The joy of giving joy is the greatest joy

Apologies for the alliteration but that is the greatest joy I see.  I may be a teacher at heart – I have tried to teach wherever I can and but I think the underpinning of all that teaching is that I am a performer. So two words describe me – performer (as in the arty types, the loud types, the actor types – not the top of the line types, not the excellent types, not the sales target champion type of performer). The second one is teacher. In marketing we like to put these in two different boxes. One is the motivator and the other is discriminator. The motivator is why need you fundamentally address and the discriminator is how different you are from others in addressing it. So when I think of myself – which word is which. Is the performer the core motivator or is teaching the motivator. Am I motivated to teach and I am a different teacher because I am a performer (I do funny things all the time while teaching) or am I a performer and I since I don’t have any other tricks I figure I get my audience by teaching.

Good question.

But I surely like to perform all the time. I have always wished and looked upon with envy at people who could play a musical instrument. I wish I could. I wish I learnt as a kid. The two instruments that I remember would always catch my fancy were one- the harmonica and second the flute. These are amazing instruments in the fact that these are possibly the easiest portable instruments of all time. you can carry them wherever you want and there you have your music with you in your pocket. Flute wins hands  down purely on the melody bit though.

Ever since I can remember – possibly since I was around 8 I would dream about playing these instruments everywhere. Just put them in your pocket and play it somewhere to someone. Regale an audience. An anonymous audience, an audience that is not expecting your performance. I never ever dreamt of playing on a large stage before a large audience. That never excited me. What excited me were the street performers who played on in the hope that people like what they are playing and danced to your tune. People who played for a penny were the real heroes in my life.

Art is a gift. It has no value that one can put on it. I would hate to price my art. What is the price of making someone smile? That’s why I love to teach where I teach. They possibly give me some remuneration that does not even pay my petrol bills to reach the place. But the joy of teaching – of showcasing my art – is greater than anything else.

Art must reach the common man in a form and manner that he can access it, touch it, be one with it, interact with it. when we won some award at my firm, to celebrate we hired a crooner with a  guitar and one bongo or something and we set it up in office. The office guys went crazy. They started singing with them, one guy took charge of the drum, the other took his guitar and the third (and fourth and fifth and sixth) started singing. It became something that was inclusive and not exclusive. We could have had a stage performance where chairs could have been laid to watch – but this way people interacted with the art and were one with it.

We celebrate Christmas and Diwali and then quickly put a cordon around the thing. You will see Diwali rangolis with cordon around it, Christmas trees with cordons around it, you will in fact see Santa Claus with  balustrades. Who is in the prison – him or us?

I want to break these barriers. That’s why the big mirror bubble at Chicago is what it is. It allows for people to be a part of it, interact with it and be one with it. It does not exclude but include. Everyone’s invited. All it takes is the first curious guy to break the invisible shackle and all hell breaks loose.

That’s why I love flash mobs. Flash mobs take the performance to the people. Thye can feel it, be one with it, it includes everyone into the stage. There is no stage. The performer and the audience, the stage and the theatre is one. It is a fusion of the opposites (a reconciliation of opposites), a burning of the curtain, that makes flash mobs so sexy and so engaging. The best flash mobs are those that are inclusive and interact with the people around. I saw this one today and I found it most lovely. In fact I went emotional. I wanted to do something like this.

This one is really special. What is different about this one from other sis really quite a simple thing. A child pays a coin to start something. She was expecting a simple small thing to happen. Slowly she is amazed by the width of whats on to offer. It took a child with a coin to start it. it was on demand. It interacted in some ways with the audience. That is what made this flash mob so special. Social networks unknowingly caught it bang – the headline screamed - “Best coin ever spent - A little girl donates some coins to a street musician and gets the best surprise in return. Well, that's certainly money well spent.” So there were many other flash mobs involving musicians, but this one was especially poignant. The whole orchestra can come in for a penny for a little girl. Not free – but for a penny from a girl. Sometimes – a penny can be better than free. Most marketers would disagree!

