I am the bridge builder

I was explaining to someone that all my life I have always been the youngest one. The youngest son of the youngest son. From my mother’s side too I was the youngest son with only two female cousins younger than me. Being the youngest one should have been a natural to me, except that I didn’t ever do well at it. I think I was designed to be the eldest. I like to teach, to learn, to observe and to share. I like to protect and to have fun, I like to dominate yet cede. I am not designed to be the youngest but I learnt over a period of time to be one.

Now that I am 41, I am in many ways an elder. In this start up, I am the eldest in the office. The senior who must lead and manage the young. He who must nurture the young and initiate them into the ways of life. Ok – now that got way too dramatic. But as the years have piled on, I have moved to apposition of being the elder and I think I probably do a better job of being the elder than being the younger. Of being the teacher than at being the student.

Being the youngest helped me become a better elder. All I did was look very deeply at people who were older to me and see how they behaved. How they treated their younger ones, and more importantly how they did not treat their younger ones. This formed the basis of how I should treat others. In way that I would have expected to have been treated. That today is how I am what I am, as a boss, as a father, as a friend and as a teacher. You don’t always need role models to shape your behavior. You can do it just as well with the absence of role models. You simply ask yourself what you would have liked and you then listen to your own voice very clearly. That’s that simple.

Last week we were on vacation. I was very keen to have a camping experience with Jispa and Jasmine. Just about a month before the vacation, both of them pulled out. It was way too expensive they said and that they weren’t so keen. Oh Damn it. They broke my heart. I always wanted to go camping with family. Sleeping in the tents, walking all day, moving in the mountains, the bitter cold, the warm sleeping bags, the really silly places to go to the loo, everything. Discomfort is an important part of process. Only when you put men through real discomfort you realize what you are made of. And as a group of people, when you face hardship together, it binds you, it releases you. Camping together is one way to get to the same. Of course this was a luxury camp. We would have paid around 10k per night all-inclusive (including transport) for this experience. But at the last my family developed chicken feet. So we moved our vacation to Rishikesh where we stayed at a home stay, roamed the streets of Rishikesh and sipped on honey ginger lemon tea while having freshly baked butter biscuits. Some discomfort.

After which we went to Hathipaon where my sis runs a lovely small home stay.

It was a fun vacation, but it was marginally ruined or heightened depending on your perspective by the fact that I had an exam to give in the middle of it. This was an Insurance exam for which I had to leave the vacation mid-way and run to Delhi and back. The pressure was tremendous and I had to really learn the innards of the insurance business before I could have passed. The pressure was two-fold. On the business there was definitely some pressure as we needed a senior guy to pass the exam and be the principal officer for the firm and then as the elder in the office, I couldn’t have failed. It was too much of a loss of face. I put dramatic pressure on myself and pushed myself to study. I studied three books, marked a lot on them, read them again and again, and was generally prepared for what’s going to come. In the end of the multiple choice question paper, I scored 65 of 80 marks. 40 was passing. Wow – I had done it with flying colors. Serious respect. When you grow old, you lose something – something very raw, you lose your sense of fun, innocence and gay abandon. You lose the ability to chance a few things. You push yourself and your system to what you think is the most important thing and achieve it. This part is no fun. I have never studied this way as I studied for this exam. On the trip, I studied in the plane, on the train, in the hotel, on the bed and one full day in Rishikesh on the table studying for my exam. After the paper, I had a celebratory lunch in Delhi. I had my favorite Delhi lunch of chole and dal with naan at the road side thella (stall). That was yum. So much yum, that I took Jasmine and Jispa there when we were in Delhi switching trains. When in Delhi – do the Delhi!

So when we were back, my sis asked me for feedback. I knew that was coming and I had discussed a lot with Jispa and Jasmine about the place. We seemed to have cracked the travel thing. We go for cheaper home stay options at distinct places that seem to have captured the heart and soul of the place. We know the service and we know the way the thing works now. We know how to look at the reviews and how to manage and plan the trip. So far, it has hardly let us down. Trip Advisor has been so helpful in all of this. My nephew was wondering why would anyone put up a review on trip advisor. A rational human wouldn’t want to waste his time once he was already there. What could he possibly get. I told him two things – from a selfless perspective – it really helped me and hence it is my job to help others. From a selfish perspective – the more reviews I give the better the site gets and that leads to a positive cycle where hotels and home stays know that if they screw up you get bad reviews. This was the whole ecosystem is forced to improve if they have to thrive. My review about Rishikesh will in some way help my travels in Pondicherry, because of the general uplift in service standards.

I am reminded of this poem about which I think I have blogged before.

The Bridge Builder

- Will Allen Dromgoole

An old man going a lone highway,
Came at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm, vast, and deep and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.

The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fear for him;
But he turned, when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.

"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim, near,
"You are wasting strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again will pass this way;
You've crossed the chasm, deep and wide-
Why build you this bridge at the evening tide?"

The builder lifted his old gray head:
"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said,
"There followeth after me today,
A youth, whose feet must pass this way.

This chasm, that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him."

This poem was especially significant for me for in the 6^th standard, I tried to take part in the poetry recital competition in school. There was no one to help at home but I knew I was good to take part in the competition. I told my teacher that I was interested and she gave me this poem. By the time the trials came in, I was hopelessly underprepared and I was not selected. What a total loss it was. I laughed at the end. There none but me to crown myself!

Recently I understood the bride builder and its metaphorical significance. I am in many ways a Bridge Builder. Yes, good friend, I am building this bridge for him.

So yesterday I went over to my sister’s house and discussed what all you can do to improve the service. Small things that cost very little but can make a dramatic impact on your stay experience. In the end, today she puts on the whatsapp group something akin to ‘when did you get so smart?’. Oh well. Now the fun starts. The dichotomy of being an elder elsewhere nad being the young one at home. Sometimes I wonder how I manage it in my brain and in my behavior. I wonder.