Tag: Life

One Hour in a Packaging Line

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Recently, I had volunteered in my company for ‘Stop Hunger Now’ event. My company had tied up with ‘Stop Hunger Now’, an international NGO that gets food and life-saving aid to the world’s most vulnerable people. The goal was to pack 100,000 packets of food items for the needy. Overall, there was a need for approximately 1000 volunteers, who will be working on the packing lines. For each of the packing line, there was a need for a total of 10 volunteers per line, working for 1 hour shift each. Our company’s social impact team was planning to have 12 packing lines, and approximately 8 – 9 shifts to complete packing of 100,000 meals (Uncooked, dry food and vegetables). Each person had to volunteer to work for one hour… just one hour for this cause. Part of our cafeteria was cordoned off for this activity. I had chosen 2 PM to 3 PM timeslot. I and a few of my colleagues reached the registration desk at the appointed hour.

At the registration desk, they had a paper to fill our details. We saw a lot of smiling, excited people curiously taking a peek at the packaging lines. At the registration desk, they distributed us a cap for covering our head and then a pair of polythene glows. Just behind that table there was a partition frame that was partially covering the 12 long tables arranged in 6 rows and 2 columns with aisles in between. Each table was kind of a mini packaging line. They were playing music through a stereo system to motivate the volunteers. The whole place was buzzing with activity. A few of the people were busy replenishing the packaging lines by fetching food items from the store room. From the registration desk a volunteer led us to the packaging area assigning us to different packaging lines that needed volunteers.

At each packaging line, One person was opening and handing over the packet/ cover in which the food items will be filled, the next person was filling the packet with a cup of rice and a cup of dhal, the next person was adding a small amount of dried vegetables and the next person was putting a small sachet of minerals and vitamins mix to the packet. On either side of the table there was one person who was weighing the packets to make sure if they were within the desired weight range; if not they will add a little bit of rice to the pack to meet the weight requirement. Finally one person on either side of the table would seal the packet using an electric sealer. It was at this sealing location that I was posted for an hour. Beside the sealing location, we had to arrange the sealed food packets which then will be packed into a carton at 36 packets per carton. As I was being assigned to this work, I assumed that if I could seal one packet per minute, it will be a significant personal achievement.

Initially when I was assigned to the table, the person who was helping to seal the food packets during the previous one hour taught me how to seal the packets. After ensuring that I was doing the task correctly (by observing me for about 5 minutes) he signed off. For about the next twenty minutes, I was sealing the covers frantically like a humanoid robot. I was counting the number of packets that I was sealing and how was kind of curious to predict the number of packets that I will seal in one hour at this rate. Well in these twenty minutes, I actually did not know the contents of the very packets that I was sealing!!! At this juncture curiosity took over me and I paused for a minute to investigate the contents of the packets; that’s when I figured out that the packet contained rice, dhal, dried vegetables and a sachets. Then for the first time in that 20 minutes, I looked to my left to see what was all happening in that table. It was strange, even while doing such a small and mundane task, I got lost into my own world. And I was lost in achieving some goal (number of packets to seal) that had little importance in the larger picture. Even at this moment I did not get introduced to any of the other folks who were working at that table. I also noticed there was hardly any interaction between the other people at that table as well.

With every passing minute, I got increasingly uncomfortable due to sweat in my palms. I also kept a count of the number of packets that I sealed. I also kept thinking how life would be on an actual packaging line/ assembly line within a factory. We were working in an air-conditioned cafeteria, they were playing music to motivate us, people were doing a little bit of stand-up comedy as well and they were announcing the progress made through a loud speaker. None of this would be present in an actual factory. Also we were going to do that work for only one hour plus an added incentive that we were doing it for a good cause. In a factory, people would be doing this kind of work for hour’s together day in and day out. Surely the mental agony of being transformed into a temporary humanoid robot without much interaction with colleagues would be more than the physical pain incurred through working long hours. I wonder if Henry Ford would have thought about the negative impact on the quality of human life that his invention, the assembly line would have for ages to follow.

As my thought kept slipping into these kinds of internal deliberations, I was pulled back into the real world by the loud announcements about the progress being made against the target of packing 100,000 food packets. At the end of one hour, another volunteer took over the task from me. In that one hour, I sealed 153 packets. I had to rework on 4 of the packets because, I did not seal them completely the first time. I looked around for my team members and once they were also finished, we took a few snaps and selfies and proceeded towards the exit. As we were walking back to our work desks, I was thinking about the missed networking opportunity due to lack of interactions at our assembly line. More importantly I was feeling bad for the millions of people who work in much tougher packing/ assembly lines across the globe for years together. An hour after we got back to work, we got a mail stating that the initiative had met its target a couple of hours before schedule. I felt happy for volunteering for that initiative even if it was for only one hour.

One year of being a Vegetarian

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I missed writing about a personal milestone that fell on January 11, 2015. On January 11, 2015 I completed one full year of becoming a vegetarian (no animal products except milk and derivatives of milk). I never thought I would continue to be a vegetarian for such a long time. This has surprised both me, my family members and close friends as well.

Right from a young age, I was fond of eating non-vegetarian food. The fact that my mother was an expert at cooking and she was always interested in cooking new dishes for us was an added incentive. I was so fond of non-vegetarian food that in the three and half years that I lived in Hyderabad, except on Saturdays on all other days I used to have either Mutton Biryani or Chicken Biryani for lunch and dinner. During that period the concept of eating vegetables and leaves never appealed to me. There is even a saying in my mother tongue Tamil, ‘Konna Pavan, Thinna Pochu’ (If you a kill an animal it’s a sin; but if you eat it, you will be absolved of the sin).

