Generosity, Part II

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about Generosity and How It Happens. I talked about the citizens of Delhi who seemed to have a more highly developed spirit of generosity than we do here in Dehradun.

I’m afraid I have to withdraw that impression.

I had based my judgment on the ubiquitous presence of little cards on Delhi restaurant tables informing customers that 10 rupees was being added to their bill as a voluntary contribution to a charity – in this case one devoted to the welfare of stray animals. When we tried to do something similar in Dehradun, our proposal was rejected in every restaurant we approached as their owners said they would lose their customers if they instituted such a policy.

This seemed too pathetic to believe (ten rupees!) and we concluded that Delhi must just be more evolved than Dehradun.

NOT.

This week, I visited some of those same restaurants in Delhi again. In Khan Market, reportedly Asia’s 3rd most expensive shopping area and home to some of the world’s most exclusive brands (almost without exception non-essential luxury items), the restaurant where I had first seen the cards no longer had them. My friend, Rachel, and I questioned our waitress who explained that too many people had objected, saying they didn’t want to donate to a fund for animals when children were hungry and living on the streets. (Implying that since they only had ten rupees to donate – those Khan Market shoppers are hard up, after all – they preferred it should go to the charity of their choice.)

In a further conversation with the manager, he said dealing with irate customers (one even threatened to sue him) got to be such a hassle they preferred to put an end to the experiment and just keep a box by the register for voluntary contributions.

Predictably, the box is fairly empty.

Rachel told me she had been to an even posher restaurant a few nights earlier where, for a party of four, the bill came to Rs 7500. While waiting for her receipt, she had noticed the same People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals card on the table and picked it up to show her colleagues. Immediately, the waitress rushed over to reassure her: “Madame, it’s only ten rupees, and it’s a voluntary contribution,” as if she knew, from bitter experience, that people paying a bill of Rs 7500 often found an extra ten too much to deal with.

Later, wandering around in the market, I happened to overhear a woman on the phone making arrangements to have her driver take an amount of cash to a mall in Gurgaon where he would collect whatever it was she was buying. After explaining the details to the person at the other end, she said, almost as an afterthought: “So how much is it? 60K? Oh, one lakh. Teek hai. Byeeeee.”

From 60,000 to 100,000 without batting an eyelid, but an extra ten rupees on a restaurant bill and suddenly, it’s a matter of principle.

Several people commented on my earlier post saying that they didn’t like the practice of adding ten rupees to the bill because they couldn’t be sure the money was actually going to the NGO in question. And that even if it was, they couldn’t be sure the money would be well spent.

True. There are no guarantees. Some things we have to take on trust. But it is interesting that these are the things we choose to quibble over and cast doubt upon. The people who balk at the ten rupees are the same people who argue with the coolie who just carried three heavy bags from the Pahar Ganj side to Track 16 at Ajmeri Gate, loaded them all up onto the luggage rack and made sure they were comfortably seated before asking for the cost of his labor. I watched a man I later found out was an IAS officer heading to Mussoorie for a 25th year reunion hand the coolie 20 rupees and then, grudgingly, when he protested, another 10.

But serve this fellow a cup of tea in a five-star restaurant, give him a bill for Rs 250 and see if he argues with the waiter and insist that all he will pay is what HE thinks the price should be. Ironically, he could actually make himself a cup of tea at home for a tiny fraction of what a hotel charges. In a million years, he couldn’t achieve what the bone-thin coolie did when he carried his bags from one end of the station to the other. But who does he argue with?

Objecting on principle (um, what principle was it again?) to ten rupees being added to a restaurant bill in a decent restaurant whose owners have no reason to be suspected of dishonesty and when the money is going to a known charity seems like a red herring.

But the fact that people DO object, when the amount really is so tiny, leads one to wonder how small their lives might be, and to consider whether they are the ones to feel sorry for rather than the charity which doesn’t get their money. Is this really their idea of “standing on principle”? Could they really have felt a moral victory had been achieved when those cards were removed from all the restaurant tables?

Open-handed generosity is a joy and a blessing which must be practiced to be understood. And I, for one, have lost track of the number of times I have been prodded into giving to a beggar on the side of the road because of seeing my auto driver dig into his pocket (far less lined than mine) to give a coin or two.

