tischiawn

This is freaking hilarious. So would it be Clint Eastwood or Bruce Lee? To someone who grew up on a diet of Clint Eastwood films and was fed the one magic film of Bruce Lee, it’s a tough choice to make.  On one hand you have the legend wooden face who came in these spaghetti westerns (called so because they were produced by the Italians) and shot the shit out of the baddies. On the other hand you have the one film wonder. I think he has come in a few more movies, but Enter the Dragon was the only movie I have seen of him. I think the tragedy was that he died before its release making it a bigger cult. I would emulate both in my childhood depending on the movie I had just seen. Enter the dragon was I had seen many times. In Dubai, when I  was a little boy, the club would have a movie night every week and we would look forward to it. Largely the movies were repeated and Enter The Dragon was favorite. Yaaaiiieee. There comes my Karate chop.

Like any other boy I too had an interest in guns. I loved guns and it helped that I was naturally good at aiming and keeping my hand steady. I loved the guns I had and would play with them every day. even today I would love to play and practice with a toy gun :). I remember playing so much that once the servant in the house put a really small parrot toy in one corner of the room and challenged me to hit it from the other side of the room. And whack… it flew. I was pretty cool. Then I remember trying to hit while moving and all sorts of different situations. It was fun. Clint Eastwood gave me a lot to dream of.

So for sheer breadth of movies and the dreams that followed guess in my head it was clint Eastwood that won. After all I don’t remember ever wearing that yellow track suit but I do remember wearing cowboy boots. The cowboy western image is still more resonant with me that the lanky pants flexi kick kung fu. Guns defeated the nang chaku in my life. Aiiiieeeee….. yaooo… Bang. Poop.

And nothing else exemplifies this philosophy than this scene from the greatest of them all – INDIANA JONES. The epic adventurer, searching the worlds for lost treasure and an unlikely action star.

And here is another legendary one from a Clint Eastwood movie, though not featuring him.

should we, shouldn't we?

