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.

--

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…

baazi haar kar bhi baazi jite....

Monday morning we went for the athletic training. Jispa has joined once a week training to complement her swim training. It involves a lot of stretching and some jogging. The lady in charge makes us run two rounds of the racecourse, which is around a little less than two and a half kilometers. I run with Jispa almost as a pace setter. I keep her running; keep egging her on, let her keep a pace. It’s fun to run together at least once a week.

Around a year back I stopped competing with her in swimming. With a dive I could just about match her timing for one 25 meter lap. But around a year ago she beat the shit out of me. With a dive and without a tumble turn I was beaten crazy, and I was huffing and puffing while she was looking and me and smiling. One more round? Buzz off. No way.

So I am happy that at least in running we are starting off together and we train together. This way at least I run with her and share some pain of the sport together. I push her and she pushes me. Once the coach asked us to go for a sprint. While coming back it was great fun pushing her. She is a bit competitive. She is silent and yet I see flashes of competition, nothing of the chest thumping aggression but a desire to push the bar at times. I like that. That race was fun. Towards the end, she went fast, then I went faster, she pushed, I pushed harder… there were at least three such bursts before I won! Yay.

Now this started off a competition between her and me. So every time the coach gets us to do a round the last bit becomes somewhat of a race. This time the coach asked us to run two rounds. The first one should be slow and easy – 17 minutes instead of the normal 15 minutes. And the second one must be faster. Jispa is a horrible starter. She starts complaining the moment we start. My stomach is paining, my ankle is paining. Then she goes too slow, then she will have a shoe lace to tie. She starts really bad. I keep encouraging her. Then at the mid-point she does better and then at the end she finishes strong.

This funny schedule spoils my running style. I like running consistent. So at the start I am forced to run really really slow, which is tiring. So we did the first one slow. And with the winter just about setting in on the second round I got a bit of a congestion…. And something went haywire. I started breathing really hard. I guess I need to restart my swimming to get back into clean breathing systems. But it was really bad at the end. (okay okay – these are all excuses – genuine but excuses)I asked Jispa if she wanted to start the racing bit. She said – no later… I was ok. we do it later. When the last 100 meters were being covered – the little rascal started to run faster. She suddenly moved up a couple of gears. I Pushed my self… and that’s it – there were no more change of gears – she just ran off. I looked and tried but had no reserve energy left – I couldn’t attack. Dam it – where did she get this reserve after running 4 kms? I lost this race. Now she whips me in running as well. that felt really really good.

But now I am waiting for the next one. This time I hope to have clear lungs and nasal passage and this time I will start the race a bit earlier. And I want to beat the shit out of her. I don’t like losing as well. Her aggressive streak is also there in me (that was a bit of an understatement).

Sport has a funny way of showing people’s inner demons :) . It exposes you to a side of personality that normally stays hidden. Not just for yourself but also for others. Running with Jispa is exposing a side of her personality to me. I had suspected that she had this streak but was not sure about it. We always have told her – you need not win – do your best. But I have seen her push herself in different situations. Relays are one place where her timings are the best. But this aggression which is quite, well directed and focused with a kick to win an interesting race…. That’s a nice one. You don’t need to win all the races you participate – only the ones you love to. Choose well :)

Just for record – the second round was 13 minutes.

State of the sport

This is a photo graph of the Swimming pool at Balewadi at Pune. This is where the state trials where held and where Jispa participated to win her relay gold. Beautiful isn’t it? Lovely infrastructure. This is part of the larger sports village. There are separate arenas for different sports. Coming at the first seemed like a cultural shock. We first passed the athletics track. As I walked ahead I realized that it was just the warm up track. The main track and stadium was elsewhere. Wow. Two synthetic tracks? Not bad. Then you have badminton, weightlifting and even an AstroTurf practice hockey ground. Pretty cool. I thought India has finally arrived. We stayed at the business hotel that is within the sports village area. We were recommended to stay here even though there were athlete hostel facilities. And since all our friends were staying here, we didn’t mind too much.

So we first enter this massive aquatics stadium to be greeted by a huge spectator stand (rightly facing east) and massive swimming pools. See the picture. In front is the main swimming pool with starter stands on the left and right, full out 50 mtrs, touch pads on the left for finishing, a massive digital board, a huge diving pool on the right with platform and spring boards, then a full size fully equipped warm up pool (or an extra pool for heats) at the back of the main pool, and the best of all, a cool down pool at the extreme left. You can see it behind the shamiana, and of course the lovely stands with colored bucket seats. There are even the shower and washroom facilities for the athletes in the structure you see next to the warm up pool on the right. Nice infrastructure, thoughtfully built and definitely spent a bomb.

