Kids these days. They like to listen to their iPods or cell
phones with music in them and shut them selves to the world. I once won an iPad
mini in a contest. The moment they announced a contest in one of the jaunts, I knew
that iPad was mine. I went home and Jasmine did not want the mini and Jispa preferred
a portable iPod. So we went to our neighborhood shop and exchanged the same for
an iPod.
Jispa hardly ever gets her iPod to play with. We don’t let
her play too much on it and we don’t let her listen too much music on it. We
are really bad ass parents. Seriously I think we are irritating but I think
with only one kid we want all the time we get with the kid to be great and
hence we are scared of losing her to the device. But still I think she gets
some time with it. Especially vacations. Plus we have another issue. We don’t have
too much music. At least not the music that a teenager would want to listen to,
to load onto the iPod. So after a point of time, there was not much use for the
iPod as such.
Jispa kept wondering how to get her music. I told her to get
it loaded in by her cousin brother. That’s where you get all your vice in life
from – cousins. Also Jispa said she wanted new headphones. I for one, couldn’t understand
why would she want headphones. She has the great ones that come with the iPod
from Apple. These are phenomenal in ear ones with superior design and
engineering. She gave some answer which I refused to even listen – but yes I understood
– the kid wants new headphones – the ones that all kids end up wearing. I think
it’s fashionable to have these big ones on your head. You see them at all the
swim meets. That’s the new cool. Of course Jispa believes that she wants them
as the in-ear ones hurt her ears and that fashion has nothing to do with it.
Who was I to judge.
So I promised her that once she gets her songs, I will buy
her a head set. After she got her songs loaded, I started scouting around for
decent headsets. I had weird problems to content with. These headsets can get
really expensive. I don’t mind getting her one but then managing them and ensuring
you don’t forget them anywhere and then taking care of them etc would have been
a huge issue. So expensive ones
area problem, especially if you have
anal parents. I prefer giving her something that I don’t mind her losing so
that I don’t lose my mind. Second – the big bulky ones with cover her ear completely
and will block out all noise. That’s another problem. Remember what I said – we
don’t want to lose her completely. So if we give her something that will block
out all noise, it would create another set of issues from a parents point of
view. Now for Jispa’s point of view – I can’t give her something that’s not
cool. No shitty brands would help. Kids look at each other and are hugely
influenced by the brands. I am quite sure that a 13 year old can make out the differences
between different headsets if not for the brands. Also the headsets with the right
brands look cool on the head! So now we have the variables – over the head
earphones, nice brand, cool design, relatively cheap, not completely covering the
ear. And voila – here you are the amazing JBL headphones costing two thousand
bucks available at flipkart for 700 bucks. Light weight, decent brand and not
too big. They look cool as well.
When I gave Jispa the surprise…. When she saw the ear phones
– she smiled. Wow getting your teenage to smile after you get her stuff – that was
priceless. Feeling happy and not broke after your teenage daughter smiles –
better than priceless!
Jispa is turning 13 and with that she is also turning into a
monster that I have no clue on how to control. But the hell… why should a
parent even be controlling anything about a child. It’s just not right. I don’t
think as parents we really know what is in the best interest of the child. Of course
we know some stuff from experience that we know is dangerous – like smoking
kills or that liquor is something that’s not really advisable or weed is bad. But
most of the other stuff – we have no clue. We think we do… we believe we do but
really – we don’t. Hell we don’t even know what the hell we want from our lives
– yet we try and control a lot for our children – I don’t understand why we do
it. Today I fight…. Almost every day I fight myself. There are certain dos and don’ts
that I would try and implement. Besides that I try and fight the need to bear
over her and try my best to let her be. Of course mommy is right. The more you
let her be the more she will get into trouble that she herself doesn’t want to.
