the shape and taste of happiness

Something nice happened last week. One morning as Jasmine was sleeping, Jispa and I were awake. I had to make myself some breakfast. I can make myself a decent dosa adjusting the thickness depending on the batter. I had learnt how to make a dosa from my sister many years ago. Mom never liked me in the kitchen. I think most women can handle men who are asking too many questions and bringing logic and science into the kitchen. Jasmine also hates teaching me to cook and she hates teaching Jispa to cook. She just wants us to get out of the kitchen. Jasmine used to be a lazy cook. I think in the last ten years of us living separately from moms and moms in law, she has evolved as a cook. She now knows what she does and what are the consequences to that? So if she cooks something that we don’t like there is a leftover and if she cooks adding a special ingredient, then the food gets over. Simple things. This is an interesting life lesson (or a marketing lesson) – you can teach cooking as much as you like, but the real deal is an iterative process with a constant feedback loop. Jasmine was aware to the consequences and did not believe in stupid consumer research by asking the respondent what you like. Ask and you will be lied to, but if you see the response to your actions then that is the best truth.

A lot of product development and marketing thought these days is similar to that. It requires managers to tell themselves and the others that we don’t know “I don’t know” and start from there. Gone are the days of big massive projects that take 6 months to year. Journeys are now an amalgamation of short sprints to achieve simple success. You put it out in the market and see the reaction to your product. That’s the only truth. You can’t ask if the recipe will be good. You cook it and see how much was eaten. Then you make small small changes to it and see how the bottom of the bowl was scrapped. That’s the only way to know. Jasmine intuitively got it right. When we discuss what to cook next she knows what will go down Jispa’s throat. She knows that certain foods get eaten more and certain foods will have leftovers. That is the ultimate truth. She figured out the futility of asking Jispa “you like this?”. Dhoodhi chana daal is the ultimate version of this. It was looks very unappetizing and sounds very Bleh! But every time, it’s eaten and finished. She will always get a NO if this is suggested but is always eaten when it is made. DON’T ASK A CONSUMER FOR HIS OPINION. YOU WILL BE LIED TO.

Coming back – I learnt to make dosas from my sis, many years ago and then I have honed my technique over time. So when Jispa saw me make my dosas, she wanted to learn from me. I have the proud distinction of being the dad who taught her daughter how to spread a dosa on the pan. I taught her to pour first spoon of batter and spread it. Keep the spoon light. Spread it in circles and keep the appropriate pressure. Then I encouraged her to make bigger dosas with two spoonfulls of batter. Then I taught her to flip it right etc. It was very satisfying to teach her this stuff.

I think of cooking like swimming. It’s a basic life skill. You need to learn to swim, run, catch a ball, jump, speak, argue and cook. Basic life survival skills. Tomorrow when Jispa is alone somewhere and is hungry, she can always get out a batter and cook herself a dosa or a pancake and be quiet in the memory that her dad taught her to make the perfect dosa to desired thickness. For me dosa making is an act of zen in which you are required to achieve a desired state of achievement. And when you are going to eat your own dosa, then the exam taker, the supervisor and the examiner is all rolled into you. At that time how will you fare. First my dosas were misshaped, then they got rounder. Now for some reason Jispa and I both like my dosas to be oval in shape. She finds them cute (whatever) and I find them just the natural way to make the dosa. A circle seems very forced and an oval is the right human hand outcome. I haven’t yet deciphered the physics of it all, but I just feel it’s the right shape.

So it was awesome to sit and have breakfast while Jispa made me some amazing dosas. For some reason I loved them more than any other doasa. I also remember the first time Jasmine cooked for me. It was potato and tomato sabzi. I remember that very well and I hope to remember this day very well as well. Ah!

jigsawing together

So now we are taking concrete actions to move into our new home. The Chembur home has been an interesting journey. I have written parts of this before, so I will be short - Many years ago when my salary rose without a corresponding increase in expense, we saw ourselves spending money on random things. First in the line of random things I bought was a wrist watch. I like wrist watches and I like nice wrist watches but I would have to admit – spending money on them and spending big money on them is pretty much the stupidist thing in the world to do. A cheap watch worth a 100 bucks will do the exact same job. But sure – I wanted a better watch and one day a friend of mine contacted me. He was in Victorinox and they had an employee sale for the watches. I saw a watch I liked. The scratch proof glass, the complete steel finish and a dark olive, extremely simple dial, with a date function. I loved it. The retail price was 26,000 and I was getting it for 16,000 bucks. A steal. I bought it. A few days later I looked at Jasmine and asked her, what on earth are we doing. We are flush with cash and we are blowing it. Let’s look at buying a new, better house. That’s how we bought our second house at Chembur.

