quit

I had a skype meeting at 8.45 am today. So I was telling Jispa to hurry up as I drop her to school. I told her I have a meeting and I was getting the car to zip. She looked at me and asked me what I was doing in jeans and a t shirt if I had a meeting. I told her that I have meetings every day and I don’t need to wear formals for all meetings. She understood and she was asking me why I bother wearing formals at all. Jeans are so comfortable. ‘shouldn’t you wear what you are wearing everyday rather than being who you are not’. Yup I agree with her completely. I can’t understand formal clothes. I find them so bloody irritating. People should wear what they want to wear. I had no real explanation on why we have formal clothes culture in office. Why should we force people to wear formals? People should wear what they wear regularly and what they work the best in. Formals are definitely not it.

I quit. I quit wearing formals. I can’t handle any more formals… please.

Fine… I am getting carried away. But I really want to quit wearing formals for good. I am inspired by the this quitting thing. I was listening to a podcast of a Freakonomics episode where they explain the upside of quitting. It’s quite interesting. They say that people normally gravitate towards an average happiness of 7 on 10. No matter how bad shit has hit you or how much you might have been luckily happy. Over a period of time – you hit a 7. So if you want to quit – great – do it. It doesn’t matter. You will hit a 7 in no time. It also talks about why you must quit something fast. If it’s not working for you then you must quit fatafat. It saves you so much time and effort.

I look at Jispa – now this is going to be severe – I hope Jispa you understand what I mean here. Jispa has been swimming for many years now. It has defined her and her identity. She defines herself as a swimmer. She has hit state level but has yet to break it into the nationals. She trains hard and long but – when I see her and I see the others – it’s there to see. I think that for now – this is her level. It would take an extraordinarily large amount of effort for her to break further in swimming. I would want her to quit and take up something else. Something other sport, some reading, some cycling or whatever else that catches her fancy. India does not have swimmers and a swimming culture nor the infrastructure. To break through I would have to send her abroad and across the world to learn more. Then she needs to forget studying or anything else. Too much to go nowhere… and most importantly she is giving up her childhood for this.

Kids can grow up and blame their parents that we did not push them enough. This is a double edged sword. Do I push them enough so that they don’t really love their childhood or should I push them so hard so that they achieve what they are meant to achieve. What to do is a mystery. But one thing we must teach them – which is the most difficult thing to do – is to quit. Quit when is not going for you. Quit when you don’t like it. Quit when you think its enough. Quit when you think that inspite of everything you may not make it. Quitting is a thing we don’t really like,. We have been taught to go for it, to push, to never see reality. The top industry titans carried along and refused to quit when everything was against them. They kept going. Tales of champions are filled with messages of don’t quit. When the going gets tough the tough get going. Whoever heard of when the going gets tough – take a reality check.

I wish Jispa quit swimming. I wish she spent that time reading, watching movies, roaming endlessly. I wish she picked up another sport, played some tennis with me or badminton. I wish she quit and started something else. She has achieved far more than what I dreamed of. She represents Mumbai for heavens sake! What more. She wants to hit the nationals once. Once – she says. Oh god. I hope it happens fast – for her. Then I hope she takes on something else, till she finds something she really enjoys – like swimming perhaps :)

loose talk and love

It’s difficult to deal with the bitch in office. Human tendency is to bitch and find a common ground to bitch on. People like to bitch. Often associated with women, men too bitch like crazy. But somehow I have seen more women bitch about than men. I think men play the games that are more virulent than the women. They get Machiavellian and start plotting. Actually all this I think is ultimate Bull S. I think men/ women – they are all similar. They all bitch, they all talk ill about others and all try to find common bitch stories. It’s pretty painful in office when they bitch about you and amazingly fun when you are bitching about someone.

