how we learn

What a wild four months I have had. The research is finally over and so is the presentation. These four months are much like the 10 months I spent in Momentum Consulting (2004) working on the cement ACC project. Working like mad and meeting tons of people, connecting with them, hearing their stories and understanding their relationship with the category its takes a lot of out you, both physically and mentally. In the run up to the presentation for at least ten odd days I couldn’t sleep properly. Not that was a stress of the bad type but more like Eustress. Stress that helps you perform helps you do better. One of the things in Momentum was a constant pressure. And I remember working till the last minute trying to get the presentation in order. We would think and work and sleep in front of the laptop and then get up and work again. I hardly saw my daughter or my family. This would be on till the actual presentation. We would also be working during the breaks, trying to improve the presentation. Obviously this gave us no time to improve the look and feel of a presentation. The presentation I remember making was black text on white background. In the super final presentation, I had some time to make a small ‘gussa meter’ where I showed the rising frustration of the home owner. But still nothing much.
This time I was determined not to repeat the mistake. The presentation was on Wednesday and I wanted to finish everything before the weekend. I sat late, pushed hard, pushed everyone and I finished the core of it well in time to give us two full days to work on the look. And then a Friday to just make small corrections or modifications. It was done well in time. I relaxed on the preceding weekend and was relaxed as to the presentation in the run up to the D day. The only thing was how to avoid a backlash. How I must not step on toes, how to get the point across without getting defensive walls up. What a challenge. I wanted to call my God Dharen Chadhha and take his blessings before, but somehow I couldn’t. But after the marathon meeting which I presented for 12 straight hours, I could only thank him. It’s not just the technical side of marketing that I learnt from him that I used in the presentation. The equally important bit was handling 25 people on the other side.
Research presentations are notorious for being potentially volatile and hostile. You typically encounter closed and hostile minds. I remember seeing Dharen in such meetings, addressing concerns, keeping research sacrosanct, agreeing and convincing, accepting and moving and guiding the group. Invaluable lessons in managing board rooms. If Dharen with his vast knowledge and experience could be so humble in a group, can listen to the real banal of all arguments without being dismissive, can have amazing patience and a keen ear, then who am I ?
He was the first guys I called back. Thank you for teaching me so much. Thanks a lot; I learnt so much from you. I am sure my experience with Dharen has made me a better manager, marketing person and more importantly a better parent. He wondered – a better parent – yes sir, you taught me to open my mind, to read books, to understand various versions of truth. You taught me to think. That has made me a better parent. I don’t know if it has made me a good parent but it definitely made a better one.
I was so dam emotional talking to him. I could only mutter thanks and appreciation. But what a learning experience for me this whole presentation was. I was in charge, leading the brigade and being a Dharen on my own for the first time. 26 heads in the room, luckily not hostile but one wrong foot and the hostilities would have broken through. It took me some time to recover from that effort. Yesterday I woke up late wound up at around 2 from office, relaxed and lazed around only to catch sleep at around 9 pm. That was the first decent sleep after a long time. No lucid dreaming about presentations or research. Uff… it was fun … hectic but fun.

I see you

All my life I wanted to have specs. I thought having specs was super cool. I thought it made me look intelligent. I must have got my eyes checked a few times and secretly hoped for a number. Once when I was in 10th or 11th or was it the summer vacation in between, I got my eyes checked again. The rascal at the optician said ‘ya, sure’. Its .25 in both the eyes. Point 25 is not even a number. You don’t have specs if you have point 25. But hell, I got the specs. So my dad who was with me got a pair ordered. They were a thick round frame with some golden embellishments. Pretty funny looking I can safely say now. Also needless to add, I hardly wore them. My poor dad got a scolding from mom when we returned home from the optician. Mom was adamant that these were not specs and that this was a needless waste of money on a teen fancy.
She was right but I still was happy to get my specs then. Once the novelty wore out for me they lied in wait for some time. Once in college we celebrated formal day or something. I wore formals to college along with specs. Pretty corporate looking. Then suddenly as I was taking them off, they broke into two. Just like that. Broke into two. Oh shit. I was screwed. Not that dad would know. But just in case if dad asked for the specs, then what. Jasmine offered to fix them. She used araldite and fixed them sure enough. Whew. Close shave. So they still lay in dust for a few years more, till my brother broke his specs. So my mother asked him to take mine and get the glasses changed. Well. The araldite was stuck in a manner that the glass was also frozen along with. Great. Luckily enough years had passed since we bought the specs for me to escape severe admonishment. That was my last tryst with prescription glasses.
About a month back Jasmine generally was checking Jispa’s worksheets and she felt that Jispa was copying the stuff wrong from the board at a school. A visit to the ophthalmologist confirmed a .75 number in both the eyes. Oops. We went to the local optician and he confirmed the same. Now with both parents with excellent eyesight, no TV at home and no real reason – we wondered if this would somehow go away. Why is that we were quite not at ease for such a simple thing such as ‘your daughter needs specs’. I didn’t like it. The optician told us to come back after a month and check again. We promptly did so and got the same results. No magic here.
So now Jasmine called me to be present when we choose the frame. It seemed like a family thing to do. I don’t know what value I could add but I wanted to be there as well. My daughter’s first specs. The optician assured us that it won’t be her last and if we are lucky we wouldn’t be back in a month. Darn. So started the process of choosing the right frame. Jispa was clear she wanted rectangle frames. Jasmine being a mother promptly asked “your friend said?”. Ya sure. Like she would answer that question. No one , including a kid, would pick a bomb that said ‘your friend asked you to?’. No came the reply. How on earth can you possibly ask a question to any child that insinuates the presence of peer pressure. All of them obviously believe in independent thought. In fact most the time you, even in adults, you can only hazard a guess. No one will really admit.
Jispa also did not want a pink frame. Nor a black one. She was clear about her choice. We finally narrowed down to two and then finally to one. Great – the deal is done.1200 rupees with the frame glasses, and some special anti-scratch coating. Ok. With some luck I wouldn’t be back in a month. Though I am not betting on it.

here is here choosing the frame--

There started Jispa’s tryst with spectacles. Hers was a little more genuine than mine. I also guess it will last a lot more than mine. I guess post 40 I might accompany her.
I think we bunked another hypothesis – that Tv gives you specs. Jispa’s TV viewing is negligible and must be a small single digit percentage of the nationwide average time spent. She only read a lot. So while I can eliminate TV viewing in her case, I can’t eliminate reading. Possibly, I think, she read too much and didn’t see enough TV. Too much short distance and too little long distance must spoilt the eyes. Who knows?


I like this photo as well -