Rezpekt!

I am supposed to be going through my withdrawal phase. The initial euphoria of a new experience when over is supposed to lead to the feeling of disappointment and irritation, you can see more wrong than right and generally feel low. It is also the dark, dreary, grey time of the year – long nights, dark mornings, a greyish light (if you must call it that) for a few hours in the middle of the day. That compounded with the fact that I grew up in a place where there is bright sunshine for 10-12 hours a day, so a dark 9 am is really shocking for me. I can really wallow in self pity right now…psychology (or something like that) allows me to!

But I am not. I am not sad or low or disappointed. I am more amazed by the day. The more I know about Finland, the more I grow to like & respect the place. I am happy to be here and learn from an amazingly egalitarian people.

The harsh climate could have been an excuse to be selfish and crabby. It’s not. They say the hard conditions teach them to value one another & help those in need. I find the Finns more accepting, helpful, polite and genuine than any other set I have met so far.

The efficiency is to be seen to be believed. It’s a splash of ice cold water on the faces (my ex face probably included) who think that just the hours given to work are measures of commitment & effectiveness. When the Finns agree to some work, then genuinely ‘agree’ and put in their best without excuses or cribs.

All services actually work. Bank cards reach you in a day; taxis accept credit cards and provide warm noise free service (at a price ofcourse); store workers are polite & attentive… I could just go on and on.

It probably takes a long, long time to go from a customary ‘Moi’ if eye contact is made to a point where there is real conversation & friendship with a Finn. But it is also really uncommon for Finns to backbite or sharp elbow someone. This appeals to me far more than a culture where you are friends the day you meet but you also think it is okay to hurt or harm that friend.

The default mode is to trust. Saves so much time & energy it's unbelievable.

Egalitarian, equal, humble, fair, honest. I value my new home enough to feel an affinity to that blue & white flag when I travel outside this idealistic world.

Genuine. That is the word. Genuine in work and friendship. Genuine in the initial shyness, genuine when they become your friends. Genuine no’s, genuine yeses. That is what I genuinely respect. So my self named friend, I finally found the right place to knock my chest and say ‘Rezpekt!’

I get closer to knowing a country I never thought I will know. The honeymoon maybe over, but the love affair continues….

Wild Wild West

‘The West’ is one of the commonly used phrases back home. The developed West, the quality conscious West, the West of fairness & equality. Where there is dignity of labour and no one starves. Where there is almost no corruption. Where things run on time & people keep their promises. Where things happen 20 years before they reach our shores. Where there are more cars than people. Where children earn their pocket money & move out of their parents’ home before they are 20. Where people prefer divorce to a life of forced togetherness. Where sports other than cricket can be a profession (!), where getting a shirt laundered is more expensive than buying it, where sunny weather is good weather & people think of chicken as vegetarian food. The accent is all the same (basically Brit).. (okay this changed after the wave of American sitcoms filled our evenings)…

They are all the same. Blond hair, blue eyes (okay maybe even green or grey, but really just blue for us), tall and strong. One mass of whiteness with highlights of pale blue and corn yellow and a great life. The West.

Okay so this is a dramatic way to say it, but not completely untrue. Back home, I really did think of the West as one large lump. At most, you could say that Europe was the classier, more expensive version & US was the more commercialized one. But that is about it in terms of being able to see the diversity in the ‘West’.

And as I have realized before, the closer you are to the ground, the more chance you have to appreciate the variety. I realize that grouping all of the Westerners together is as pointless as deliberately clubbing Punjus, Tams, Bongs & Gujjus in the same basket.

I can hardly claim to know all the intricacies of how the different people in the ‘West’ differ. But atleast I have now the awareness that they do. If I keep my eyes & ears, and more importantly, my mind open, I will understand these people better. I will probably abandon the use of the word ‘West’ too :). Learning action item # 1657568, urgent & important!

Let's make things better

I have heard somewhere, ‘the human mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled’. So true. Our mind is not limited in what it can learn. There is a whole wide world to explore, things to pick up, things to ponder about and as important if not more, things to be able to lose, fashionably known as unlearning.

In the series about my experiences in this new country, I want to share with you a very important attitude difference that I have not ever read in a culture studies book. The attitude that stems from security, that allows you to divorce yourself from what you do and be able to look at your own work objectively.

When I was in India, I had heard that people in Finland work on a single project for months on end. Sometimes it can even be a few years. My reality at that time told me, they will be passionate about that project, will know everything there is to know about it, but will be super protective about it too. I told myself, never ever mention to a Finn that your project is useless/ outdated/ waste or anything even a fraction as insulting as these words. Cmon, this was what he is doing for so long, calling it worthless will be like calling him worthless!

Right? Yes, they are passionate and know everything there is to know. They understand links, they know history, they get the technical, they’ve analysed everything in and around the project. They do a thorough job, no doubt about that. But they are not super protective about it. They are the first to admit when the project lacks in something (I wonder if that also comes by knowing it well) or if they have made a mistake or even if the project is irrelevant or outdated. They know that they are not the project, if it does well, great. But if it doesn’t, then they have failed, they are not failures.

It’s not the same back home. Self image is so linked to the work you do, that if someone criticizes the work, they are insulting you personally. You are your work. It has probably the biggest part to play in who you think you are, and what others think of you. Ofcourse you have to protect it. At the cost of being defensive about your work. At the risk of being trapped inside an ivory tower. Jeopardising the work or the company. Putting your learning on hold. Guard it with your life, lest someone should correct you.

I don’t want to be listing what all India does wrong. I just want to try to learn the best things about this new culture. I want to be secure and objective like these people (whoever they are, Westerners, Finns or my company people). I want to be learning each day. I don’t want to spin my own web and get stuck in it. I don’t want to be the personification of the ‘not invented here’ syndrome. I want to take risks, and I want to be able to fail well. Gracefully accept my ‘developmental areas’ and not euphemise them. It’s for no one else’s benefit, but for my own.

So here’s to one new realization and one new unlearning. I don’t have to carry around the legacy of defensiveness. I can dump it somewhere, and breath in the fresh, cold, crisp air of being a secure worker, an open person and a constant learner.