Then you see closer. The water you see is green in color. That’s not photo tricks. Its actually green and dirty. So bad that you can easily see the bottom. So the swimmers really need to look hard to know when it is time to turn. The filtration is clearly not up to mark. Then see the diving pool on the right. Here the water is so bad that you can’t even see the floor. All you see is a green patch of water with some crap in it. then you see the seats, dirty and unclean. Everyone has to wipe the seats before you sit. And of course the loos. No water in the loo or in the showers. None. The taps are bone dry. So even if you have to go potty, do be smart and carry a toilet paper. And if you feel hungry or thirsty – no food, no canteen, and yes no water coolers. afterwards i saw one table behind teh stands selling boiled egg, pastries and some poha and bottled water. So much for nutrition. And no detailed schedule of events and no commentary of events. My GOD.

We spent all the money on building the infrastructure and now we have no money to keep in decent shape. Even for the prestigious state level championship meet. What on earth is going on?

On another day I asked Jispa, “When you swim in the competition can you actually see left or right if your competitors are ahead of behind you?”. “ya, ofcourse, I see them and I know if I am ahead or behind”, she answered, “but in this Pune competition, the water was dirty and I couldn’t see anything”. There, Maharashtra state’s top event is held at the top stadium in an elite sports complex and the water is so dirty that you can’t see the other swimmers.

And yes the touch boards. You would have guessed out by now that they don’t work. But the fun part doesn’t end there. Not only did they not work, but on the second day the competition was delayed by around two hours thanks to them. Well how can not-working boards delay the event? Because these non-working boards gave an electric shock to one the participants and they had to delay the event to figure out and solve the problem.

Indian sports is clearly in safe hands.

finders keepers

Last weekend Jispa had her trials to represent the city for the state meet. Jispa has been training pretty hard over the last one year. This is when she and her coach started to seriously set their eyes on qualifying. She has had some amazing improvements in timings over the year. But she has been unable to br4eak into the top three. Her coach is also realistic about it. He told us that it was pretty difficult as Jispa seriously started only a year back. The other kids had been at it much longer. But his immediate priority was a top six finish at this meet. Jispa managed that in the 50mtrs butterfly (fifth place) and the 50 mtrs free (fourth place). The top 6 go to Pune next month for the state meet. Her coach feels that the exposure and the confidence gained will be good.

The tournaments are held with an age bracket of two years being bunched together. At their age two years is a lot of difference. So in the under 11 category someone aged 10 has little chance of winning. Everyone talks about the disadvantage year and the advantage year. The year gone by was an advantage year for Jispa, and the one coming up is a disadvantage year. Next year she would participate with little chance of winning anything. Her coach was telling Jasmine that Jispa has a lot of potential. He said if she can be so fast with such horrible strokes, just imagine how fast she would be if her strokes is corrected. After June is the off season and this year is her disadvantage year. So the coach will now have time to correct the strokes and movement. I want to go and tell him. He is talking about preparing for the state meet two years hence.  Pretty deep stuff. Stuff that we had no insight into until you go through with it yourself. I am looking forward for the state meet. I want to see what it’s like. How are the facilities and the arrangements? How do swimmers across the state stack up against the Mumbai lads. How they come, what they do and how they behave.

I noticed an interesting things at the meet on Sunday. As Jispa and her contemporaries lined up at the starters block, I saw something that struck me. All the kids at the whistle took the block with a small ritual. They touched their hearts or they touched their heads or made a cross or something. They all looked for divine inspiration. Some supernatural force to come and assist them or mere blessings before the BIG race. Jispa merely took the starters block with no such ritual. We haven’t taught her God Rituals. Now I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Definitely I was not going to teach her empty prayer or stupid rituals which have no meaning but at the same time, what I have robbed her of, is an external focus. Something that can help you when you are all alone. I don’t go to temples at all and I don’t recite any prayer, but in times of extreme situations, I do have my conversations. Something that I tell him, come dude, get me through this shit. Or thanks dude, nice one. Or its testing but I will be back, just give me strength to weather this one. I assume this is there because as a child I did believe in God. Today I grow up to question common belief and faith. Shit cannot happen to me just because I don’t pray or good cannot come because I do so. But sometimes, when the going is tough an external voice to talk to in private may be a good thing.  As of now Jispa doesn’t have this God figure in her mind. At least that’s what I think. But instead she has herself to talk to. I have spoken to her about what she thinks. Like the time when the results for the Hindi elocution was to be announced. She talks to herself. I think that internal belief is possibly better than a God belief.

