the young will inherit the earth

Today was a nice morning. Jispa had a shorter workout. Typically I pick her up from her workout and drop her off near my office, which is half the way home. She then takes a rick back home. Today we had some time to kill. I asked her if she wanted to have coffee with me in the morning.

It was a nice coffee date at Starbucks. We spoke on a lot of things. She first got to see my office. Her reaction ‘it looks so much like a … like a BANK!’. Yes. It is a… a bank office you know. But I get it. She doesn’t mean it like a compliment. Our reception and office and everything is so traditional with all the cubicles and the reception area holds a bank branch with red being a dominant theme. It is very bank like and it is a total put off for a young kid. I remember the bank office when I was a kid. Large cubicles and counters behind which bank personnel were sitting. Very imposing and intimidating. Bank designs have improved over the years. But this comment by Jispa is very insightful.

The reception area is recently designed but it also shows how much out of touch we are with the rest of the young world. Our office space is also designed for old people and not a young crowd. Innovation cannot happen by an old person or by young people conforming to older standards. We must change and welcome new ideas, new thinking and new systems into our lives. That is the only way to change and continue to be relevant.

After coffee I was explaining to her, that as a father, my big dilemma is exactly this. How do I put blind faith on youth. I told her – remember Jispa. If you want to be wildly successful, mark my words. DON’T LISTEN to older people, and don’t listen to your parents. Older people advice will ensure survival, but to grow big and break everything you have to learn not to listen to us. So while you are with us, listen, you have no choice. But once you do become 18 and you don’t live with us, DON’T LISTEN TO US.

Curiously she was defending older people. She was saying that isn’t it that older people know more and wont they be right. I spoke to her about my office experience. Older people are often wrong and they work at preservation. When I worked at a startup for 2 years I learnt that the startup thinks very differently as a means to do things. They think very differently from older matured organizations and that one of the reasons why they have achieved scale at a rapid scale. Some the best guys in the VC business have understood this. It’s their job to trust the young kids and give them money and get out of the way.

Young kids don’t need older people in the company. I told her that in the startup I think I sucked at it. I think my role should have been only limited to advisory, not really working on systems and day to day work. That is best left to younger kids with energy and drive. I also told her that parents are the worst at giving career advice. We just don’t know what new things are out there. My mom would been so proud of me if I had given some banking exams and become a branch manager at a government owned bank. What did she know about careers?

I told Jispa that there years ago I did not know what my job would be. It has changed. The rapid scale at which change is happening, every three years jobs and industries are changing. Old people don’t know anything. That’s the biggest dilemma we as parents have. Your mom is right most of the time. If you follow her instructions, you will survive for sure. But if survival is your goal then sure. but if you want to be crazy successful, or at least have a chance at being crazy successful, you have to break rules. That’s the dilemma I am in all the time.

I want you to not listen to me. She countered that won’t we get things wrong if we don’t listen o sound advice. Yes kid exactly. You will be wrong but that is the right thing to do. To be wrong and then learn from it is to be right. As a young kid your job is to wrong and wrong again. Keep being wrong to be right.

A ha… after a long time – opposites reconciling. I know when I am on a roll. I get the title of my blog into my writing.

But all in all it was a morning well spent with Jispa. The job of the young is to guide the old and not the other way around. Old must learn actively from the young. I loved understanding and talking with Jispa. She is 16 and she has so much to explain to me. Her training programs, the fun they have in school, the things kids do and the life from her perspective. It’s time to simply sit back and absorb a lot from her. Its really fun growing up with her.

does the box belong to Pandora or Schrodinger

Over a period of time, one changes. Someone was asking me about people and how we change. My belief is that typically people don’t change themselves too much. They change and many times it looks big, but most of the time, it is a representation of something that was there in them from the start. An avatar of it, comes out. So essentially you are the same person but just a different manifestation of yourself comes out. People and circumstances do that to you. How long can you go about being beaten and getting jammed by the world, before you put your foot down and change.

