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This weekend i got an SOS from my niece. “JD we need to meet”.

I am amongst the youngest in my side of the family. Dad was i think around 11 years younger than his eldest brother and 7 from the number two. Mom was the second last of the 6 siblings. I turned out to be the last in my own family. So from both sides, there were only two siblings younger than me. One sis who was actually just a month younger and one sis who was a couple of years younger. Ahead of me was an entire army.

While I am not an expert of the Freudian theories of young experiences shaping adult life, I think my great desire to help everyone, teach everyone, coach everyone - seems to be stemming form this. 

I have always wondered why it gives me so much joy to teach, help, captain and coach. As a young kid i was bullied around quite a bit by my cousins. i was never taken seriously by brother and sister. I don't think they take me seriously even now. For them I was always a pesky guy doing all sorts of wrong things and embarrassing them. I thought I was pretty smart as a kid as well. I had a heightened sense of whats wrong and whats right. To add fuel to fire, i had a fearless disposition that wanted to stand up for what i believed in. the final nail in the coffin was the ability to argue. So now, I could argue forever what I believed in, irrespective of who you were. Your pedigree did not matter. So I was the argumentative idiot everyone did not want to talk to. Especially not siblings! they are not designed to understand they are wrong. Even more so when you don't have a diplomatic bone in you.

But that does not mean I could not think. i could think and i could understand, i just did not know how to put things across. How to explain, how to understand both points of view and how not to embarrass people. The big thing in an argument is to try and not get onto the other guys ego. Because once thats done, you will end up with a joker who refuses to see your opinion and whatever you say is nothing but an argument. 

So thats how i went through life growing up. As an underdog. I don't think things improved too much at work. I learnt how to handle people by trailing error and by getting my butt kicked. The big one also happened over a long period of time - teaching. Over the last 13 years I have been teaching in some form or the other in colleges. This keeps me engaged and more importantly I understand how to deal with really irritating and nasty kids! Kids are great, they have no obligation to like you or to listen to you. they don't want to listen to you. They are free to dream, free to think and free to hate you. Taking them along with you on your lectures, discussing, dreaming, firing imagination - its a tough job. On certain days I do a better job than others. One certain days - i am a drab. But at least I learn how to teach, to explain, to think.

I really like to help people by talking them, discussing issues with them and generally having a chat with them. At first when I realized I had adequate power that age and experience gave me, i tried solving every issue that people faced. Giving people quick fixes and solutions. One book “if you meet buddha on the road, shoot him” made me realize that I couldn’t solve issues. I couldn't give solutions that work, i can only explain my issues, my dreams and my learnings. I talk about what i see around me an hope that inspires others to see their issues in this new light.

So when my niece texted me and wanted to meet, I was ready. Of course I could help. Of all that i have helped in the past, i have felt that my own kin have not used me as much as they can or should. Now that i am older, the second generation is something that can use me. For them possibly, I am still young enough and old enough at the same time, or i dare say - cool enough.

After the conversation, I was telling Jasmine that, this is really stupid. Thanks to the shit in the family politics we cousins never did come close. On both sides - the cousins just drifted apart. We hardly had any social interactions when we grew up. We basically did not even know the others even existed. the second generation was lost on us completely. Jispa would not even know 50% of her second cousins.

To grow you cant live in a vacuum. You need social structures and fabric to hold you. You need them to refer you to their networks and create a net that works to your advantage. this niece also managed to reach out to me for a marketing problem because I was know well to her elder sister. Her elder sister would go to college in the same train that I would use to go to work. Thats where our friendship grew. She then became a dentist and we stayed in touch. 

Also came the Facebook effect. I post regularly on FB when we travel and on and off otherwise. This also helps me be in touch with the second gen. These loose connections with the kids keeps the connections alive. 

I wish we had tighter connections with the cousins. I wish our parents, even if they fought with each other, kept the connections with the kids alive. I wish we met more often, stayed with each other more often and grew up together. This is an essential social fabric that must not be compromised. It can create magic.

Its funny that I preach this. When was younger, it was cool not to bother about relations. It was cool to dis them and to not go to functions. there is some truth about functions. Relations are about everyday small interactions, not just simply marriage function presence for people you don't even know or care about. If we simply had smaller tighter relations with a higher frequency we would have been able to have different equations with our cousins.

