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. 

Its yours.

After a decade of writing this blog, I knew it would have some amazing value. Value in terms of a legacy that one can pass on. My thoughts my experiences, my growing up and Jispa’s growing up. The blog helped me pass through some real tough times, especially when the stock markets tanked and there was no work in office. That was such a productive period for me and this blog. The blog was just a simple way of recording what I feel but it ended up being much more than that. It helped me shape myself and my feelings.

When you write something down, and that something concerns your thoughts and actions, you tend to be a bit more circumspect about it. You think through a little more, knowing that this will be there for posterity and that this is a legacy you are leaving behind. It made me think a little more about my thoughts, helped me research a bit more about what I wanted to write about, and helped me argue both sides of a coin. It helped me see balance in the world. Also when I kept searching for things to write about I would think a little harder about what all I could write about. This helped me see the world in a different light as well. It probably made me more insightful and see greater meaning and purpose in a lot more things than that I would have in the normal course of my life. Teaching and blogging have helped shape more thoughts about myself and my life than anything else in the world. Interacting with world while teaching helped me clarify so many concepts and blogging is interacting with myself. I tell myself so many things while writing. Of course there is a disclaimer to this – this blog is not a diary. It’s a blog that I have written to pass on to Jispa, hence it will always suffer from being a parent. I know Jispa will read it and hence it will be a version of my life that I wouldn’t mind Jispa reading it. Can I be 100% truthful on this blog? This blog is 100% true but does it contain the whole truth and all the truth in the world that I see? No. It won’t. But that doesn’t take anything away from this body of writing.

It has helped chronicle a lot of my life while I have grown as a professional, as a thinker and as a parent. And reflect on it in the process. It worth its weight in gold. I knew I had to give Jispa this blog someday. It seems that one day I had promised Jispa that when she turns 15 she would get this blog to read. She has stuck to it. Obviously it meant something to her. It is an amazing thing. I wish I had something like this to read. Jispa’s 15^th birthday is coming up in a couple of days. Wow. I remember holding her in my arms the day she was born and singing her song to her. I remember slapping her hard when she kicked me. I remember holding her tight and putting her to sleep. I remember trying to help her solve her nightmares so that she gets her sleep. I remember teaching her about everything I know and I remember having lots of conversations with her.

Now she is 15. She tells me ‘shut up’ when I make fun of her. She whacks me on the head and bites me on my shoulder. We have this pact where I can’t refuse her biting me and she can’t refuse me kissing her on the nose. What a childhood, so different from mine. We wanted it that way for her.

And I have to keep up the promise and give her this blog as she turns 15. Sigh… I don’t want to. I want to tell her that she can get it when she is 18, but I think she is adamant and more than that, I think she is ready for it. I think a lot of the topics that I have written about are nuanced and have subtleties that may be difficult for a 15 year to completely fathom. But it’s still ok and she will get most of it. She can keep going back to the blog again and again when she is older. She may meaning in it that was previously lost to her. I intended this more like a random fun thing or a conversation that she can refer to whenever she wants to talk to someone, search for meaning, understand life or have fun or increase general knowledge. It’s a random tome on everything I found interesting or noteworthy to pass on.

So yes, Jispa many times I will address you in the first person as well. Even when I am not, the text was always written assuming that you are audience. This has been a labor of my love for you. I really don’t know how I will react to this once you start reading it. I hope I don’t stop writing it. Not likely.

I hope you find it interesting and I hope you will learn a lot from it. Nothing that I say here should be considered the actual truth. It is only the truth as I understood it at that phase of my life. You will find contradictions as I grow old or possibly my you will see my beliefs strengthening on certain topics. You will find lots of typos. That I guarantee. I am a lazy writer. I hate checking what I write. At best I have written all these blogs in a word document so most of the obvious spelling errors are taken care of, but some glaring grammar errors will be there. I have not read even one of my posts once I have written it. They are written and simply published. Read them and if you find anything interesting, talk to me about it. That would be fun. I don’t know if I would remember all of them or any particular one of them. In fact I forget what wrote even two days ago. Some posts I remember being proud of and some were just written to start the conversation flowing. Not all are of equal quality. Some posts have been written over a few days with breaks thanks to interruptions in office. Some interrupted by lack of thoughts. Those tend to be a little … tired, I think. You won’t enjoy them, they don’t hold any narrative structure and sometimes feel like rants. Forgive them for the greater good of the entire list of blog posts.