If, occasionally, “our” money goes into the wrong hands, so be it. Consider it a tax for all that has come to us unearned, undeserved. Living large, sharing freely from the abundance one has been freely given makes for a kinder heart and a sweeter life, and creates the channel through which even more blessings will flow through the world in an endless cascade of goodness.

Try This

Train travel is what you make it. In the old days, when we first came to India, one of the best parts of travelling was planning for the journey: the food we would prepare, the entertainment we would carry, the small comforts we would pack.

In those days, a journey meant a predictable amount of discomfort, occasionally verging into squalor and misery. Overcrowded compartments, no AC, dust and grit, filthy loos, children (our own) who would throw up on the floor, and children (other people’s) who would pee on them – it was all expected and endured.

The baskets full of aloo-poori, karelas, fruit, chips and biscuits, the travel games, the singing sessions, the long novels, the aimless staring out the window at worlds unfamiliar and strange – made up for the suffering (I love that the Hindi for journey is safar!).

Now we have Shatabdis and Rajdhanis, air-conditioned and reasonably clean. We still bring our own entertainment, mostly I-pods and laptops, and train travel is still great fun - but I do think we’re selling ourselves short by accepting the food. The fact that it comes with the ticket isn’t reason enough to eat it.

I do the Dehradun-Delhi Shatabdi two or three times a month and I can no longer choke down the same meal they have been serving for the past fifteen years.

So here are a few quick tips for a happy journey.

1. Make friends with the waiters on the train. They are hard-working and bored. They do the same thing every single day. If I, who travel this route three times a month, am tired of Veg/Non-Veg, imagine how they must feel, doing it twice a day, six days a week. They enjoy oddness and variety and they will help you in many unexpected ways.

2. Bring your own cold milk for the tea/coffee ritual. That powdered stuff (or Goat’s Dandruff) really should be banned. Once or twice we had only warm milk at home as I was rushing out the door and you know what that means.

3. That means malai. To avoid such a catastrophe (unless of course you are a Punjabi and you LIKE malai), pack a small strainer as well.

4. Unless you are travelling in Executive Class, you will be given a thick blue plastic cup to drink your tea from. This should be avoided. Pack a small teacup from home. Now don’t make a fuss. It’s only one more small thing to pack, not such a big deal.

5. Pack your own dinner. Be creative. This evening for example (I am writing this on the train) I brought soup (I did have to spring for a little stainless steel flask, but I consider it a lifetime investment). When they handed out the blue plastic cups (same as for the tea! GROSS!!!), I asked for an empty bowl from the Executive Class compartment (see point #1) and my waiter was only too happy to oblige. While everyone else drank that red, insipid, chemically liquid, I sipped my curried pumpkin soup and munched on a piece of homemade bread. For dinners in the past, I have brought leftover eggplant parmesan, hummus and baba ganoush, and once, memorably, quiche, sliced tomatoes and green beans sautéed with toasted almonds. Usually, I admit, I just pack a sandwich, but always on homemade bread and usually with a salad on the side.

6. Extras. Consider a glass of wine. Strictly forbidden by the authorities, of course, so this is best done only if travelling with a companion (and then only in stainless steel glasses like all those furtive men at the back of the wedding shamiana). Drinking nonchalantly alone is hard to pull off with waiters (however friendly) and Ticket Takers constantly striding about.

7. Special chocolates. A bright red apple. A little katori full of pomegranate. Some roasted cashew nuts.

Everything tastes better, seems more interesting and feels more uplifting on a train. Share with the person beside you. Tip the waiters. Look out the window. Life is beautiful.

Protocols

Many years ago, I studied to become a midwife. Most of the teachers were old hippies and their teaching style was predictably loose and relaxed. One, however, in addition to being a midwife, was also a nurse. She took pride in her fierce, rigid pedagogy. She forced us to memorize definitions and procedures verbatim without caring whether we had understood at all.

"Understanding comes later," she would bark. "First get the facts."

I will never forget the day she taught us how to wash our hands. The previous class she had handed out a sheet of instructions. The first one read:

Approach the sink.

It went on like this, in what seemed like an extremely anal and obsessive attention to detail which was completely unnecessary given that we were all adults with basic common sense:

Scrub palm to palm
Right palm over left dorsum and left palm over right dorsum
Palm to palm fingers interlaced
Backs of fingers to opposing palms with fingers interlocked

And so on. Every detail. Nothing too trivial to be mentioned.