Till a few years ago I too was quite affected by all the bitching that was going around. I too wanted to be loved. To be loved is an interesting but not universal tendency. I have seen guys who don’t care about being loved. They are way too much in love with themselves. They think that they are it and that people should naturally love them or don’t even care whether people love them or not as, long they fulfill their own objectives. And then there are the others who want to be loved. It affects them if people don’t love them and don’t understand if people don’t love them. Why would you not love me? They are on the ones who like to give love to their fellow beings and be nice to all around them in the hope that the people will love them back,. These are the guys who we call the nice guys and as in most real life stories… nice guys finish last. These are the guys who invariably get upset when people don’t like them and talk ill about them… after all that they did for everybody – why would they get this shit.

I was the latter. I always wanted to be loved. Then life teaches you a lot. I think fatherhood, public service, jobs and generally interpersonal relationships taught me that no one has a guarantee on love. Nothing is compulsory – no love is generally expected form anybody. I learnt that I cannot be the first type and the second type is really up for a disaster. There is a third type. Love for the sake for love. Love that is in essential selfish. I love because I love to love, because that is the thing that makes me happy. Getting love back is also happy but you can’t expect it and you don’t when you are going to get it back. Of all the people you love some will hate you for it, some will call you a fraud and some … some are worth all the trouble. They are ones who give you a lot of love back. But the timing is also in your hand. I see a lot of my kids every year grow up. Some kids keep in touch and some just drift away. Some in some vague ways give a chance to feel their love and some just go away… and you can’t predict one from the other. So the only policy is simple – love all, but stay nicely disconnected from all that love.

This is difficult. Can you love without expecting anything back? Is that real love? Can you have the intensity without expectation? This is the real test but it’s impossible for me to follow. I can preach it but I cannot live up to it. So I have found another way around this. I love, I expect but I don’t let the expectation burden my love and my loved ones. It’s easier around the office and society but of course more difficult when the intensity cranks up in office. But I am learning every day, I promise you that I am learning every day.  I am trying my best and it has helped. When you do something because you love someone and because you expect something back from your loved one – then believe me – the loved one rises to the occasion and give you a lot back and loves you amazingly well. This is the truth – the bets love is always the one that you get unexplained. The love that is there because it’s there (sorry Mallory).

That helps deal with expectations and of course frees the loved one from the burden of your expectations. They are free to express (or not) their love in ways that are unique to them. Sigh..

I was talking about office bitch and I landed here. On the office bitch – expect it no matter what. Laugh at it… have fun – they are humans after all and most of the time bitching is a way of team building and solidarity. Some are viruses that need to be removed – these are the negative people spreading the negativity… but largely the rest of us are well meaning bitches letting off a little steam. You can’t control so much in your life – if you can’t control your love and the love you get back – then what’s with these simple bitches….

sixers? mood pe hain.

After two years I played cricket. I had given up on playing cricket after my awe full knee that is impossible to contain on the field. So I was missing in action, till my building guys ganged up and gave me real emotional gyan for me to play in the team. This was the league organized between buildings in the complex.  The last time while batting my knee folded and it was impossible to do anything. This time I thought my knee had improved and I thought I could manage it.

It was obvious that these guys did not know much about field placement and when I took the field I could place the fielders correctly. And this one always works… when I change one fielder and ask him to move a little bit and the next ball comes directly down his throat for a catch. This one happened here as  well and the pretender was clear – I was to set the field and the others simply followed. And that was good fun. You choose who the good fielders are and figure where you want the better guys to stand – who might be a good runner to stop the boundaries and who might be good enough to stay within the circle and who is likely to take skiers that get hit…and of course where are the skiers likely to go to. All this without really knowing who really does what. I have met these guys just about a week back and I hardly got to play anything with them. Once just judges from body types and posture if the guy would be a boundary guy or an inner circle guy.