Jispa willy-nilly has become a test case. Not out of my wanting it to become. But it is an interesting study on what a human do would if he were not brought up on a religious diet. What would you do if your dad actively questioned religious belief and God, your mom didn’t teach you to pray but at the same time your grannies took you to the temple? How would you have your conversations? I guess she will rely on her instinct as a human more than her instinct as a religious person. So she will take the starting block stand as a human being free from man constructed beliefs. She will I assume talk to herself. Look at an internally locus of control, an internal voice to guide her. A voice that is not borne by faith taught or not borne out of a faith in opposition to faith taught (like me), but a natural voice that human will have. That I think will be her God. And I hope and Pray that she finds it useful for her and holds her good stead. I Pray I have not robbed her of something important and eternal, but that I have given her something natural, inborn and lasting. I hope she finds her own GOD. Finders keepers.

how you played your game...

Yesterdays was Jispa’s swim meet at her school. Since she could take part in only three events she chose to skip the butterfly and opt for the breast stroke in addition to freestyle and back stroke. This year she is in the third standard and she is at a disadvantage as the thirds compete with the fourths to take the medals. To add pressure some of the kids in the fourth standard are inter school gold medallists. So this year we aren’t really expecting much to happen for her in terms of medals.
The format here is all time trials. Which in effect means that everybody gets one swim and the best timings are taken to decide the medal table. In her free style time trail she swam pretty neat and fast to win her trial but she managed a credible finish overall but missed the podium. In the backstroke there was no competition and she managed to crack the gold. And on her breast stroke – she is absolutely pathetic and came in last. Somehow she has managed to do well in back stroke but completely bounce out of the breaststroke. Today she and I were joking on how really bad her breast stroke works. It’s nice to see her admit and laugh on her own rubbish strokes.
The swim meets are normally very boring and I take almost no interest in them. The races are nothing exciting and I too have had a policy of being dead pan in seeing them. No show of emotions. Also competing in a school which has only two divisions and 30 kids in it is not a real test of speed. So its largely a non event. But last year I saw something I thought was amiss. Jispa swam well but seemed to run out of steam. She inexplicably slowed down half way through her races. Something was wrong. Yes. Her nutrition. She had some idlis which is nothing but steamed fermented rice flour cakes. That can’t be the food of a sports person. I have been trying to toy with nutrition and me with my limited readings and my empirical tests on the cricket field. Something was surely wrong with her food. So this time, in the morning I ensured she had a diet that seemed to work for me. A healthy dose of breakfast cereal. So it’s basically wheat flakes, corn flakes, shredded wheat, a few chocos and strawberries with a little milk. Jispa doesn’t digest milk too well and so next time Jasmine and me will experiment with soy milk and figure if that works for her. then we packed her snack box with a paneer, sandwiches, cheese, nuts, a healthy ladoo that has wheat, chocolates and bananas. So she would have a good mix of high release and slow release sugars. I know I am not a nutritionist but at least she got a better meal than most of her other friends. More suited to physical exertion. This what has worked for me and I suspected it worked for her.
So my contribution was that nutrition and I kept telling only one thing – I don’t care if you win or lose but reach out, cup your hands and listen to your biceps. That’s all I want you to do. That’s all.
The swim meets are boring till you get to the final act. The relay. Jispa’s exploits ensured she was the anchor of her tiger house relay team with kids from each standard taking part. As the race progressed the tiger house was in the second place with the third and fourth place being far behind. It was pretty ok till the penultimate person jumping in. The relay is one place where I find my emotions going haywire. You end up cheering like crazy and you never know who the hell will some through next. The last swimmer for the first place team jumped in and I started counting the seconds before Jispa would get a chance to jump in. 1,2,3,4... I remember counting till ten. Jispa had a ten second disadvantage. Oh shit no chance. Later in the video that Jasmine shot, it was more like 6 seconds, but I guess time was flying at a different pace at the meet.
I asked Jispa what was going on through her mind when she was about to swim. She said that all she was thinking was that ‘reach out, cup your hands and listen to your biceps and catch up with the other girl. That was all on my mind. I told myself that, I must catch up’. She finally got her tag to jump in. she also said that she thought she had a great dive. Her coach had taught her to dive with her head looking down and behind, as far behind as she could see. She followed it and she thought she did well.
So a 6 to 8 second lead is almost half the length of the pool. Fat chance. Suddenly as Jispa began furiously swimming, the lead was getting short. It’s hardly a 20 – 25 second dash. Oh god, Jispa is actually catching up. She still has steam in her strokes. Her legs are kicking furiously. Somewhere near the three fourths, she had caught up. Somehow the lead swimmer seemed to have lost some kick in her swim. Jispa was just too fast. The last few meters and both are neck to neck. I am screaming, the whole meet is screaming, Jasmine is screaming, Go, GO,GO,GO,GO... yes... and the final touch. AAAAAAA. I jump in joy. It was a photo finish. Too close to call, but almost everyone at the meet was sure. Jispa had done it for the Tiger house. They finished first according to everyone there. When the judge’s decision came in..... the judges use stop watches for every lane and everyone presses their stop watch individually. So in these photo finishes, one judge who clicks a micro second late can account for second place. The verdict came in and Jispa’s team was awarded the second place. I wasn’t going to fight with the judges. There were a few protests but the decision was final.
Today morning I got to chat up with Jispa. So Jispa, you swam like crazy yesterday. Yup. “so Jispa, everyone told you you swam well” “yaa. Everyone was telling me that. When I came out of the pool I was surrounded by everyone. Everyone was telling me well done. In the bus also everyone was congratulating me” “yes Jispa, but did you win or lose?” “huh” “did you win or did you lose? Did you get Gold or Silver?” “Silver” she replied. “do you remember the athletes prayer?” “what prayer?”. “when a great scorer come to write against your name..” she completed it with a smile “he writes not whether you won or lost, but how you played your game”. She had the smile of a champion who just realised the meaning in poetry. She understood. She came second. But no one cared about that. All people cared about was, how she fought. How she swam. How she refused to quit even if was well and truly behind. She was surrounded. All around were congratulating her, not because she won, but on how she played her game.