But then isn’t the role of parents to stop her from getting into trouble versus
the role of growing up is to get into trouble all the time and then figuring out
two things. How not to get into trouble in the first place then figuring out how
to get out of it, once you have gotten into it. This is the weird dichotomy of
parenting. We don’t know. I think we naturally think we are good at stopping
trouble and we don’t realize that stopping trouble now is inviting trouble
later on. So what’s the right answer? In parenting there is possibly no right
answer. You invent things as you get along. Especially if you have one child…. There
are no mistakes to learn from. Just simple
stuff that you think you would have loved to have as a child and the stuff you don’t
want or want to have for your children. In many ways that is simple parenting.
I want Jispa to be free… I want her to say that in someday
that she is what is … thanks to herself and not thanks to anyone – not her dad,
not her mom not anyone else…and definitely not God. She has to be like the apocryphal
story of Napolean who on coronation – lifted the crown from the hand of the
Pope and crowned himself – saying that none me is fit to crown myself. In many
showing that he owed his entire rise to himself and to no one else. I have had
many mentors in my life. I have a learnt a lot from so many people. Not all tried
to teach me, but the simple act of observation has helped me more than anything
else. I am so happy that my dad never could pick up the phone and get me going
on anything. He also passed away way before I could really use his help. My
college my girlfriend (now wife) my job and I dug my own mentors from those
around me.
So all that I have or don’t - is thanks to me. At my death
bed I have myself to blame or thank. Of course Jasmine has helped me achieve
whatever I could have or couldn’t have (you have to take both). But at the end –
I have realized – you are alone. You stand alone – you die alone. The faster
you realize that the better you are. It’s like the story of Valmiki who wrote the
Ramayana – he takes to being a ascetic when he realizes that his family refuses
to take his share of sins as your sins are yours and you have to bear the consequences
of them. In many ways sins are the metaphors for your decisions. You have to
bear them yourself. Others have their own to bear.
In the years that I have worked or taught – I see that many
times – in fact I feel most of the time – parents are wrong. After a point of
time they can’t really tell you what to do in life. I think all advice is
stupid. People have to decide what they want to do for their own. Your children,
my child has to decide for herself on what to do. What can I do? I can advise, I
can guide, I can push, I can convince – but do I really know what’s right… no I
don’t. Experience will tell me something – something that tells me that the
process of decision making may not be right – but it doesn’t tell me if the decision
is right or wrong. To add to this – we don’t believe that quitting is the right
option.
Right now Jispa is swimming. Realistically – she is not a
great swimmer. She is a good swimmer, but I don’t think she would be counted as
amongst the great swimmers. She finds it tough to break in to the state team.
She does well to represent Mumbai. Now what’s the right thing for her? One of
her seniors from another club was applying to American Universities. The university
looked at all the certificates of the national champion and kept them aside and
asked for her timings. Her timings were nowhere the ones desired by the
University… so now what? Apply of academic merit. That’s all. Jasmine and I
were thinking about this since some time. What the hell should Jispa be doing?
He swimming regime is tough and her school regime is now going to get really
tough. Academic excellence is something that will give her choice on what to
follow in her years to come – not swimming. Indian Swimmers are nowhere on any
stage. They have no careers and they can barely earn enough to make ends meet
from swimming. It’s not an independent profession. In any case that’s hardly a
choice to be made for now. Sure she can always be a sports led profession here
she can use her swimming knowledge to great advantage but it still require s a
decent academic grounding. So we thought that we let her swim this year and
then the next year she focusses on studies while swimming just enough to enjoy
and not really to break through. In any case she has to now trust her coach and
really improve in this year.
Jasmine and I are tired parents. It has been really tough. Thanks
to Jispa’s swimming we have made some crazy number of sacrifices. Waking up is
the least of them. The Sundays spent at swim meet, the nutrition, the holidays
foregone etc. we have had some great returns but physically / mentally we are
done. Right now I am concentrating on something simpler – what does Jispa do
next year, in three years and then in five years from now. I am glad that Jispa
has no clue what she wants to do. Right now she says that she doesn’t want to
be a doctor or an engineer. Her subject she likes are Geography and History. I
love that. I would imagine having a child who wants to be an engineer… yuck! So
we have to figure a lot of things for her. Actually see – that’s exactly what a
dad says but shouldn’t. Why “we” figure what to do. She has to figure what to
do. I should be only a sounding board… an absorbent as well as a reflective
material at the same time. Hopefully she will figure.
