A thorn in the skin

A new project and new set of challenges; like any other employee thinking about climbing the Corporate ladder or bare minimum fit into any of the buckets the HR department has carved out in the normalization curve, the manthra was ‘Customer is King’ and I thought no different.

The Challenges

Well, to think of Customer is King; was, is and will be the challenge for all employees and employers across the Globe. But the challenges, that too in a new Country, official challenges apart I had to think about personal challenges of my basic needs and which of course no longer is just food, clothing and shelter, few more dimension added to it from internet connection to money in my pocket.

So Malaysia it was and Kuala Lumpur my new city for the next few months. Official challenges, I did have but the kind of team I was a part off, you don’t need to worry; hard work is all that is needed and I was willing to do that. Oh, did I mention the Client team was understanding enough and trusted me on the work I was doing for them.

The personal once, yes I needed to worry with dependents list and needs increasing which gives a sense of satisfaction but has a flip side of being financially stable to all the expectations.

House hunting

First things first, a place to stay in KL; house hunting in a new town wasn’t the greatest and with a different currency, I had to be cautious not to over spend. Thanks to one of the members from the Client team who drove me across the town in few of those house hunting spree. Typical of every Country, the real estate industry and the brokers; the last person you would trust but you always acted as if you trusted. Mohandas Chandra an Indian Malay, the name meant nothing to me at first, but the Indian connection I thought may help me, even though people warned me to be careful. His name nor his appearance of a thin frame in his early sixties, ever looked intimidating and my first conversation with him was not anything close to putting the agreement on the table.

Well, someone else to look out for? Papers, notice on restaurant wall and by the way I did find few Indian food joints close enough to my work location that took care of one of my needs; not that I was finicky about food, but in the initial days, it served the purpose. Few other real estate brokers, nothing to write home about.

Two days later, my phone vibrated in the midst of a discussion with the Client team. Mohan KL, it read, did not want to break the discussion but I knew I had to pick the call; I simply wanted a house to stay and I was running out of days for the officially sponsored hotel room.

Teh Tarik

Relieved, that the discussion had closed, I quickly excused myself and called Mohan KL from the recent caller list. I agreed to meet him post my work and set an appointment for 6:30 PM. I was well ahead of time, a ‘teh tarik’ from the nearby restaurant called ‘Gandhi’s; ‘teh’ meaning tea and ‘tarik’ meaning pull…well it was to do with the way our Indian chaiwalas’ art of transferred half a glass of tea from one cup to another and by the time the last drop of tea is transferred the cup is way above the head of the ‘tea master’ and the receiving cup is almost going to drop off his hands in the downward stretch. The mastery in it is not only the fact that not a drop is spilt outside but also half the cup looks full and ready to pour out…some art I say…Well, the Teh Tarik got the name from there but the one I had was not even close to what it should be. Mr. Mohan was a little late, understandably because of the rain.

He greeted me Hello Mr. Gokul and shook my hands as if it to say we need to close a deal…just a rental deal. Walked along with him, and the Indian connection to both of us helped us ease into a conversation from my job to his ancestral home in south Tamil Nadu. Couple of houses nothing close to my satisfaction and the once that looked good from the outside, Mr. Mohan did not have the keys to it. It was getting late and ‘Dinner Mr. Gokul’ called out Mr. Mohan. Eight in the evening, yes why not I thought, ‘sure’ was my reply.

The dinner

Over the table, in one of the Indian restaurants we ordered our dinner and continued with the conversation and every topic had an Indian connection to it. He was a lot more comfortable and even joked to me that my name ‘Gokul’ sounded like ‘Google’ and told me that had a hearty laugh with his friend saying ‘where did this Google fellow come from?’.

Two things that were clear from what I observed of this man of early sixties, was the fact that he was working really hard to make ends meet and the second was his patriotism. His father was part of the army that worked under Netaji Subash Chandra Bose and his Mother used to stitch buttons for the clothes Indian soldiers wore during the war. He was proud in saying his parent’s contribution to India’s freedom struggle and told me his Father named him after the greats, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Subash Chandra Bose. And that is how the Mohandas and Chandra became part of his identity.                 

Patriotic, he was no less to any of the Indian’s in India and equally patriotic to the nation that adopted him, Malaysia. I did get a house but not through Mr. Mohan though, he was courteous enough to call me after a couple of days to find if I had settled down and asked me to call him if I needed any help.

The so called Patriotic!!!

With only social media the connect for me to happenings in India, the talk of patriotism, slogans and jibs at each other with political motivated hate speech and violence against the minorities in India only increased my respect for Indians who migrated decades ago to other counties and Mr. Mohan was representing them. And he was for sure an ambassador of India in his own rights and holding the flag really high.

Something in India is not right!!! I thought. The political hate speech bringing caste, creed and religion combined with idolism of humans and bulling minorities. Democracy is what a lot of them justify it with and added on as freedom of speech and few others call it patriotism. Well does patriotism and democracy remotely even mean hating a fellow human being or does it mean hating your own neighbors for the belief system, the caste, the creed and religion?

Patriotism or freedom of speech, for me is love for the country and speak for the needy. Nothing to do with violence or hate speech or bulling. It simply means loving the people of my country and speak to support each other. 

If 80 years back Swadeshi movement was patriotism, now it is being the brand ambassador of the Nation

If 80 years back holding the tricolor up high in spite of bleeding to death on the battle ground was patriotism, now it is holding a flag against anti-social elements.

If 80 years back physical battles against foreign invasion was patriotism, fighting against internal communal forces and binding us people together irrespective of where we come from or what we do is patriotism.      

What is the joy in blame game? What is the joy in boos and jigs? What is the joy in hatred?                              

Forgotten morals

Thanks to my School and the set of values the teachers had put across. The school not only taught us team work, competing at the highest level and winning habits but also; we would get a stick if indulged in booing and bulling. We were only taught to cheer our team and appreciate the opposition in a win or a loss in any sports events. Never ever we were once allowed to boo opposition. Not only that, we had assembly every day and it never ended without the pledge.

We need to take a step back and all that we need to do for patriotism it to be true to the pledge we had taken on our school days… ‘I love my country and all Indians are my brothers and sisters…’.

Testimony to that was the recent discussion on our school WhatsApp group that ran into more than thousand messages a day on demonetisation. But never was in it a comment to hurt a person, a religion, a cast or color. Of course we pulled each other’s leg but never once did the discussion’s priority go over unity.