have a look at them too

Jispa is learning about the great war in History class. She has been reading a lot about the Schlieffen Plan as she has that as a case study. Today she told me that she has to present the plan today to the class. I told her “that’s really awesome. I am so jealous”. She looked at me and asked if I was being sarcastic. “no, not sarcastic but real. We learnt shitty history”. She said “all shivaji and all?”. “well yes, we had Shivaji but it’s not about Shivaji that’s the issue. Shivaji would also be awesome, if taught well.”

Earlier on, I used to be quite critical of the local history and culture being imposed on the kids. At school we were taught Marathi as a compulsory subject and we had every alternate year, Maratha History in the history text book. This was kind of really painful. We used this to criticize the government and the administration. The issue really is not the force feed of local culture. Today I would vote for local culture as a part of curriculum. It’s the way that it was taught that was stupid. We should have learnt a lot about the Maratha land, in fact we should have been taught even more in detail and in depth. The great Maratha sea forts, their amazing designs, their strategic importance and the various different places where the wars were fought. The Maratha history is very interesting and they even reached Delhi via the Peshwas. They held off the British and were feared.  It was and still is an amazing piece of history. Even the fact that they taught Marathi in school is important. Here the politicians have got it right, they introduced the medium of administration as Marathi in the local offices. This allows the administrative framework to reach those to whom it really matters, the common people. Ofcourse they have made it militantly so and have kept it almost exclusively so. The non Marathi speaking population does find it intimidating to converse with the officialdom. But still, it’s still better than pushing English or Hindi down everyone’s throat. Here I like the Singapore model where English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil. It’s a bit painful, but this was all communities are integrated into the government system. So, having Marathi in school is good, but the way it is taught is shit. We learnt it by rote and did not learn the basic art of conversational Marathi. Today while I understand Marathi and possibly can go for Marathi cinema (preferably with sub titles) I can’t really speak Marathi. Jispa too studied Marathi till 7^th grade but cannot speak it. The important part of it is the ability to have conversations in it. Once that’s done, the rest can follow. The script is almost the same as Hindi so that’s not the challenge.

So local culture, history and even geography is not the issue. The issue is the way it is taught. I told Jispa that “in school, we confused history with Eulogy”. “eulogy?”. “yup, here, google the word.” Eulogy: a speech or piece of writing that praises someone or something highly, especially a tribute to someone who has just died. That’s what we did in history. We saw only one side of it and it was in many ways a tribute to the great Maratha and nothing more. A eulogy, that misses the balance in the perspective. “yes” she said. “we are allowed to see every side of history. We are allowed to criticize every aspect of everything in History. We made so much fun of King Louis of the French revolution.”. yup. That is history. Nothing but perspective from things that have happened. Something that will help us understand where we are and what we need to choose to be. History is so much more. Sadly, all my text books and teachers did was to glorify the wars the dead, have clear villains and enemies, typically those ‘Muslim invaders’ till the British came along at which time the Last Mughal Bahadur Shah Zafar became a ‘freedom fighter’. All we did was stupid dates, stupid salient features and a version was narrated to us. Jispa’s history has a whole book dedicated to the Great War, and the first thing the teacher says is that, this is a British book and hence it has the British version. If we read a Germna book, we will get the German version. I also wonder though, what a Japanese version would be.

History : From a subject that I hated and never understood its significance to a subject I read a lot about. I love it. I have tried to pass on my love for History to Jispa as well. At least at some point she wouldn’t question its importance in the curriculum like I did. I learnt nothing. 65 kids in a class, painfully bad infrastructure, stupid textbooks, stupider curriculum – what more can we expect.

Now I read so much and when I removed a few books from the cupboard, I had a few for Jispa to read. In addition to history I also asked her, if she was interested in some anti – government books. Her eye lit up. Yes, I have removed a few. Have a look at them too.

shopping list merges with the bucket list

One more item off the bucket list.

