meeting the master

Lets start with something crazy

Reality is what we take to be true,” pioneering physicist David Bohm asserted in 1977. “What we take to be true is what we believe. What we believe is based upon our perceptions. What we perceive depends on what we look for. What we look for depends on what we think. What we think depends on what we perceive. What we perceive determines what we believe. What we believe determines what we take to be true. What we take to be true is our reality.”

What I take to be true and what I therefore believe my reality to be is largely shaped by the one man in my life that I met and had the good fortune to work with. Dharen Chaddha. I worked only for a year with him in consulting only to come to a conclusion that consulting is not the thing for me. I would much rather prefer the boring life of a working doer than an intellectual life of a great consulting master.

But the main point is that Dharen gave me almost all the intellect that I claim to enjoy today. The best part was that he did not do it by trying to teach me or by trying to inculcate something in me. He was just there. He did what he did and I could just not help but be affected by it. His presence was enough. I merely worked with me and then later on inculcated in myself all that I thought I could learn from him. Reflection, silence, thought, ability to paraphrase conversations, patience, taking people along, using wisdom received from others, actively listening, believing in the books people write… everything. In short, I would say I learnt to think from him. That is the greatest gift anyone can give anyone else. The learning on how to think. How to approach, how to behave…

I am an atheist or an agnostic, but I have a God, and I have met him. He stays in Bangalore.

I haven’t had the chance to meet Dharen in the 13 years since I left the firm. How could I? What does one do when one meets God? How can I talk to him? What do I talk to him? I would feel so weak and so dead. What would happen when I meet him. Hence I must have spoken to him only a few times in the 13 years. But I never ever had the guts to ever meet him.

Hero worship is a funny thing. You can worship someone forever and have a dronacharya – eklavya relationship but when they come in front of you, you don’t know what to do. Dharen is my hero. I want to think like him, work like him, communicate like him. I am nowhere near as good as him, but I want to try and bring in the best of what I can inside of me, what I have learnt from him.

So this time, I was with family in Bangalore, I messaged him and he promptly called back. With family, I had an incentive… I wanted Jispa to meet him once. I wanted to show her my God, my inspiration and a lot of credit for what and where we are right now. So we did plan to meet him. I asked Jispa “you want to meet my God?” I told her about Dharen. She knew a bit and she knew that I treat him thus. She was ok. I explained to her that he was the greatest influence on my life and my thought so far and I would love for her to meet him once, at least. She was game.

When we went there, as we were reaching I was wondering how I would react. The mere thought of him would bring tears to my eyes. Now I know what Elvis fans would feel like. Many times whenever I have spoken about him to anybody or thought deeply about him, I can’t help the tears that come in my eyes. I choke up and it’s difficult to control. So I was wondering how I would survive meeting him. What would happen, would I just break up, would I just collapse, what would happen.

As we reached his home, he came outside to greet us. There I had to fight back my emotions and stop myself form crying out then and there. Jasmine noticed it and then spoke about it. Ya. That one was tough. So I managed to stay ok meeting him after a long time. !3 years.

The meetings went off well. We chatted on a few things. I have always believed that he struggles to talk to common people. It is difficult for people like him to come down to our level, though I am sure this is something that he will surely not agree to. But I have seen him, think and wonder what to tell or talk. Then he would make his point and it would be laborious as he tries to explain the point he is making, carefully choosing his words. If the person on the other side is not quite as sharp then it would result in a really funny conversation. At momentum, we would laugh at the client’s inability to grasp Dharen’s words of wisdom. People have to move up to appreciate it and to completely grasp the complexity that he brought to the table with his words. Clients struggled, normal people struggled and that was one of the points that I knew was the final clincher as I decided not to consult anymore. If people can’t take the wisdom of Dharen, then I have no chance here. I could not meet anymore jokers and try and convince them on the intelligence of marketing or business strategy. In many ways I thought he was too intelligent and way too sharp for the clients he was consulting.