The heading of this blog is opposites must reconcile. I learnt this term from Dharen when he talks about memorable ideas coming from seemingly opposites coming together. I found this very endearing. Things seem like opposites and things seem like they must not coexist but they often do. When opposites reconcile and live well with each other then they become memorable, endearing and enduring. A simple example is that swimmers, especially national award winners aren’t supposed to be good at studies. But you are. You have brawn and brains and that combination is not generally seen and it’s definitely not easily managed. But you have managed to reconcile within your petite self these opposites. You of all people know how difficult it was for you to do this. The sacrifices you have made have been immense. These add to your aura and your personality. This reconciliation of opposites make you – you. I am a senior person in office and I dress in jeans, or I talk intelligent stuff but I ask the most basic of questions in meetings. This is a reconciliation of opposites in me and makes my personality to some extent memorable. Interesting people are always able to balance and reconcile the opposites. It seems natural to them. It doesn’t make sense or looks incredulous to others but to them, it a natural extension of who they are. In many ways this is the yin and yan, or the Natraj holding creation and destruction in one image and looking beautiful and iconic.

Its bitter sweet, now that Jispa is 15, and that she is insisting that I give her the blog as a gift, I don’t know quite how to feel. I am happy that I am giving the blog to the rightful reader to read but at the same time my kid has grown up. Damn it.

So happy birthday Jips… it’s been a crazy 15 years and a little more if you include the time from inception to birth. There have been many ups and downs in our relationship and I have written more about the ups than downs but in the end tats what I remember more and that what matters. I am sure you too will agree. From 15 onwards you are more an adult than a kid and you are ready to take on the world (if we do remove more protection around you) and if you do remember the first 15 years are more fun than anything else, then I guess we are good.

Have fun, happy reading. Its yours!

son

Todays is my mom’s birthday. I have a very weird relationship with mom. For 30 years, I was a good son and practically listened to almost everything and did all the good things that a good son should. I came home on time, took care, ate well and did nice things. After marriage, I tried sorting things and making things work within family fights and disputes but at the end, after Jispa was born we couldn’t take it anymore and we left to stay separate. It’s been an on and off relationship ever since. Every time we get close mom pulls one request or a thing out of the bag and it becomes impossible to be sane about the whole thing. My only solace is that I have chosen to never fight with her on anything, after we left to live separate. This makes sure that no one can accuse me of saying anything to anyone in anger. It would have only made for more bitterness

When my sister decided that for today, she would compile a list of articles from everyone about her, she also asked me to pen something down. This was easier said than done. I had to write something honestly but not let any of the bitterness or “could have been” come through. It had to be truthfully from the heart but not full of emotional crap that set to settle scores or give a point of view. I started to write from my early memories and wrote about how she defined a lot of what I am today. I think in the end, I managed to strike a good balance and write a decent note. My sister was impressed. She wondered how I could write so well and how I could remember all these small details. I told Jasmine – “I wonder how, but my family still thinks that I am some petty little piece of shit.” Probably I will always be the younger kid for them.

But here – below is the write up that gave my sister to be included…

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When you have to write something for you mom, it’s always a difficult and dangerous thing. Difficult because you never know which memory to pick over the other and which one to highlight; and dangerous because – she is your mom – you never win against your mom. It goes like a cheap Hollywood movie – everything you say (or don’t) can and will be used against you in the court of law. And here the law is not blind but all seeing, all knowing and ever present… That’s you Mom.

Normally such write ups start with an early memory. The first time someone set their eyes on someone, or the first time they heard of someone. That is normally the best place to start. But when the person in question is the all-powerful Mother, then how do you start. What was your first moment? Your supposedly super hero origin story itself starts inside of her. This further gets complicated by a simple problem. How do you know which one was the earliest?

Having tabled my difficulties, I guess my most vivid memory and probably earliest memory was the first day I was being sent to Nursery school. I am likely to get a lot of facts wrong but I think that our cousins had come over to stay with us at Dubai and it was my first day at Nursery which I did not want to go. I kept clutching at mom and fighting to go till Dad got into the picture. I don’t remember what convinced me to go but I guess (and I am told) that Dad had to give me a rap, after which I duly complied. That’s as good a first story as it gets.

Now let’s get to another story – this one is especially special! This defined what I did for the rest of my life. Once I clearly remember as a very small kid, I was sleeping next to mom. I turned and put my right arm on her and my right leg on her. And I slept. Slept well. That one moment defined how I slept ever since. I can get sleep only by sleeping on my tummy with my right leg folded and my right arm folded under the pillow as if I am still hugging mom. So every time in at night when I sleep, I sleep with my mom next to me. I have tried some times to sleep on my back or in any other position but I have failed. I can only sleep with my mom next to me on the right.

Here are a few other memories while growing up. Here are a few other memories:

Somit slapping me and triggering an acute pain in the ear, thanks to an infection and me running to mom. Yah, thanks Somit for being there!

Me wanting to sleep every night after drinking milk which mom made from milk powder for me.