 We then bought it and then went complete broke. We had no money for anything else except the EMIs. That was one phase of my life that I remember very well. I was earning well and I was broke. Eeps. What a dirty phase of life it was. We started eating exclusively at the gymkhana restaurant as it was the cheapest thing in the world to do. Our menu was bare bones and simple. Two soups, one starter (optional), one sabzi and four rotis. It was the worst of times, it was the best of times.

This was on for three years and when we did get possession of the flat, we promptly put it on rent for around four years now. Finally now, economics and desire have met. Like many good things in life, I got none of them on a platter. I had to work for each and every one of them. We have now decided to shift. Now another big project for the family starts.

The best moments with Jasmine over the years have been when we work on projects together. When we have to do things together we invariably have a good time. Of course we fight and argue and disagree with each other. We also invariably dump work on each other – you do this, no… you do this. That’s the fun bit. The real work is when we realize that both of us have to pull our weight and start thinking and doing. Most of the time, one of us has already done some mental thinking and home work and then we remind each other of the work.

Just a handy tip for getting along – when there is work you have to show intention of doing and being a part of it, even if you cant really add much value. For example the fact that I volunteer to help with what I can do is most of the time enough for Jasmine while doing household chores. While se designs stuff for the house, the fact that I sit with her and help her and think through as well is important. Same with her helping me as well. You have to get of your butt and show intent. Then you can add value and then work together. Then you can build something much more than what you have built. Most of the value is in the bond you keep forming and strengthening.

Most of the time working jointly on projects without the problem of credit is where you build bonds. These can be in form of crisis or opportunities. With my students also I have built some interesting bonds, by being there when they want me. Most of the time it’s just a sounding board where they just need someone to talk to and think through the issues. These mini crisis help people empathize deeply with each other and then that’s where the connections starts to happen.

I keep telling that Jispa is another project by itself. Her swimming is a project. Her schooling is a project and her different issues that we have to counter is a project. Only by having these projects we have manage dot build for selves, an interesting bond. When Jispa moves on in life and we have settled into a groove for retirement, I wonder what the project will be. I guess that’s why parents insist of becoming grand parents. They are in search of projects. I hope we don’t create any such rubbish for Jispa.

For now – the new house is going to be an interesting project by itself. It’s good to think together, work together, understand each other, crib and then let go of the cribs, and it’s beautiful to have your daughter involved in the project now. We have her in it, taking her opinions and preferences as well. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle that the family puts together. I like it.

jesting matters

Jasmine was called to school the other day as Jispa was feeling quite unwell. She had cramps in the stomach and it was paining quite a bit. When the Jasmine rushed to school, the sister first thought it was a case of an anxiety attack. An anxiety attack? For what joy? The physics exam was scheduled and possibly that was a trigger. Jasmine told the sister that is seriously unlikely and Jispa is not like that. Of course it was something else that we got treated with the doctor. But I don’t let Jispa hear the end of it. I keep asking her just to irritate her on how her anxiety attack is doing. Hehehe. Evil father.

Yetserday while going to school, we were talking. She was talking about how some of the kids in the class actually get an anxiety attack before exams and they get all stressed about exams. I had her about how she felt. “No I don’t feel stresses before an exam because you taught me not to. You always told me not to worry before an exam. Whatever will be will be”. Yes I did teach her that.

I was telling her that when I was her age and before and after, the only thing that my parents knew was that education was the ticket to prosperity. In many ways they were right. That era did not have so many options that you can pursue without necessarily being highly educated. Her class is full of kids of parents who have achieved a lot or are ambitious. Me – I am not too ambitious. I am aggressive but not that ambitious. Yes I want you do well, and I want to do well myself, but only as so much as to put a decent meal on the table and to enjoy the simple happy life. I don’t see myself as ambitious as the others in office. I don’t want my ambition to be Jispa’s ambition.