When I was much younger I wanted to bowl field and bat. Slowly I stopped wanting to bowl. I knew my limitations. I wasn’t too much interested in bowling in any case. With a bad knee and back – I had stopped bowling some time back. Also I hated this no ball issue. I would bowl amazingly well in the trials and the nets where there was no real issue of no balls but I would be horrible in a match situation. Here all hell would break free. I was forever scarred by one match where I kept bowling no balls. So it was only batting for me. Now as an old man – I did not want to go out to bat I was happy sending people one after the other. These guys wanted me to bat but I kept refusing in the two starting games. In a stupid four over game we lost enough wickets for me to go in. I promptly went and ran myself out. What else do you want me to do in the last over of a four over match? Next match I got myself bowled. I was out of touch. Then came the third match. this was against the top team.

Our team got me to place the fielders but we still had two captains. One guy who was the enthu guy who got the entire team together and another guy who was the good player who the other captain. Who was the captain? Between them they were making a mess of the bowling changes and the batting order. In a bloody four over game they were deciding the batting order and the idiots wanted to go one down or two down… same thing in the bowling – some idiot wanted to save his over for the last over as he was expecting some pinch hitting in the end. They actually take the logic of a 50 over match to four overs. In a four over match you just keep hitting. The best batsman come in first and then you use the best bowlers up front so that you take wickets and stop play. So in the third match some idiot gave the worst bowler the second over so that he preserves the best bowler for the last – that too against two in form rampaging batsman. They murdered us. I tried to switch the fielders a bit and get the field right. I got it spot on and got the field right – but all the shots went for sixers – right above the fielder I had kept. There were no boundaries… straight sixes. I was pretty irritated with these idiots.

So while batting first the opposite team made around 65 runs, with bowlers bowling no balls which went for sixes. I came off the field in a different mood. I asked who took decisions and people just shrugged. I saw the team highly demotivated and down. I just got really pissed and asked for the bat and went opening. And it was fun – I smashed two sixes! Then I was out but it set the tone – we still lost but respectfully.

I wondered what made me suddenly perform. It’s the same in badminton – I refuse to raise my game just for no reason. Why should i? I think I behave like this in office as well.  It’s difficult for me to keep my game at a raised level through the game, through the day or through the year. Something has to tick me off or tick me right or some stimulus. I have always been an aggressive person – very very aggressive but I have learnt that aggression is something people use against you. It fundamentally hurts us especially our own health and then it hurts all those around us.

But still I enjoyed. I still hit two more sixers in the next game and I took one really good catch that I was proud of. The team wanted me to lead them the next year. That was fun. But who knows what is there is store next year. Let’s see. But that’s why I like the game. It teaches me a little about myself. And it keeps me constantly guessing. In one match we dropped 4 catches. I kept seeing what I could do. I kept looking around… the fielders were placed in the right places. The miscues were going to the wrong guys and the right guys were making the wrong mistakes. So that felt nice – thinking and making decisions and seeing the results. Once I saw the field, the batsman and thought to myself – oops – a mistake. But I realized it too late and I couldn’t change the field and the next ball went exactly into the area I knew was the hole…. Aaarghh. It’s a bitter sweet then. Bad because there was a boundary and good because you predicted it. hmmm….

I could be your hero!

With Jispa growing older it’s a big thing for me to adjust to her growing up. It’s not the same thing! I remember coming home and my daughter jumping in joy and running to hug me… we had a puppy at home! Now of course I believe she is happy to see me but it takes a large effort for her to show her love. She is growing up and I don’t know how to treat her. It’s going to take some doing from my side, to grow up at 39 and behave older :)

It’s been so much growing up after being a father. A lot of fun and pain and love and laughter and tears. I never did know that it would affect me so much emotionally. I remember the day I was in the room when she popped out from Jasmine. She was so small and she fit into my hands. Her head was smaller than my palm. I saw her eyes open as she was put on the weighing scale immediately after birth. And I gave Jasmine a hug and told her – its Jispa! We had the name ready for a girl!

Cut to when I traveled a lot. I used to get her a plastic spoon from the airline. She would be happy and I would be the cheapskate getting away by hardly spending a penny.

Cut to when she was so small that I would come home and insist that I would give her a bath. I would wash my legs and then place her on my legs while giving her a bath. The face I would leave for Jasmine.