On this here are two videos that I came across – very interesting
ones. Believe me – they are right. see them!
Both are amazing characters who do really well on youtube
End game - One of our friends is an amazing gentleman form
Denmark. He was telling me that his son was a really good tennis player and he
took him to London to train at the Wimbledon. His son played a few matches
there and just wanted to give up Tennis and then just did not want to play
anymore and wanted to come back home. His mom said – fine – come over and you
need to study there or train there if you don’t want to. Today after many years
– his son says – you should have pushed me then.
I was explaining to some guys from my team that as a
child my unhappiest memories are when we shifted from Dubai to Mumbai when I was
in the fourth grade. We went from a land of everything to a land of nothing. It
was just so trying on us kids.
It was made even worse as we as kids saw a side of our
cousins which was different. In any case we weren’t so dam close. We stayed far
away and came to India once a year for two months. At the time, coming to India
from Dubai, you were royalty. You were the guys with all the foreign stuff that
you gifted or stuff you brought on request. The bags would open and that would
be a lovely thing as everyone would crowd around. When I grew up I made it a
point not be around when bags open. When Jasmine’s brother or aunt would come
in from US, I would be doubly sure not to be in the same room. I don’t want to
be that person wanting something from abroad. Of course, India too has changed
a lot. We have a lot here that we can get and we too got a bit richer than what
we were and hence can afford it without being gifted – but still – no hanging
around in anticipation. I don’t like it.
To add to that I think a little bit of political play
happened. We would come and stay at our grand mom place – my Mom’s mom. She was
extremely rich and my grand dad was a self-made millionaire with two buildings
and a factory that printed labels. My granddad passed away many years before I was
born. In fact he passed away before my mom and dad were married. The family steadily
went into decline from then on. We were still rich, the factory was managed but
the brothers couldn’t get along and slowly – nothing was really happening. So
by then it was a household that was rich – but the fighting was slowly being
brought to center stage. Then my grand mom contracted cancer. That was a bloody
blow. That was the final hinge in the family door coming loose.
I think a wave on insecurity passed around the cousins. I
was too small but in hindsight and from some of the conversations that I heard
later, I realized that it just dint do too good for the family. In that
atmosphere, I came in to Mumbai to settle down. Dad took another year and mom
shuttled a bit.
Suddenly as I was telling them this story it struck me
that in my office and in my own team the same is true. Around a month back I announced
to the team that I was leaving. At first it was shock followed a little sadness
and soon enough - given time – cracks started surfacing. Insecurity is such a
big thing in our heads. People started bitching, back biting, started wondering
about their roles, their future – power struggles started and funny things
started happening. I am so upset with all this.
In many ways this is no different than the death of my
grand mom. Here too a person is going with notice period. Here I can’t even
settle the affairs completely as I would have wanted to. I don’t know whom I am
handing over the stuff to. This uncertainty is what driving my office kids
nuts. I hate how some of them have behaved and how they have easily declared
war and how they decided to make space for themselves. The spoils are there for
eating and to wait is to end up being late. So make your move.
All insecure people have a standard ploy – they build
allies with others. Typically other insecure or weak people. They create
trouble by building teams of us versus them.
They feed off each others insecurities or rather feed into each other’s
insecurities. They waste their time and effort in trying to plot, plan and
gather as much as they can for their own clan. This is a self- killing spiral. Of
course it works well in many cases. Especially when the person on top is also
insecure. Then he likes all these jokers. In fact many bosses I know like their
kids to be insecure. They like it if they fight off each other. In secure
people never ever build long term allies. They are busy plotting and scheming
all the time that they don’t see anyone as full time allies. Their enemies are
other insecure people and funnily – other extremely secure people. They can’t
understand why anyone can be really secure. They think these secure people are
put on and are not genuine. That makes them even more prone to plotting against
them.