I think here Facebook and Whatsapp plays a very good role. It allows us to have a long list of weak connections that are emotionally connected thanks to the pictures or jokes or groups that we are a part of. this may not help as much as building connections but makes the invisible walls easier to scale. So no matter what people talk about it and criticize it, these social networks being there online have changed things and they are here to stay. So tighten up and embrace them, and use them to further your old school ties and keep them connected.

Till then i get great pleasure in meeting my young nieces and nephews and talking to them, learning from them and them from me. What more could i ask for? - well More of the same!

growing growing ...

There is a lot of bull shit and child pschyology everywhere. I too believed in a lot of bull shit. There is only one truth. No one really knows anything. I have two three very close kids that I have seen up close and personal. Both these boys according to me have had not so great parenting. They should have been better read, better exposed and made to have sweat a little more. At least that was my egoistic view point. Both these boys have grown up to be amazing people. One nephew has become a boy that I like to talk with. I can converse, he understands and responds. Another boy took a job as a sales guy and by sheer hard work and persistence is climbing up the sales ladder. He takes charge of things in his hand and then attacks the work and gets it done. I like his drive and his dedication. I am impressed. Another hero grows up and reads and learns and grows well. Things change and they change fast.

I am now less and less worried about the real long term implications that we think are caused by our minute bits of parenting. I am sure  parenting makes a difference. Of course. A lot of fundamentals can get ingrained. Some dos and don’t get implanted but… they are also giving more importance than is due. So many kids fight their way on their own and mold their own destiny. I was asking Jasmine – “you know me since I was 15, haven’t I changed a lot?” Jasmine looked at me, thought for a bit and said “yes, you have”. People change. Circumstances force people to change. There are many ways to respond to change and in many ways ‘stressfull change’. Change is stressful and people don’t do it willingly, but people change. How many times can you get slapped for something? Life will keep slapping you again and again. After a point you stop making some mistakes, you grow up, you meet the Buddha in you and boom.. growing happens.

I love to able to talk to these kids. They teach me stuff I never knew. I understand much better when I chat with them and when I discuss with them. There is so much to learn. I understand their issues (I hope to), I get their perspective (again hope to) and I learn. Learning is forever constant and the best learnings are from those much younger to you or much older to you. The youth have so much to share and the old have so much to learn from.

But one thing is clear – I am learning form these guys only one thing. That no matter how much I know, I don’t know a thing. Things are different. Things change and people change. Possibly their cores remain constant. But you never know what the nuance of that core is. The way they exhibit some of that to you changes. And it could be just that little bit that changed it all as far as you are concerned. And when that happens – god only knows.