Ah this other one is also special for me in a weird way – Her bangles. She has these gold bangles with angular ridges. She has been wearing these for so many years now. I hate to see them pushed up on her hand and sitting tight on the arm. Always I have just nudged them loose as they fall by the wrist and dangle and make a soft mellow clanging sound, that only golden bangles can. I can never see any bangles high up on the arm. I have to push them down to the wrist. I remember her wrist, the small dots (freckles kind of) on the back of her hands and her veins. Her hands are similar to that of her mom. I loved playing with them and from there on I loved playing with my veins on the back of my hands.

As a young boy growing up, you have a connection with your mom but your hero growing up is your dad. It’s always a mixed feeling. You love mom more but as you sprout your moustache and manhood hits, the lessons of daddyhood hit you and that’s your role in society that you emulate. But small things that mom tells you remain. For now, how you organize your kitchen. I still like my kitchen the way mom kept it.

One another thing that mom taught me about relationships is that she used to always say, dad never asked her about money and never ever questioned her spending. That is one lesson about being a husband that I learnt from mom. I have followed in your advice mom, which was never explicitly said but still I learnt it from you. Never question your wife on the expenses. If she is in a good mood, you will get a detailed expense list and if she is in a bad mood, you will get … err… let’s not get there.

These are specific memories that I have that have helped me grow up. There are a million more. I have a lot of scars from the wounds I have got and almost in every one of them I remember thinking of mom, rather than dad. That is in spite of the fact that it was dad doing all the hard work and the dressing. But it was still mom who I sought comfort in. I remember the smell, the shoulder, the stomach and the hands like crazy.

So yes, mom in many ways has helped me grow. But at a more philosophical level, sometimes an important aspect of a family that really permeates through is how she held the family together at dinner. Dinner was always together and on the dining table and without the TV on. She insisted on this, with only cricket matches being exceptions. National pride before family, I guess. Dinner table was especially important for sharing notes, talking and humor.  Mom encouraged that, allowed that and was a butt of many jokes. Even today the Parekh khandaan saga will have me in splits. Mom was sporting enough to laugh at it and to take it all in good jest. That family togetherness, humor, teasing and bonding is something that was sacrosanct on the Doshi dinner table. That brought the family together, allowed for change, improvement, and some amazing memories. All that I learnt by being the youngest and the benefit of everyone’s expense was on the dinner table. While mom was possibly the most silent on these occasions, I would give almost all the credit for tying it together to her. This more than anything defined us and will define our families and then their generations for years to come. Jispa, Angel and the two Kamdar brothers should know this for sure. This is where their dinner table finger pointing and laughter comes from. So, dear Arjun, when Amisha calls you for dinner, don’t moan and act all pricey. Blame Naani but at the same time quietly thank her. For one day, you will be a man one day thanks to this.

What a great dad am I?

Good intentions. They are good but they are not just good enough. And I mean real good intentions. These are intentions that are followed by good action that gains the praise of the world and all round you. People go back happy and love what you do, but they are just not good enough.

Just the other day I was asking Jispa that her birthday is coming up and we can celebrate with a pool party like last time. Like last time I will organize and conduct all the games and we can have a blast. So you want to have one? No was her reply. What? You don’t want to have a pool party. NO. She did not want to have a party this year. I couldn’t just understand it. Why is it that she did not want to have a party? We let it be at the tie but the matter kept ringing in my head. I thought it was a great party. The kids enjoyed, Jispa enjoyed and everyone had a great time. Wasn’t it a fun day to spend at the pool? Evidently it wasn’t so much fun. Jispa refusal did not seem right to me. There was something more to it than I understood. Yesterday in the evening I asked her – “you really don’t want a party this year?”. ‘No”. “why”. “because you don’t listen to me. Last time when the other girl kicked me in the pool you just ignored it.”. “No sweet heart. I can’t favor you or even take your side. You are the host and you have to always let go of it. You must listen.” “No you listen” she said. “Listen. I don’t want you to give me the point but I want you to listen to me. She kicked me and the coins dropped and she took the coins. I was hurt. You must tell her that. That is not fair.”. “And what did I tell you when you told me that?”. “You just told me to shut up and go”. Whoops. “did I really tell you that?”. “yes” she said softly, “you did”. I was stunned. It was obviously me fault. I tried to be a great dad to her. I organized the party, I got into the pool. I made the kids play and everything. I had a lot of fun. In a party when I playing judge I have to be extra fair. The benefit of the doubt must go against my daughter and her team. Always. So I tend to ignore her. Or possibly I am too caught up with my organizing to really become a dad. In my effort to become a Great dad, I ceased to become Her dad. I looked down at her and said “I am sorry. I really am.” I gave a tight hug and she hugged me back. Yup. “its ok”.

