Nirvana or redundancy

I am hardly 50 (Ahem). My son is 24, has a good job, lives on his own in a different continent and is self sufficient. I had spent more than fifty percent of this first two thirds of my life being a caregiver to son, mom, uncle etc. My husband is poorly trained in domestic matters. He did manage to live off frozen foods and  eating out when he was in the US.

Recently I hopped over to my son's continent and spent a month there. I was on the receiving end being told to eat properly, comb my hair etc, all arising out of the immense affection and the fear of being mortified in front of friends. My cook quit on me about six months back. So hubby was on his own. Alas. India too has its myriad frozen, vacuum packed microwaveable everything. So now that little edge I had of being superior when it came to domestic matters has been nullified.

My work is enjoyable and all, nut not exactly transformational. So now I sit and wonder , what is it that I can do which no one else can. I have been giving money to what I feel are deserving charities. I can set up a trust and that can go on without my presence.

I am not depressed. I am contemplative though.  I am happy that I have managed to become redundant. The existential question has hence  seized me for the moment. I try to avoid it by Pranayama, online activities, phone calls , acting as agony aunt etc. But it EXISTS.  Two of my mentors passed away soon after very monumnetal events in their kid's life , like marriage, going away from house etc. Their souls seemed to be instinctive about their usefulness. mine is not so eveolved. So you will hear from me in a few weeks for sure.

Business of business cards

I have been on my own for more than 15 years and hence I need a business card. Traditional wisdom is that you should collect as many cards from as many people as possible. It goes on to say that you should also distribute it to as many people as you can. At one point I believed I could spot the guys and gals who were branching off to an independent business by their eagerness to give out their cards. The same people a few months ago would either not have sufficient cards or forgotten them in their hurry to arrive at events on time.

There are reams  written on how a card should look, how it should be handed over with both hands in a manner that the receiver is able to read your card etc. And then there are reams on contours, design , texture and many other aspects of the card itself.
I had lots of thoughts on this and some of it was clarified when I read Abhijit Bhaduri's piece in Economic times today (March 5, 2013).

I too have seen this flurry of activities where business cards are exchanged. I am not very good at it nor am I well organised. I don't have separate space for my cards and the ones I receive. I feel very comfortable in Indian attire and hence do not have a handy pocket to whip my card from. So speed suffers. On many occasions, I have forgotten the cards at venues, especially when there are tables kept in circles where we play musical chairs.

Business cards  cards are not always the best way to keep some one's contact. Those who are influential will not have their cell numbers. They will give you a switch board number which will have multiple levels of gatekeepers who will all ask the same questions, pretty much like most customer service call centres. Then they change companies. Smaller companies change their website. The bigger ones have firewalls and if you end your profile as an attachment, you go directly into spam or the email will be blocked.

In India these are still called visiting cards. I guess we don't really know the origin of the word that well. In the days of  people like Jeeves and Cadbury , meaning Butlers, people  would visit (or call, hence the name  calling cards)  one another by showing up unannounced at a home and handing a calling card to the servant who answered the door. Such cards generally only had the name of the caller. No contact details like address, telephone numbers etc were given. There were no logos and emails and email ids  did not exist.   In India , since we could happily and loudly announce our presence , the calling card was unlikely to have been in vogue.

Now with everyone having the a vCard with the visiting replaced by Virtual, Business cards may soon  go the way of typewriters and rotary phones. Personal touches still make a difference. I find that a direct approach where you ask for the person's cell number or email id and write it in a small black book works best. If they don't want to give it to you, it saves your time  and if they do, you can send SMS or email and ask them for a meeting.