piss on your problems

I was a sickly child. I used to fall sick often enough I took a lot of home remedies, ayurvedic medicines in addition to the normal allopathic medicines. I would fall ill every monsoon and my parents would be always remain worried about my health. Obviously I felt singled out by God especially because my brother was blessed with amazing health.

But all those years of being ill has had an amazing positive to it as I have become a dad. I can’t better relate to Jispa when she falls ill. I know what happening to her, what’s wrong, what’s the issue, what medicine can do what. I wrote before about how I know how to hold her if she is vomiting. Where exactly do you want to be comforted? How can Jasmine ever know? She has hardly ever vomited.

In office today people were talking about some ear infection and how to solve it. Oh that’s simple. You take your first pee in the morning and put a few drops of it in your ears. First pee? Had I lost it?

As a child one of my recurring complaints was a ear infection. Even today I think I have some remnants of this. In a smoke filled room like a pub or a bar (before the smoking ban) my ears would hurt. Even today when the AC vent in the car points at my ear, after sometime it starts hurting. As a kid my Ayurvedic doctor treated the ear infection by advising my dad to put a few drops of the first urine of the day in my ears. Embarrassing as it sounds, it worked like a dream.

Since Jispa swims so much, last to last year she got an ear infection. Jasmine went to the ear specialist who put some medicine in the ear and bandaged it and asked Jispa to stop her swimming for a few weeks. It went away. Last year when Jispa complained of ear ache, we realized she had an infection in the ear again. She couldn’t afford to miss two weeks of training. I suddenly remembered by childhood and told Jasmine that my dad would put a few drops of my first urine in my ear. We tried that on Jispa for a few weeks and voila… infection gone. All you have to do is put a few drops in your ear in the morning and then sleep a few minutes while it’s in, then put some cotton and go about your life.

Jispa did not even miss a day of training this year because of an ear infection, thanks to this remedy.

Moral of the story - You may be in shit for now, but who knows – when you grow up you might benefit from being in shit for now. In ways you can’t even begin to imagine.

zen in the art of mopping

The humble mop. This is the secret to a happily married life. Believe it.

My maid has taken a month off. She has gone to her village to get her son married off. Basically there are two important things she does, washes and then keeps the vessels in place, and then brooms and mops the floor. So in her absence the pressure is on us to do the same.

I think in the middle I had gotten into a negative frame of mind at home. I probably refused to see the work at home and I would possibly not help out as much, possibly I was tired or pre occupied, or just plain blind. But I never saw the work and now in hindsight I agree that I was not much of a help. This time around I was determined to be a better spouse around the house.

I think in the middle I had an unjustifiably large ego about myself. I thought I was helpful and did a lot of work. But I had gotten into a bit of pride doing it, which I now see and realize. So I picked up one thing on doing while reaching home. THE MOP.

Normally I would have hated mopping the floor. The way the maid does it by bending over and using a swatch is impossible for corporate backs like ours. But with the introduction of our house to this brilliant mop has made mopping very simple. This is a lovely magic mop. You just wet it, then squeeze it with the handle provided and start mopping the floor. I love going in lines, tile by tile and cleaning the floor.  The floor then becomes squeaky clean.

I think that’s the secret of my new found happiness. I don’t mind mopping the floor. The clean floor acts like a beautiful feedback. Keep mopping and keep seeing a clean floor. I was explaining to Jispa that while one cleans the floor one must do even a simple activity like this with pride and not miss a single spot. Tile by tile you cover the entire house and keep it spotless. I told Jasmine “you know what, I really don’t mind doing this.” And then I thought a while and rephrased. “I don’t mind doing this if I had the money to have a maid to do this. I would definitely not be happy mopping the floor if I did not have the money to hire a maid for this”. Jasmine and I had a good laugh on this. It’s probably true. There are a lot of things we really don’t mind doing or even possibly enjoy, but they are really fun doing if you do them by choice and are not forced into doing it. Don’t we all humans essentially want choice?

Talking about choice, I read an interesting book “the art of choosing” by Shreena Iyengar. One of the points she makes is that while choice what we seem to crave for, too much choice can be bewildering to the point of paralysis. She ran a famous experiment where she presented shoppers with a variety of jams to taste and followed with discount coupons for redemption. The findings were clear - The higher the variety offered, the lesser was the redemption rate.  She also says that while we don’t want that much choice, many cultures don’t even care for choice. Possibly Asian cultures defer to higher authority and want the choice to be made for them. You are the smart guy with all the authority, you should know better than me on these choices.