I say her down and spoke to her. I explained my point of view. I said I was sorry. I did not mean to do that but I was too focused on the party. She said she understood that I needed to be fair. That I needed to not let her win. She knew it did not matter but all she wanted was me to listen to her. She was right. But the issue was different in my mind. Not that I was a jerk. That I was. But the bigger one was that – why did she not tell me about it. She remembers an incident so well from a year back. And she was obviously hurt by it that she refused to have a part thanks to it. It was a big issue. Why did she not tell me about it? Why did she not talk to me about it? I asked her and I told her that she can always talk to me. Don’t I listen to her so many times? I talk to her whenever I am angry and ya, we fight but we also make up and talk. She said she was afraid that I would just not listen. That really really hurt. Here is one more person telling me that they can’t argue with me. Now this is too much to handle man. I don’t want to win these arguments. I explained to Jispa that I always say sorry immediately, nah? Yes you do dad, but I don’t know. In the end she reassured me that she will speak to me. I urged her that I may be an ass and I may not talk properly but there is also a chance that I may talk nicely. If I hadn’t raised the issue then we would not have had a chance to talk openly and we would not have had a party, she would have suffered in the end. Talk. I always teach you to talk. You respectfully talk and let me see who will not listen to you. Then as a measure of insurance I told her, that whenever she felt she needed to talk to me and I wasn’t listening all she had to do was make the T sign to denote time out and I will stop everything and talk to her. Many times I may not understand the importance of your situation, but a T sign is something that I will always respect. Always. That’s a good note to end on. We hugged and I apologized again and again. I am really sorry sweet heart. Will try  my best, TRY my best for it not to happen but there is the T sign to fall back on.

But the issue of people not wanting to argue with me stayed. People don’t argue for afraid of losing with someone who may have a strong logical skill. So do not argue with him. Dam shit. I hate this. Argue dude, argue. I don’t know who will win. And it’s not about winning, its about talking. HELL DAM> same shit. So I guess now the tactic will be to lose arguments just to reassure people or tone down my arguments or what … I don’t know.

Forget that. I will figure that one, but the bright side. At least now that my kids growing up, it’s nice to have a chat like this. it was a bit emotional and we both were almost crying but we held. We grew up a bit together yesterday night. It was a pretty picture in the end. She is growing up and fast. Hopefully she wouldn’t have to use the T sign again and hopefully when she does, I listen. I have been happily humbled. The only good thing about all this is that she assured me that she loves my games, she loves that I make her and her friends play, she loves the twist in the games I do. And that WE RE HAVING A PARTY THIS YEAR AS WELL. HURRAY! I am not that bad a dad at all.

Good intention, good execution, but keep the empathy at all times dude. You are after all her Dad first and a (hopefully) Great dad afterwards.

daddy cool, birthday in pool

Jispa celebrated her tenth birthday on the 31^st of the month. Tenth birthday. It should be a big event. When Jispa was a year old, Jasmine and I took a call not to celebrate her birthday. She would be too young to really enjoy it. We see all the parents celebrating the first birthday with a big party. The kid is typically tired at the end of it all and what do you really expect a one year old to feel about it. Besides getting red check by being manhandled, there is nothing really for the child. So we just decided to give it the skip. After that we have had smallish parties for Jispa on her birthdays. A few core friends, sometimes a few more than that, but never done it on a large grand scale.

What’s a large grand scale? Well. The other parties that Jispa gets invited to are a good benchmark. Ever since she started going to school, she has been invited to big parties. Typically done at a function hall or an open garden. You call at least 50 odd kids, then the parents come with them, and then you have catering for a 100 guests, then you call in the party organizers who come in and decorate the place, and have various stalls, like face painters, tattoo (paint) artists, games etc. then you have a DJ for the music, a sound system, possibly an air castle, then a guy who will make the kids play various games, prizes and the last – return gifts. You could end up spending anywhere between 100,000 rupees to 300,000 rupees. That’s a pretty tidy sum for a birthday party.

Jasmine and I never did feel like doing that. What we told Jispa is that – you call in your core friends and we could take them for lunch or dinner, possibly play a few games etc … but we also made a pact with her. her tenth birthday party would be however she likes it to be. As big as she wants it to be. So a month back, we asked her what kind of party she liked. The thing is that after the initial couple of years of parties, the kids are now basically bored of any party. They go in, run around and then just hang around on their own. They don’t want to play games too much, they eat a bit, throw a little cake around and done. Jispa also gets bored at these parties. A classic case of over exposure or over stimulation. They are bored stiff and Jispa said she doesn’t want a party. Aww. Ok. But Jasmine and I were not happy. Jispa has been the sweetest kid ever. She never complained about not having a party, or about having a small party or calling only a selected friend circle. Two years back we took her friends and gang to a garden and made them play, last year they were at home…  but she never complained and she was always happy. So Jasmine and I really wanted her tenth birthday to be nice.

So how do we make it special?  Jispa clearly did want a big party so that was out of the question. We asked her if she would have a party at the gymkhana where she trains. Ok, but she wanted a pool party. Hanging around the pool with kids. Fine, but then I will get the kids and make them play games – is that ok? I insisted on making the kids play games. Jispa was game for that as well. So the plan was set, pool party with daddy as the games guy with lunch at the gymkhana. The majority of her invites were her pool buddies with a few school friends who could swim also joining the gang. Another close friend of Jispa’s who birthday was around, joined in to have a combined party thrown.