Recently after our home was redone with a lot of thinking and effort from Jasmine and me (Jispa’s inputs as well). Afterwards Jasmine is on a project to clean up each of cupboards. The big one she left at the end was the one in which the books are kept. That is one massive thing to do. Slowly but surely she removed all the books and placed them on the side. We then classified all the books and then started putting them in the cupboards. This gave me a chance to look at all the books that I had bought and read before the advent of the kindle. I don’t want to part with these, partly because of ego, partly because I think that I might need them again and partly because I think that Jispa might one day read a few of them. This time around some shitty books I definitely threw away, but they did not number in double digits. Yesterday while I was giving them to Jasmine as she put them inside, I told her “you know, some of these books are really bad” as I handed her Warren Buffet’s insipid and devoid of any insight autobiography. “I can throw at least a third of the. They are that bad. What say?”. Jasmine nodded and then answered “while we still have space, keep them. When we don’t have space, we will see”.  That was a significant endorsement from Jasmine on all the books that I have kept over the years. More than anything she knows what these books mean to me, from whichever perspective.

While rearranging the books, I came across quite a few titles that I did not read then and I relooked at them. Many a times, the book can wait till its time has come. Just because you don’t find it interesting at the time does not mean that the book loses meaning. It simply means that possibly the timing was not right. It like bosses. No boss is mean in an absolute sense, it’s just that you and the boss haven’t reached a tuning that is conducive to working together. Yes, it can be the bosses fault at many times, but at a core level it’s a question of tuning. Or in the case of books, a question of timing. In my life, there have been so many books that have worked for me at a later time in life. So many times, that I have tried reading a book but have left it on the shelf only to rediscover it years later and get its importance. I was possibly just too naïve to understand it at the point. In any case, these books have taught me a lot and I have learnt (as I have always maintained) more to think in a certain way as opposed to really taking a point by point lesson from it.

Now that Jispa is much older, I am happy that some of my books are something that she finds some interest in.  Once she came for one of my lectures and she saw me talk about the book “why we buy”. Many times, people ask me, if there was one book that they should read from all the books that I have read in my life, one book that was the best ever, I reply without thinking “why we buy”. It is the single most amazing book that I have read about marketing in particular and management in general and is completely entertaining. The author has done nothing but observe people shop and then proceeded to write a seminal book on all his findings. How people shop, how they walk in stores, layout of stores, how people behave with children, men shoppers, women shoppers, babies etc. The lessons are simple. You observe and then you understand. Once you understand the answers are commonsensical to anyone. Marketing is just that. Using good research and solving issues you spot. This book also shows how shoppers around the world are similar, dads around the world are similar. We all behave in similar fashion if confronted with similar stimuli. In many ways shopping seems to be a genetically imbibed thing amongst all humans.

So, after hearing my lecture Jispa was pretty excited and wanted to read the book. She asked me for it. I promised her that when I climb up and rearrange the books, I would keep an eye for it and get it for her. This was the opportunity I was waiting for and I removed it for her, along with a few more books. She started reading it and we started discussing it. Then one night as she getting to bed, I showed her a trick that I often do with this book.

I started flipping through it and asked to stop me at a random place. Then I would randomly start reading any paragraph. The book is so dense and full of insights that any random para starts making sense. You don’t need any context or build up. It just makes sense. So, I read it to Jispa as she was sleeping like it was a bed time story. She would suddenly say stop while I was flipping and I would read her a para or so. No discussion required, no understanding required, it just made a ton of sense.

What a lovely book and what a lovely moment for me. Reading a marketing book to my kid as she slept – that too the best book in my life – An item off the bucket list!

hope makes the world go around

Teaching has a new meaning these days for me. Jispa started coming for my lectures. That is crazy awesome. I have taught for so many years for the joy of teaching but also for a secret joy – of being able to teach Jispa. Of course, she doesn’t open her mouth in class but she sits through and tries to understand what all I have to teach. It fires me up no end.

