simple and practical

Today I am going to be the whole day at my Goregaon office. Which basically means that my lunch won’t be coming from home. On many such days we take the opportunity to have a family breakfast at the south Indian joints in kings circle. Within Mumbai these to be the best that south Indian has to offer. Though a lot of gujjus rave and rant about these joints I find them strictly ok compared to the real ones down south. But they are clearly head and shoulders above the rest of Mumbai.
So after we had our fill and I dropped Jasmine at the bus stop for her to go home, I was taking Jispa to her bus stop. Along the way we passed by my maternal grandmother’s house. I showed Jispa that look here, my granny (ba) stayed here. And when we used to come in from dubai for summer vacations we used to stay here. Now no one stays here. My granny died more than 25 years ago. The place is in a diaplated condition. Then I was explaining to Jispa that that was a big house and we used to go running around the house. The rooms were interconnected and we used to run around in circles with my granny chasing us. Poor thing used to walk around and we used to run in the opposite direction. That was good fun. I don’t know if my granny would be really furious at us or was merely pretending while chasing us down.
I was explaining to her how it was a huge house and ba had a full floor on top as her house. “a full floor? Your ba was very rich?”. “Yes” I answered. “She was. And not only the floor, that whole building and the next building belonged to her”. “now who stays there?”. Well now Jispa was opening the pandora’s box. Who stays there, now. “hmm Jispa, no one for now.” “why”. “well that property is in dispute”. “What’s dispute” she asked. I saw that one coming. “The brothers and sisters are fighting, rather arguing about the property. Whose it is and who can have it”. “Why are they arguing? And why does anyone have it. They all have homes in any case right?” “Yup they have homes. It’s not the home they are fighting about. They want to sell the land and then keep the money” “so then they can easily divide the money equally nah?”, “well ok, but they don’t agree on how to divide the money amongst themselves. Someone or the other thinks they want more. It’s like a cake and three of your friends wanting to divide it but always someone wants more than the other. How do you just divide it? And it’s not just this land. There is also a factory in Mahim that made labels. That too is in dispute and I think it no longer is running.” “Why has that stopped running”. Well... “There the two brothers could never decide on how to run the factory. One would want to run it this way and the other would want to run it the other way”. “but can’t they just agree that you run it in your half this way and the other just let me do his bit. If anything is wrong then they can just come together on the best decision” Jispa thus added her simplistic and pretty practical wisdom. Only if we listened to eight year olds more often. “ ya it possible but ego gets in the way. Let me explain. Like when you hate me sometimes, even if I am talking sense you don’t want to listen to me. Do you. You think I am bad and don’t listen. Same way ego gets in the way sometimes and things don’t improve” “but I listen to you afterwards nah?” “Sure you do. But sometimes when people fight so much that they start hating each other and stop listening to each other”. “strange”
Young Jispa did not understand why we idiots keep fighting and spoiling our lives. Young Jispa has enough wisdom to keep disputes away and enough practicality to keep her content and happy. Let’s just hope life doesn’t corrupt young Jispa.
This incident reminds of two of my best teachers. Dharen and Prof Navalkar, both believed that strategy is simple. If it is not simple then it is not strategy. Jispa’s solutions are simple and practical. Only the silliness and the complications in our brains stop us from adhering to them. Sometimes when Jasmine and I fight, I think we must get Jispa in to solve our disputes. She makes for a good reasoning board.