I then asked if I could show Jispa the study room. Dharen said “sure, but the study room has been shifted to a new room, but let’s see it nevertheless”. We took Jispa up and while we were going up I was telling her about an experience that made me think of Dharen as some kind of super human. We were working on a project in his study that was full of books and then he suddenly asked me to remove one book, that he pointed out. It was “Eldest Son: Zhou Enlai and the Making of Modern China, 1898-1976”. He then took the book and read a few pages from the start and then pointed out to the paragraph he wanted from it and then he asked me to read it. I was dumb struck. It was one book out of the millions he had read and he just picked it from nowhere and then it was a paragraph from this thick book that had struck him. And he had the ability to get it back again. This was Dharen for me. This was the genius I would revere and I would never be able to match up to. This was the legend that I passed onto Jispa.

Then he led us to the study where a smaller fraction of the books where there. As we just walked around, Jispa pointed out to the book – the eldest son. Yes it was there. The same book, that made the legend in my mind. I picked it up and looked at where I had found the passage. There it was – the passage, with a blue pen mark. I showed it to Jispa, there it’s still here, and this is the very same book. At this point or hereabouts, I broke down. Literally broke down.

At this point I just couldn’t control. I was laughing but I was crying also at the same time. It was weird, crying for no reason; a surfeit of emotions running through. I couldn’t pick any reason I should cry except that I was in the company of my God.

What a moment – My daughter on one side, my guru on the other and the book of the legend in my hand and Jasmine looking on.

Afterwards I asked Jispa about it. I don’t think I have cried in front of my daughter before. She said ya – you were laughing and crying at the same time. Short of fainting, she said that I probably behaved like what her friend would if would have met her rock star hero. Yup. Dharen is just that for me.

I was happy that the family met him. I don’t think there would too many instances later. Jispa must know who was one of the most important influence in my life and by that logic – a largish influence on her life.

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When Dharen saw the paragraph in the book that I was referring to he said – Yes. Zhou Enlai was shaped this way as he was the eldest son. I resonated it with that paragraph perhaps because I was also ‘the eldest son’ and that’s why it had an impact on me.

The paragraph from the book -

“Why, why did people love him?” one of two American newsmen asks me that evening. “After all, he made a lot of mistakes. Why is it that people weep when they speak of him?”

It is difficult to say why. Except that, somehow, because of him, we all felt life was worth living. Even when everything went wrong. “Perhaps because he never forgot to care. Even his mistakes were because he cared. He couldn’t help caring. It was bred in him. He was the eldest son.”

Eldest son, eldest grandson. In the Confucian scholar families of China, the eldest son was marked out for uncommon responsibility and duties. The eldest son, or failing him, the eldest grandson, must provide care and education for all the younger male children in the same generation as himself and for their offspring. He must also provide comfort, food, and lodging to the two generations above him, parents and grandparents. He must be a model. A model of filial piety, of traditional virtue, upholding family honor and status, sacrificing himself always so that the family will thrive.

He is the embodiment of the Confucian tradition, the magic bond with the past, his life one of unending care, responsibility and abnegation.

Tsunghuai, a young man of forty, says to me, “I think that Zhou Enlai, throughout his life, was unconsciously marked by the fact that he was eldest son, eldest grandson.” 

A lot of this I think is me but the problem is that I am the youngest son, the youngest grandson. While I grew up I believed that I must be the model of filial piety, of traditional virtue… blah blah…. So that the family will thrive. But there was one problem. I was the youngest son, the youngest grandson. On both sides. The youngest son has a different role to play. He has to be the rebel, the growth, the ability to push it all out. But I was different. I was confused. I held values that were not expected of me. I had a tough time I think in the end trying to balance the two opposites of what I feel and what I should be.