Ambition was something that I had when I was in college and when I was doing my MBA. I then realized (when I don’t know) that ambition takes a huge toll on people and the family around it. It nice to be ambitious but all ambition comes with consequences. Who pays for these consequences is a million dollar question. You pay for sure, but your family and your peers also pay for it. Happiness comes from making life smaller not bigger.

Of all the things, I want for Jispa is for her time with us to be happy. I want her to think of her growing up as more fun than anything else. Yes, it should be full of learning but not be burdened by it. I grew up with the pressure of exams and it stayed with me till late. I didn’t want that for her. There will be enough and more things to be stressed about, of all things exams shouldn’t be. Right now she is still a bit carefree about exams as she doesn’t hold the pressure of expectations as much. But later on when she puts a lot into her studies with the burden of her own expectations then it would be a different ball game all together, that’s when the penny drops or the cookie crumbles? It should be fun to see.

No I don’t want her to be so stressed about it at all. I want her to enjoy her life. She should be able to follow her heart and take risks in life. She should be able to tell her boss to take a hike and she should be able to take off and see the world.

I keep telling her that life is a series of experiences that one needs to have to complete. The more varied the better. Right now, Jasmine and me are tempted to get into another long term investment commitment. But I am done! NO. I want to now spend the next 4 years with the ability to get Jispa to try and try different things, explore new places and enjoy life. In any case, at 42, I don’t have the same desire for adventure that I had at 22. I would die to jump out of a plane in a parachute. It’s nice, but not on the top of my list for now.  So I also realize that right now what I have as desires will be different from when I what I will have ten years from now.

So for the first time, I am keeping my immediate priorities over the longer term ones. It’s interesting to grow older and see for yourself how your own priorities have changed or are in the process of changing.

On another completely different note: today I had the pleasure of watching / reading two pieces of journalism. One was a straight piece from a journalist who interviewed my previous boss and completely exposed his ideas. It was serious stuff. In the startup industry when everybody is going into a gold rush and refusing to look at data that is staring them in the face, it takes someone to get up and call the bluff, tell that the emperor is naked. Startups are great at innovation and trying new things but that does not automatically mean they are successful. In fact a lot of them are going to die. They will not survive because mere disruption is not the recipe for success. Success requires a lot of other things, the ability to manage people, the environment, the ability to adapt at various points of time and good old bull headedness. My previous boss was a good sales guy but at some time he over reached and things got weird. Someday, much later I will write about my experience. There are important reasons why I must not open my mouth now. Firstly – right now I am likely to be more critical than what is warranted and secondly the ability for time to give me perspective. Things were in a haze, they move fast in a startup. You end up with a lot of emotions when you refuse to see the writing on the wall and before you know it, things have moved under your feet. Secondly – time also gives you wisdom. It helps you see things in a better perspective. My last job wasn’t bad at all. It’s only towards the end things got weird. If you want bad jobs, the first one that I ever did was bad. And that too after twenty years I look on with sanguine eyes. I don’t blame anyone and it was in many ways a great learning experience.

Coming back – the piece was interesting and insightful. Not to me – I knew the whole story but to a lay reader I would imagine it to be very interesting. The journo got her facts right as well as her research and balance. It was for the first time, and after a long time an article that was worth reading. Normally I see journos just write whatever the spokesperson blurts out and reports it verbatim. It’s stupid and I stopped reading the papers thanks to these jokers. But this piece was especially well written. Good journalism is to tell the emperor that he naked and that he has no clothes on. This one exposed all the stupid venture capital guys who invest on a slide deck that loks pretty and has little logic. Some basic assumptions go out for a toss and things go horribly wrong, horribly. The debris from the hubris will be paid for in the form of broken careers and human costs.  But then that doesn’t go on balance sheets, does it?