Listen to her TED talk here

It’s a very profound learning I have had. NOT ALL PEOPLE WANT CHOICE. I have struggled with some of the members in my team. No matter how much autonomy you give or force upon them, they would like to defer to you for your decision. At first I thought they were merely scared to make the choice. Now I think otherwise. They are just not trained or mentally tuned to make choice. You being the boss must choose. They probably see deferment of decision as a weakness. Why can’t you choose if you are the boss? Or your choice is obviously the right one, why should I change my world view. I think once I changed my view on this issue, I got a lot less worked up by this lack of decision making. I tackled it as a cultural issue and not as a personality issue. It’s been much easier then. I can handle this much better, and I can direct much better. My exasperation levels have surely gone down. And yes, possibly I have become a better husband, father, friend and an easier human being to relate to. Possibly… but then again…

State of the sport

This is a photo graph of the Swimming pool at Balewadi at Pune. This is where the state trials where held and where Jispa participated to win her relay gold. Beautiful isn’t it? Lovely infrastructure. This is part of the larger sports village. There are separate arenas for different sports. Coming at the first seemed like a cultural shock. We first passed the athletics track. As I walked ahead I realized that it was just the warm up track. The main track and stadium was elsewhere. Wow. Two synthetic tracks? Not bad. Then you have badminton, weightlifting and even an AstroTurf practice hockey ground. Pretty cool. I thought India has finally arrived. We stayed at the business hotel that is within the sports village area. We were recommended to stay here even though there were athlete hostel facilities. And since all our friends were staying here, we didn’t mind too much.

So we first enter this massive aquatics stadium to be greeted by a huge spectator stand (rightly facing east) and massive swimming pools. See the picture. In front is the main swimming pool with starter stands on the left and right, full out 50 mtrs, touch pads on the left for finishing, a massive digital board, a huge diving pool on the right with platform and spring boards, then a full size fully equipped warm up pool (or an extra pool for heats) at the back of the main pool, and the best of all, a cool down pool at the extreme left. You can see it behind the shamiana, and of course the lovely stands with colored bucket seats. There are even the shower and washroom facilities for the athletes in the structure you see next to the warm up pool on the right. Nice infrastructure, thoughtfully built and definitely spent a bomb.

Then you see closer. The water you see is green in color. That’s not photo tricks. Its actually green and dirty. So bad that you can easily see the bottom. So the swimmers really need to look hard to know when it is time to turn. The filtration is clearly not up to mark. Then see the diving pool on the right. Here the water is so bad that you can’t even see the floor. All you see is a green patch of water with some crap in it. then you see the seats, dirty and unclean. Everyone has to wipe the seats before you sit. And of course the loos. No water in the loo or in the showers. None. The taps are bone dry. So even if you have to go potty, do be smart and carry a toilet paper. And if you feel hungry or thirsty – no food, no canteen, and yes no water coolers. afterwards i saw one table behind teh stands selling boiled egg, pastries and some poha and bottled water. So much for nutrition. And no detailed schedule of events and no commentary of events. My GOD.

We spent all the money on building the infrastructure and now we have no money to keep in decent shape. Even for the prestigious state level championship meet. What on earth is going on?

On another day I asked Jispa, “When you swim in the competition can you actually see left or right if your competitors are ahead of behind you?”. “ya, ofcourse, I see them and I know if I am ahead or behind”, she answered, “but in this Pune competition, the water was dirty and I couldn’t see anything”. There, Maharashtra state’s top event is held at the top stadium in an elite sports complex and the water is so dirty that you can’t see the other swimmers.

And yes the touch boards. You would have guessed out by now that they don’t work. But the fun part doesn’t end there. Not only did they not work, but on the second day the competition was delayed by around two hours thanks to them. Well how can not-working boards delay the event? Because these non-working boards gave an electric shock to one the participants and they had to delay the event to figure out and solve the problem.

Indian sports is clearly in safe hands.

Feeling wanted or not?

This weekend we took Jispa (a few other friends joined in) to Esselworld. Esselworld is an amusement park that has largely not reinvented itself since it first opened… when did it open? Around 20 years ago, I assume. I don’t remember too many changes in the park since I first went there as a college kid. That was a fun thing to do. Go with the gang, and of course your girlfriend. You like bumping into her when you sit at the dodge’em cars or at the rollercoasters. It surely was a nice place to be away with your friends or girlfriend in the good old days. Today at best what I can say about it… it’s a neat place. It’s not a dirty place and over the years, I don’t think it has gotten out priced and expensive.