I think a lot of this is the opposites reconciling inside of me when I go about my teaching. I am the older guy but also the youngest cool son. I should have the ability to relate to the kids while giving sage advice as to what to do in life. I think as I grow older I am probably losing that deft touch and that ability to connect with the kids. There is an age a life stage and a role. These need to be relevant to each other to create an impact. I think I had my chance while I was really young and learning along with my teaching these kids. I think I must reinvent myself and look beyond what got me here. What got me here will get me there. Possibly I have to change it just a little, not too drastic, just a little change here, a little there. So I continue to be relevant but yet retain my core that makes me, me.

Gowing up is reinventing yourself every few years, trying to manage the change around you so that a little of you is there while a lot of you is changed. Or risk being irrelevant to the environment around you.

odd man stands out

So how were the Nationals for Jispa. Haha.. I am sure she will never ever forget her first nationals. I am sure, we will never ever forget them as well.

The heats were scheduled for the morning and top 8 swim for the medals in the evening. I caught the 6 am flight just to try and be there on time. In spite of the Uber driver antics, I did manage to reach on time. As I came in I sought out Jispa and wanted to say hi to her. She did look out of sorts and a bit tense. She didn’t respond well to me talking and wasn’t interested in making any conversation. I decided not to interfere and let her be.

It was time for her to go for her swim. In the nationals, they call out and arrange the swimmers in batches of 8 at the side. Then one batch at a time they are lead to the starting blocks where they have the time to sit down and remove their track suits and be ready for the swim. It’s very professionally done with a lot of time given to the swimmers.

The lanes were called out and the swimmers stood on the edge. With the long whistle, they jumped into the pool to take their positions for the start of the back stroke 50 meter race.  Since the races are decided by touch pads, the start is a buzzer that the official presses. He says , on your mark, set and presses the buzzer. On Jispa’s most important race till now, I watched with baited breath as the official called out – ONE YOUR MARK… I think my heart beat faster as she was about to take off. GET SET. And off she goes… and then the official rings the buzzer; the rest then take off. Yup you heard that right. ON YOUR MARK. GET SET… Jispa takes off… and then the official rings the Buzzer. We are standing with all the parents from the Mumbai and a collective gasp is let off from our side. I am next to another swim father and we both hit our hands on our heads. Dam shit. Jispa has had a false start. In swimming it’s called a flick start. She flicked the start. By a huge perceptible second. She is bound to be disqualified.

Wow. A whole year of training and hard work and preparation and she flicks a start for the first time in her life. Never in her trainings, never in practice races, never in relays, Never.

I look away and look my friend beside me - she flicked the start! We tell each other. That’s it. We are done. Well well, no point seeing the race. I look back to see her finish. In the end she did swim a bad race in any case with timings worse than what she would have given. I smile. That’s the end to all this… the end to this year. The end. Now enjoy the rest of your holiday.

There is some silence in the camp.

When Jispa comes back to us after the race, I am smiling and holding the towel in both hands outstretched. She is smiling and she asks, “it was a flick start, right? Did I flick start”. Smiling, I answer her in the affirmative. I then wrap the towel around her and laugh while hugging her. “You flicked. Hahahahahaha. And it wasn’t like a small flick, it was the most horrible flick I have seen ever in my life. It was outrageous. Hahahaha” We both laugh. Jasmine showed her the video and she did not know where to look after that. She was laughing at herself.

I then told her its ok, this one was so bad that it was good. You didn’t do anything, I think were just too nervous and you just did something unnatural. Its ok. We made a few jokes about it and left it at that.

Jispa is a fair kid. She doesn’t cheat. She is not a perennial flick starter like some of the other swimmers. I think the nerves got to her. It happens to the best of us. First time nationals can do that to you.

There are few races that I remember of Jispa. The crazy ones being the ones she swam the relay and chased down the competition in the school race, to finish first by a hairs breath! She was fast and it was an amazing race.  This was one on the other extreme. The flick start just keeps playing in my head, again and again.

Well, memories. You remember the good ones and you remember the bad ones. Normal things are so forgetful. You have to have an odd experience for the experience to be memorable. When you grow old, you will remember these odd ones, not the boring life ones.