My lectures are at 11 am on Saturday. This gives me the perfect schedule, to wake up, fix myself an awesome coffee and then attack the college. It’s a perfect start to the week end.

Practicing what I preach, every lectures starts with a test that I have designed on Google forms (thanks to another young friend who comes along) on a topic that I have given a note in advance. Then on we talk about the paper / questions etc and take it forward. This is something surprisingly that the students feel happy about. They want tests. They want to read and come to class and wonder what’s happening.

The last time around I gave them an assignment to see the movie – The Founder. This was on the McDonalds founder, Ray Croc. It was an outstanding movie and they showed brilliantly how the original founders – the McDonald brothers, invented the fast food restaurant business but couldn’t scale it. It showed how Ray Croc scaled the business and also how he needed to do some accounting jugglery as well. Ray couldn’t make too much money off the restaurant and hence to scale it an account advised him to move into the real estate space. He bought/leased the land and then sublet to the franchisee for a higher fee, plus the franchisee revenue from sales. This allowed for a crazy increase in expansion rate.

What I loved about the movie was how they clearly explained how the brothers invented the system by killing a lot of unnecessary processes and items that stopped it from becoming efficient. And how Ray Croc understood that and while he had major run ins with the brothers, as regards the business proposition, the brothers were essentially right and had gotten the efficiency formula perfect. He kept that alive.

This was, to my mind an awesome movie and the perfect movie for watching for the young kids who want to understand management. Its typically very easy to do various different things but very difficult to focus on one thing alone.

So, I give them some stuff to read or watch and then come to class, dur9ng which I give a small multiple choice test. This test is something that kids can take from their mobile phones anywhere. The time given to the test is also very tight and the test has around 6-9 questions which are given in random order. Hence, it’s very difficult to copy as well. Even if two kids are sitting next to each other, its near impossible to copy and take help. If the time pressure is so high that you barely have time to think and read the questions, you have no time to help or copy in a randomized test.

I love the class as I am prepared on what to talk and then we discuss various elements. That Jispa is present just simply makes it even more stressful for me. I want to do better for her. I want her to enjoy the experience. I want to discuss stuff with her. She too is very keen to understand and learn from me. She was missing one class but she insisted that I explain to her what I had missed and that she could catch up. That’s nice. That’s the best way to know if I am making sense. My teen age daughter likes to attend my lectures, that’s my ultimate vote of confidence. I was telling Jasmine that no matter what, possibly blood is thicker than water. I love teaching and I love my lectures. I do it for enjoyment and not for money. But you add my daughter into the equation and the pressure and pleasure goes up. Funny. Or possibly not so, in hindsight.

I write writing blogs but because Jispa is now grown up and I have so many conversations with her and she understands the issues, when it comes to writing the blog, many times I stare at a blank screen. What to write when the main motivation is outside of the process.

Recently Jispa told me that there are only 6 months more. More for what, I asked? For me to be 15. And then? And then to read your blog. Oh! Is that? Yes, she reminded me. I had promised her that I would allow her to read my blog when she turns 15. My god. Time did fly. I was quiet. She then said “you don’t remember promising, do you. You thought I would just forget eh. Well I have not and you will give me the blog to read on my 15^th birthday”. Of course. Of course. Surely, I will give her the blog to read. I wrote it for more than ten years for this moment. Will I continue to write afterwards, I hope so, but it will be interesting to write knowing that your kids will read it instantly :)

It will be an interesting birthday gift to her. A little more than 10 years in the making. Wow. Such a big thing from such a small start. I wonder how she will read it, from the start, randomly, will she get bored, will she come back and ask clarifications, kick my ass for what I have written or done, will she cry on a few blogs, will she understand, will she jump in joy, will it give her solace in trouble? My big one is the last one. I may be around or not, but I hope whatever I have written will someday assist her in some sort of way. Hope.