So last Saturday we invited them all and we had 24 odd kids in the pool splashing around. I take great pride in not requiring a games guy. Why the hell do you need a games guy. What am I there for?  I think only boring old lazy fellas need to hire a games organizer. I can do whatever he can do and have more fun. So what do you play in the pool. The coin game is start point. You throw a coin and retrieve it. That’s a start. So let’s start building on it. So Jasmine got coins of different denominations and we started playing. First put them into three teams then get two parent volunteers and start the game. First one is retrieving one coin that’s in, then a specific coin of the two denominations that are in, then three different coins, then a combination, thena  total, and then all… the volunteers kept throwing different coins at different intervals. Played in the shallow end, the result was one hour of complete entertainment.

They came out for cake cutting and lunch and the party ended with the kids having a blast. The mothers who were around acted like captains of the teams and they too had a blast. And the net cost – negligible. Less than the cost of sending invites to a fancy party. Possibly less than the cost of designing an invite to a fancy party. And this got even the over stimulated kids excited and roaring for more. And physically fun as well.

Uncle Jaimit never felt this good. At the end it was a high five for Jasmine and me. This is the typical partnership we work with. I dream up stuff and Jasmine helps bring structure and helps me execute. I control the game and Jasmine works quietly in the back end. Keeping all the other things ready and in control. It’s been like that since college days. And Jispa got a party she deserved. Awesome fun.

Here is the pic of me with the kids. I love this one. Just look at me. I am beaming. I was so happy that day and for a few days following.

 

A long story of a short weekend.

