Its bird, its a plane... its a....

Here is Jispa cutting the cucumbers. I am not a big fan of her using anything as sharp as a knife and definitely no chance of her cutting the veggies. I am not sure if at ten years old she is old enough to cut the veggies. So while we peeled the cucumber and left the table I returned to find her cutting them. I think she did ask if she could cut the cucumbers. Neither jasmine nor I answered her. She easily interpreted it as a yes and she started cutting. My first reaction was to have a go at her, but then I saw that she was super careful while cutting. Look at the pic. Her left hand is well away from the place the knife will make the cut. It’s pretty safe. I held back and said “ok, but don’t cut the tomatoes”. Then the next day again I was slicing the veggies and she wanted to cut the cucumbers, and I agreed. She then asked me “you said yes? So now you think I am old enough to cut the veggies?”. “Well no, I don’t think so. But here cut the cucumbers”. What am I supposed to say? I did say the truth. I don’t think my kid is grown up yet. I don’t think she knows yet how to handle a knife and I don’t think she should be cutting the veggies. But she seized and demonstrated that she can cut the cucumbers and who am I to then rob her independence.

This is critical to evolution. You will force to be independent. You will push your way into places where you want to grow. There is nothing to stop the cub from taking over the pride when the time and strength is right. It’s time for the big cat to move on and forfeit the right to rule. The faster one understands this the better it is. We can’t keep the cub under our protection for much longer. Jispa is now ten and by the time she is fifteen she better be independent. I think she is going to make rapid strides in independence in these five years. More than anything that we would be able to handle. Both jasmine and I need to learn to give up and give way. This is genetically coded in her and this is essential for her survival. How much should I plan for her and how much can protect her. the good old adage ‘protect where you must and permit when you can’ rings true. And as your child grows up the latter takes precedence over the former. Slowly slowly it’s become easier for me to let her be. The problem is that the risks are very large and till they are able to handle it I am unable to bear the burden of their probabilities.

A child will fight for independence and the patriarch must find a way to give it. In a way that both co -exist and exist so in harmony. I too walked away from my old home in a bid to carve out my own niche. I felt far too restricted and constrained to be able to live freely. Passing on the baton is crucial to long term survival. The challenge is to pass on at the right time in the right manner. You read of the strife that people have over ancestral property, that kids are fighting with their elders over the money and property and most importantly the business that needs to be inherited. It’s easy and obvious to think that the son is wrong in this case. It is his duty to take care of the elderly and move on in a manner there is least resistance. But then the father is also at fault. From day one, the child is expected to take over the reins and is taught that all of this will logically once belong to him. That he has to run it independently and when he does so the father is threatened and wants to still take string control. It is there in business and is present in homes at well. Even at home there is a power struggle as to who rules the house. I have heard this and I assume so have many – this is my house and in my house you have to stay by my rules. What this leads to is different under different circumstances – one – the growing boy will lead a revolt to either take over. This will happen when the stakes are relatively large. He will mount a coup. The second – the boy stays put and stays with simmering rage. Third – he walks away and risks bad ties forever. Fourth – Stays put and loses identity and worse – loses his notion of independence.

Coexistence is always the fifth option. But that takes two to work on it. The parents to allow the child leverage and the child to allow the parent respectful and happy place in the family. Enough moral science books (possibly written by the elderly) put the focus on this squarely on the shoulders of the accommodating child, but the reality is always a bit convoluted and murky. Who started it? Who set the ball rolling? Who allowed for independence and groomed for it only to keep it subdued. That’s why reality is always a relative thing.

One old student came and asked me for advice. He was telling me that in interviews he loses out because he calls a spade a spade. “is that so? And how do you know it is a spade. Dude, reality is always multi-faceted. “. I raise my right hand and asked him “what do you think I am doing? From one angle it’s a Hi, from another it’s a slap and from the third it’s a karate chop. What the hell is a spade?” I too was a lot like him. I possibly still am a lot like him. I too loved calling a spade a spade. How does that help? How do you know it’s a spade to start with? You have to see all the angles and at best you can remark that from your angle it looks like a spade and that in all probability it is a spade and assuming it is a spade, this is what I am going to do.

Well that’s enough for now. Simply put – I hope Jispa grows up fast. I hate it and I would love her to be my small baby forever, but I really would love her to grow up fast and strong. I hope to happily take a backseat when she drives forward, relaxed in the knowledge that she has learnt what she has to and the stage is set for her to perform. Clapping quietly is an art form to hone. Possibly her swimming is helping us grow up. Every time I talk to her I realize that her knowledge and understanding is far greater than mine and I am completely mesmerized when she talks about her swimming, I realize that I know so little about something that she can talk long and strong on. I want to be the sponge to absorb all I can. At best I can guide her mentally or ensure she doesn’t stress out too much, but on the whole it’s my role to step back and keep her towel ready, water bottle handy and food warm and shut up and enjoy the competition. Hopefully I may say something intelligent, but on the whole, the shadow belongs to me.