I was 24 years old at the time and I had great faith in my intelligence, my memory and that same old common sense I referred to earlier. I knew hands needed to be washed to avoid infection. I knew how to do it. I didn't need lessons. I certainly didn't need a checklist.

Now I am 52. My once sharp memory is frayed at the edges and increasingly unreliable. "Approaching the sink" to wash my hands, I am just as likely to remember that plant I've been meaning to water and to veer off in another direction entirely.

So now I like protocols. I like checklists and unalterable routines. When I walk into the house, I put my keys on the key rack mindlessly, without thought, because that's the only way it happens. If I change that crucial routine - open the door, approach key rack, hang keys - by even an inch, the keys end up in the laundry basket or the fridge.

After I broke my camera because I forgot to close the zipper on its case, allowing it to tumble out and crash onto the floor,  I realized that protocols not only save time and frustration, they also save life and limb.

Put milk to boil. Turn gas down to sim.

Get in the car. Put on seatbelt.

Help Moy Moy into bed, drag heavy chair up beside it to prevent her rolling out.

Protocols. I love them because they remind us that we are human and forgetful and well-intentioned but sometimes stupid.

Brahma Kamal or Flower of Bethlehem

Either name is too exquisitely perfect for the breathtaking beauty of this flower. Have you seen one? It is a profound experience. It is also a commitment. Although we have had this plant in our garden for two years I saw it in bloom for the first time only last night. I am still speechless and overwhelmed.

Its poignantly brief life is part of its charm. From the first bud to the final sleep is a matter of weeks, but the true transformation - from a tightly closed mass of thin, tapering petals to a glorious and dazzling display of full, sensuous, open-hearted beauty - takes place over a few short hours. Look the other way, get lost in a novel or facebook, and you miss the whole show.

I missed more than I care to think about over the past few weeks, but this time, I was ready. Stalking the Flower of Bethlehem, you might say. I checked on it every morning and every evening. Not knowing exactly what I was looking for meant I had to make multiple visits each night to be sure I wasn't missing anything.

At night! Yes. This is a night-blooming flower, which adds immeasurably to its mystery and allure. It begins to emerge around 7 PM  and then continues to blossom till after one in the morning.

This was right around seven and it was different enough from the day before that I began to hope it might actually, at last, be the night.

7:30. Dusk setting in and the flower seems to feel more confident, more willing to reveal itself.

Then dinner details took over and the rituals of feeding Moy Moy and putting her to bed. It was almost nine before I got out again and what I saw was so magical I went right back and woke Moy Moy up and took her out in her wheelchair into the dark, green, damp garden so she could see for herself.

Though, like Moy Moy, this was my first encounter too, somehow I knew this was only the beginning.

Reluctantly, I took Moy back to bed and continued my vigil outside. My sister-in-law was with me and we took turns taking pictures from different angles and comparing our results.

Then suddenly (OK, we had gone inside to have our soup and bread - a light dinner, too much excitement!), there was a sea-change.

Those curved-in-on-themselves lines now edged out and flared into separate rays. But there was still more to come.

The pencil-thin rays defined themselves further as separate, twiggy free-standers while the center plumped and glistened, showing off those impossibly delicate little (what do you call them, all you botanists out there?).

And then . . . a fragrance. A fragrance! As if the visual weren't glory enough. A fragrance so bewitching it made me want to cry just a little. A tang of lemon, a splash of something spicy, and all on the cool, rain-spattered night sky.

Finally (it was two AM), I had to say good night.

I plucked one of the flowers - we had three -  photographed it in the less difficult indoor light:

and went to bed.

In the morning, there was this:

A tired, spent and still beautiful blossom, one who had saved everything for a single blaze of glory.

I couldn't help but think of this as a metaphor for the people in our lives whose time of transcendence and astonishment we miss because we didn't happen to be watching at the right moment: the ones we see all tight and furled, never realizing they are just - about - to - open. Or the ones we see all drooping and exhausted, never realizing that they just - gave - it - all - they - had.

I love that we get to see this enacted in nature and then learn its lessons for our own sweet lives.

Order in the Cupboard, Order in the Mind

When we were kids, Mom always insisted that we make our beds and tidy our rooms before leaving for school in the morning. We bitterly resented it. "What difference does it make to you if our rooms aren't neat?" we would ask plaintively.

Implacable, she said she couldn't do her own work knowing there was a mess somewhere in the house.

"Don't look!" we suggested. "Just close the doors."