But for me most of the rides have been completely closed to me. I can’t handle any ride that takes people in circles. Any circle. Even the sweetest, cutest and slowest of merry go rounds can get me queasy and likely to puke within seconds. I can handle rollercoasters with jumps and dives and stuff but just nothing round. The worst ride for me will be a simple cup saucer ride. The whole ride goes circular and then the cups inside of it also goes in circles. YUCK. Jamsine is blessed. She can happily go for any of these rides and come out smiling or even bored. Jispa takes after her. She too can handle as many circles as these stupid rides throw at her.

We have taken Jispa a couple of times to Esselworld before. The last was about three years ago. I remember her enjoying the rides and I remember me enjoying being with her. She would round and round on the merry go round, and I would be the stupid father, going “aaaaa” and “booooo” and “ wheeee” from outside the enclosure; shaking my hands wildly to get her attention and get her to smile. Then we would put her on one silly ride after another, spending good family time.

This time around at the entrance I should have known of what lay in store for me. At first, I had to shell the full adult fare for her. ‘HUH?’ Full fare? Wow. She is now above 4ft 6in, which means she is now a full price ticket with access to almost every adult ride. She beat it by a good two / three inches. Cool. Inside, it wasn’t as if papa would be taking her everywhere. She was going everywhere on her own with her friends. The ones that go in circles for sure, but I was quite amazed how she was completely at ease on her own in the dodge cars. She got into the car alone and she drove it all alone. Wow. How did she learn to do that? Elder kids struggle with the cars. Invariably there will be one adult stuck in the end with the car not moving. Without any instructions she was driving steering and banging into everyone perfectly. She was aiming the dam car right.

(thats her in the grey cap and jacket on the right)

Then followed the roller coaster. There too she was on her own. Who needs dad? So was for the tornado and the big splash. DONE. I told Jasmine, DONE. I am not going to go to Esselworld anymore. I always hated the rides, I hardly had two three rides which I could sit on; I went for spending time with my kids and here, I was completely …. not required. Really. It was so bad that in the middle I actually slept off on the bench.

Jispa is now growing up, no… Jispa has now really grown up. It’s difficult, but the faster we recognize that the better it is for us and her. Both Jasmine and I need to step off the pedal and let be free. The good old adage comes to mind – Permit where you can, protect where you must. Easier said than done.

Yesterday at night while she was going off to sleep she was protesting to me. She wants to enjoy her vacations but we are making her do half an hour of writing and then some tables and some Hindi. All that her school teachers asked us to do. I explained to her that she is now grown up. Her teacher wants her to write fast, as that’s the only thing that an issue with her. Her teacher says that next year, she won’t have the luxury of time. Her Hindi teacher wants her to improve her vocab so she must read a few Hindi books. And math tables are a bloody must – its even part of her summer homework.

I explained that – she has now grown up. I explained that she was on her own at the amusement park, wasn’t she? She doesn’t really need dad anymore in the same way. Thus she has a lot more freedom and a lot more power, and with it comes responsibility.  No option. She needs to study her stuff and write fast if she wants to do anything in her life. I explained how 100 mark papers have to be finished in two and a half hours. She needs to write fast. Then she asked me a basic question, why do you give less time in the exams. Errr? “Good question Jispa. I also don’t know why there is less time in an exam. Why would you need to write so much in so little time? I also don’t believe it”

Why do we have these stupid exam formats? It’s not like one more hour will make a bad student. Why are evaluated thus? Do we need a written pressure exam to separate the wheat from the chaff? “sorry Jispa, that’s the way it is. You will have to write fast for sure. And tables…. Tables are amongst the most important thing you must learn. Here I can help, by taking them up and making you learn, but rest… you are on your own in many ways. You will have to do the stuff”. “ok dad”.

What to do. I can’t understand why they still give dictation and notes in class. Just explain eth stuff, give out the notes and give us home-work and stuff. Why should we write notes in class? Why? I remember writing notes like crazy in school and college. There were limited text books, especially in B school, no internet and definitely no money to get the notes copied. But now all this is standard. But hell, we will still write and then we will insist on good handwriting and give limited time in the exams. What yaar. Come on. This shit must improve. How long can the education system lag. We are teaching kids to only expect questions from question banks. We are teaching them to learn by rote and we are definitely pushing them not to ask too much.