The joy of giving joy is the greatest joy!

as blunt as a knife

A few weeks back Jispa had her 100 meter freestyle event. Normally Jispa doesn’t do too well in the 100 mtr race. She like the 50 mtr. We thought that’s because she needs to build greater strength and stamina. That was also one the prime reasons we took Jispa to a nutritionist who specializes in children sports nutrition. We were hoping that eating right would help her build some strength and help her in the longer races. But ofcourse  we weren’t expecting a miracle too soon. These things do take a long time to settle in. Though I think the right approach to eating does pay some immediate dividends.

But something else happened in this race. This was a 25 mtr pool and hence it’s a four  legged race. Jispa was in lane 5 and by chance her friend from our club itself was in lane 4. As the race started, her friend who is normally better in the longer races set off. Jispa followed a little behind. Throughout the first fifty she tailed her friend. Then something happened. I saw something that I haven’t seen in Jispa’s race before. Her second fifty was faster than the first. Normally Jispa’s second fifty is quite bad. But she took off and slowly built a lead over her friend, ever so marginal but a lead nevertheless. Wow, something interesting was going on. Then in the last 25 some reserve energy came in and she went even faster to beat her friend in the race. Not that she was medal prospect or something but she did improve her timing. Even her coach who was watching this was quite amazed. “Great timing”, he congratulated her, “but, your second fifty was faster than your first fifty”. Basically you normally don’t do that, you should logically slow down as your energy wears off.

A few weeks back we had a parents-teacher meeting at Jispa’s school. Jispa is a sweet kid, largely stays out of trouble, never gets into fights nor is she bothered by the girl politics playing around. She is completely chilled and unaffected by it all. A lot like Jasmine I guess. So these meetings are always nice and sweet with the teachers never having anything really big to say. As the meeting was drawing to a close, her teacher told us “Jispa is a lovely child, she is very good, but…. But…. “ I guess she did not know how to put it. “but… she is not ..” I forget what word she used but, basically she meant Jispa is not aggressive or ambitious or a take charge kind of girl. She is very happy and content. Like if the teacher wants someone to get chalk or someone to do some work, Jispa isn’t the enthusiastic raising hands jumping in plea volunteer. She is happy being seated.

Yes, she isn’t that ambitious yet. She is content and is not interested in too many incentives or positions. She likes to do stuff but not necessarily has the killer instinct to win at all costs. She is contented and happy. Now that is a good thing in many ways and we also have brought her up that way. We haven’t taught her to kill or to covet winning at all costs. I have always maintained that desire to win or perform must come from inside of you. You don’t have to win because your dad wants you to win. You have to win because you want to or you think it’s in you to win. Her teacher also admitted that its possibly a good thing but she was possibly lamenting that it could be a waste of talent or something not to be ambitious or to be contented.

Now after the race, I asked her, what she was doing. I suspected that she pushed herself as her friend was in the next lane and that turned out to be the real reason. She wanted to beat her. Something inside of her came alive. She wanted to compete. Sure Jispa like competing and competing hard and coming ahead but it’s not the winning. Difficult to really explain, but it’s a case of opposites reconciling. Try to win but not really covet winning. Her coach and I had a discussion on this today. I said she isn’t really that ambitious but I guess she needs to know how good she really is. Her coach told me that he is waiting. He believes that Jispa is a great potential. Once her mind will flip and she decides that she is a good swimmer and she is capable of much more, then she will suddenly zoom ahead.

Ya I agree. This race was testimony to the fact there is much more to her than she shows. She is capable of performing better. She needs to realize this on her own at her own time. Only when she realizes this on her will she emerge from her own shadow. She is talented, physically fit, mentally sharp and a nice amiable kid. Can be become sharp without losing her … BLUNT? That is for us to find out.