The other way to tell the emperor is to use the court jester. Here you can joke away and sing a song but still criticize the ruler in way that no one can take offence. Right now an actress Kangana Ranaut is staying in the news by carrying the flag of women independence and taking a stand against nepotism. This wouldn’t work for long in Bollywood. Slowly but surely, the doors will close in on her as she gets isolated. I have argued for nepotism as a commercial call in Bollywood. Nepotism exists as it commercially viable, but that is a story for another day. But for now, she is seen in this video which takes massive potshots at the male star culture, nepotism and the never aging male hero who romances women 30 years younger! Without my comment on the same topic, here, look at the video – worth watching

Of course this chick is very smart. She knows how to stay in the news before her movie. But it’s still an awesome watch! And it has a valid role in a society.. a very valid and important role!

Who do we belong to?

Who does the nation belong to and what is the role of the government. This is a question that has had me oscillating forever. When I was a student and full of hot blood, it was best used a socialist. The upliftment of the downtrodden and the poor was a priority. As I grew older and I wanted money to fuel my dreams and my passions, I was clear – survival of the fittest and capitalism is the best answer to the question of poverty. I think over the years capitalism has been largely successful in taking masses of people out of poverty, hunger and sickness. The free hand has been reasonably efficient in doing so at a large scale. Hence what is the role of the government? The Sarkar?

I find this question very difficult to answer in an unbiased fashion and way. What can I say that is not influenced by my money, success and life stage? Let’s look at a simple example – all of us rich folks hate the Ganapti celebration and the toll it takes on the traffic while we are going home. This dancing on the streets while taking the idol for immersion creates bottle necks and we rich people in cars ask – what on earth is going on? Shouldn’t all these be banned in a big commercial metropolis like Mumbai.

When I was growing up, dandiyas were like a big thing. All the gujju neighborhoods would organize massive dandiya festivals on the streets and they would dance till the wee hours of the morning. It became so big a fad that every neighborhood would organize this function right inside their colony, on whichever ground they could erect a basic pandal. It was the done thing. With the noise levels rising and the dance continuing till late, it was a matter of time that some people took objection to all the noise and started protesting. The gujjus fought back. It was their 9 nights of revelry.

This was the only time that women and men could dance together in pre liberalized India. There were no outlets for any of the young kids to go out and just hang out, let alone dance. Dance is an interesting thing. I think it is some kind of evolutionary thing where you allow your body to sway with abandon and it then takes over your mind. It allows you to flirt and exchange glances. It allows you to connect with someone matching step to step. Dandiya is the best form of this. The whole group agrees on the steps and then you match with each other – the timing being critical so that you hit the dandiyas at the same time. The whole group goes into a coordinated frenzy. The best part of this – then you twirl and move to the next dancer… multitudes of people dance with each other. Each one trying to coordinate with the other. It’s a perfect flirting sequence. No wonder it was so popular with the young kids who otherwise would shun anything so traditional. They invested their own moves, their own music and even called it a name – Disco Dandiya.

As the complaints grew, authorities took note and time limits were set. I remember at first they were often flouted butt soon enough the authorities were forced to act and the dancing would come to a close by 10 pm. That was the first body blow. The second and fatal body blow was simple – more options for the young kids. Enough discos and enough places with music where young kids could go and dance and inter mingle. Enough coffee shops and enough malls. You don’t need to dance in a community with elders watching when you simply can pub it (and get drunk as well).

This to my mind killed dandiyas completely and the gujjus simply moved on. Even in marriage ceremonies, they were taken off and replaced with dance parties with DJs, lights and daaru. But this craze didn’t die… it simply moved to the poorer sections of the society. Now dandiyas are often organized by poor ghettos and slums. They dance away with gay abandon in much the same way the gujjus of old used to. The pubs are out of reach for the poor and this is their outlet.

Ganapati celebrations are also similar. They get to get together and play music, dance away, hold compeitions and have langars. They all contribute  and often get political support and hold massive celebrations. At this stage when I see them dance and take to the roads for the processions, I am forced to be in a little bit of a dilemma. Who am I to pass judgment? Who am I to ask them to get out of the way?