On asking… Jispa was asking me about my job. I was explaining marketing to her. How marketing should work and the role of marketing as opposed to simply advertising. How we must benchmark to the best across industries etc… and one topic was left to be answered. I have to explain to her this week about Sensex and Nifty. She heard it on TV once and she made a mental note about asking her Daddy. Finally I am suddenly feeling important after all. Dad seems to be in demand and of value. Otherwise the bloody Esselworld experience was leaving my self worth and self esteem in tatters.

Its the chair

Its really quite funny. The head of marketing in a 250 man company is different from the head of marketing in a 4,500 man company. I have been head of marketing for a long time now. The roles kept expanding and now in my current division which has around 4,500 employees, I am the head of a department. And here I am being made to feel like one. If you have read some of the old blogs you would know that here I have a largish cabin to sit in. I think the visibility that it gives others about me is something very very different. Like I was telling someone, this can get to your head. It can bloat your already expanded  ego. It takes effort to be level headed. Simple stuff can be seen. People look with some amazement that I drive only a hatchback. Now that can mean two things, either I am a really simple humble guy or I am a stingy miser. I guess I must be getting equal measure of both. The other day, I did not get my car. I was about to catch a taxi to go home, when I saw a colleague of mine leaving at the same time. So I offered him a lift. He pointed to the company bus which takes people back to the train station in the evening from the office. Ok, what the hell, let me hop on to it today. The station is on the way home. I was the last one in climbing the bus while it left. As soon I boarded it, I felt a silence. For a few seconds all eyes were on me and the bus fell quite. The receptionist who was sitting at the front, looked at me and remarked “sir, the first time some senior person like you has come on our bus”. I just smiled, shrugged and walked on. Two three remarks “you, sir, are in this bus?”. “err, ya”. I just took the seat at the end and felt like a Chinese doll at an exhibition.

I must be the only hatch back to be given a designated parking slot in the company. For an overcrowded place like Mumbai, I must have really achieved in life to get this slot. So when I once got my sedan, which normally Jasmine uses to office, the watch man loved it and even remarked “Sir, nice, this car is good. It suits you”. I could only smile back in response.

I think we humans area  show off society. We like segregation. We like us and them. We like to show off our feathers and mane and other forms of success.

All this can get to you if you are not careful. In one of my earlier avatar, I was easily one of the most powerful people in the mutual fund industry in India. It was because of a default. My business head who was really the most powerful man (because his decisions could swing the future of the fund houses) would refuse to meet any one from the industry. SO the only way to him was to convince me and everyone in the industry would meet me. The same guys would get their CEO’s as well as their fund managers to meet me and try their best to talk to me. I would have meetings lined up, one after the other meeting these guys. It was tough but I think I never managed to get heady. My immediate boss Prakash Dalal and my colleague Suman who taught me about the industry, always maintained a level head and I , I think, followed in their footsteps. So I tried to remain level headed. I always maintained, that they are not here to meet me or respect me. They are here to meet and respect the chair I have, I sit on and that is not mine. It belongs to the company and I am nothing compared to it. This attitude kept me level then and it keeps me level now. When the bust followed the boom and slowly that job lost its importance, fewer and fewer people came to meet me. Slowly the role got swept into oblivion and I moved on. I was right. They only wanted to meet the chair.

Sure enough I must have gained some respect. I treated people right. I never kept them waiting and I tried to be honest with them. At the same time, I was a tough negotiator and I extracted every penny till the very end. They probably realized that as well. I have many acquaintances from that period but almost no friends. A sales guy who has come to pitch to you is not likely to be friends with you for life. He is focused on the job and his smile, manners, discussion is focused. I don’t think he has the time or the inclination to court you beyond his scope of work.

I have had friends from my marketing side of my work. Agencies, vendors etc. Some people for whom immediate sale was not the priority. Slow happy relations that translate into sales, perhaps.

So here I am sitting on my chair with hope that I never lose sight of it. I should never ever think that this is my ass doing things. The sun doesn’t shine off my ass. It shines off my chair and that my ass is on it is just a coincidence. It fools most people. They think it’s their ass. But no, believe me, it’s almost always the chair.  

Thats my chair.i have given up on the normal office chairs with wheels and reclining back support after facing severe lower back pain. I love my chair and i am thankfull to my earlier division that allowed me to bring this chair along with me when I moved. Thanks Agnel, you are an angel.

first in the family

Well…  the story was so big that I never got around to writing the whole thing. At the start of the month, Jispa finally completed in the annual state level swim meet. She was never in the medal hunt and we were there largely for the experience. Her coach said that this was a stepping stone meet for her. Her big chance should come two years hence. She had started competitively coaching only quite late and her strokes still needed to be worked upon. But nevertheless she qualified by virtue of being in the top four for the relay championship. Here I was pretty confident on her winning. I think she was as well. This was a dream team and the difference between the swimmers was very narrow. I think it was around a second and a half within the team. It was an ace swimming team. They won gold. So here…..

