Zubin and Jerry's

I got tickets to the Zubin Mehta show featuring the Israeli philharmonic orchestra. Along with it were two supposedly famous vocalists as well. I took Jasmine along to witness something I used to always dream about. Wow the beautiful orchestra, some amazing singing with a tenor and a soprano and some outstaying music.

While entering I really felt weird. Since I had really decent tickets I was in the really decent que. All the others were dressed in their party bests and you had some in suits and blazers. Its amazing how for an Indian classical the people wear Indian traditional and for western classical they wear western formals. I find incredulous, the fact that people dress up for concerts, plays or even movies. I mean is that a social gathering or an entertainment event. Just wear your everyday clothes and run. I happened to be wearing a kurta on my denims. That too because I was wearing one the whole day. I must have been the only wise guy in Indian clothing. I was wearing them on my torn denims but changed on Jasmine’s request. The only thing that stopped me from wearing my shorts was the fact that I knew that all the parsi bawa bawi’s would be all well dressed. So I wore denims in deference to them. Well what the hell. On to the show.

I did not understand anything of it. I hardly even appreciated it. Now I know why I should never buy the tickets. Sure it was great music but all I could think about was tom and jerry. Well that’s all I associate classical western with. I could only visualize tom throwing stuff at jerry and jerry avoiding it. Until I heard Zubin Mehta I did not realize that Tom and Jerry has some good classical music. I now see Hanna and Barbera (creators of T&J you nitwit) in new light. Actually the person to thank for the music is Scott Bradley. Thank you dear Tom and Mr. Jerry for introducing me to culture.

Entertainment and sleep

I have become like dad used to be. I can’t keep awake for long. A late night movie and I just sleep through the end. We were with some friends in Matheran and I fall asleep. On Friday we had some friends over and while talking I just fell asleep. No sleep deprivation for me. The next day we went to see a play and I slept through a part of it. Oh god. Sometimes I even sleep in office. Catch a cat nap. That’s important. Any time is good. I am famous for dozing off in flights. Especially during landing. I guess that time one mentally tunes off and there’s really not much to do. Conversations typically stop. So the best thing is to doze off.

The play we went for was a kiddie play at Prithvi. Sanjana Kapoor who runs Prithvi theatre is doing a stellar job. Jasmine, Jispa and me and have seen atleast 15 odd plays (all kiddie) there. She has figured that a venue is only as alive as you want it to be. She has kept it alive involving all unlike the principle of selective exclusivity. She could have well and truly made it exclusively for the “higher order” of creative and slowly the place would have been teeming with left wing hot headed, bearded bull shitters. But the place has something to it. A character that’s unique. Lovely.

On Dussera we went to Girgaun chowpatty with Jispa. The idea was to see the Ravan burn. But since we were a little early we took tickets for the Ram lila that was being staged there. It was so silly and so badly hammed, organized and played out. The story jumped due to time constraints. The characters place themselves thanks to the mikes hanging only at some locations. I really can’t believe that they have a ridiculously low budget for something as big as this. If you plan well put a good show in place, do some decent PR then the crowd will definitely come in and pay good money. But what the hell, the audience which was from the cow belt was not complaining and they were having a good time. Who am I to complain? The theatre played out silly, I had a good time, Jispa did some TP and they burnt the Ravan in the end. Wheeeeeeee……

Hanuman and Ravan were the best of them all.
She loves to run -

Check this dude traveling - tin man would have been soo proud.