"It doesn't work like that," she explained. "I always know."

I guess I inherited this trait. I, too, always know. When there is a messy spot in the house, I ,too, am distracted and stymied by it. And until I break down and sort out the chaos, I can't do my best work.

My closet has been crying out for attention for over two months. I kept flinging things in and looking the other way, keeping the door closed most of the time and going in as infrequently as possible. And in spite of being extremely busy for the same two months, beavering away like mad on a very important project (RAISING 40 LAKHS), I really never hit my stride. I am convinced it's because of that closet.

The irony is that it's because I was so busy I couldn't clean it out. I knew it would take me three hours, and I just didn't have three hours to spare.

Today was a holiday. When Moy Moy went for her nap, I decided to just do it. It actually took me only an hour and a half. Using Cathleen's system of color-coding, I made neat stacks of all my clothes, lined my shoes out along the closet floor, hung my dresses and jackets in a sweet little range and threw away all the junk that had been gathering dust since the last time I did this.

When I was finished, rather than being tired, I was so pleased with myself and so full of energy I scrubbed the kitchen cupboards, made tomato soup and went for a four mile walk with Moy Moy.
And THEN wrote four long overdue letters and this little blog post.

I'm sure there is a lesson here somewhere.

Generosity and How It Happens

Are people generous by nature or does it need to be taught? And why are some places noted for philanthropy and others are not?

I've been thinking about these questions a lot as I work toward achieving our current goal of raising 40 lakh rupees by the end of September.

One of the ideas we came up with to raise money locally was borrowed from something I have seen  in Delhi - many restaurants there collaborate with voluntary organisations by placing cards on each table informing customers that to support the work of Organization XYZ, they have added 10 rupees to the bill. Customers who don't wish to contribute can ask their waiter to remove it.

In practice, almost no one does so. 10 rupees is such a miniscule amount that most people hardly even notice it, let alone care. In a busy restaurant, the income can be as much as a thousand rupees a day - nearly four lakhs a year! Painless!

So we thought we'd give it a try here in Dehradun.

Here's our card, which we thought was very clever and attractive:

Card in hand, off we trotted to meet the owner of one of the best-known restaurants in the city (which shall remain nameless), ready to make our pitch and add his restaurant's name and logo - convinced that rupees would begin pouring in in a matter of days.

We were shocked when the owner reacted with horror.

"I can't do that," he said. "I'd lose my customers. Oh they'd let it go the first time - no one wants to look cheap - but they'd never come back. They'd accuse us of hoodwinking them."

Let's assume this gentleman is correct, that he knows his clientele and has accurately assessed their response. Then why is the Delhi clientele different? In one of the restaurants where I have seen these cards, the clientele are regulars, repeat customers who come in over and over and among whom, according to the manager, there is at most one a week who objects to the idea.

So what's up in Dehradun? Because it's not just about adding a measly ten rupees to a restaurant bill.

When we sell the calendar, for example,  the rate for India is Rs 200 apiece. Here in Dehradun, it has to be Rs 100 - or it simply won't sell. I can't count the number of people here who have carefully explained to me why it isn't right to charge even 100 when clearly, the cost of printing the calendar cannot be more than 50. "IT'S TO RAISE FUNDS", I try and explain back, but it's like talking to a wall.

The per capita income in Dehradun is higher than most cities in the country. We are flooded here with think tanks, high-end schools and major institutions whose staff earn good salaries and have a wide range of perks like housing, low-interest loans, medical care and education for their children. So it's not a question of not being able to afford it.

Is it something deeper? Or is it simply that people here have never been taught about the joy of giving?

Last year we had two dynamic volunteers - Merrow and Ashleigh - who designed a brilliant plan (they called it B.U.I.L.D.E.R. ) for school fundraising for us, the core of which is turning students on to the excitement, creativity and sense of purpose such activity engenders. More than the money, the project is about commitment, teamwork and leadership development - all qualities our future leaders need if they are ever going to bring about positive change in this country.

Both our volunteers had been involved in similar endeavours in their own schools and colleges - in addition to raising significant amounts of money for the good causes they were working for, they learned enormous amounts about event management, PR, finance, budgeting, decision-making and how to work well as part of a team. They also learned a great deal about the specific cause they were working for - if you are going to convince someone to donate, you absolutely need to be well-informed enough to be persuasive. And in the process, it dawned on them how satisfying it is to put your heart and soul, your talents and your time, your passion and your energy into something meaningful, something with purpose, something that is about more than a paycheck or a career move.

