Of Issues and Tissues

Of Issues and Tissues

It was a stray mention on Facebook that started my deep meditation about important issues and tissues. Like toilet paper and kitchen wipes, baby nappies and all else that wipe, clean and we throw away.  My friend, Sue, I know, considers all her buying options carefully. For instance, she doesn't buy anything from Amazon. There was a discussion on Facebook, between her and friends, on the most important issue (tissue) resulting from COVID 19 and the panic buying. Toilet paper in particular.
  I have been in this place before, I think. There was the time in Ndola, in Zambia, in 1971, when there was a run on toilet paper. I couldn't care less, as I was hanging on to my Indian/ Kerala personal hygiene  protocols. The crisis passed unnoticed in our household.
  Later, in the early 1980s when I worked in Makeni in Sierra Leone, there was an acute shortage, which lasted a while. I lived on the Makeni Teachers' College campus, where I worked; the students in the hostels created an enormous cacophony about the absence of toilet paper in their bathrooms. Mr Lenga- Koroma, our no-nonsense Principal told them off for acquiring 'Western' habits. 'In your villages, how did you manage?' he declaimed from the stage in the auditorium, to disgruntled budding teachers.
  Enough detail on this delectable one -- suffice it is to stay that our college water supply was not reliable. Nothing was in assured supply in Makeni except the warmth of our Makeni Temne people.
  Apropos of all this I did an audit of our larder in prosperous Purley, and considered the numerous things we now consider essential, which I had not heard of in Thalassery, where I grew up.
  I came across, tomato sauce, disposable nappies, pure, flowing cooking salt, Jeyes cloths, sponges, shampoo... Instead, in India, we had crystallized salt, which came straight from the sea via the local corner shop; it took a moment to dissolve in our conjee, occasionally looked a little sea-grey, but it cost almost nothing as the sea was just round the corner. For sauces we had pickles and sweet chutneys, and instead of shampoo, we managed with chick-pea flour and moong paste. Worked well enough. The chick-pea left skin smooth to the touch. The moong was a nuisance when it wasn't ground properly to a paste, it would stick to our long hair and take ages to  wash off. Sometimes we used pounded Hibiscus leaves for our hair; it made hair lustrous. My first soap -- a green Rexona -- was a gift from my father at the wondrous age of fifteen.
  As for nappies, my children grew up on cloth napkins, which I washed and re-used; for wipes for surfaces and floors , we used old cloth. I am delighted and grateful for all the new things in my Western existence, but I would not call them essential.
  So it's back to basics for me.  Starting with old strips of cloth for my spills and surfaces and floors.

The Age Expert

I've been wondering over a year or so, if I should start a separate blog about things connected with ageing. After all, at eighty-five (almost) I could safely say I have some experience. 

  For instance, today I am thinking about the ways in which age diminishes perfectly harmless people like me. I have been thinking for a long time about visiting a close friend who has been ill. So I am going from room to room in my house asking my son and my daughter as to who might be able to drive me there. And here's the crux: they are nice Indian children who wouldn't dream of saying 'no' to this request. Then I see them peering anxiously at their diaries and deadlines and I'm not sure I like this dependence.

  Two years ago I would have taken a train from East Croydon and fumbled my way to Sheen Court. But today, I know my balance getting in and out of anything (trains, cars, toilets et al) is suspect. I have fallen only once till now -- that was the day I decided to wear a sari after ages. I get this occasional urge to assert my Indian beginnings. So I am stepping out of my front door and as front doors go, it is a grandma trap. Two or three different levels and steps to manage. (Now that I know, I negotiate with the door and the steps before I commit myself and my stick.)  My slippers came off my feet and I tumbled, ingloriously, into the flowerbed and the Pyrecantha.

My friend, Michael, who was giving me a lift to the Croydon Writers' monthly meeting had a good laugh after he had hauled me up. 'Being fat saved you.' he said, not unkindly, when it turned out I hadn't broken any bones. Just the argument with the recalcitrant Pyrecantha, a few scratches and bruises to nurse for a few weeks after.