In many ways she probably gave me the most memorable swim race of my life, so far.

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random other conversation

“kid in your class use bad words?”

“ya”

“bad words like F and all that”

“ya”

“do you give bad words?”

“no”

“why”

“I don’t know”

“you know its ok to give to bad words”

“ya”

“you know that I don’t mind if you use bad words”

“ya”

“you know that I use bad words in office and elsewhere”

“ya”

“how do you know”

“I have heard you give”

“when?”

“I don’t know, at times”

“ok. But you can give if you want to. I am ok… right?”

“right”

Oh…The conversations I live for…

irreducible experiences

Ah> we are back from Bangalore, Jispa’s first nationals. The nationals have a heats format wherein the heats are in the morning and the finals are in the evening. You have to make it to the top eight to participate in the evening. Jispa’s heats were in the morning and Jispa with Jasmine had reached a few days before. Acclimatizing to the pool, water and the whole experience is also important. Jispa was telling me that every swimming pool is different. According to her, each pool has its peculiarity as regards the water. Some water is heavy and some is light to push. The feel of the pool, the starting blocks and everything is different. So a few days in advance make a big difference.

Jispa is now at an interesting age. I bought her two swim books that are supposed to help you swim and get your technique right. This is obviously meant for competitive swimmers and iron out some flaws while explain the technique with some science backing it. She read them both, surprising me. And then we had a chat about it as well. She was explaining to me how the book helped her understand stuff as well as help her put words to what she instinctively knew. One interesting thing was, as she told me, she searches for still water to push. While your hand flows through the water, it pushes in an S shape flow, as hand goes through the water. This is essentially searching for still water to push through. Next she explained that the book helped her change the technique a little bit as she now modified her arm to have a higher arm action as she pushes through with larger force. She feels it has improved her stroke.

Wow. It felt nice to have such conversations with her. I have been learning from everyone and everything, it was about time that my daughter taught me stuff.

So, off to Bangalore she went for her first Nationals. I was to reach the place on the morning itself, hopefully in time for the heats. I take an early morning flight to reach Bangalore by around 7:40 am. The plan was to take an Uber and get to the city. Uber and Ola have really made travelling much easier across India and I am sure, across the world.  Cabs, have always been a pain in most cities, with unreliable service, hard to get cabs, bad drivers and shitty vehicles. These guys have solved these problems with having a service that is cheap and reliable. In most of the Indian towns it removed the scourge of the rickshaw which would be notorious for charging whatever they want and being militant about it. The rickshaw fares would invariably be 4 to 5 times the normal fare and he wouldn’t even bother to respond to you if you were going in the wrong direction of his choosing.

Bangalore, Delhi or any city, you had to land at the airport and take a pre paid taxi, which was the only safe way to get anywhere without being fleeced. Even that was an issue with these jokers finding different ways to catch you and extort money from you. The simple non a/c cabs would have their meters doctored and I remember not even bothering to look at the meter every time I had to take a cab to home from Mumbai Airport. I would step out and just place a 100 buck note in his hand. I knew that was the real fare and I would walk out fast, while he screamed abuses at me. All this has been solved with the arrival of the cab aggregators.

Good service, no fleecing, nice cars and reliable bills.

But hell, this is India. For every good thing we have a lot of people, ready at the wings waiting o get in. When you have enough people and lot of them, what you have is a really large sample. When you have a large sample, you have enough to get a mean. And you will have what we know as mean reversion.

Let’s see the math definition:

“Reversion to the mean, also called regression to the mean, is the statistical phenomenon stating that the greater the deviation of a random variate from its mean, the greater the probability that the next measured variate will deviate less far. In other words, an extreme event is likely to be followed by a less extreme event.

Although this phenomenon appears to violate the definition of independent events, it simply reflects the fact that the probability density function  of any random variable , by definition, is nonnegative over every interval and integrates to one over the interval . Thus, as you move away from the mean, the proportion of the distribution that lies closer to the mean than you do increases continuously.”

