don't want to do that. I am afraid I will hurt myself."

Which was exactly the opposite of what could happen with the wall for support

Sathish calmly said "Why are you afraid?" I said "I will hit myself on the wall. I want to be free". He said "But it is safer there. You learn how to balance using the support and then come back to being free ". I struggled to accept that and I realised why. I was demonising the wall. But it was not the wall that I was afraid of.

Life had taught me not to rely on support. Many times, it had been taken away when I needed it most and I had had to learn to manage on my own. And instead of saying let me make my life easy and take the support safe in the knowledge that my past has taught me to manage on my own, I was willing to make life harder and reject support. I had picked the wrong lesson to learn. 

Our past lessons of managing when our support is taken away has to be that we are able to continue without support. The smart thing to do is to make life easier by taking the support when it exists confident in the knowledge that we can manage even if it is taken from us.

My next lesson came from the way I took cues from Sathish. 

I tried multiple times to get the balance on the ball after I came back from the wall assist. I failed.

Sathish had assessed that I work well under pressure .And so he said you have 20 seconds to find your balance on the ball. And after that I am going to throw a tennis ball for you to catch, You will do that five times. 

The moment he put the pressure of time, within a short while I was up on the ball balancing myself. Wibbly wobbly but balancing. And just as I was about to lose balance Sathish called out "Just play" and that transitioned me from determined warrior to playful child and I started bouncing about on the ball, doing hip shakes laughing all the time. The focus had shifted from making it a challenge that I HAD to conquer to exploring a playful opportunity.

Lesson no 2 : Don't wait for perfection to find your opportunity to play. Once you have an acceptable level, shifting your focus to play relaxes you enough to trust your instincts better.

And the final lesson was exactly how joyous a challenge can be the moment we make it play. I was back to fierce warrior mode because now I had gotten the balance. I still had  one more challenge - the 5 catches. Sathish said "Ok you have 20 seconds to find your balance " I found it in 5 -and I had this fierce glower on my face as I was trying to find the perfect posture that would allow me to execute the next challenge.

And that is when Sathish called out "PLAY..P.L.A.Y." as he spelt those letters, my face changed from fierce focus to a happy smile and I indicated I was ready to catch the ball - EVEN though I was  not in the perfect position to do that.

When you look back at the video, I can see the transition on my face, and after that I can see my body automatically compensating while I light heartedly focused on catching and throwing the ball. And I did all five catch and throws. From an inherently unstable position.

You can choose whatever lesson you want and whatever warnings you want. You can add the disclaimer that this may not work all the time. But i chose to take away this. The fact that this worked this time is enough for me to loosen up a bit when it comes to challenges.

I may be comfortable with failure but I take a long time to give up. I still have to learn when to give myself a break before trying again. I also need to stop fighting for the perfect situation in one step. For sometimes the imperfect situation is good enough to achieve the next step. And after all it is progress that matters :) 

I am sure there are many more lessons in store for me - just as I am sure that I will remember that the fierce warrior is as much a friend to my progress as is the playful child.

Karma!

Another flight and another set of experiences and again so different from the last and certainly heart warming.

We had just had our boarding passes checked to Coimbatore and I watched an older gentleman and a lady begin the descent down the ramp. The lady had a suitcase and a bag on one hand and another bag slung on the shoulder.

From her gait I could tell that it was not a comfortable descent so I offered to help her. No, in fact I asked  "can I help you with the bag"  she quickly said she would manage. Instinctively I knew that she would actually feel better if I helped so I said "it's ok please let me take them. It easy for me"

My instinct was right because without any protest she allowed me to take the luggage from her. And it WAS easy for me. I just had a backpack slung over my shoulder and another small bag.

I started walking slowly down the ramp behind them. Despite the fact that the lady was probably my age or maybe only slightly older, I felt protective as I saw her cautiously proceed. Something about the way she moved reminded of how Amma had distrusted these ramps.

It also occurred to me  that I wasn't being quite selfless. I was hoping the concept of good karma etc would hold good. Not many years from now, I'm likely to be in a similar situation, and I hoped a stronger possibly younger woman would step forward to help me too.  (ok wouldn't object to a nice man doing the same but that is a different conversation 😁)

I smiled at a completely random memory that popped up - amma always used the word karma in a not very positive sense .. "Kharrrmmmam" she would say when she wanted to exhibit disgust, dismay, disapproval... That word was quite versatile really.

My monkey brain was jerked back to the present as we were asked to stop and wait at the point before the aerobridge commenced.

The lady turned to me and said "the surface is so uneven" and I said in as reassuring a tone as possible "yes, even though we know our footwear won't slip, we still feel unsure,illai? "

She nodded her head and turned to move forward.

Throughout this exchange I noticed another lovely young girl watching this interaction between us. I was glad that she didn't get impatient with the slow progress the two people and I were making. I think she understood the importance of consideration and anyway, everyone knows that the plane is not going to take off without us, right?

Wrong - two young men obviously weren't convinced and they tried to dart forward, so they could get ahead of the gentleman and the lady. They misjudged the gap between the lady and me and had to shuffle to a stop to my left, just half a foot ahead of me.  "I could hear ammas voice in my head -" khharrrrrrmam! "
And I heard it exactly the way she would have said it - she would drag out the word "kharrrrrrrrmam"... With the audio like a sine curve 😁

I stepped into their personal space, ready to intimidate them with my trademark snake eye contact. But my body language alone sufficed. They meekly went back to their place in the queue behind me.

Honestly! What is it with some people? What is the need to display such inconsiderate impatience ? Of course the poor intimidated young men must have thought the same of me 😁but shhhh!

While I was congratulating myself on this little victory, my backpack slipped off my shoulder. Without thinking, I angled my elbow so I could hold it in place and I continued walking. It was uncomfortable but manageable. And that's when history repeated itself. Well, the immediate history I mean

The lovely young lady who had been watching my exchange earlier, stepped to my side and said something about my backpack. I thought she was offering to carry it for me and I quickly said "thank you it's ok" . She then repeated and this time I heard what she was saying"let me help you move the backpack on to your shoulder " or something along those lines. And without waiting, just like I had done earlier for the other lady, she reached out and helped lift the back pack off my elbow and settled it back on my shoulder.

I smiled at her and said thank you and my heart smiled too. I felt all warm and fluffy inside as I savoured this incident and the run up to it. There ARE considerate people out there too.

In fact MANY more than I thought. For when I got off the plane, the indigo staff had already stepped forward to help the lady with her luggage, while on the bus another passenger waited patiently for her to board and two other people offered their seats to the them.
The fluffy happy feeling blossomed even more inside me.

I didn't have to wait too long did I? The positivity chain is well and alive as is  instant karma .

Or in the case of the impatient young men instant kharrrrrrrrmam!