let me see if I learnt something from myself

I have been playing squash for around a year now and have hardly ever played doubles. Must have been around a couple of times. But I guess you can get the hang of the game pretty quick. Yesterday we were around four of us and we started to play. I was the minnow and one of the four was the reigning club squash champion. So I get partnered with him. The guy is so good that I figure all I have to do is to somehow return the ball when it’s in my territory. He will manage the rest. For some reason I focused so hard that I thought I hit some shots that I could never have hit ever. I had a large percentage of shots in. I think it’s just that I could not let the partner down. How can the reigning champion lose? I noticed what he was trying to play. He was playing front and he tried playing everything because I was weak. But that made him come too far back and he lost a couple of easy points. I think he would played better if he stuck to core game. Sure he would need to compensate a lot but if he trusted his partner a little more then he would got a lot more points. The match was more even teams with each team having a relative minnow like me. This time he was against us and I saw him do the same mistake. You lose your core, you lose. Period. It better to trust your partner and lose than to run all around trying to win it by yourself. Sure its supreme self confidence but, you will have to learn to trust your partner a bit more. Lose a bit but you definitely move up as a team. Steve Waugh used to do it while batting. He never shielded the tail from the bowling attack. If it’s a single to be run on the first ball so be it. Trust your men to grow up to the challenge and face the music. Immediately when I played the singles afterwards, the shots didn’t go as well, my percentage was bad etc. I rarely play squash to win. I really don’t care about the scoreline but in doubles I just cant bear to let the partner down. Just not acceptable. Let me see if I learned something from my self.

I suddenly realized that there was one thing that I have not done as a father in his rightful rite of passage. Every father is supposed to teach their kid cycling. Jispa wanted to learn. I kept putting it off but then I realized what I was doing. I took her out and taught her a bit. Two sessions and she was doing good. Life is better for the dad with training wheels but it was nice. I got to basically balance for a few seconds on two wheels before she gets back on the training wheel. But its good progress. I told Jasmine that she now will figure it on her own. Take her down during the school days and I will take her down during the holidays and we are done. My god, if she learnt cycling without me teaching her, I would have lost so much. It’s a good thing I realized in time.

wow that was deep

From October onwards our office has announced that all Saturdays will be off. That is a good thing. Sure I will miss wearing all my lovely t shirts to office. All the sexy dri-fits but, hell, it sure is fun to start the weekend on every Friday. And this is just what I want to re start teaching. I love teaching. I will reorganize my thoughts, try and think of a proper syllabus and start teaching. It’s a must.
Interaction keeps you young, energetic and on your toes. That’s the bets way to do it. A proper subject with proper studies and course material. No being lazy. Proper home work and proper assignments and pre reads and post reads. Well that’s the plan at least. It’s worth trying to put in place a discipline. I have changed over the last few years and it does reflect in my approach. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had remained the same over all these years. What was suited for a younger trainee is soo not suited for someone who is a little up on the ladder. To be truthful, I don’t think I had too much in me as regards emotional intelligence when I started my career. Right now also many times I feel exasperated with certain situations but at least now I would be much in control of them. Recognizing them is the first step to improving I guess. Many times you don’t even know what you are doing is wrong. That’s when a good coach helps.
What happens when you don’t have a good coach? The classical treatise Mahabharat has an answer. Do what Eklayva did. Assume that your coach is there with you. What would he say? What would he want you to do? How would he have wanted you to behave? In life your coaches come and go. They impact you on your life and then either you or he moves on. I have seen that if you remember the basics of what they have taught you, you can remember it regularly enough to behave as if he was there in the present with you. That itself will help you improve. You may not have the coach for all situations and fields, but it is surely quite easy to adapt the coaching from one field to another. Your cricket coach can teach you about handling people that will help you in office. Parenting can teach you about responsibility. Teaching can teach you parenting. Inferences can be got across fields. Many times when stuck I would imagine the best possible coach for the situation. Then I would try to think of what he would do, or want me to do. It could even be your father, sister, friend or anyone who might do better than you.
Coaching also helps you get better. When you try to talk to someone and listen carefully to what they are saying then you are only going to help yourself improve. Many times my ‘wisdom’ has come when I lest expect it. I wouldn’t even know of something I know unless I have said it. Then I think to myself – wow, now that was deep.
I am currently reading ‘Surely you are joking, Mr Feynman. Man, that book is crazy funny. The way these guys get exposure in the top colleges in US is amazing. I would like to have the option of sending my kid to a good college, that will help her broaden her horizon not restrict it. Open up. Read around. Choose stuff from outside your field. Feynman was a physicist, who took up a summer internship in Biology just to go to a different field. I’d love to do something like that. Just go around explore a few things outside your core area, outside your comfort zone.