Or in simpler English:

“The mean reversion is the theory suggesting that prices and returns eventually move back towards the mean or average. This mean or average can be the historical average of the price or return or another relevant average such as the growth in the economy or the average return of an industry.”

Or as I can explain – given enough instances – everything will become average. This is the truth of life. So while I was getting amazing experiences with Uber and yes the app experience is amazing – at some point mean reversion is going to happen and it happened (is happening as we speak).

I got out of Bangalore airport to get an Uber. The guy did not know the Uber designated pickup point, did not know the location, in fact he did not even know anything about the city. His car was not so much in a good shape and then he wanted me to pay for toll (always paid for in bill), and the worst – he wanted to fill diesel on my time.

I was running late and wanted to catch Jispa’s swim but this guy ready to make me reach late. In the end – I had to shot at him, that you are not filling fuel on my time. You will take me to the place I have marked off, NOW. This was the limit, it wasn’t going to work.

Jispa sees this streak in me. Suddenly I will lose it at some random guy for some random reason and take his case. Jispa and I have been talking about this. I try and explain to her that this is not a random fight. This is a very genuine reason to get angry. Don’t do silly things and piss me off and give some bull reason. You have to use anger for a reason and at the time you must use it to get something done.

On the way back to the airport – we were getting late and we got the driver to wait while we get the bags from the hotel. When we got the bags down the guy had disappeared. He had locked the car and gone somewhere. It was really really painful and I was really angry. I explained to Jispa that ‘at the time I was really angry but did I raise my voice of show anger?” “NO”. because it was not beneficial. I had no choice, the deed was done, my anger would have helped me reach nowhere. I would only get more late and the driver would just simply not be affected. It does not help. So anger is a weapon that must be used properly and against the right guy.

So getting back to mean reversion. That is the truth of life. You are going to be controlled by the averages. Your performance is going to be controlled by average people around you. You are destined to be average unless you are really really aggressive in pushing the boundaries in terms of actively removing below average people you interact with. When you remove people who drag the average down you automatically get a higher average because you have only the higher ones left. Now your average is better than what it was, but there is a caveat to this… SCALE! If you want scale you cant just start removing all that is below the average.

Most ideas work when the proposition is small to start with. When you have a limited audience and you want to maximize the experience for that. When you think its successful and then you want to take that and spread it around, that’s when the average starts to kick in. the pressure of growth is so large that it becomes near impossible to grow at the speed of the opportunity in front of you, and not be ruined by the law of averages. You have to keep a constant eye on the average and weed out the ones that drag down the mean.

This also comes with a high human cost. No – I am not suggesting that high averages are desirable or the right thing to do. It’s a choice you have to make. Everything comes at a cost. Especially scale. The question you have to ask is what do you want to achieve in life and what is the cost of achieving that. There is human costs on both sides, yours and on the others who happen to be below average. It easy when it comes to the outliers, the complete losers who kill you but as the bell curve property shows, maximum concentration happens around the mean. So these are difficult calls to take.

A higher mean is good for your sanity and you tend to then focus on smarter people who surround you, but then you can’t have scale then. If you want to have scale then you have to have a mechanism that attracts and retains only the top of the totem pole. This would mean a higher concentration of real top average people. When that happens, you will have too many awesome minds trying to fight amongst themselves and you will have your own set of problems with that. Problems of higher politics and higher ambition and everything else.

Nature is a balance… I am reminded of a book written on managing software projects called The Mythical Man Month. One of the points that the author makes is about complex systems have a certain amount of irreducible errors:

The tendency towards irreducible number of errors

The author makes the observation that in a suitably complex system there is a certain irreducible number of errors. Any attempt to fix observed errors tends to result in the introduction of other errors.

I think something similar is - an irreducible number of awesome experiences. Its going to catch up with you. Just wait!