Cut to when I would wake her up and take her to the loo in the morning to give her a brush and then give her a bath so as to get her ready for school

Cut to when I she would need me to sleep next to her when she did not get sleep and I would fall asleep alongside her and Jasmine would wake me up to sleep on my bed.

Cut to when she would wake me up in the middle of the night saying she had a bad dream and I taught her to solve it, and she would then wake me up when she couldn’t solve it

Cut to when I invented the naanu motu game with me being the naanu so that she had to hold me to take care of me and not the other way around.

Cut to when once I was dropping her to school and I slipped on the stairs and I was safe as I held on to her

Cut to when I first took her swimming with all her floats on

And cut to the point when she tried in vain to teach me tumble turn while swimming. I just couldn’t get my bearings right.

Cut to…. Me feeling emotional whenever I see this video below. It’s so difficult not to shed a tear. While of course these soldiers face grave danger while away from duty… a travelling sales man or even a corporate warrior on offsite hates to be away and feels so nice to be home and hug your family!

Here the bonus video – nice song – almost (if you remove some bits) a fathers song for his daughter. I would love to be your HERO

crow away

There are many things that as a child you imbibe and no matter what the mental make up many years hence, some things wont go.

My first tryst with a birds nest was in my granny house. In the good old days the deck up around the house consisted of having simple sofas and a panel that ran around the wall, around six inches from the ceiling. I think it was called the pelmet. In my granny’s house this pelmet ran all around the wall and not just near the curtains. It was on this pelmet that the pigeons and sparrows made their nest. They are irritating birds. The pigeons especially go coo coo through the morning and irritate you through the day. Pigeons like to make their nest inside homes as I guess they offer the best protection from the outside predators. It used to be made of hay and grass. My granny would try to keep the place clean and rid the house of the nests as they are being made. In variably one might just get made and before we realize it – an egg would be placed. Now we are Jains, we like to keep our house really really clean. The idea being that if you keep it clean, you won’t have the insects and birds coming in and then you won’t have to have the burden of removing them. The rule was simple – you keep clearing the nests so that they don’t lay the eggs. But once the eggs are laid, they you are done for. You have no option but to bear the dam thing. You don’t remove a nest in which the egg is laid. Once when my aunt was removing the nests from the pelmets one nest came out with the eggs and the eggs fell and broke. That time I saw repent on her face and she exclaimed, only if she had known. That was my imprint on how and when to remove nests. You have to keep removing them beforehand itself. Afterwards as a Jain you have no option.

I remember once the eggs were laid and the chicks came out. They were all scrawny looking ugly things. My mom woke me up early to see the nest and the babies inside. We would come in from Dubai not having seeing any animal life except the humble Camel. Even a crow, a pigeon or a sparrow was exciting and pigeon chicks…. Wow that was national geographic epic.

In our current house, we have three places where the nesting happens. One we managed to stop this year by putting a bird wire as that window was largely shut in any case. And now we have two places to manage. One near the bathroom window was where we had to let go last year as the eggs were placed. This year some determined work ensured the crows got wiser. The one under the big hall window is now the place where the some dour work is happening by the crows. It’s Jasmine versus the crows now. She keeps removing the nest and they keep building it. It’s an epic battle. They use metal wires to build the nest. They have adapted to all the construction activity happening in Mumbai to build tough metal nests which they later put soft feathers and material in the center cavity.  They weave the nest through the grill outside and make it very difficult to dislodge. Jasmine keeps removing the nest. She has to tug away and pull hard to get it out. while she does it, the crows (around eight she says) take turns to attack her. They fly away to the opposite building and then fly in crowing menacingly… kaw kaw kaw. Its an all out attack on Jasmine is pretty scared that they will peck her, so she gets her maid to remove the nest and she stands guard shooing the crows away. Over the weekend, Jispa was on guard. This week end they were especially prolific. They kept building the nest and we kept removing it. I think we removed the wires around 6 times in a day. Their season was really approaching. It was a fun battle. At eth endof eth weekend the pile of wire was three feet high. I also think the crows know whom to attack. They seem to attack less ferociously if I am around. I can remove the nest without external help. It’s crazy how fast the animals adapt. These crows know male from female and they have started using construction material. It’s like the militant monkeys at Matheran. They know whom to attack and when to attack. They go for the right foodstuff inside the bags, they like their colas and chips and candy!