The actual little quote by Gartland Rice goes thus:-
"For when the One Great Scorer comes
To write against your name,
He marks - not that you won or lost -
But how you played the Game."
(from the poem "Alumnus Football")


No matter how many stories I can tell her, no matter how much I can preach, the experience will teach her the value of certain words, certain phrases, certain mottos. To lose Gold was to win the ultimate knowledge. She wouldn’t have realised the importance of these lines if she had won gold. It struck her the moment she completed the prayer. Her smile and radiant smile said it all. Its how you play the game. Jasmine and I were the proudest parents on that day. It’s a good thing I was wearing glares. I was crying, I was choking, I couldn’t talk. A come from behind fight back. An attitude that doesn’t die. If anything we could have taught her, was this. It’s how you play your game. I am still all emotional when I type this. What a game.



there she is, extreme right with the faded red swimsuit and blue cap. I will treasure this podium finish forever.

I won... sheesh

Last Saturday was Jispa’s annual sports meet. This is a good time for most of us peleb to catch u[p on what celeb look like in real life. The high points of getting your child to a school which even the celebs prefer. What a pain. Here you will have all the normal mothers going gaga over the celebs and wanting to photograph them and be photographed with them. I am sure it’s quite a pain for the celeb. But as some other mini celeb (friend) told me, these stars would become even more insecure if no one approached them! Haha. The life of a goldfish perhaps!
Honestly I find pretty juvenile when the mothers approach these fellas for the photograph. I am happy and content to beat them in the fathers race. Speaking of which, I continued my winning streak at this race as well. it was pretty boring. There seems to be no real competition in my peer set. A tennis sport celeb (one of the celebrated doubles players) who obviously is pretty fit and fast has a kid ina lower age standard and hence does not compete with me. It would have been mighty fun to race against him. My race I dominated, lead from the start and had no real competition. This time I walked away with a bored and under achieved feeling as well. Last year I had worked on my technique, I had high foot lift, I ran on toes, I ran fast all through etc etc. This time I felt my technique was all wrong. I was lazy in the run to the event. This clearly showed me the power of simple preparations, trial runs, muscle memory and visualisations. One has to keep visualising how to play, how to run, what to do in a situation for one to be better at it. I won but it did not seem to fit all together. Somehow the legs did not know what really to do like last year. This time also ego got to me. Half way into the run I could see there was no real competition. I slowed down considerably towards the end of the run. Too many thoughts crossed my mind. Should I just walk across the finish line to show off, should I relax, should I .... what on earth was happening. EGO the main enemy of sport, the chance to show off in front of an audience. And all this in a mere 75 meter race? Dam shit. I took 10.25 seconds. Drat. If not for ego I should have done in max to max 9 seconds. Now that’s a good race. Pumping hard, the toes barely touching, hard push!
Jispa asked me how my race was. I told her I won but I was all wrong. No fun in winning without real technique. Next year I am determined to do better. Determined to run right. I play to wear the right stuff, tracks instead of jeans and better shirt than the loose flowing full sleeves t shirt I wore in sheer arrogance. It does not matter that I won, I am still hurting at the arrogance that I showed. Dam. This something I have always maintained. Sport is internal, you play for yourself, against yourself with you as your main competitor. Who cares about anyone else. That’s what makes swimming so interesting for me. I swim against myself every day. Even when I play cricket or squash. Who cares what the opponent is. It’s you playing yourself. After teaching Jispa all this about competition and me being stoic during her swimming competition the same day later, I made the same bloody error. Gallery! I think it comes close to ‘pride’ but I think deserves a mention by itself as the eight sin ‘show’.
Talking about encouraging your kids, after the sports day Jispa attended a swimming meet. There you always get whacko mothers shouting to their wards ‘PULL,PULL, PULL, KICK, KICK’. What the hell. They are standing at eth edge of the pool and shouting themselves hoarse. You even get father doing the same. Inside the pool is your champion going to hear you. Should your champion hear you or be in a zone all by himself. He is supposed to focus on his technique, the strokes and blank out everything. A huge quiet and calm. Whenever I have done well in cricket or any other sport. There is a huge quiet that descends over me. I can feel nothing, hear nothing, know nothing. I have been in that zone a few times. It does not matter what anyone is shouting. In fact if someone is being specific to you it irritates else lots of other noise just adds to the ‘silence’.
The last few times I ran I was oblivious to competition, to the crowd, I could only feel the ground being pushed under, I could only feel that I was all alone. I couldn’t think of anything except the finish line. Wow. And compare that to this time when I practically wrote a story in the ten seconds it took me to finish the race. Sheesh.
The zone is not something that comes automatically. You have to work on it. Think it through. Be prepared for it. Work on it and then in the middle it arrives. The muscles know what to do, the body knows where to move. Everything falls into place. Then you play as if an angel is inside of you. All falling into place. Effortlessly.
Hmm. Jispa goes to play squash on Saturday and Sunday. I use it to run the treadmills at the gymkhana. Let me see if I can work into that zone there itself. I think it’s possible. Coming to think of it, this Sunday, I had it at the treadmill for a few minutes, I was running beautifully. But somehow I look around and feel someone is looking at me. That’s when it breaks. I must pretty egocentric that I visualise people looking at me. I have to be above all this. Sport will probably help me. Keep me and my inflated head in check. Keep it down, simple and straight. Easier said than done.
I am sometimes afraid that even my humility might be a show. An act that is designed to make me look humble in front of people. Do I have genuine humility? Even at times. Can I help someone purely to help someone without any expectation of anyone looking at me, thinking about me or having an expectation of nice feelings? Be completely above it all. Is that possible? I believe it so. Difficult but not unachievable.