life... choice... sigh

Some body asked me today about the choices we make. The ones that we make in haste and hope things turn out well or should we actually take time to think through all the choices we have. Should life be process driven.
It’s funny when someone asks me thus. I am reminded of the book I have ‘if you meet Buddha on the road kill him’. That book was once recommended to me by a blog reader, on one of the comments he left. It was an interesting enough title. I began reading it and never did finish it. The reason I couldn’t finish it was that it was very good and I always thought I should be a better frame of mind while reading it. Basically it talks about not looking outside but inward. The Buddha is in all of us. Also the book talks about how you can never give advice but you must relate your experiences in similar circumstances and let the pilgrim get his own answers.
This has been a driving force in my life in many ways. Possibly that is the reason that I don’t really like listening to too many advice givers, they don’t know me. At best they can relate their experiences and their thoughts. Then it is up to me to act and me to carry the cross of my own actions or like Napoleon, crown yourself.
Many years ago when I was engaged to Jasmine, her uncle in America had asked if I wanted to go there and make my life. He would support me to the end. I almost jumped at the chance. My mom was not too enthused. I think the reasons would be more like you can’t take the favours of your in-laws. It’s against society norms and people won’t respect you. I did not bother about that logic. My dad told me one thing that struck me hard. He said, in your life you have taken all your decisions. All that you are today are thanks to you and your abilities. You decided your specialisation stream, your own college, your MBA, your job, your summer assignment your wife everything. He said that he had no hand in any decisions that I took. In many ways I was on my way to be my own self made man. At this juncture why would I want to then take on anyone’s obligation? Things might not be as rosy there and the opportunity might not be that exciting. I think he was warning me of the perils of running just on someone’s word leaving what I had in front of me – my self.
Somewhere the penny dropped. I realised that and I kept it that. Another piece of advice my brother’s friend once gave me ‘its better to do it and know for yourself than not to and regret not trying, many years later’. That too has stuck with me for long. This was said roughly 17 years ago.
The common thread I take from here is that you are the master of your own destiny and in the end if you manage that then you have no one to blame but yourself and narcissistically, no one to thank but yourself. Right now too I just went through a rough phase mentally as thanks to some circumstances I was forced to rethink what kind of behaviour and attitude I must have. I have more than enough share of senior resources telling me what I need to do. In order to combat my normal self arrogance that I know best , I have conditioned my self to think at the first instance that what someone is saying is right and keep that as an hypothesis before proving it wrong or right (in degrees). But finally, the decision is mine and mine alone.
I have many stupid decisions in my life and some really bloody smart ones. But all that is hindsight and subjective. The bad ones might have saved me and the good ones might have been the ones that have stopped me from achieving more. The point being you never know. All I know that my supposed intelligence keeps improving all the time. And the calls I take keep getting better at the logic behind them – mind you I said that the logic behind the call improves; there is no evidence of the call actually improving. Who knows what the best solution is? Sometimes you see the mistake and you say yes – you improve, sometimes you don’t see it. the dangerous ones are the ones you get right and the logic fits correctly. You give yourself a pat on the back and congratulate your logic. Then you use it again, and again and again… your greatest strength becomes your weakness. You use it once too often and the world comes crashing on you. You have been exposed as a one trick pony.
There … now should you change or should you not. That is the question that I am facing. How much should I change? Things that I got right have got me here and the one instance it was used against me. This is getting a little complicated.
Virender Shewag was out in the last test playing the cut shot. One journalist asked him if that was his weakness. That he got out a few times playing it. To which the brilliant uncluttered mind of the batsman answered that the journalist also failed to see the number of runs that he has scored from there. He said that that had been his most productive shot from his arsenal. Should he cut it out?
Hahah. This is so not easy to answer. I guess the answer lies in learning from experiences. You keep at it, trying to think through the choices you made and analyse them. Slowly you might get better at them… not at making choice but making the logic behind the choices.
So can I attempt to sum total the entire post in one line – hmmm…. Let me think…..I think I got it…
life is a box of chocolates. You never know what you gonna get….
Thank you Forest.

But tell me one thing – aren’t the chocolates now coming in colour coded wrappers?

its your journey kid

Here she is walking ahead…

Jispa is becoming a big girl. She wants her independence. These days when I go to drop her off to school she does not want to hold my hand. She likes to walk on her own a bit away from me. She knows the way from where we park the car to the bus stop. It’s a bitter sweet. I would like her to be independent but I would love to continue holding my hand. I just can’t get over walking with her hand in my hand. I sometimes give some emotional to her to hold my hand saying, she needs to take care of papa… but I guess its time to let her go. There will be many such moments in her life when it will be up to us to let her go. Many times we will push her to be independent and many times she will push us. I guess the entire trick in parenting is in knowing when to hold on and when to let go. Like this instance when I am holding on for myself and not really for her.
It is the blanket that gives security to Linus van Pelt not the other way around.