It’s a fun thing!

pasta at the movies

We had a long weekend this time and we got a chance to catch up with the new Avengers movie. It was quite a disappointment. The story went berserk and the action went even weirder. Well what do you do when you have Hulk on your avengers team. The guy is out of control and indestructible. You can nuke him or shoot him or anything else. Anything you do only makes him madder! But what the hell. A movie that I could finally discuss with my daughter. She too thought it was a bit over the top. Then I tried to explain to her what the artificial intelligence they show is and how the basis of AI in the movie is in reality. It’s quite interesting how clued in good quality fiction writing is. They can take an idea from reality and close make it work with the story. Basically take the most simplest of future gazing and take it to its ultimate mess. Even hulk and the others were all products of the nuclear age where you needed to be radiated to  have super human powers.

Talking about radiation, when men discovered radioactive substances we went berserk. We thought that this is cool new scientific stuff and therefore lets sell it as the next best thing to sliced bread.  We put radium in toothpastes and even in water. In fact we sold a canister which contained radioactive substances mean to radiate the water before we drank it. Obviously people drank this to die! Don’t believe me – try this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Ore_Revigator. The revigator was the big thing in the 1920’s.

But forget that… yesterday I got Jispa to watch the movie ‘for a few dollars more’ with me. this was the movie I had loved to watch. It was a cult with the guys and Clint Eastwood was the ultimate cool hero with a billion dollars of attitude. This was Jispa’s first western and as I explained to her – it was her first Spaghetti western. These were called so as they were western movie produced with American actors but largely meant for the Italian market. They were shot without sound and then the lines were in Italian. The English versions were an afterthought. Released in 1965, these movies had an indelible impact on the movie loving public. And of course a ton of filmmakers. These westerns in their plot were inspired by the Japanese – especially Kurosawa and his band of films. We in india got inspired and made a few movies. One was a decent hit called Khotey Sikkey, which starred Firoze Khan in the lead and directed by Narendra Bedi. Narendra Bedi was the brother of my mom’s best friend and that’s why I knew some of this past story. It seems they all around the same time watched these westerns and decided to make movies. Narendra Bedi made Khotey Sikkey but the movie that created the maximum impact was – what else – Sholay. Sholay while being an absolute super grosser and a great movie – it still to my mind was a well made rip off. It seems to me that the villain in ‘for a few dollars more’ was an inspiration in many ways for Gabbar. The hairdo, the built, the beard, the laughter, the madness, the brooding – everything seemed so Gabbar in the movie. A la Gabbar, this guy too smashes insects on his hand, while brooding over. While I knew Sholay was inspired, watching this movie took a little sheen that I had in my head for Sholay. Of course Sholay was well picturised, they had some amazing dialogues, love story, music, everything… but still, it was copied.

Even the background score by RD was heavily inspired by the movie, the shots, the wide angle landscapes, the signature tune. I had taken Jispa to watch Sholay and when this movie was being played, I kept reminding Jispa of the similarities.

You can see the amazing title sequence here which sets the tone for the entire movie.

Jispa and I were having fun with the background score and the tones of attitude the movie oozed.  The full movie had hardly anything that made sense. Everything was just a lead up for a large dollop of attitude to be served up. Of course as teen boys in our time, we loved it. Jispa enjoyed it but couldn’t understand what the huge fuss was about. She found the shoe scene particularly dumb. Which Shoe scene? Oh dear – see this scene, where the two heroes face off against one another. One is obviously trying to better the other! And who of the two is really the Big Boss! And you really have to be a teen age boy to get the real fun kick behind putting sand on another’s shoe. It’s so stupid that’s it so much full of attitude. Complete spaghetti with sand!