I meander -- another old age illness: Now I am not allowed to drive. My socially ultra- conscious children remind me that I shall be a menace on the road with my uncertain levels of spatial awareness. They've got a point, but another little sliver has been broken away from my life.

I contemplate my long-ago life when I drove a Landrover in the interior of Sierra Leone where the roads were so bad the pie dogs slept in the middle of the road. Vehicles tended to to drive on the strips of soil on either side to avoid the rutted middle. It took five hours to reach Freetown from Makeni and nine to Kabale in the North. The distances were small, but oh, the roads!

Uber is a blessing when I can afford it, but I am a little wary of it. I have a tame taxi service that is also expensive, but I know my usual taxi driver who I request.

I am not giving up -- I shall consider how to get my freedom of movement back, if only in my head.

Royalty under Scrutiny?

Royalty under Scrutiny?

I must admit I am a republic kind of person. Don't like any monarchies anywhere. As my father used to say: they have the same needs as us, the same demanding bodies -- they need to fill their stomachs, evacuate just like us. So what's special? 

   So royalty - their divine right - is a myth, like the ones Harari mentioned in his Homosapiens. They exist and are revered (like the banks,the Gods...) because we allowed that myth or legend to exist. We promote that construct by our actions, our words and our unthinking collusion. 

I have huge respect for our Queen, because she has been durable and committed to her role. Take her out of the equation and what is left is an empty familial group without purpose or point, except their own perpetuation.   

   As to Harry and Meghan, I wouldn't care less as to what they do next. So long as they go quietly and don't clog up the news with the family scandals. Or stay and be happy. Harry, I hope, retains that quicksilver quality and generosity of spirit that is not too obvious in other royals.

   I notice that Prince Andrew's shenanigans were quickly glossed over -- let's focus on Meghan now. Thank you, Media. Bullies as ever.

   And, of course our delightful Media have decided that Meghan is fair game. Especially because she is not snow white and submissive. The global warming, the Iran crisis, all of this is Meghan's fault, in case you didn't know.  How dare she -- non-white, foreign...

   And, incidentally, why is it always a black person who is called upon on T V to discuss the race issue in this. Where are all the fair-minded white people who can see the obvious?

The Mad POTUS

Completely potty POTUS. I used to think we could laugh him off. Ignorant, babbling, tweeting, mad Trump. I forgot that he was also evil, and that the American people, in their infinite electoral wisdom,  had presented him with unassailable power. (Not unlike our own masochistic workers in the North.) Now he is is threatening world peace and nobody knows where to look. His cohort of hawks will pull the strings and the President will sway on his feet, make his finger and thumb into a circle, and pronounce.
 
   We get profundities from the likes of Jeremy Hunt. Apparently, nobody can predict what will happen next  in Iraq. We need a failed Conservative leadership candidate to tell us that? Johnson, of course, is keeping well out of it.

   The PM is probably recovering from a fortnight in Mustique. He needs to pause and see if he can think at all before opening his mouth. And he has to pass a comb through his hair. Or, maybe, Cummings is not available to tell Johnson what to say. He, now, is busy devising strategy for new Civil Service appointments. He's busy.

   Where are all the big names in our Tory mis-government? We have our soldiers in Iraq, likely to be assaulted.  Has no one of those gloating Tories anything to say? Like Trump made a huge miscalculation. Like the President needs to draw his claws in.

  We have enough natural disasters in the world now without man-made ones joining the act. Australia burns, S E Asia drowns. Though the media is not giving much airtime to the drowning Asians.

   I suspect the world has gone into a masochistic phase. Why would a working class electorate in the North of England vote Tory otherwise? Why would a tolerant Indian population get fixated on religion and Modi? And why indeed Trump?

   In my most despairing moments I tell myself -- you just get on with your reading and writing, Anand. It's cold, but on dry days you can still do a walk in the garden with Lily, the dog, running around with unexpected joy. Five years will go quickly by; we should be wondering how we can help the folks who have shot themselves in the foot handing their fate over to Johnson.