It’s a vicious circle. I see this everywhere… even
amongst kids and adults alike. Cliques and gangs are built. The only real
remedy is to stay away from these. There is no hope for them and there is no
hope for you with them. As I have said before – even listening to them is
damaging for yourself.
At 40 I learn new lessons. People are like this all the
time. I give out a lot of love with my kids at office. But some of them love
you back and some of them just create more issues for you. some have not really
loved you but have only used your love to get themselves more secure. And as
you leave they search for security elsewhere. Bah!
“Over the years,
ridership on the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) buses has
decreased, and slipped further down in February, possibly due to the fare hike.
With yet another round of increase in fares slated to come into force from
Wednesday, the clientele can only get thinner, say experts.How many passengers
has BEST lost over past 2 months? As per transport figures for the months of
January and February, around 3 lakh passengers stopped using the public
transport to their destinations. The data show that in January this year, a
total of 35.77 lakh passengers were ferried by BEST buses daily to various
corners of Mumbai and even outside city limits.”
Mumbai has a bus service that was once its pride. The BEST
service. It was a funny amalgamation of an electric supply company and a Bus
service. The name is actually – Bombay Electric Supply and Transport – hence BEST.
To start with I have no clue why an electric utility company and the bus
transport company must be merged into one. They have no obvious synergies in management
or in supply of raw materials. It’s not like the bus service run electric busses.
I think this was a legacy of the Trams which ran on electricity as I could
understand from this pargraphs.
“The Bombay Tramway
Company Limited was formally set up in 1873. The Mumbai Municipality was given
the right to buy up the concern after the first 25 years or after every period
of 7 years thereafter. After this contract was entered into between the Bombay
Tramway Company and the Municipality, the Government of Mumbai enacted the
Bombay Tramways Act, 1874, under which the Company was licenced to run a
tramway service in the city. The tram-cars were of two kinds-those drawn by one
horse and those drawn by two. In 1905, a newly formed concern, “The Bombay
Electric Supply & Tramways Company Limited?bought the Bombay Tramway
Company and the first electrically operated tram-car appeared on Mumbai’s roads
in 1907. The passing years aggravated the problem of rush-hour traffic and to
ease the situation, double decker trams were introduced in September, 1920.
Mumbai saw its first
bus run on 15th July, 1926. The people of Mumbai received the bus with
enthusiasm, but it took quite sometime before this means of conveyance really
established itself. For several years, it was looked upon as transport for the
upper middle classes. Those were the days when the tram was the poor man’s
transport, carried one all the way from Sassoon Dock to Dadar for a mere anna
and a half, that was nine paise. The bus fare for the same journey was four
annas, that is 25 paise.
…..
As regards BEST’s
electric supply side, in the year 1905, the B.E.S.& T Co.Ltd., commenced
the supply of electrical energy by erecting its own generating station with a
total capacity of 4,300 KW. This was later abandoned in favour of a station of
larger capacity constructed in 1912 at Kussara Basin. This station was closed
down in 1925, after which all the Company’s requirements were obtained in bulk
from M/s. Tata Hydro Electric Power Supply Co.Ltd, With the growth of the
electrical distribution system, difficulties were experienced in the
maintenance of the electrical pressure within the prescribed statutory limits.
The Company than decided to establish two High Voltage Receiving Stations at
Grant Road, and Apollo where large bulk supply transformers provided with
on-load tap changing equipment had to be installed for maintaining regulated
voltage at the consumer’s premises. These two new stations were, however,
actually commissioned in 1949, i.e. after the B.E.S. & T Co.Ltd., was
acquired by the Municipal Corporation.”