As always the answer is somewhere in the middle. The poor need an outlet to enjoy and gather peacefully as a community. If we as rich asses think clearly, this is something we must promote. What’s a few days of inconvenience for fostering a community. Communities if handled well, tend to lower the crime rate and create an ecosystem that is self-dependent and economically prosperous. Studies have shown that great community living ensures a better health quotient than anything else. People take care of each other and people who retire live longer and continue to manage and grow the community. Often it’s seen that self-run communities like gymkhanas or housing societies rely on older people to run and manage them as they are ones with time. Today I was listening to a podcast that spoke about how spies are constantly worried about LOPs. LOPS? Little old people. These are people who have nothing to do but stand outside the balcony and watch other people and see patterns. They are ones that figure that things are wrong. They sit up at odd hours at night and keep a watch out. They are far more useful than what the society can imagine. In most movies and crime fiction as well as actual crime stories – it’s always the LOP that testifies. In fact once an Israeli spy ring was busted in Switzerland as they were reported behaving suspiciously around a house at 2 am by an old lady. Hah.

Jasmine is a secularist and is very annoyed that 500 rupees is added to our society maintenance charges towards society celebrations – that include Ganapati and holi and independence days etc. I agree it’s annoying and it should be voluntary. But on the other hand, this money ensures that we have society functions and that we know and recognize others in the society and socialize. We meet over such events especially for the free food on offer. Thanks to this a community develops and thanks to this people feel connected and thanks to this we work towards common goals and public goods like – cleanliness, upkeep, security etc. This increases the overall value of the property. The benefits far outweigh the costs, however communal or forced down upon.

This is the nature of human behavior. The downsides to this community is also when the society closes doors to outside ideas and talents. Societies in Mumbai, especially the older established societies with few tenants start making extra judicial laws like not allowing rental for singles or live in or work to refuse sale to people outside communities. I have argued before and studies show that a balance of renters and owners are required to bring about change. Too many renters and no one really cares about long term upkeep and too many owners and the society becomes rigid. This works as I have noticed for buildings as well as cities as a whole.

I think that religious festivities or any festivities must be encouraged but with rules that ensure that things don’t go out of hand. Fixed times and space allotted for the festivities with minimal impact outside of those directly involved may be created. Of course its gets crazy when one talks about some festivities becoming so large like the lalbaugh ka raja ganpati celebrations. The whole road outside needs to be blocked out. But on the flip side many of these generate donations that can be put to good use and least of all give employment opportunities to so many people. I like this as an income redistribution mechanism. As often seen, politicians get it right before most other professions.

Till then, I am going to be stuck in traffic, irritated and bored, spewing toxic emissions for future generations. Curse those bloody processions, I want to go home, while the meek inherit the earth.

just some stuff

Whats up Jispa? Really hope you are enjoying the blog so far.

I had written the birthday blog beforehand but had not posted it as the closing lines were still to be written. Then came the massive monsoon deluge and floods and we were stuck in office till about 2 am. The next day I did not have the laptop at home and hence got a peon to get it from office in the afternoon. After that the corporate nonsense happened. The laptop cannot connect to the internet from a home wifi and hence I had no internet and I couldn’t post the blog written.

Corporates are so stupid and ill thought of, I wonder how it even manages to run any way close to how it’s running. It’s like the government of India. I wonder how it ever runs. You are not incentivized to run anything and you probably do better when you do nothing. But it runs because some good guys in the system want to do well and want to change the life of others around them. They are good ones who make the system run and make you have faith in it. Corporates are no different. As they get larger and larger, they get weirder and weirder. The incentive is to let the status quo remain. If you take risk you don’t get commensurate rewards. Some guys decided that laptops must have high security. Sure a lot of laptops have a lot of confidential data but then there are better ways to manage them and through the data now possible in a cloud, it’s possible to control via access points. But then Cloud computing is a concept in corporates. ‘so you are telling me that my data will not be in a physical server in my premise’… ‘no’…’then where will it be’. And how can we allow that? Where are the norms, where are the safe gaurds, NO it’s not allowed… OH GOD! All the world’s best and craziest startups that you bloody idiots want to emulate have their stuff up in cloud servers. But here all the jokers will object to anything that they don’t understand and that disturbs their daily routine.

More funny stuff in corporate life – you can have a photo on your I-card with a tshirt. It has to be with a collared shirt. Why? No one knows. Somebody wrote the manual in that and decided that this little thing is important for the brand of the company. Sure. Even for a non-client facing role. So my old photo with a t shirt was rejected. I refused to give another one and then HR came to me and requested me. Fine.