A brief history of Mughal history was preceded a few days back by Charles Darwin theory of natural selection. All these are explained in the car to Jispa while we are driving from one place to another. A car provides the perfect set up for these talks. There is nothing much to distract and nothing much to do but talk. Jispa provides all the fodder by asking all the really wild questions which typically leads one to another and on and on till I can keep explaining. Typically I think the destination comes before we can exhaust ourselves of explanations and questions. The love flows both ways, her love of asking is matched by my love of explaining. I think of it as a challenge and want o explain all that I know in a manner that she understands. But this doesn’t work with all kids as I found to my chagrin yesterday.
Yesterday was Jispa’s swim meet. Jispa swims well and takes part in the inter club competitions. While within the club and school she competes well, the inter club competition is fierce and she stands no chance. But Jasmine is firm that we must give our best and I get dragged into this, mumbling and grumbling about wasting a Saturday or Sunday. I almost relieved when she gets selected to compete only in a few categories and misses a berth in the relay. The relay is at the end and it means that we wait till the very end. Yes the relays are interesting but in Jispa’s category the relays have been largely one sided with a few clubs dominating. Whatever. So I got along enough material to read while waiting for her contests. One of them this time around was the GEO. In it was a lovely picture of a manatee who was surrounded by a school of fish eating the algae and the parasites off its back. I caught the first friend of Jispa I saw and I explained this amazing symbiosis to her. She seemed interested for a fleeting moment, asked a question, said huhhuh… and vanished. Poof. There goes my ‘I am a good teacher’ theory. So it takes two to tango. The receptor in this case is possibly more important than the transmitter. Ya. It takes time to get the attention and interest. It’s easy with Jispa, she is probably tuned into learning more and more at all times.
So yesterday we attempted to understand Mughal history with a bit of perspective. A perspective that wasn’t so one sided as the Mughals came in with their dogmas and converted the masses to one religion. It couldn’t have been so one sided as I thought history taught me. I wonder how we managed to get the history so biased that young kids grow up thinking of this big bad Muslim rulers coming and conquering and persecuting the poor Hindus. They don’t get the whole picture. My whole picture is also of the Hindu fold jamming their own believers through the highly segregated caste system. My sense, my guess is that that had equal to do with conversion as did the incentives (the jazia tax.) Did I get that tax name write? That tax shit was always taught very well to us in the history books. Also I tried to explain to her my concept that we weren’t really one India as the text books make us all to be. We were a bunch of a gazillion small states at war with each other, as different from each other. Probably I got it wrong but as I grew up I thought that the concept of India as one total entity was as old as time it self. There was always one great nation. Whenever any outsider fought us, he fought us one big India, Prthviraj or Puru were Great “india” kings who valiantly fought for independence from ‘foreign powers’. Hell even Tipu Sultan was a ‘freedom fighter’. Basically the theory is – if there is a Hindu Muslim war then the evil guy is normally a Muslim and if there is a British involved, then villain is the British. On another note I sometimes wonder if the Japanese had smashed through the British forces in the east, through Subhash Chandra Bose’s help, I doubt if they would have been benevolent rulers or even for that matter spoken about our freedom. But then that is one history that I want to read someday.
But we leave that argument till the day I get to read a little more of that chapter of history. The both sides of that chapter. Till then let’s talk a bit about the ridiculously bad movies we saw – teen they bhai. Really really bad one. Amongst the worst I have seen. With just about a couple of guffaws. Sad shit. Especially when they take some real fine talent and go about and waste it. The times of India gives it 2 and half stars. I wonder where the two came from. The only thing good about the movie was that we saw it at Regal theatre which meant that all three of us saw that movie at the price of a one multiplex ticket. Then it hurts far less. Also before the movie we ate some pav bhaji at the Shakari Bhandar restaurant before we saw the movie. And yes, it was the first time I ate – idli chilly fry. Wow. That is taking a south indian dish and dousing it with chinese sauces. It’s a wild dish and definitely worth trying. It messes with your mind with its blast of tastes in one spoonful. Mumbai street innovation at its shinning example.
To counter that post the really sad movie we sent to the ultimate opposite. The Souk restaurant at the Taj. Whoah! Before you think I hit the lottery… before the recession I worked ina wealth management outfit. Part of the job was travelling and when wealth managers aka private bankers travel they stay only at the Taj. So I managed to stay enough to get myself some Taj points. A grand total of four thousand five hundred points which I redeemed against vouchers which were expiring this month. So Jasmine and I decided to treat ourselves as a celebration of her birthday this Saturday. My belief is that when its free try out the wildest tuff you have ever eaten. We don’t particularly like Chinese food (except now the idli chilly dry), Punjabi and continental cease to excite and so we have the Mediterranean food. Turkish, Egpytain, Lebanese,you name it. We never did really experiment with it much except the falafel and hummus and pita bread. So we book ourselves a table and reach there. The location, at the top of the new Taj wing offers a lovely view of the gateway and was as exotic as it have got. So get there and look at all the Greek (greek=methaphor) on the menu and in full ishtyle, I simple hand it over to the attendant to order for us. A ha. Some lovely salad, falafels and something else. The we had some soup and then we had no space left for the main course. In the middle they gave us some free absolutely amazing mocktail of khus (poppy seeds). The one thing I figure with the Taj is the amazing ability to simply put just a little flavor in their food. It must linger not over power. We gujjus with take any flavor, mix it with any flavor and take the strongest flavor and make it even stronger. So our khus will taste strongly of khus, our food falafels will have strong Garlic and so on. No I realize how we butcher our food and how when I hit the kitchen I murder my own preparations. I always believed that it must be strong but I think now I realize how wrong I was. The desert we ordered was some divine chocolate bistilla. Ooohhh…. After our fill the Taj being Taj… suddenly sprang upon us a cake. Happy birthday to you…lallalalal…. I had mentioned at the time of booking that it’s my wife’s birthday and to hence please give us nice window facing seats. Ahhh… I could get used to the Taj. Till of course I see the bill. Four grand. Four thousand rupees for three starters, two soups and one desert. Whoops. Earth calling Mars, earth calling mars. The stuff is always tasty when you pay through free vouchers! No mistaking the fact that they are hard earned vouchers. Free but hard earned. I travelled a lot, missed my family, worked my butt, suffered lonely nights in the hotel room, fell sick all alone, watched boring TV, everything… and the consolation was this lovely night with my family. Well I still got five hundred bucks left to spend. Possibly take my family to the coffee shop and blow it then on coffee and biscotti. Nice evening. The consolation prize was pretty cool. What say jasmine? We were so enamored by it that we even thought, ‘THOUGHT’… only thought of doing it again at full price. I can only think of the various stuff I can buy for 4 grand. Two denims, or a pair of sunglasses, or two or four pairs of footwear, a bit of my EMI perhaps. Anything, but eat it! Aaaarrrrrrrggggghhhhhhhhh. Middle class will always remain middle class. Once you get the joy of ‘cheap’ the luxury of ‘price’ ceases to excite you and I hope it remains like that for long. There you are – the long story of my short week end.
Hey one more thing – we saw the movie Rango today. Anything with Johnny Depp has to be weird. Well it started out slow but ended pretty fast and exciting. I liked the movie. An animation movie with Client Eastwood in a special appearance. It was cool. And yes I almost forgot; I got into my favorite fight with the security at the theatre. Jispa was having an apple. They wanted her to eat it before they let her in. SCREW YOU. I just told them, we are going in and we barged in, ‘stop me if you can’. Tum jo karna hai kar lo. You can’t stop my daughter from eating an apple. You have no power to stop me, touch me or do anything. So Jispa had her apple and ate it too. Well… to bend to wrong rules is a crime in itself. Jai ho Gandhi. The security is a bluff, they have no powers to arrest you or confiscate anything as innocent as an apple. I hate them and it’s high time we show them for what they are.. a bunch of bullies who have been given instructions by some corporate. Why can’t they allow a kid, eating an apple to walk in. they rather the kid have a cola inside, instead. Sure. Take that! You powerless bully… I refuse. I call your bluff.