the only song that i have found, ever since you....

Houston, we have a problem.
Jispa has been active on the ‘taking part in school activities’ circuit. We encourage her to take part in sports, elocution and everything else. We take her elocution seriously and decide eth poetry for Hindi and English elocutions well before the announcement. Typically the lead is always lower so jasmine and I figured it meant sense to be prepared at the start for the year. This way she can learn the poetry by heart and be ready with all the drama. Earlier in the year the English elocution was done and now she is ready for the Hindi elocution competition.
A few days back she comes in and says as a matter of fact, ‘hey, I gave my name for the singing competition in school.’ ‘huh? Singing. Errrr. Ok’. I looked at my wife in disbelief. Singing? I am prone to drama but singing has always been a no no. I have wanted to sing, I never knew how to sing. I can’t understand singing. I for sure can’t teach singing. “Why Jispa? Why did you give your name for singing?” I asked her. As sweet as I could muster up. “I thought you would be happy, she said”. “oh yes. We are happy. Very very happy.” What else could I say. IDIOT... I and your mom have NO CLUE on singing. We never sang ever. We ran away from simple picnic singing. When I open my mouth, I bray. You know there is this one singer or is it composer of eth yesteryears called Chandu Atma or something. Since he was a Sindhi and my college was a Sindhi college, he was called to college to take a lecture demonstration of singing. He came with his harmonium on a Sunday Afternoon for the class. Since I was one of the committee guys I too was there. He was teaching the guys to sing. Luckily as a whole group. I remember him looking at me when we were all singing. I think he was a bit amused that I came to the class. He singled me out from 30 kids singing together. I WAS that bad.
We are such a non singing household that we have one really cheap two in one for a music system at home. The servant puts it on while cleaning the vessels. When I am in for dinner at the time, I switch it off as it sounds pretty bad. Jasmine likes to sing in private, actually make that PRIVATE. I typically don’t know any wordings, nor any tune. I hum away most of the time to irritate people.
So in the background of all that “that’s great Jispa. Its a good thing you participated”. ‘yes dad, now you have to teach me for the competition.” “oh ok. will figure”. What on earth man. We have a problem. Jasmine is looking at me for ideas. Ok. ok. lets think simple songs. What is it that she can sing that is ridiculously simple. Simple words and simple tune. Any body singing it would sound good. A ha... do re me? Nopes not that says Jasmine. YES, I got it. There is another one. Queserasera, what ever will be will be, the future is not ours to see,.... that one is ridiculously simple. Real simple and easy. We download it on the computer, download the lyrics as well. now that wasn’t so tough.
Till yesterday when she comes back from school and says – no ‘do re mi’ and ‘queserasera’, those are tuning songs, not real songs. You have to sing a real song. Oh shit. They have obviously wisened up to us. Now what. So back to me thinking about real simple songs.. I jogged my memory to the days while I was in the fourth grade. We had once a week music class. There the brother would have a guitar and teach the whole class to sing. Now what were the songs we learnt. One was ‘we shall overcome’ and the other was ‘karma chameleon’ and one was ‘I just called to say I love you’. One was too slow, other too long or too difficult.
While I was at it, I learnt that ‘we shall overcome was a resistance song. I couldn’t but help thinking that for a song so anti establishment, the govt of India itself, converted the song into hindi ‘hum honge kamayab’ and blared it down the only government owned entertainment channel, while I was growing up. I guess they wanted to apportion it but before any other rebel could. Possibly the congress wanted to show itself as a rebel that was the establishment. Funny nah? It doesn’t make sense.
Then I tried to remember the good old days (around the fourth / fifth grade) we kids from the area had formed a club. A really nice idea that went crazy. We got together to organise activities, contests, contribute jointly for the bat and balls, annual plays etc etc. Simple cheap free stuff. We even all donated books towards the library. At the time we also had singing contests. I think the club membership swelled to a max strength of 40 kids ranging from 5 to 20 year olds. It ended when one guy came in and brought in a lot of rules, processes, wrote the manifesto or something, brought discipline and order, recorded minutes... I might be unfair and the club probably dissolved as the kids grew older, but the guy did try his best to ‘institutionalise’ the club.
At the singing competition I remember one song was particularly popular amongst the girls. Yes. That one was simple to sing as well. That one would do. A google search threw it up in youtube. The song I am referring to is ‘I am on top of the world, looking down on creation and the only....’. It’s a song by carpenters. I couldn’t care less. I downloaded it and now loaded it on my cell phone and on Jasmine’s music player. The lyrics are easy as well. When I made Jispa hear it, she was like’ ya sure. It’s simple. It’s like jingle bells’. Exactly. I can teach you jingle bells at best.
So now hopefully that’s the song she will sing and I will be done with this singing competition. What a real mess. Jasmine and I were talking to each other – well at least this shows that she likes going on stage and is not afraid. It’s a good thing. As Jispa later told me, she gave her name as she likes singing as well. Good. Do well. Making you listen to it on the car deck is as best as I can ever hope to do.
Here you listen to it as well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crWGGy2oBT0