During my college days, the most famous punch dialogue among me and my fellow non-vegetarian friends was, ‘Neenthurathula Submarainayum, Parakurathula Aeroplaneyum thavira maththadhu ellathayum sapiduvom.’ (We would eat everything that swims except the submarine and eat everything that flies except the aero plane). The most famous joke for me and my nephew was, ‘Eating non-vegetarian items is the most efficient way of eating vegetarian items.’

All these were about to change; only that I did not realize the sub-conscious change that was taking place inside me. I lived another three years in Bangalore continuing to be a non-vegetarian. In that period I got married and instead of eating non-vegetarian items in restaurants, I started eating non-vegetarian dishes cooked by my wife. And that’s where the seeds of change were sown. When I was a bachelor, I used to see only the non-vegetarian dishes at restaurants. I did not get to see how these animals were butchered. But when my wife started cooking for me, I had to visit the butchers’ shops at least once a week. There you get to see and experience all the gory details. For one, the live birds would be stored in cages in front of the shops. Every now and then, one of the shop guys would catch hold of few live birds and take them to the back yard. Within a few minutes he will come out with the butchered bird. After seeing these scenes as few dozen times, it became very difficult for me to ignore the fact that I am the reason that a bird had to be butchered that day.

Slowly I was losing the inclination to have non-vegetarian dishes. While earlier I used to give suggestions to my mother and/or wife on what non-vegetarian items to cook on Sundays or other festival days, now I was becoming indifferent to what’s being cooked. For a long time I was thinking about becoming a vegetarian at least for a short period of time. By this time, I had moved back to Chennai. One day as I was riding on my bike, I was about to cross a butcher’s shop when I saw live sheep being delivered to the shop (they were being unloaded from the truck and being pushed into the shop). Suddenly, one of the sheep was trying to escape and was about to run towards the road. One of the shop guys caught hold of the sheep and threw it very forcefully into the sheep. It hit me hard that it was non-vegetarians like me who are incenting butchers like him to throw those poor animals into certain death. Suddenly the statement, ‘I am not killing those animals’ that I used to justify myself seemed far from truth. I started hearing voices in my head: ‘Those animals are being killed to satiate the sadistic taste buds in your tongue. People like you are the reason why those animals are being killed. The foundation of health for your body is ultimate misery and merciless cruelty to animals.’

From here, it was only a matter fact that I give up eating non-vegetarian dishes. I chose January 11, 2014, the day of Vaikunta Ekadesi, an auspicious day for Vaishnavites as the day to discontinue being a non-vegetarians. Initially I was very skeptical that someone like me, who for more than thirty years has enjoyed eating non-vegetarian food could give up on meat, fish, crab, prawn and egg. I thought I’ll try for a brief period only and I was too confident I will not be able to do that itself. But as of today (28th January, 2015) I have not eaten non-vegetarian items not only in their direct form but in indirect forms as well (pastries, biscuits and puddings that contain egg).

While I don’t miss eating non-vegetarian food, there are couple of issues that I have faced quiet frequently. Since I do not eat even egg, I have to read the list of ingredients in packaged foods. Also my favorite bakery does not carry its entire line of pastries in their eggless form. Also when I attend family functions of close relatives, I run into an uncomfortable situation if they serve non-veg food; they feel offended if I say I have become a vegetarian and hence cannot eat non-veg food. I am not sure how long I will be a vegetarian. For now, I am proud and enjoy being a vegetarian.

Journey

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The Daily Prompt: Free Association

Write down the first words that comes to mind when we say . . .

. . . home.

. . . soil.

. . . rain.

Use those words in the title of your post.

There are so many words that comes to my mind as I think of these three prompts.

Home: Heart, Family, Happiness, Comfort

Soil: Life, Patience, Roots

Rain: Elixir, Joy, Water, Flood

But if I try to associate these three prompts with my life, the word that comes to my mind is, ‘Journey.’ Please continue to read on about my journey.

Like a child eating his favorite candy happily, I was enjoying the pleasant comfort of my home. Years flew like seconds which I could barely acknowledge or recognize. I was jealous of the eagles that were flying, the horses that were running and the fishes that were swimming. But I never made an effort to figure out if I was an eagle or a horse or a fish. Soon enough like a loose soil, I was swept away from home by the winds of change. No goal to pursue and no destination in mind, but yet I continued my journey.

And like a voyager lost in the sea, with every additional step I was more lost than ever. Every time I tried to make a course correction or return, hope triumphed over experience. Years passed and here I was; sometimes stuck on the root of plant or sometime stuck on a rock but always wondering if this is where I wanted to be. But one fine day, there was rain. A rain like nothing this loose soil had seen before. A rain that brought back the loose soil back to where it started from.

It looks like the journey is over. What is most valuable thing that I earned in this journey, is it fortune or fame? Is it love or legacy? It is the ‘experience’ that I gained in pursuit of all these. And in this journey I learned as much about myself as I have learned about this world. A journey with no destination to pursue but which leads to self-awareness is much better than a journey that leads to an intended destination but with no self-awareness.

All human beings are in their own unique life-long journey with no permanent destination. The journey is the only constant thing, all destinations are only temporary.  If I look back at my journey so far and have to assign an adjective to it, what would it be? ‘Interesting’. It was an interesting journey. It is an interesting journey and it will continue to remain so in future as well. The journey continues from another temporary destination.