Yesterday was Jispa’s PTM. It’s pretty much more of the same thing every year. When they are yet so young the PTM’s are a bit of a bore. Nothing much gets said and nothing much really happens. Jispa is by and large a sweet well mannered kid. Add to that is Jasmine’s commitment to Jispa’s school work and you have a pretty boring PTM. Her grades are decent, her work is decent and she manages her extra-curriculars decently well. Nothing exciting or interesting. But that’s how the education system is, isn’t it.
You follow simple norms and simple principles and stay in line. They don’t want you out of the system. Straight and narrow line is drawn as a system and you are expected to toe it. Of course things have improved. There is a lot more interaction today than it was in my days. The classes and the teachers are much more fun, at least in jispa’s school, compared to my school. But I suspect the hammering to stay in line is still there.
Jispa has a vivid and massive imagination. She can think of fun stuff and interesting stuff. Thanks to this she is many a time lost in her dream world. While bathing, getting ready, studying etc. always a dream world. I think thanks to this she can visualize all the science stuff as well as the abstract stuff that we talk about very well. But this is also the reason she gets into trouble – like she can’t finish her work in time or take her note sin time. Jasmine and I get castigated many times on this by well meaning friends. They always tell us, why are you scolding her thus and why don’t you just let it be?
The answers aren’t so simple. Jispa wants to do well in school. She wants to do well in life. As of now her goal in life is to be a scientist who invents something. She hasn’t yet meet Edison, but if she does, I suspect that guy is likely to be her big time role model. Many times she and I have had a chat on how scientists make money. She thought they will always be poor as who will give them money till they invent something that they can sell. And as it takes a lot of time to invent something, they are probably living a hand to mouth existence most of the time. I explained that most of the time you don’t really need to invent something as a scientist, you can sometimes, simply take things forward. The thing that comes to my mind is Newton who famously remarked about standing on the shoulders of giants. Nice thought. I will explain it to Jispa sometime.
But yes that’s the thing – Jispa has ambitions and goals. And sadly they are intertwined with a system that is regimented. The cross that we as parents have to bear is this. We have to give her a life that is free and fertile, full of imagination, play and opportunity. We have to give her a ton of experiences that allow her to blossom and choose what she wants to do or not do. She has to have a million experiences, but she also has to stay within a line if she is to have the chance to harness it. I haven’t learnt a great deal from my management education. In fact I tell people that I know what I know and have achieved whatever little I have not thanks to my management education but in spite of it. I still remember the lovely lectures and all the lovely experiences of the best teachers I have had, but have no respect for any of the tests or exams I took. I know only too well of the trauma they have caused. But also I know that I wouldn’t have been able to talk or have been able to lead, or been able to do much without this education. The system wouldn’t have given me so many chances.
The system is so bloody spooked that even the college you graduate from matters immensely. Many times I think what more I would have achieved had I been from a better college. Not a tiny bit more from what I might have learnt from there but simply, how many extra chances I might have got.
Jispa’s imagination will take her places. Her thinking will help her, but she will have to learn to rein it in for now. Control it and stay within line. The line is getting a bit broader, just a bit. They also now allow you periods when you can step out and come back in. but as I have learnt, she too will. It’s like the some fantasy movie. There is a golden ball with the dragon, but you the trick to take it from the dragon, is not to snatch it but to first bow down to it. Show your respect to the dragon and then only would the dragon allow you to come near it and collect it.
The education she gets is important and interesting. I still remember a lot of my chemistry and physics and mathematics. I remember a lot of the poems I learnt. They are good for sure. It’s only the way they want conformity is what I have an issue with. But till the system changes, Jispa will get a bit of scolding. She will have to wake up in time and get ready in time. She will have to sit at one place and get her Hindi spellings right. While I can read Hindi, one of the biggest regrets I have had is that I am unable to read Hindi literature. If she grows up wanting to read it, she will have to start now. And if she doesn’t do it now, she probably will never have the chance to do it.
We insist and make her practice the guitar. She loves it and is now pretty decent at playing it. She enjoys playing and practicing, but to get her to the table and sit down to practice it, is something that we as parents will have to do. Forget all this big stuff, Jispa will have to temper her imagination if she wants to get anything in life. Even she wants to see a movie, she will have to get out of the showers after her swim and get ready in time. It’s the same thing.
This life is pretty cruel. You have to make choices. The education system is a good scapegoat that all of us like to hit and blame. The only reality is time. We come with limited time and the dam thing doesn’t wait for us. We have to conform to it. An interesting perspective I read – time was thought of as a constant flowing thing, till we invented a clock that took this flow and broke it down into tiny tiny bits. Into hours and minutes and seconds and so on. It created a tick followed by a tick. I dare say in our bid to tame it we became its slaves. To think of it, it might have been the single biggest innovation that lead to progress and the single biggest contributor of stress.
So there – our parenting will get tested very often. We will have to give a free life within the boundaries defined. A paradoxical construct that stresses us as parents as much as it stresses the child. The only way is out is to try and get middle ground, a large middle ground, that allows for break outs and allows for us to listen. We must constantly be ready to expand this ground. The parents prayer – allow me to protect my child but more importantly, please let me know when to stop.

imagine...

V-inu got Jispa a Rubik’s snake from his recent overseas trip. Quite a cute thing. I remember it being the rage while I was a kid. And obviously the first thing I ended up making with it was – you guessed right – the ball (or the truncated octahedron if you want to be scientific). It is impossible, not to make it once you lay your hands on it. And then onto hours and hours of pure pleasure. Making all sorts of funny stuff.
Should be fun for Jispa as well. Yesterday morning while she was it she made this.

Now you have to tell me what this is. You are obviously disqualified if you have read the little prince. Jispa hasn’t read it yet. Which makes me think that it is time for me to dig it out of somewhere from my pile. I clearly remember buying it and reading it around five years ago. It was truly quite a lovely story. It’s worth buying it as a spare copy even if I can’t find it within my pile. I was only introduced to the first chapter as a kid when I read it in my school English text book. I remember being completely fascinated with his drawing and his meeting of with the Prince.
This image will forever stick in my mind.

I can still feel the excitement that I felt when I first read that there something much more to the image. I think it made me think that all adults are stupid and they really can’t see what’s completely obvious. And that it need not be obvious for it to be pretty. Now that I think about, somewhere from the deep recess of my memory, a speck is standing out. I think I remember a time when I had gone to Ahmedabad to visit a cousin’s place. Somehow I remember raiding the bookshelf and reading the little prince there. I think I might have been in fourth or fifth standard or possibly younger. It’s all fuzzy now. But it’s funny how I remember the pleasure in reading it. Come to think of it, it’s made quite an impact on me.
So coming back to the answer to the drawing from little prince…

Now you will get the answer to Jispa’s creation. Only just.
It is a snake who has swallowed a tree stump.

The next one is my creation as an answer to Jispa’s creation.

As Jispa says, it is a snake that has a stone dropped on it. Here the inspiration as she says is Tom and Jerry. Well, from my little prince to her tom and jerry, life follows pop... pop??… pop… art?