not just any dental date

A ha the fun of having a computer while roaming around. I started writing this post while waiting for the most mundane. I am outside my dentist’s clinic. Well it’s not like I am a regular at the dentist, so I can’t really call her ‘my’ dentist. In fact I can’t remember the last time I was at the dentist. Recently Jasmine had got her root canal done and it cost us a bomb. Root canals do cost a lot and jasmine cant go to the community dentists so she ended up going to a dental studio. She finds the hygiene standards at the community run clinics a bit dodgy. As for me, I am game for practically anything. I have very low hygiene standards and I am known to pick wafers off the floor, dust them or blow some air and eat them. You know that typical guy thing. I look at it as a more macho thing... something like it builds immunity. So keep having it. In any case , there is enough shit in the atmosphere so you are like going to get enough of your germs just like that. A few friendly ones you pick up from the floor or the around will only help you. Hah!
This dentist in any case was a special visit. My elders weren’t and aren’t on the best of terms so we cousins don’t end up meeting too often. My generation couldn’t care less for the property disputes of our elders. But thanks to that we have never been very close. Compund that with the fact that we stay nuclear and os we have even less functions to go to. So basically we are almost cut off from our gene pool. My immediate siblings never understood the fights that our uncles and aunties had and we swore never to let money come in the way ever. Never to let protocol come in the way as well. life is too short to bicker over lesser issues.
So while I was placed in nariman point I used to get to the train everyday and there happily enough I once saw what looked my niece. I wasn’t very sure till she came up and asked me ‘wasn’t I her jaimit kaka’. Err yes. That was fun. Everyday in the morning you get to meet your niece. She is a happy fun person and it was pretty cool talking to her. She was studying to be a dentist. She passed out a few years ago and has started practising in some clinic. So when yesterday I felt a bit of pain in my teeth I used the opportunity to catch up with my favourite niece. Disclaimer – given that I hardly know any of my other nieces, itnot a great achievement. Hah! That was written as while we were talking about the fact that I had my computer open, she figured I blog. I have never tried to popularise my blog. Its been an open but a quite thing. If you know about it then fine. Else even better. So as she said she would one read it, I thought I would be nice and mean to her. I am always mean to her and pulling her leg.
In fact she is 26 and like all happy Indian gujju households, her mom is after her to get married. I don’t understand this marriage scare business. What there to get scared of marriage and commitment? Well its obviously easy for me to say that, as I obviously found someone to get married to. But I got married at 23 and had a child by the time I was 27. It did seem a bit young but I loved it. Today at 35 I have an eight year old. Soon at 40 she should be 13 a mini adult and hopefully I won’t be old and fuddy duddy. I can run with her, play with her and hopefully compete with her. She has already smashed me in swimming. I am waiting to have her taekwondo and squash skills develop so that I can play that as well with her. it would be a bit difficult if I was a bit older.
So our poor dentist niece has a poor role model to look up to. She is not exactly enthused with the prospect of getting married and I keep telling many youths like her that its not that bad. Sometimes all I do is just explain the superficial behaviour they sometimes exhibit. Something like rejecting this guy as she speaks with a local accent or he wears a printed shirt or something. The tables have changed and how... I guess my mom would not have had much say in choosing her husband, but I am happy that we Indians are slowly allowing our daughter to have a greater say. I guess now the pressure is put not physically but emotionally to say yes to a guy of the parents liking. Nice.
So while she explained her exasperation at the various guys she was seeing and choosing from (all crap according to her) , I gently nudged her to a marriage portal. It’s an interesting disintermediation. When these portals made an appearance around a decade ago I thought they would be all sleaze and the last resort for old unmarried / divorced men and women. I started looking at it with a little more respect when I heard that one of my friends met his wife through this portal. Interesting. You see profiles, you approach, you chat a bit, you become facebook friends and then you meet up and figure. Cool nah. Its a bit like dating. And the parents are now open to this new concept as well. I met one lady who I interviewed some time ago. She said she is a maharashtrian who family was after her to get married. So she went online and registered herself and met this guy who was a gujarati. Then she set it up herself and met the guys and decided to get married. All this I came to know when I asked her if her marriage was love or arranged. And she said sort of love. If you see the story I kind of agree with her. is that within the definition of love marriage or arranged marriage. A new term needs to be invented for this stuff – loranged. That sounds a bit like deranged? How about Arrove. Ya... you arrange the match and then you love and then you marry.
Like I was telling my niece – go on and register yourself. See some male profiles, check them out. a bit like ‘body shopping’. In the traditional sphere the women used to feel like they are on display with the men coming in to meet and ‘grade’ them. Now the game is more equal I guess. Men and women have equal body shopping rights! Yay yay!
These are small steps to a new world. That’s why I have so much faith in the Indian dream playing out. Women – we haven’t factored the rise of the women in this economic dream. Their rise gives me great confidence.
So in the end my niece was disappointed. I had no reason for her to give me any degree of pain. My teeth were in fine form and my molars were well and truly filled with the old silver cavities long ago. There wasn’t much to fill in. No root canal that she could recommend and not even a teeny weeny cavity. She would get her revenge on some other day. Tada!

play on kid

Jispa had her elder cousin over at our place yesterday. They are now at an age where they can play with each other without the elder guy really irritating Jispa and Jispa is able to stand on her own. They tend to have their own brand of fun.
They both like a particular comic strip and they were playing a game inspired by it.
Here is one photo of them playing.

Did you get it? nopes? Possibly this one should help

How about this one? This one?Or this. Drat – missed them as well.
Come on… this one is a dead give away.
Now did you get the comic strip they are inspired from?