Go ahead.. EXPLODE

Going with Jispa to the bus stop every day is just enough bonding time. Anymore and Jasmine will probably throw me out of the house. What problem does she have with my bonding? Well nothing really, it’s the problem she envisages Jispa having with my bonding. I get extra pleasure out of talking with Jispa and pushing her imagination. And Jispa likes to use and apply these concepts.
Like this time around we are high on Einstein. I was explaining to her how time moves slower in a moving vehicle. Well kind of explaining to her. To the best that I understand. She was getting all wired and confused but getting the point as well. Its fun teaching concepts that challenge her brain. The other recent favorite is that it is possible to see the past. All you have to do is move faster than light. But you can’t theoretically move faster than light but if you could, then you would be able to see the past. I explained this to her and she was quite awestruck by the fact. We even discussed this a few days later. That is the ultimate test. If she remembers it and she talks about it then I know the penny has dropped. Full on time pass. She has to take some facts to school on a periodic basis. What’s the point in taking lame facts? All kids read encyclopedias and watch the geographic channels so facts that astound them have to be smart and different. This time Jispa was asking me about taking a fact to school. I was fresh from a book about flight and I explained to her that the aero planes could only be invented after the invention of the petrol powered engines. Otherwise the other engines were too heavy to put on planes. Now that’s a fact that even her teacher wouldn’t have known. That’s a fact that does come as a factoid in a channel or a children’s magazine. It’s an unknown kind of factoid. I keep trying to dazzle her. It’s fun when you teach that run of the mill stuff is just that – run of the mill stuff. It’s not something she took and read from a cut out or something. She spoke it from her mind because she understood the concept. I am dying for her to take the see the past concept to school. This is what I call teaching a kid. Putting advanced concepts in a simple to understand way.
Throw open your mind. Absorb stuff from all around. Keep thinking, keep tinkering. Jispa and I have the ultimate fun when one question leads to another and another and then we wonder how we got where we got. Whoops. I love it when it really challenges me to explain what I know in a manner that an eight year old can understand. That is the true test of knowing. Like my professor used to say – what is marketing? How do you know you know marketing? Can you explain what it is to your mother? Can explain the marketing of the oil she is buying to your mother. Then it is marketing. Yes Professor Navalkar. I remember his golden words. What is the point of all the reading I might have done? I must be able to explain it to the kids in a language that they understand and in a language that they appreciate, learn and remember. The penny must drop and remain there.
The best compliment I thought I ever received when Jasmine today told me that Jispa was telling her “mom, how I remember stuff from long time ago. I remember when I was two or three years old and daddy was teaching me about day and night. He took me to the bathroom with a globe and a torch and in the darkness showed me night and day. I still remember it”. Wow that is cool. I barely remember it. It was around 5 to 6 years ago. Like all proud papas; I took that as a compliment to my teaching skills rather than her memory skills. Haha. In parenting you get a lot of brickbats, you have to learn to take a few positives and gloat on them when they come. I tell, that is a sure way of staying sane.
(the reason
Kids are the most fun. You have to explain to them, use similies, metaphors and really challenge yourself. And you know what, explaining this to others helps you learn it better. You understand it in a way that even you retain it. The surest way to learn something is to teach it to others. They challenge you, ask you and expect you to know it all. So you keep thinking, take some time out, think through, sometimes together and figure it out. That is the best way to learn. You keep drilling concepts into your mind as you drill them into other minds. In office too as I teach / talk about the various concepts, I get to learn them as well. I love it when my team challenges me on the concepts, pushes me, asks ridiculous, innocuous looking but highly dangerous questions that challenge my understanding of them. That pushes me to think much more. Yes teaching is a great thing.
Like one office kid asked me what I think is the thing that I want to do the most. Years of corporate disillusionment has taught me only to remove all notion of ambition. I have no great desire to be the CEO or something. Screw you establishment. But I think of something that I hold dear to my heart. Something that has possibly defined me and helped mould me. Teaching. I want to constantly teach. I want to be in a position where I can learn constantly, where I have to push myself to understand better and then teach people to understand better. I want to see minds open. I want to constantly open mine. The greatest gift of teaching to me is the simple act of a student opening his mind. My greatest pleasure does not come from the guys who come in first in class. It comes from the guy who come into class with a closed mind, least interested in studying and generally believing that this is all shit. When I see him contribute, when I she her raising her hand, challenging me and then when I say, right, good thought, great observation, and then them believing in what is being taught. That is the greatest gift that I can get. An opening of a window in their mind.
After knowing a bit I know only one thing, that I know too little. The joy in knowing more is unimaginable. The joy in teaching that there is a vast unexplored world out there is crazy. One of the reasons why we named Jispa after a slightly inaccessible mountain village is just that. Her name must conjure in her head a sense of exploration. Something that she must seek out. Something that she could aspire to conquer, reach and feel. Something that is high, away and pure. Go on Jispa. Go on… explore. EXPOLDE.