a lovely mind, a simple talk

Jispa had a good lesson in competition. She is amongst the decent swimmers in her age category in her gymkhana. I think she comes in at second place. Ditto for her school. This week end she was taking part in an inter club competition at the CCI. Since there are quite a few kids, they simply take a time trial and take the timings to announce the winners. Her coach had warned us that Jispa is an eight year old in an under-nine age group. That means basically she has a one year disadvantage, which is large for her age. We were obviously expecting nothing much from her. Hopefully it might teach her a thing or two about competing. We saw the elder kids swim very well, and it was a joy for me to watch them swim real fast. It was time for Jispa’s time trial. She shot off the blocks and swam fast. I thought she swam well and quite fast. Pretty cool. She swam like she never had. But when she attempts to go fast she screws up on the technique. The hands don’t stretch as they must in their effort to go fast. But a few furious strokes later she was in the lead. She hit the other side, turned, glanced to see competition and started swimming again. Jasmine and I get tired of telling her that she need not look at competition. She has to learn to swim well and that’s more than enough. If her strokes are great and she tries her best, that’s all that matters. At her level, we don’t want her to win; we want her to get her strokes right.
Jispa’s problem is that she ends up using her over sized brain a bit too much. When I coach her, I am delighted that she listens, unlike other kids who don’t want to, but the problem is that her brain starts listening too much. She over compensates. It’s difficult coaching her then. Her technique then goes all awry. I remember last year, I was trying to get her to run correctly. Some cousin told her to get long strides in. That’s a good thing, but she ended up taking so long strides that she started jumping as opposed to running. It was like a series of long jumps. She will have this problem of brain and body not being entirely coordinated. Her super brain will take too many demands on her body. Same problem when I start elocution with her. Too much use of the brain. Suddenly she will not decide to use certain tone, or give some explanation for changing it or something. ‘Gay abandon’ is not a term I would use for her. She surely benefits from using her brain. It helps her in creative writing and the sort but sometimes in sports it pays to have an uncomplicated approach. A simple approach that seeks to hone instinct and use it. So this time while I started talking to her on running, Jasmine was pretty scared. When I was explain that in a sprint, you don’t use your heel too much and run almost on your toes, Jasmine was wondering and so was I, that she will end up looking like a bouncing ballerina. I think I too will learn about teaching her stuff. I guess I will learn to tell her to keep things simple. Just run fast and will correct a few simple things I see wrong. It’s stupid for me to mess with a good mind. I am simply not qualified enough to do that. What I can do is drill the tables in her head. Today morning I was trying to get her to write a Hindi composition that she was making a complete mess of. I tried to help her think of the essay visually. Almost like a mind map. That would help her structure it I guess. Then we went through the words, the sentences, the closing, the drama required. When she finally writes it today evening we will know if we got it anyway near right. Personally I myself do not know enough Hindi to teach her. I get it mixed up with urdu, and don’t even know the difference. But I guess today I did not do that bad.
So coming back to the swim meet, Jispa swam like she never had. She did her 50 yards in 44 seconds. I think it was her personal best. Dam cool. She also came in first within her immediate time trial. She came panting and exhausted. A dam god effort. I had o be somewhere else so I left by the time she had to compete in the medley relay. Since there weren’t enough girls from her age group for her gymkhana she was given the responsibility of the butterfly. A stroke she barely knows. I was told she did pretty bad. She swallowed water, went slow, almost did not complete. But she pushed herself to complete the race. In the freestyle time trial, while she managed 44 seconds, the first place was at around 34 seconds. Whoa, a full ten seconds. She was pretty dejected. I only met her the next day morning. Jasmine told me that she was felling down.
