shopping list merges with the bucket list

One more item off the bucket list.

Recently after our home was redone with a lot of thinking and effort from Jasmine and me (Jispa’s inputs as well). Afterwards Jasmine is on a project to clean up each of cupboards. The big one she left at the end was the one in which the books are kept. That is one massive thing to do. Slowly but surely she removed all the books and placed them on the side. We then classified all the books and then started putting them in the cupboards. This gave me a chance to look at all the books that I had bought and read before the advent of the kindle. I don’t want to part with these, partly because of ego, partly because I think that I might need them again and partly because I think that Jispa might one day read a few of them. This time around some shitty books I definitely threw away, but they did not number in double digits. Yesterday while I was giving them to Jasmine as she put them inside, I told her “you know, some of these books are really bad” as I handed her Warren Buffet’s insipid and devoid of any insight autobiography. “I can throw at least a third of the. They are that bad. What say?”. Jasmine nodded and then answered “while we still have space, keep them. When we don’t have space, we will see”.  That was a significant endorsement from Jasmine on all the books that I have kept over the years. More than anything she knows what these books mean to me, from whichever perspective.

While rearranging the books, I came across quite a few titles that I did not read then and I relooked at them. Many a times, the book can wait till its time has come. Just because you don’t find it interesting at the time does not mean that the book loses meaning. It simply means that possibly the timing was not right. It like bosses. No boss is mean in an absolute sense, it’s just that you and the boss haven’t reached a tuning that is conducive to working together. Yes, it can be the bosses fault at many times, but at a core level it’s a question of tuning. Or in the case of books, a question of timing. In my life, there have been so many books that have worked for me at a later time in life. So many times, that I have tried reading a book but have left it on the shelf only to rediscover it years later and get its importance. I was possibly just too naïve to understand it at the point. In any case, these books have taught me a lot and I have learnt (as I have always maintained) more to think in a certain way as opposed to really taking a point by point lesson from it.

Now that Jispa is much older, I am happy that some of my books are something that she finds some interest in.  Once she came for one of my lectures and she saw me talk about the book “why we buy”. Many times, people ask me, if there was one book that they should read from all the books that I have read in my life, one book that was the best ever, I reply without thinking “why we buy”. It is the single most amazing book that I have read about marketing in particular and management in general and is completely entertaining. The author has done nothing but observe people shop and then proceeded to write a seminal book on all his findings. How people shop, how they walk in stores, layout of stores, how people behave with children, men shoppers, women shoppers, babies etc. The lessons are simple. You observe and then you understand. Once you understand the answers are commonsensical to anyone. Marketing is just that. Using good research and solving issues you spot. This book also shows how shoppers around the world are similar, dads around the world are similar. We all behave in similar fashion if confronted with similar stimuli. In many ways shopping seems to be a genetically imbibed thing amongst all humans.

So, after hearing my lecture Jispa was pretty excited and wanted to read the book. She asked me for it. I promised her that when I climb up and rearrange the books, I would keep an eye for it and get it for her. This was the opportunity I was waiting for and I removed it for her, along with a few more books. She started reading it and we started discussing it. Then one night as she getting to bed, I showed her a trick that I often do with this book.

I started flipping through it and asked to stop me at a random place. Then I would randomly start reading any paragraph. The book is so dense and full of insights that any random para starts making sense. You don’t need any context or build up. It just makes sense. So, I read it to Jispa as she was sleeping like it was a bed time story. She would suddenly say stop while I was flipping and I would read her a para or so. No discussion required, no understanding required, it just made a ton of sense.

What a lovely book and what a lovely moment for me. Reading a marketing book to my kid as she slept – that too the best book in my life – An item off the bucket list!

The joy of giving joy is the greatest joy

Apologies for the alliteration but that is the greatest joy I see.  I may be a teacher at heart – I have tried to teach wherever I can and but I think the underpinning of all that teaching is that I am a performer. So two words describe me – performer (as in the arty types, the loud types, the actor types – not the top of the line types, not the excellent types, not the sales target champion type of performer). The second one is teacher. In marketing we like to put these in two different boxes. One is the motivator and the other is discriminator. The motivator is why need you fundamentally address and the discriminator is how different you are from others in addressing it. So when I think of myself – which word is which. Is the performer the core motivator or is teaching the motivator. Am I motivated to teach and I am a different teacher because I am a performer (I do funny things all the time while teaching) or am I a performer and I since I don’t have any other tricks I figure I get my audience by teaching.

Good question.

But I surely like to perform all the time. I have always wished and looked upon with envy at people who could play a musical instrument. I wish I could. I wish I learnt as a kid. The two instruments that I remember would always catch my fancy were one- the harmonica and second the flute. These are amazing instruments in the fact that these are possibly the easiest portable instruments of all time. you can carry them wherever you want and there you have your music with you in your pocket. Flute wins hands  down purely on the melody bit though.

Ever since I can remember – possibly since I was around 8 I would dream about playing these instruments everywhere. Just put them in your pocket and play it somewhere to someone. Regale an audience. An anonymous audience, an audience that is not expecting your performance. I never ever dreamt of playing on a large stage before a large audience. That never excited me. What excited me were the street performers who played on in the hope that people like what they are playing and danced to your tune. People who played for a penny were the real heroes in my life.

Art is a gift. It has no value that one can put on it. I would hate to price my art. What is the price of making someone smile? That’s why I love to teach where I teach. They possibly give me some remuneration that does not even pay my petrol bills to reach the place. But the joy of teaching – of showcasing my art – is greater than anything else.

Art must reach the common man in a form and manner that he can access it, touch it, be one with it, interact with it. when we won some award at my firm, to celebrate we hired a crooner with a  guitar and one bongo or something and we set it up in office. The office guys went crazy. They started singing with them, one guy took charge of the drum, the other took his guitar and the third (and fourth and fifth and sixth) started singing. It became something that was inclusive and not exclusive. We could have had a stage performance where chairs could have been laid to watch – but this way people interacted with the art and were one with it.

We celebrate Christmas and Diwali and then quickly put a cordon around the thing. You will see Diwali rangolis with cordon around it, Christmas trees with cordons around it, you will in fact see Santa Claus with  balustrades. Who is in the prison – him or us?

I want to break these barriers. That’s why the big mirror bubble at Chicago is what it is. It allows for people to be a part of it, interact with it and be one with it. It does not exclude but include. Everyone’s invited. All it takes is the first curious guy to break the invisible shackle and all hell breaks loose.

That’s why I love flash mobs. Flash mobs take the performance to the people. Thye can feel it, be one with it, it includes everyone into the stage. There is no stage. The performer and the audience, the stage and the theatre is one. It is a fusion of the opposites (a reconciliation of opposites), a burning of the curtain, that makes flash mobs so sexy and so engaging. The best flash mobs are those that are inclusive and interact with the people around. I saw this one today and I found it most lovely. In fact I went emotional. I wanted to do something like this.

This one is really special. What is different about this one from other sis really quite a simple thing. A child pays a coin to start something. She was expecting a simple small thing to happen. Slowly she is amazed by the width of whats on to offer. It took a child with a coin to start it. it was on demand. It interacted in some ways with the audience. That is what made this flash mob so special. Social networks unknowingly caught it bang – the headline screamed - “Best coin ever spent - A little girl donates some coins to a street musician and gets the best surprise in return. Well, that's certainly money well spent.” So there were many other flash mobs involving musicians, but this one was especially poignant. The whole orchestra can come in for a penny for a little girl. Not free – but for a penny from a girl. Sometimes – a penny can be better than free. Most marketers would disagree!

The joy of giving joy is the greatest joy!