So fundamentally a transport company and an electric supply
company being one is an anachronism that has no relevance in the present – but who
knows – twenty or thirty years hence when electric vehicles become a reality –
this may well be back in fashion. The proponents of the electric car often cite
that the gasoline fueled car simply lost a temporary race in the early 1900’s
and this century will only see its rise.
But still – I grew up wondering what BEST meant I remember
still finding it very odd that the two were in one company. But hell. The BEST
services haven’t improved one bit ever since I was a kid. It’s the same buses
and the same conductors. Only the tickets changed. Now the conductor gives you
a thermal paper ticket as opposed to the paper tickets of the era gone by. The
crowd is crazy, the services are erratic – the bus routes are not clear and
nothing really works well. Obviously the service is making losses. They introduced
AC services at the start but only on certain routes. At first they had these
stupid buses which looked like outstation travel buses. Then they moved on to
nicer buses but these very severely limited. The majority of the buses in
operation seem the same from when I wa s achild. To my mind they haven’t moved
anywhere in the last 35 years. The iconic double decker made its exit but
nothing else.
A transport company must understand its relevance every few
years or so and must make adjustments accordingly. There is no point having
large buses running through the day when you clearly have peak and off peak
hours. The city earlier was very clearly structured on the north south axis. The
buses simply had to go up and down. The business district was in the south and
the suburbs were in the north with a large middle class working in the mills
and staying in its vicinity in the centre. The bus routes were infinitely less
complex. Now the complexity of the city has ensured that the conventional
routes won’t work. I remember when Bhakti Park where I stay was coming up. It
is in the middle of nowhere with almost no civilization three kms in either
direction. Why would anyone live there?
But slowly the infrastructure came up. I remember my friends who were
early adopters of the area making representations to the transport undertaking
to start services. The service assured them that service would start if a
certain threshold level of population comes in. That is a classical chicken and
egg. But the BEST played dumb. They should have had smaller buses in operation
with higher frequencies in the morning and evening. These need to be the simple
feeder routes that simply took people and pushed them to the big bus stops or
stations where people could hop off and hop on to their bigger buses which took
them to their offices. The city was expanding on the east west axis and the bus
services were not keeping pace. Why should the service not have efficient bus
services with 20 seaters or even lower. The taxi guys started the share a cab
services but they too are notoriously bad and are available only in certain
places. The transport authority was best placed to handle this.
Also they don’t need to look too further to improve their
services. They simply need to follow the UBER model and fit their buses with a
smart phone. Now people will know exactly where their bus is and figure the
best time to leave home to reach the bus stop to reach their destination. It
can also give expected delays and journey times. There is an inordinately long
time that people wait for their bus – that can simply be cut off.
A simple mapping of people’s journeys and traffic patterns
can render a lot of data on making these routes efficient. But the EBST is
working with its head in the sand. Right now they have resorted to really
stupid measures like putting up posters and urging people to use their
services. What a bum head. People will use services that people value. Period.
Increase value.
Uptill now all it did was believe it was a monopoly and then
it behaved like one. Bad service, bad route planning, bad conductors, bad buses
and a complete mismanagement of crowd. Nobody likes a BEST bus on the road. They
behave like bullies and I have been on the receiving end quite a few times.
My other favorite solution was that instead of putting so
much money on bridges, we should have simply put money on making the bus service
air-conditioned and subsidized that and slowly removed that subsidy. As of now
the bridges are so ill designed and one after the other that that most buses don’t
ply on them. And the road under the bridges are really narrow especially to make
space for the landing and take off that you often find jams near there. This
just compounds matters.
Simply put – the BEST must change itself if it has to stay
relevant. Mumbai took great pride in having an efficient bus and train service.
But this is now not the case. We have not kept pace with the changing needs,
trends and technologies and now risk being irrelevant. The city, I see is
dying. It is imploding under its own weight and gravity – like a fading star. It
will suck inside all – into its black nothingness. This is the death, unless we
see some serious innovations.