To my mind I told her that I think she did a swell job finishing the medley. She did not know the stroke, she swallowed water, she felt like shit but she hung on and finished the race. I told her of the time when I was in I think third standard. I barely knew how to swim and could just about manage to swim one length. Just about. That too with the support of the side wall. I still took part in the competition in school. When we were to start I ran and took the side lane. We started and I started swimming furiously. Half way through I don’t know, but I swallowed water and was coughing when the life guard thought I was drowning and pulled me out. Hah. She definitely did better than that!
I am reminded of Thomas Friedman who wrote that in places like India and China, competition is so tough that even if you are 1 in a million, there are a thousand of you. He is right. There are so many good guys around. If you want to be the best you have to train harder. I was thinking if its right for her to compete. One way is that let her see how good she is the hard way. Let her face dejection and loss. She can’t swim in her well and think that she is good. She has to see the world outside. For me. I think I will keep things simple. I will stop trying to coach her too much. I will have to stick to the philosophy part of the game. Hopefully a few years from now, she will coach me. Then she can talk technique and I can talk life. A conversation can sometimes be more than enough. A simple conversation. I can remember some of the best conversations I have had. But then that is another story.

Jispa and me

Imagination

Jispa loves her silly bands. Among the others, this one is her favourite. Why… it represents two animals

Did you get the two? One way is the rabbit; the second is a penguin/duck kind of a bird.

Competition
Jispa did well in her swimming. She now got into the advanced class. There was a big trial and 6 kids were selected to progress. I think Jasmine was tense, or should I say eager. I was eager but to a lower level. Probably I was fooling my self by pretending to not care. I wanted her to make it but I did not want any pressure from me wanting it. not on myself and not on her. But I am so happy. The competitive batch trains for competitions and demands focus and dedication. This is something that I want her to learn at an early enough age. To focus well and learn well.
Here are the anxious mothers at the selection

Stunts
This is Jispa doing her stunts. She started climbing walls.

I clicked a snap and Jasmine got into the act to click from her camera. Very cool. I warned her that she would look silly if she got too excited. I know myself well enough to know that whenever I do something interesting and there is an audience watching, I invariably make a fool of myself. She started climbing and bang… she hit her nose against the pelmet of the door. Only now she is old enough to laugh at it. that’s my girl. She got hit hard but realised the fun of it!

Tables
I am taking this genetic thing too far. But I can’t but notice the similarities. Jispa now has math tables to do. So it’s me and her in the car learning tables. Four one sa four, four two sa eight.... I was really bad at it and I regretted it my whole life. But I only regretted it and did not do anything about it. for Jispa I am keen to get her to learn them. She got the 2,3,4 and 5 tables easy. Like me she got the 6 times table till 6X5 after which she fuddled. Same thing with 7. I still struggle with anything beyond 7X5. so with her I am learning them myself. Sure I can count fast enough to say them but the fact is that I count, while the magic is to know them by heart. She misses the identical ones that I miss 6X7, 6X9, 7X6, 7X8. These are the nasty ones. I don’t know why I miss them and why she misses them as well. Even what I struggle to a lesser extent – 6X3, she does the same. The only reason I know 6X3 is because I struggled with it and I have burned it into my head. I still need to think. It’s painful. Entrance exams later in life need one to get the tables right. I cant understand how I can get 99% in my math and still struggle with tables. Outside of tables math was my favourite table. Possible that was the only illogical thing that you have to learn by heart in an otherwise highly logical subject. But I keep at it everyday in the hope that it will make her do well. Its justa question of burning it in her head isn’t it

leading to victory!