   We gave up on a good leader, who stood for equality and fairness. Now we, the Labour Party want to elect ANOTHER leader. What was wrong with Corbyn? We can't blame him for the BREXIT debacle. Labour is full of promising leadership aspirants, I hope they have plans for what to do for the next five years. And not just for themselves or the Party.
 

Don't Blame Racism on Football

Don't Blame Racism on Football:

That sorts out the problem -- it's all because of football.  Now we can forget about all the myriad places and situations where racism rears its ugly, stupid head, making me ashamed that I am also British.

   I should know -- I came here first in the fifties when it was hard to find somewhere to live if you were brown like me. I stayed in homes belonging to other Indians. The next time I came to The United Kingdom (united??) was in 1966. Not much had changed but if there was a trend, it was for the better. I was still forced to rent from other Indians, but I felt less out of place. I stayed a year that time and learned how to get past the obstacles, which all non-whites had to circumvent. Without mentioning it.

After that I came in 1974. Things were distinctly better. There was a Council for immigrants and they gave me advice about work permits and residents' rights. The Home Office was pretty unco-operative. But Being a Maths teacher my kind of person was very much in demand. Like nurses and doctors now. Fluent English and a warped sense of humour helped though friends said I sounded Bombay-Welsh. I survived - just.

   In the Maths department in which I worked, in Essex, there were nineteen members of staff. The only two with degrees in Maths were the Head of Department and myself. But I was firmly made to understand that no promotions would come my way -- don't aspire beyond Scale 2. My H O D had occasional nervous breakdowns; I was then expected to teach his classes, order books, help other teachers... Some of our Maths staff were Geography teachers or Needlework teachers and didn't know any Maths.

   They were nice people without pretensions. One would bring me x and y equations to solve, one at a time. He did not know that you needed two equations to solve for x and y. Another worried about Vectors and Matrices. She had never come across them in Needlework. What were Unit Matrices about? And I would try to help, all the while glorying in that beautiful, inter-connected edifice, which was Maths at its best. I remember trying to explain Pascal's Triangle to a Maths teacher and the connection with the Binomial expansion. This was S M P Maths and all this was expected. PIE IN THE SKY!

   Racism made sure that I never got a promotion, but I was not to mention that word. I could like it or lump it. Eventually I left to teach in Inner London where brown is an accepted hue.

   AND THERE WAS NOT A FOOTBALLER IN SIGHT THEN IN MY SCHOOL.

   Racism starts at home. And flourishes in school. The only way to stop it is to start where it begins -- home and school. By the time the fans come to watch Spurs it's established like a wart om your body. Now it needs surgery.

   Indeed, no child is born racist. Home and school make it so. Don't blame football. The black players are flourishing in all teams and long may that last.

   As an educationist, you must expect me to believe all social miracles are made in schools.  My only consolation is that today's young are so much more liberal than earlier generations.

SAD!

Today I am very, very sad at the state of our country. We have a Kefuffle -Pfeffel (OMG) for a PM. we have a few tail-waggers around him, ready to hound the poor, the sick, the immigrant, any way they can, and we are leaving the EU. God knows people like me will not be bankrupted, starving or deported because of BREXIT. But the rough-sleepers, the single mothers, the crazy working North, which has always carried the manufacturing burden of our Southern luxuries -- what is going to happen to them?

And the NHS???

I am sad, pessimistic and without hope. 

Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn is a very rare individual, who has compassion, integrity and clearsightedness. He can lose as many elections as happens, but I am on his side.

Jeremy Corbyn's policies were ways forward for a fairer distribution of wealth and opportunities -- of course the Tories don't like him. All the lies in creation cannot change facts: Boris is a compulsive liar, lacking in empathy and compassion.

Corbyn will step down as leader, but I hope the policies he stood for will find voice with the new Labour leader. No, I don't want centrist fluffing. Stand for what we believe in -- which is a country that works for all, irrespective of situation, age, education level or employment.

We must not throw the baby out with the bathwater.