That is Jispa’s first gold medal of real consequence. We are proud parents for sure. A nice top off to a tough year. We had the coldest winter ever and we woke up on time in the mornings and went for swimming. She really swam a lot and worked hard. Well done Jispa.

You know, the funny thing is that the feeling is just sinking in. Slowly slowly as time is passing by funnily I see myself getting prouder of her achievements. Suddenly at various places I let it slip that she is a state level swimmer or she is a state level gold medalist. Yes she won gold. No matter how much matter of fact I can attempt to behave, the fact is that it’s a great achievement. I know my dad would have been really proud. It is he who instilled the value of sports in my life. He always encouraged sports and games. I owe to him that I still want to play constantly and that I see sports as an investment. Jispa and I laughed like hell on Jamsine’s expense. We kept telling that her side of the family has no one interested in sports. They are champions in eating pani puri and ice cream, not playing sports, or anything that’s got to do with moving your butt anywhere. Hehehehe. Jasmine is going to kill me.

why cant i just play ball

Every night before sleeping, Jispa will come to me and make a baby face with Bambi eyes – ‘will you please put me to sleep?’. And like the sweet dad that I obviously am – I will get up and lie down beside her till she sleeps. I did this all of last year. She had to wake up for school or for swimming sessions. This would be early so it was important that she sleeps early enough and if that required me to spend some time with her, so be it. Many times, I would be so tired that I would simply fall asleep next to her while getting her to sleep. Jasmine would come in and wake me and I would amble half asleep to my bed. In summer Jasmine figured that our room was cooler than the room Jispa sleeps in. So Jispa slept in our bedroom for most of the summer. So now with the monsoon cooling life in Mumbai a substantial bit, getting Jispa to sleep all alone is going to Be a big task.

Her school vacations just started. So I decided that this is as great a time as any for inculcating ‘good habits’. A few days back she came in again with her Bambi face and asked if we could put her to sleep. I refused. Whoops. I was the best daddy in the winter. I would always have time for my daughter to put her to sleep. I would never say no and now I was the meano. Oh God. Such is the fickle nature of parenting. All I could do was explain to her. “Jispa, you are now old enough to sleep on your own. The full year I agreed as you were to wake up in time for school or swimming class. Now you have your vacations. You must learn to sleep properly and on your own”. Fatherhood is about being soft and tough as the demand is. I would have to draw the line but also explain it. I thought as a child most the time I was simply shown the line and was expected to toe it. I wanted to know why. So with Jispa, as a dad I too have to draw the line, but at least I try and explain it to her.

Here is an interesting article that explains what a father gives the child – persistence. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120615103529.htm . How? Well it argues thus…

"This research also helps to establish that traits such as persistence -- which can be taught -- are key to a child's life success." The key is for dads to practice what's called "authoritative" parenting -- not to be confused with authoritarian. Here are the three basic ingredients: 1. Children feel warmth and love from their father -- 2.Accountability and the reasons behind rules are emphasized—3.Children are granted an appropriate level of autonomy

I think it gives mothers the short end of the stick here. It puts all the focus on the father. Definitely as a father I am not complaining but mommies too are equally responsible for the above. But yes, as parents we have a role to play in teaching ‘persistence or whatever.  Basically the three principals are well said. Once you explain your reasons for what you approve and disapprove, you also have to give your child an appropriate level of authority. And I love the distinction between authoritarian and authoritative parenting. Its interesting. But also between the two of us, I think Jasmine taught me to be a bit more relaxed. I think I was far too possessive of her. When she first went by lift all alone in the building, it was on Jasmine’s ok not my. When we first left her to play down, unsupervised, it was at Jamsine’s ok, not mine. There are many such instances. Jasmine all tries her best to drive accountability and explain the rules. But you know… moms will be moms… they are ones to always say ‘just’ on questions that kids raise. I guess the more time you spend with your kids the more you are inclined to say ‘just’. How much patience can you have?  So dads have an additional advantage and corresponding responsibility. Since we are the ones away most of the time we need to have infinite patience and teach ‘persistence’. Oh dam you. All I want to do is play ball with my kid.