One more weekend and one more ‘training offsite’. I do tend to think that these traiing programs are highly over rated and boring. Though like any book, no matter how bad it is, it is never a complete waste. This time it was only for top management. So now we have senior shit with one person per room. So how do we up this further for the even more senior people. We have Suites for them.. Corporate India never ceases to amaze me. Cut to the activity.
The activities are always fun. Far better than the yappity yappity talking that happens in closed rooms. It is interesting to see the people trying hard to understand the games and trying to win them. They try so hard to win. One of the games we played required us to take an estimate of the score before we start the game. The other team had played it before we did and all we wanted to do was beat them. The people try and the way we stop listening is crazy. We try so hard. Competition pushes us to extremes. We stop thinking clearly and start pushing. We assume stuff that never was. We start distrusting. In another game, which required all the players to survive wasn’t actually a winning game. It was a survival game where if all survive all win. People did not understand that as well. They thought it’s an ‘us versus them’ and started by not trusting and by not sharing resources. I was in a team that was supposed to be mute and was stranded on an island surrounded by acid. The only way out was to get the acid proof tiles that the blind team had on another island. That required the lame team to direct the blind team to come to us with the tiles. So obviously the only thing we could do was wait till they come to us. Relax till then. I sat down to bide my time, relax till the tiles came. Post which I knew I had to scramble like hell. It was a bit amusing to see my team mates gesturing and clapping and tryuing to explain stuff to everyone. Getting all excited. When the tiles came I swung into action and was super fast enough to get the tiles to all the stranded players. In time to ensure all win. That’s all that there was to it. Simple stuff. no rocket science. I don’t know if the guys thought I was not a team man when I was relaxing and biding my time, when there was really nothing to be done by us. Relax and wait till the tile comes to us. Post which we run like hell.
I realised an important truth this offsite. Well it is a truth to me. The jaimitism is coined thus – winning and leadership are so over rated. We are so blinded by this thing about leading to victory that we fail to see the process. You don’t really have to win. Teaching Jispa I realised that its not about winning. It is about the process of play. Every time I try and drill it into Jispa – the Olympic credo – when a great sportsperson comes to write against your name, he writes not whether you won or lost but how you played your game. If your process is right and you have done your best, the result will be in your favour. You don’t have to win. Look at yourself, your own limitations and always use that as a pressure tool. Not winning. Sure in a competitive sport you have to out run and out perform to win. And I am not saying that one must be a wimp but if you focus your energies towards yourself and not the opposition then the game is won there itself. You fight hard, every point every game, but you aren’t really fighting him or her, you must be fighting yourself. The opposition is a useful benchmark, but it is not the end.
Similarly leadership. It is so bloody overrated. We understand it as rubbish inspiration and motivation. I think true leadership is exactly what it is not. It is listening to a lot of people. It is getting involved only at grave risk. It is by making yourself almost dispensable. Letting people do what they want to but only being the guide and using your experience to suggest. If you know it well enough then being an example always helps :).
But both of these are so tough to follow. You want to win, you want to lead. At least the kind of personality I am. Severely competitive and severely pushy. I can’t not try. And thanks to my pushing I end up being in a leadership role.
But also I realised that I have matured over the years. I come into my own with people who look upto me. In situations where more than one leader emerges I tend to be quite about the whole thing. Almost disinterested. I guess people feel that I have tuned off, but I haven’t. I only see the futility of multiple leadership. I know if I open my mouth I would be forceful and dominating. That would just upset everything a bit. It is not a battle I wish to fight at this level. And hence my silence.
It is similar when bosses refuse to listen. Too many hot heads will spoil whatever broth was being cooked.
So I try and conquer my urges to win and my urges to lead. Its not easy for me. funny nah. I get this realisation as a truth and I also do not follow it. But I am improving. Slowly slowly I am getting to see the benefits of being stable and level. The benefits of process and pain as opposed to the pain from ‘competing and leading’. I think that this has also come about thanks to me switching sports and taking up swimming. It is a meditative state of sorts. Me swimming against myself. My own technique being used by me to improve and push myself.
Or I am just getting old, hopefully wiser hehehe. .. whatever.