BTW - the real picture of the lovely desert at the SOUK called the chocolate b'stilla

the selfish giant

This post was written on Saturday but posted later. Why is this important? Because this blog has a time value attached to it. Time is the fourth dimension, but is relative. What is all this shit? Well, I have been reading some stuff on quantum physics and I find it completely disconcerting. The journey as it seeks to find the theory of everything. This stuff does not make any sense. But it makes so much when you read it. It is so fascinating but at the same time so bloody mind boggling. Sometimes I wish I had taken physics major. That the stuff I was always good at and I naturally loved. Nowadays it makes for great fun to read this complex stuff and be entertained. It is only possible if you don’t want to remember it all and give an exam. Because otherwise it would be so insurmountable. I even read stuff about us living in mutliverse as opposed to a universe. Whoa!
But the point of the time value of this blog is important as I sit down today and reminiscence on the feeling that got built up over the last year as we hurtled towards yesterday. In the good old days I felt excited and I wanted yesterday to come everyday. I even counted the days to yesterday. Till I was in third standard yesterday was always in my school vacations. We used to live the gulf, where the school shut for the oppressive summers and I could not have my day in the sun in front of peers. Yesterday was an important point in my every day year. So when we first came to Mumbai I was so excited that I would get to celebrate yesterday with peers. I started counting the days I would take to get yesterday. Waiting and counting. If I am not mistaken I even counted up to 45 days. Oh that day. I wore a safari suit in the fourth standard. What was it blue or was it grey. But I was so proud. I must have never been so proud to distribute orange hard boiled confectionary. It used to cost 10 paise for one at retail price at around 6 paise per sweet at wholesale rate. Man I was so thrilled. The first time I had a chance to celebrate my birthday in school and having 60, not just 30 as per gulf school norms. Yeah yeah. It was day in the sun. No wonder I was so excited.
All these years I continued to be excited till something struck last year. It was my own version of the mid life crisis. I started hating birthdays. Not that the thought of growing older hurt. But au contraire I loved getting old. But I started hating getting birthday greetings from people. Why? I don’t know if people really care when they wish and I stopped liking any wishes and I started suspecting them of being mere formality. I also stopped wishing too many people on their birthdays as well in the hope that they would in turn stop greeting me as well. I even got rid of my birthday notification from the social networking sites.
Day before yesterday I sent a mail to HR. they have this practice of sending emails announcing everyone’s birthday. What a complete waste and pain. So I wrote them a mail asking them to please desist on my day. Just. Just spare me. As I get older I have gotten more anti social. In fact I merely got grumpier. Just like the old troll in fairytales. On Thursday being my grumpy old troll mood, I refused to listen to my team request for a luncheon on Friday. In fact once my meeting got cancelled for the morning I put in a request for the day off. I am not even coming to office. The second half we planned to run off to Igatpuri at my sisters bunglow with her family and my brother’s as well.
I make an effort not to remember my birthday. My dream one day is to forget it completely. That will be the day according to me. so I woke up in the morning not remembering its my birthday till I received an sms wishing me. as I came out of the shower my wife and kid sang the birthday song. I like that. I know people who really care, when they wish, it doe fell kind of good. My things with birthdays is the rest of the world not those who care.
I spent the rest of the morning helping my wife clean the house as we were to leave for three days. Roaming around in a pair of jeans, I was trying to get my pedagogy right for the lecture I was scheduled for next Sunday.
Suddenly the bell rang. As jasmine opened the door, I saw my good peon form office – Vinod with a cake in a bag. Oh god. They sent me cake from office. I looked at Vinod. Since I was topless I looked at him and aksed, ‘ are there others around? are they hiding?” he nodded and pointed in the direction. I ran in to wear a t shirt and then came out to discover them hiding near the stair case. SURPRISE!!! My team along with two others who are no longer a part of my team was present. Ok. I really love them. They all came in from office to catch me on my birthday. They had got a chocolate mousse cake which I proceeded to cut and then they took turns splashing it on my face.. Soon enough one spark resulted in a cake fight. All of us including my wife had cake n our face. All with brown melting mousse dripping down on the face.
It was pretty good fun.
Moral of the story – I was a grumpy old troll with a bad attitude problem. Sure enough you get shitty people and people who don’t care but at the same time you get good guys with a lot of love to share. In my effort to alienate those I do not care about or thopse who do not care for me I end up alienating those who do and those that matter. I almost threw the baby out with the bath water. I am reminded of the story of the selfish giant who did not let any one in his garden and winter permanently set in. It only got a bit of spring when one small kid who refused to get intimated by the giant and came and sat on one of the trees. The giant then saw light.
My team refused to get intimated by my ‘trollness’. They said screw you. And they came home and showed me what I might have missed.
Dates are irrelevant to the rational mind. They have no significance. What is the point of celebrating Independence Day. Work hard and be honest if you really care. Don’t sit and celebrate the day by watching old emotional movies on the telly. What is the point of it? Pure symbolism. What shit?
But at he same time, isn’t it a day to somehow remember that we struggled. So many fought so that they and more importantly those to come would be free.
My birthday has no real significance to me and to the rational mind it means naught. But we are all a bunch of people guided by irrationality. I liked it that the team came. I liked celebrating with them. It mattered to me that they felt welcome to come home and the fact that they bothered. It said something to me. it also proved my belief that I might be a troll at times but I am a likeable troll or at the least approachable. Having cake on my face was the ultimate gesture of acceptability.
In the physics book that I was reading I read about the Solvay conference held in Brussels devoted to Quantum Physics. 17 of the 23 delegates were or would become Nobel laureates. Marie Curie was even a double laureate. Einstein was one delegate. It was here Einstein declared in reference to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle that “God does not play dice”, and to which Niels Bohr replied “Albert, stop telling God what to do”
Wow. Imagine the group where one like Einstein can be told something like that in no uncertain terms. There is respect for the brain but there is also a healthy irreverence. Groups where people aren’t afraid to speak their mind are the groups that I would love to belong to. That is the group that I prefer. A respect but a certain irreverence. A case of opposites reconciling. And to think of it – I almost missed it thanks to my … my…. I don’t know what. Shit. I was lucky. I hope I don’t forget this lesson. In all likelyhood I am going to make this mistake again. It’s going to be difficult. The silver lining for me is that here I made the mistake but my team refused to let me suffer for it. At least I was considered open enough, whose plea for solitude was ignored.
As I grow older I will have many more of these pangs in opposite directions. The greatest fun will always be if in some magical way opposites reconcile.