Fund raising is about working for a cause. Donating is too. And believe it or not, it feels great. It's a wonderful and liberating thing to be generous, to open your heart and your wallet and share what you have.  And I feel sorry for the people of Dehradun because - perhaps - they haven't been given enough opportunities to do that.

Our other effort this week was going to school principals to ask them to allow us to introduce the B.U.I.L.D.E.R. project to their students. So far, it's been a resounding NO. We've been told we cannot "use" students this way, that parents will object, that they are busy with important things like exams, that if they say yes to us they will have to say yes to everyone and anyway, how can we even think about asking???

And yet again, all I can feel is pity for what these children are missing out on: the joy of giving.

Time and again, when we do an awareness workshop, at the end of the session, the first, second, third and last question the students always ask is: How can we help? They are eager and ready and so much more than willing. And we, as adults, as their teachers, tell them to put that impulse away, focus on the exams, study more, think less, don't reach out, don't take risks, don't care.

And then we wonder why Dehradun's citizens don't want to give.

A New Phase In Life For Mummy, Age 93

You've met Mummy before.

At 93, she is the matriarch of our family - its oldest living member and one of the most respected and admired women I have ever known. We all stand in awe of her discipline, her integrity and her astonishing energy. Even now, at this age, she teaches neighborhood children for five hours a day and is better informed about what goes on in their classrooms than they are themselves.

She is progressive in her thinking, keenly interested in politics and current affairs and an avid reader of biographies, fiction, history and poetry. She stays in touch with everyone by phone and by mail, remembers every detail about every relative's life, keeps track of our household accounts and reminds us of all our appointments and due dates.

But she IS 93. Her joints aren't as supple as they once were and some of her daily routines have now become difficult and even a burden. Her hair, for one. As modern as she is, where her hair is concerned, Mummy has always been traditional. After her ceremonial mundan at the age of two, when all her hair was shaved off, she has never had a hair cut. Never. Her beautiful white locks fell below her waist - thick and glossy and constantly in need of washing, drying, combing and braiding.

Over the last ten years, she's found it harder and harder to accomplish and for the past year, she's actually had to resort to asking for help, at least with the combing and braiding. Not her style. Mummy is the epitome of the independent woman and always has been. So an idea that first occurred to her ten years ago kept growing stronger: Why not just get it cut off?

But it's not as easy as it sounds, for a traditional Indian woman, however progressive. What would people think? What would people say? Short hair in India is associated with a certain type of woman: fast, maybe even loose; one who doesn't care two hoots what people think or what they have to say.

For a woman of Mummy's age, the idea itself was shocking: just trying to imagine herself without her hair was impossible. And yet the idea persisted. The dream of a quick shampoo, hair drying in minutes rather than hours, a casual running through of the comb  . . . tempting.

And then there were THE INSPIRATIONS:

Mummy has a niece whose hair style she has long admired - Pravar, who is 20 years younger, and who decided to get her own hair cut one day without telling anyone of her decision because, she said, she knew everyone would have an opinion and the only one she really cared about was hers. Another woman in the in the US, almost her age, had done it and then right here in Dehradun, one of our neighbors took the plunge. If they could all do it, Mummy reasoned, why can't I?

 But the real inspiration came when Nutan (God's Elder sister) arrived. Do not dare to have a dream when Nutan is around. She will make it her life's work to fulfill it. She knew that Mummy really did want to cut her hair, she knew she lacked the courage to do it on her own and she knew that she really wanted to be pushed.

So even though it was raining torrentially  that day, she forced me to go to a local beauty parlor and arrange for a guy to come to our house that evening. Then she went out and bought several kilos of mithai so that we could celebrate the way we would for a mundan.

When the great moment finally arrived, Mummy was reluctant, and less than pleased.

And the cut, when it came, was abrupt even for us - it was good Mummy couldn't see it happen:

 But everyone gathered close to reassure and cheer her on:

Except for Masiji, who thoroughly disapproved and tried to talk her out of it right till the last moment:

Nadim worked hard to give her just the right style: elegant, subtle, and easy to maintain.

And when it was finally finished, even Mummy had to admit that she liked the new sleek look.

and with turning back no longer an option, she happily had her celebratory mithai and blamed it all on her stubborn daughters.