Here – complete unrelated music… but I love the song… Jispa loves the movies
and the books.
The more I think about it and the more experiences I have in
life, I get that one thing my brother about Delhi Station is true about life in
general.
Delhi Station is a mad place. You get off and you are accosted
by touts of all types of slime and sleaze. Everyone wants to thug you and you can’t
get a decent conversation happening with anyone. In fact what conversation,
asking someone for directions itself can be very stressful and crazy. Many
years ago we landed at Delhi station and we were told to move to the rail yatri
nivas to stay. As a family we got down and started wondering where to go. A
tout just kept talking to my dad and then finally showed us a few hotel pics
and booked us a hotel to stay in. this was on the return leg of our journey.
Dad thought he was booking us a good hotel. Needless to say – the experience wasn’t that
great. We had booked two rooms and the AC from one was flowing to the other via
a duct made and other such weird stuff. Those days there was no internet and we
don’t hear about the Lonely Planet and there were defiantly no Trip advisor. So
choosing where to stay and where to go and what to do was one hell of a
nightmare. Before you go anywhere, you have to ask people where they went,
think of an itinery that was largely based on theirs and the hotel that they
went to. People would have records of hotels and rooms and the phone numbers of
the hotels they stayed in. this was very valuable information. The agents were essentially
people who could arbitrage on the knowledge of hotel names and numbers. That was
all. Things have moved up quite a bit. Now people know where to go and what to
see from searching the internet. Jasmine and I came up with our own formula…
Lonely Planet plus internet. Curation plus peer discovery! This has worked for
us. And GPS… the bets thing is that now you know exactly where you are. When I was
selling the Backberry concept to my brother in law – I showed him GPS. Now in a
train, you don’t need to look out of the window or ask someone where you were. You
simply opened your cellphone and you knew if your station is coming or is far
away. This is especially useful if you are waking up in the middle of the night
for your station and are wondering if the train is late or which station just
passed!
Cut to my brother’s experience – he once alighted at Delhi
station and refused to talk to the touts. He was making a beeline for the tourist office. On the way the tout
kept following him talking all the time. And then at one point the tout just
said ‘look, the office is shut’. My brother lifted his head and sure enough there
was a board of the tourist office and it was shut. I don’t know afterwards what really happened
but my brother then realized that the tout was pointing out to the wrong office
which had moved. That’s when told me – in Delhi station – you should not even
listen to the touts. Even listening is a crime.
I find this real in office as well. There are some real bad
ass guys. People who gossip and spread evil vile around them. Even talking to
them is a crime. They slowly make you believe that they are on your side, they gain
your trust and confidence and then pass on gossip to you…. and then, they
POISON your mind. Such people must be avoided no matter how sweet they sound or
how nice a company they are. They give you the juiciest gossip but at the same
time are the ones who will not hesitate
to use your name or you as a target of their gossip. Even listening to
them is a crime. Hanging around, talking or texting or anything with them will
only poison your mind. These guys are slow boa constrictors. These are available
all around you. I keep telling Jispa that in school or in class or at the pool,
these people must be avoided. After I have realized this and I preach it to all
I care about, I have been seeing more of this. Positive nice people fill your
mind with positivity. They help you think and take right calls and make better
decisions. The bad ones, they figure out a way to co-opt you in their plan.
They have sinister plans and then squeeze you in their plan. Without knowing so
you are involved and a part of their support group and boom – there goes your
credibility.
I have learnt over a period of time to simply not listen,
avoid and if unavoidable – not encourage the conversation. And when they co opt
you, it takes effort but there is no shame in saying, Sorry yaar – I am part of
this. I disagree or nopes… I don’t care about this. At first it’s so difficult
for nice guys to do any of this, but if you value your credibility and your
sanity, you will disagree. Its then very easy to simply say no and weasel out.
Avoid them like plague.