celbration zenith

Taking in from yesterday’s post. Toda was the birthday of the guy who applies cake on every one. So today he was going to be an obvious target for those wanting to remove all their frustration. I suspect office frustration will also find an outlet through this. So yes, he got plastered all over along with some 18 others. How did that happen? Well, while everyone was enjoying I randomly started picking on a few next to me. Everyone got the hint and we had people running about trying to get the next victim. Some poor buggas went to the wash room, washed and came out to be plastered all over again; some got plastered thrice.
The women’s loos got jammed with women inside washing their face and some more coming in and some inside refusing to come out till the whole episode dies. The gent’s loo can take as many as we could send in to it ;)
I even instigated the emptying of the paper shredder on the birthday boy. They took a few bunches till I came with the entire thing and emptied it all together. To put matters in perspective we have an industrial level shredder as we process a lot of paper and we have lots of clients sensitive data. So that is a lot of shredded paper.
We had people screaming, laughing, some pleading, some fighting. Som estarted crying with the amount of laughing going about. One or two guys from elsewhere tried to enter the floor, saw the hullabaloo and wisely beat a hasty retreat.
It was easily one of the best birthday cake cuttings that I have had in an office. I remember the old birthday celebrations where we used to simply cut the cake and eat it. if I am not mistaken I was responsible for starting this culture of cake smashing. Today was its zenith.

celebrate

Another cake cutting in office. This time some four odd people were left with cake on their face. No no… only one person celebrated the birthday but four got the facial. This seems to be the primary source of entertainment these days in office. Tomorrow is the birthday of the ring leader. The guy who is primarily responsible every time for smashing cake on every one, celebrates his tomorrow. I am only the instigator but he is the real doer. I only nudge people in the right direction.

So tomorrow everyone is ready but really, no one know what to expect. This could turn out to be a cake fight. The ring leader is not likely to be happily stationary while getting smashed by half the office. Some will stay away, better not to antagonise, some will smash and some will not know what to do. The question is who all will get on their face tomorrow. I will keep you posted on the tally tomorrow for sure.

It does get a bit rowdy during the smashfest, but it does lighten up things a bit. We have people running around trying to get away and then we have people try to get on. In the earlier office at least we had a separate cafeteria. This place is a free for all right in the middle of work. So you have the carpet which is smelly of cake even a few hours after the festival. Nauseatingly sweet and creamy smell. What to do of it? I now feel like eating sev puri. What/ sev puri just because of the cake smell. Well I am a gujju ain’t I? any reason is good reason to eat sev puri.

On saturday after the cricket match in the evening I was a bit drained out. I batted for a long time. So I was feeling hungry and thirsty at the same time. Voila the gujju in me eats… try guessing, see if you have gujju genes in you… two plates of pani puri. That surely worked. All this talk is making me hungry. I am off. From my window I confirm the presence of the vendor across the road.