PS: the reason Jasmine worries about all this is because Jispa likes showing her mind off and she worrys that she will show off to her teacher in school and we don’t know how they all react to oversmart students. Yup. We are scarred by our own experiences. But I purposely push her and want to show her that a teacher, any teacher, never knows all. She is only explaining what she knows and that does not make me/her/ she/ him the ultimate know all. Go ahead.. . burst a few myths along the way. Go ahead. EXPLODE

football

In some ways I hate Jispa’s vacation. It takes my morning schedule and throws it out of the window. Jasmine too believes she is on vacation further compounding matters. Hence thanks to that we don’t sleep early we wake up later and I barely get time for my morning yoga and swimming. I guess I have learnt not to fight it too much I just get on with it. I have decided it takes too much effort and will power on my side to break away from the family ritual and I stay on in bed and just about manage to amble in to office on time.
I am just dying for the school to start. Morning yoga and morning swim is just the right thing for me. I have been getting too soft and hopefully the coming Monday will see me back to the good old schedule.
To make matter worse the general uplift in work load means very little time for writing my blog. I like to come in a bit early and sit down and write before the office wakes up. So today I missed yoga and a swim but I managed to come in early just to write the blog. Somehow this blog has become an important creative release for me. I feel it gives meaning to some activity of mine. I don’t know. But its fun writing.
Talking about activity… no matter how much you exercise every sport is different and has its own nuances. On Saturday we had the intra office soccer tournament. It was a five a side affair with tiny grounds and small goal posts. Played in rain on grass, it makes for a wet, horribly soggy ground and a mud wrestle of a match. Its complete chaos. And after the tournament day you discover some muscles that you never knew you had. While walking the first time I felt that there was muscle a little over the shin and below the knee. Till now I thought it was all bone.
The reason I can feel this muscle on my right leg is because I am the defender. My job is to kick the ball right into the other half. The muddy ground makes passing impossible and the water soaked patches makes dribbling a farce. And in five a side there is no office rule. I learnt this lesson around five years ago. Just kick the ball over every ones head into the other side. Most teams make this mistake of dribbling and passing and slow short passes or solo runs by the star. The star player is simply supposed to hang around the opposite goal. Two defenders are enough to save almost any goal from the amateur sides. Especially when there is soo much muck floating around. Also with seven minutes a half, the referee is not going to blow the whistle often and on most fowls. You have to be blatantly dragging the guy down to really give away a foul. It is an ugly slug fight.
Some patches are so water logged that there is atleast a foot of water. We had one area near the goal post. There the forwards were fighting with the defender, the goalies joined in, no one really knows who is in which team, everybody is covered in brown. People are fighting and falling all over the ball. The goalie cant get a grip on the ball. At one point the defender had come sliding in, the goal had jumped over him, the attacker was down and eth ball… the ball was somewhere near the led of eth defender and under the stomach of the attacker. Then another defender comes in and tries to kick the ball which is under the stomach of the fallen attacker. All this in one foot of water, and the rain is still coming down hard. Finally the ref had enough and blew the whistle for dangerous play. Penalty. As a defender I was happy that the ball wasn’t kicked my way. I had tears in my eyes from all the laughing thank to the sight.
The penalty spot was in 4 inches of water. The attacker managed to put the ball there and he took a kick. What do you expect? The ball did not even reach the goal post.
That’s football for you. Good fun nah? Well it’s a male thing. All that physical exertion, hardly any skill, lots of mud and a general fight on hands.
I guess there is reason why we like cricket over football as a nation and I really don’t know what Girish says about Indian genetics and football :) (he does make sense) but all I know that I don’t see too many Indians falling over and rolling in mud trying to play this game. Like most writers without substantial proof I feel like saying ‘it’s too anti Brahminical to succeed in India’. But like most truths, I think the answer might be a curious mix and match of many more characteristics. Sometimes I believe it’s simply a case of lack of role models.
My brother used to play very good football. In fact he was given the haloed number ten jersey while he played at school. My mom told him that football will never sustain him as a career. While my sweet dad loved sports and tried to support him in his game, at some time he knew it was education that would hold him in his life not football. I don’t think our parents ever saw that it was possible to play football and make a career. My brother is only one. There were many such talented player who just about killed their talent and love with education. My guess is that only after Sachin really made it big and showed how its possible to play cricket and make money that so many parents supported their kid’s cricketing ambitions. Till about them most of the players who played for India generally belonged to the upper class.
Which makes me think. Do kids require role models or is it parents who require role models. A kid simply plays, it’s the environment that supports him or not, basis their own beliefs. Hmmm… I am thinking.