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

the times, they are a ...runnning?

Meet Jispa’s nemesis. The deceptive looking hater of liberty, destroyer of creativity, sucker of imagination, the slave of time and the master of stress. It comes cloaked in a cute hard outer shell. It pretends to lie there fairly innocuous, but turns its sinister head to reveal a tell tale ticker. Akin to a 1980’s time bomb, it ticks ever so steadily, audible enough to create an aura of inevitability, and soft enough not to be threatened by it. Meet arch enemy number one – the kitchen timer.
I have always loved to have a bath. My bath times vary from 30 minutes to 60 minutes. I remember having long baths ever since I was a kid. Must be some fascination with water. I probably need to check if at the time of my birth if India was in the middle of a drought or something. Or possibly the reverse. Whatever. I love my bath now and I remember loving them as a kid. Every time I would on the shower and be permanently lost in the world of make believe. Sometimes I would be a singer, sometimes a scientist or sometimes a gun slinger. Whatever. But I remember that my thoughts would flow as rapidly as the water. I would always be the brunt of the mom’s ire, JAIMIT GET OUT. GET OUT NOW. With three kids in the house, there would always be someone wanting to get in. But it was mom and dad who would get really pissed with me in the shower forever. I would only get out when I would hear knocking. The softer knocking followed by the harsh screaming of mom or the hard knocking but no screaming of dad. It was clear that the latter was more scary and immediate. Mom would say – I want you out in 15 minutes. My sister and brother would poke fun at me – they would count and show me the time. 25 minutes, 45 minutes, etc. but if you thought that was a nightmare. You are mistaken. I couldn’t care less. I was enjoying my shower. A beautiful world where every other worry ceased to exist. Even today my shower is my last refuge. After a hot day’s cricket, a lot of exercise or even a long day, it is the wonderful world of shower that saves me and helps me retain my sanity. I think I have gone overboard here and been unnecessarily flowery, but I do enjoy it a whole lot.
Even today my best ideas come when I am in the shower. I feel like Archimedes, solving a vexing puzzle. My mind is relaxed and the water seems to perk up my brains into a creative stupor.
My poor kid has inherited some of my genetic make up. She is the shower girl as well. She too takes forever in the shower. Playing, dreaming, imagining god knows what. The other day jasmine was really pissed. How did you get the water onto the ceiling? I sniggered quietly. Spraying water on the walls and the ceilings was my speciality. It is fun to have bath with your shower faced up. The water comes down on you as a fountain. Hehehe. To put things in perspective Jasmine gets out of the bath in the time it takes for father and daughter to get wet. So its always a hard thing for others to see our side of the view. But that is being harsh on her. The enemy of imagination is time. Time to get up, time to have bath, time to get ready time to go to school, time for the bus, the next class, sleep, whatever. Jasmine has to manage her schedule and coordinate her time to ensure that Jispa gets to do all that Jispa wants to. it would be impossible for Jispa to do anything if she lets her imagination get hold of her. It was getting difficult for me too to manage this. I know the fun and the imagination that a bath brings, but I also know that necessity of finishing on time. How do I manage the expectations of both mother and daughter. Getting Jispa out was my role as a dad, but I so hated it. So one day in the middle of one of these outburst in popped the solution. The humble kitchen timer. I told jasmine to get one and use it everytime Jispa went for bath. We give her an adequate ten / twelve minutes, before we expect her to be out. The timer ticks on and gives a short ring at the end. Jispa sometimes has to run out or sometimes like today it is a smooth process. While Jispa obviously wants to throw that thing from the window and watch it fall in slow motion, it seems to have resolved some of the stress that time puts on the family. Jasmine also uses it while Jispa is eating. Jisap can dream on wven while eating. Again here I am theguy who hates telling Jispa to speed up. I rather tell her a story or something, while feeding her. Jasmine would get pissed as Jispa is old enough not to be fed by us. Jasmine is right, but I cant bring myself to shout at Jispa for something I think is perfectly right. Dreaming is good. Imagination is good. I am a fast eater and I gulp down my food, but I guess I have become like this after working. FAST FAST FAST. I think we need to slowdown. Relax, smell the …. GET OUT FAST, the bus will leave. Oh gaaawwdddd.
Somebody wisely said that nature invested time to stop all everything from happening all at once. Screw you. True story - Jispa’s read this quote on a Landmark paper bag attributed to John Lennon. It seems Jispa pointed to the bag and told this to Jasmine once when Jasmine found her wasting time “Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted”. Bah! Jasmine did not find it funny. I am still laughing.