No one knows why half the rules are even made anywhere. They just are there and you have to live with them. One of the things we have is access control. To go to the loo you have to use the i-card. Yup it’s behind somewhere which needs you to use the access control doors to get through. Corporates are in the mortal fear that they will be infiltrated by espionage agencies. It’s pretty stupid. Most of the data secrets are very simple to get by. You just schedule an interview with candidates who are working with your competitor. Everyone sings in an interview.

So there - I had to take the laptop back to the office to get the office wifi (BTW office wifi is also given on designation level, seriously!) and then got to post the blog. Eesh.

All organizations are weird. Startups have their own issues, which I saw upfront. The politics goes even crazier because there are no safe guards. Anybody can be fired at the bosses whim and fancy, so they have a higher sense of insecurity. But things like wifi are dealt with differently. There are no LAN wires itself at a startup and no one gets a desktop. Everyone is roaming around with laptops and wifi trying to work wherever they can / want. Of course resultant chaos rules but at least the boxed in effect a large organization does come through.

I have often thought, what would my organization, look like? If I ever build one ground up, I will try and ensure that the business plan is built on having as less employees as possible with as much tech as possible. Less is more. Less people will hopefully mean a crowd that is controllable and that is less political. That is critical. Existing organizations can’t change much. They have their own inherent walls built in which take too much resistance to dissolve. People will get scared when they see change. Any change. Only the down and out welcome change as they have nothing to lose or the supremely confident and secure. Rest all get scared of whats in store.

Bottom line – change is a bum. Change agents are bigger bums. Corporate environments are real crazy. Managing people is a full time job. And people put extraordinary effort in making life difficult and regimented for everyone. This is called having a job.

Which begs the question that how does it all still work? I guess, firms work as they are able to spot an opportunity and then exploit it well enough. They become very good at doing that one thing. That’s why they grow but when faced with challenges on a scale not anticipated they crumble and fall. That explains why so many companies also die. Many years ago, I read about “the living company” – which was an article in the Harvard Business Review. He spoke about the life of companies being measured in thousands of years. That is the potential life of a company. Now the decisions you can take or must take are very different. When I was interviewing, one very interesting senior person I met at a company that was interested in me told me, when you are trying to build a company for a 100 years then you automatically don’t take short term calls. I don’t know how much the firm must be acting upon it but the person seemed genuine and more importantly the idea seemed interesting. It was in stark contrast to the new startups that are looking to build scale and quickly sell the firm – in other words – flip it.

I am not too fussed about building a firm as much as I am fussed about a legacy. This can be in the form of practices and procedures, or building people. People typically have a better chance of a lasting legacy as opposed to procedures or practices which can be quickly dismantled as I have seen multiple times in the past. It used to hurt to see the stuff that I had built to be broken by my successors, and clinically so. Now I don’t care. Its fun to see it destroyed thus by idiots who have no clue on what they are doing.

As I grow older my view on life is exceedingly simple – courage to change where I must and the patience to accept where I can’t. And in the end – just give me the money. With that I will manage what I really want in life.

So ya, that’s a simple story about your blog on your birthday. That’s why I gave it to you in the evening. Also you can access it on your phone, if you haven’t figured it out yet, dumbo!

Yesterday when I asked her ‘hey, I am coming home late, are you staying awake or should I just whatsapp the gift to you.’ She was like ‘that’s a damn cheap thing to do. Who gives a gift on whatsapp to anyone? How cheap”. What to do, the gift is like that only. So I went home and typed the url on her laptop screen and she remarked “that’s it? So simple”. Yes… that’s it.

Its been an interesting journey so far and I feel privileged to have documented it. Now that I am again in a big massive corporate I guess, I will have some more privacy and some more time to write and hopefully I would be more regular.

The last two years had been quite chaotic. I worked hard and I put in lots of efforts and sacrificed a lot. In the end, like this blog, you end up remembering all the good stuff. Jasmine said “good Jispa. Read this blog and now you will come to know how much you have tortured us, all these years”. Hahaha.