grow up

I don’t what it is like now but small boys in my time had pretty simple ambitions when they grew up. Some wanted to be fire engine drivers or train engine drivers and then they quickly grew up to want to be doctors, engineers, army men and the lot. Standard professions to want to be in. not to much to write home about. I was always a patriotic buff and wanted to be in the army. That was it for me. It lasted till I was 21 for me. I had even joined the NCC in college. The national cadet corps was the perfect stepping stone for my desired career. Though I was always the thin sickly kid in college and I never knew how someone like me would ever pass the tough admission tests. I guess that lasted till I got my MBA admissions and Jasmine’s desire. While I think she still does not like to believe it was her but I remember clearly the moment when I decided to go for the MBA. I guess it was better in the end. I might be too much of a non conformist to succeed in the armed forces. I might have been kicked right out. Or possibly never selected. You never know. My NCC was in the Air Force wing so I might have been flying one of these flying coffins as well. So I guess my immature patriotism probably never managed to convert itself into a profession.
This vacation I had a chance to remember my dream job. The taxis in the mountains were always a sure fire way to puke. In fact any vehicle in the mountains would result in puking bouts. As a kid I was always plagued by morning sickness. In the vacations we would drive in the morning only to find me puking my breakfast. As I grew older I managed to only puke on curving roads. And this was anytime during the day, not restricted to mornings. It was a gut wrenching experience. You first puke your food and the next time you still puke but as since there is nothing left in the stomach you puke air. It is a bad thing. I used to be miserable and I remember my dad telling me that there is no hope for you as an armed forces career if you can handle this. I was so pissed at him for this. That was no way to treat my dream. That was insensitive.
The last vacation, last year, in the mountains we had taken a vacation wherein we travelled by road but this around we had hired small cars like the wagon R, Alto and the van. Sitting in front in these petrol run cars with a low clearance seemed to have a positive effect. I managed without a single throw up. That was a revelation. I finally figured what happens. I need a small car (less movement) with a low ground clearance and it must be petrol. The diesel fumes also create huge issues as subsequent travels in a jeep result in near vomit situations. The issue is also that in the mountains the un burnt diesel from your car or even from a car travelling in front of you is enough to give me the reaction. This time in a much smarter move we took a smaller car (Indica) though it being diesel run, we opted for the air conditioned version. That substantially cut the heat, noise, dust and diesel fumes and it resulted in a puke free trip. I couldn’t help thinking that it wasn’t a simple thing like curvy roads that get my goose. It a complex combination of many factors. I could have made it in the Armed forces after all. Hehe.
But on inane ambitions like fire engine drivers; I saw this man outside my office window the other day. I guess this is a profession that I might find interesting. I have always found the guys who wash windows interesting. The fun of getting squeaky clean windows added to the thrill of getting to hang from the ledge and cleaning windows from the outside makes for a lovely profession. I am pretty enamoured by it.