They are playing Calvin and Hobbes running off on a wagon …

now did you get the resemblance? its quite funny once you know.

Here they are after they bang the scooter into something or the other. It normally ends as a 'stunt'. Uncontrollable laughter follows.

jispa meets gandhi

We went to join the family gingbang in Ahmedabad to be a part of the surprise 25th year anniversary. The cousins there are fairly sweet. He is my first cousin and the 25th anniversary celebration would give you an idea onto the wide age disparity between cousins.
This was on my dad’s side of the family. Here I am the youngest son of the youngest brother. Hence I am the baby of that side. In many ways I am treated by some of my brothers in that respect. At 35 I get my ears pulled. Literally :D. It is quite a nice feeling. It was also a chance to experience Ahmedabad and used the free time before and after the party to catch up on stuff.
One point on our agenda was the Sabarmati ashram there. It is a beautifully serene and calm place. The vibes there were very calming. One can only imagine what it could have been like 60 to 70 years ago. I liked the smallish memorial that explains Gandhi’s stand on various issues and charts out some of his actions. Also I could not visualise without Richard Attenborough’s movie coming into my head. It did well to help me visualise the scale of his actions. Here is Jispa in front of one of the exhibits.

It is an icon by itself. I think the handwriting is an integral part of making this iconic.
While the section was informative on Gandhi’s life I think it misses a lot by being merely a poster exhibition. There is little else to make the place come alive. it seems there is a sound a light show in the vening but we did not inquire about too much as we had the party to attend in the evening. Also I guess Gandhi as a man had little to own and hence there would be very little to exhibit, at least as afar as personal artefacts go. There were replicas of many letters that he wrote and received and prints of the same, but I guess seeing the real thing beats having to see a replica. Jispa kept asking “is this the real thing’ and we had to keep saying it is the replica. I don’t what we humans have for it but I do enjoy seeing something very real as opposed to the pictures.
Like the Delhi museum showing what is believed to be the actual remains of the Buddha. On my god. I went crazy seeing them. I couldn’t believe that we have the actual fragments of the Budhha himself. It made the Buddha come alive to my mind. From being a part of mythology there is suddenly flesh and blood to my vision of him. And I was within 10 inches of them.

There in similar vein, I was also very happy that they had not completely cordoned off the hut (above pic) in which he stayed but actually had it open to all visitors to come in and experience it for himself. It felt great to be in a place where the man him self had been / lived. These things make the legend in our minds come alive. I was happy to take Jispa there. I guess it would have made it come alive for her as well.

The big let down was the souvenir store. Yup, they have a store there. It sells prints of old photos, wooden charkhas, all possible books and some pens and badges etc. there was nothing that could be a modern interpretation of Gandhi. Something that someone younger would actually buy to keep the image alive. Also nothing to wear. Not even a khadi kurta. The books were also arranged so shabbily and displayed with poor light and shelves. It made for poor browsing and poor experience. Next door was a library in even worse shape. With dusty interiors, bad lighting and cobwebs that too did not inspire any confidence. While some of the exhibits were smart and interesting enough to explain Gandhi, there was nothing to interpret him in today’s life. Hence no matter what any one says, lage raho munnbhai must be lauded for its attempt. A simple zone where Jispa would have access to movie clippings, possibly cartoons, drawings etc… that would have created a lasting impact in her mind. A simple concept like untouchability was something I found difficult to explain to her. It was written in depth on the exhibits and the complexities that Gandhi faced were also explained but explaining that to an 8 year old was pretty tough. What does it mean? How did he fight it? What were the repercussions? I think I tried my best. Years of talking to Jispa as an adult have borne fruit. She can understand complex stuff that I try and explain to her as plain as possible without talking down. She is also quite comfortable in a museum and knows how to entertain herself in it. But a little help, possibly at worst an audio tour would help tremendously. And why can’t we design audio tours for kids. Punch in your age as well before proceeding and you get the right thing for you. Why don’t we do this?
I tired my best on Saturday. I hope it brought it alive for her.
As a closing note I leave this for you – said of Gandhi by another legend himself.