The new friend in office is the HR lady. She is sweet and we seem to get along. Possibly she is one of the older recruits we have had and this brings a certain sense of stability to her behavior vis a vis the rest of the jokers. She was saying that she can’t make out what I am. She is understanding a new perspective about me every time. Ah well. She said that sometimes I am damn tough and sometimes, I am a softy. I was telling her that as a kid, a young recruit, I was pretty naïve and simple. I was innocent, loyal and straight forward. I believed in what people said. Soon enough, I became hardened and you can’t just take me for a ride every time. Shit happened and kept on happening with me in my life and you change. I would to be the 21-year-old me. I loved myself then. I really was a sweet kid. Now I am an asshole. I have changed.

So here, I have changed but not as much as it seems. I still care, I am still more trusting than suspicious, I still like to give stuff rather than receive and fundamentally, I just try and be the person I would like to interact with. That’s how I have become.

Yesterday I was telling Jasmine – I don’t know how, but this weird part of me has come out. In sense that I can love and give and give and love till a point – and then, if you still don’t get it, I simply just shut off. I am done. And once I am done – it’s over. I can be there but it’s over. It happened with Mom. I loved her and gave a lot to her. I was loyal and by her side. I tried to keep her happy and manage her expectations for many years. I asked Jasmine to manage and I exacted greater sacrifices from them. Till a point that Jispa was born. I remember that it was about the point that I just gave up. I kept quiet. That was a snapping point. Till that point I was the sweet kid who could do anything, and when break point happened, it was so quick and fast that it seemed like I just flipped a switch. I would be very worried when I keep quiet and I try not to. Because once that happens, it always dangerous. Getting me back is not that difficult, but it will never be the same.

It happened to people at work as well. One kid I taught, he was drifting away and I gave him a nice job with me. He was okay at his work. I kept him going till appoint came when he decided to leave. Sure, you must leave, I try my best to ensure that people who work for me find new havens elsewhere. But this kid hid his job search from me, which I understand and then he never told me which firm he is about to join. That was bad and something that I did not accept. You cannot be that secretive from me, especially if you hold me in any regard. That was it, I rarely did speak to him afterwards.

I see this turning off behavior many times when I deal with people. I just choose to keep quiet or not tell. If it’s not going to help then it’s not worth it. My life gets selective. Old colleagues who bitch about me, get this as well. You have to decide what you want from me and what you are going to give me. If you want good friendship then you go the whole hog. If you want camaraderie then that’s what you are going to get and if you want a good colleague then that’s that. It’s the confusion in your mind that will get my goose. I don’t abandon friends no matter how bad they may have been to me. I am there, just the avatar that they are used to, changes. This is something they don’t understand.

This is something about me that I fight a lot with myself when it comes to my family. I know that the off switch is very very difficult to turn back on and hence I try and stay away from it at all times. Jispa is dangerously flirting with the off switch in some aspects.

I have always maintained a system in which I talk and discuss a lot of things and try and impart learnings. All my life, I have learnt, not for just expanding my knowledge but in a large part so as to expand it to those around me. Talk to people, let them learn from your experience and knowledge. This is the way for knowledge to expand and further gain roots in your own head. It gives the greatest joy. Jispa gets the best from this as I explain various different things to her. But these days as she changes and as she grows up, she has little time and little patience to give me. Just yesterday itself, I had an interesting conversation with a swim parent and this one was someone who I was trying to explain on the role of government and how it is becoming a ‘Big Brother’ in our lives. While we were discussing this, I explained that how today we have so much control over our children’s life. We watch over them and we know what they are doing in their lives. My parents hardly knew anything about us compared to what we know about our child. That I keep telling Jasmine to back off is another matter for a later conversation. But that we have an overhang over their lives is a crazy thing. We are there and they know we are there. The parents have whatsapp groups that talk to each other, corroborating stories and chatting with each other. My mom knew no other mom from school. None. We parents, practically know every other one. This is influencing their behavior in many ways I argue. At a fundamental level, the kid knows about this overhang and hence his behavior is attuned to this. He will change his behavior and choices knowing our likes and dislikes and approval. So, in effect in many ways we have made these choices for them. While we were growing up, the biggest choice I think was the choice of girlfriend and the choices of our families, in many ways shaped the choice of partners we had. Some rebelled but most stayed within the norms. Today we know so much more and we therefore choose much more and therefore, what we approve or disapprove in many ways in shaping our child’s choices even before they make their choice. My friend to whom I was talking to, got it and said, Schrodinger’s cat. Yes – much like the cat, the fact that you are going to open the box and look inside has made the decision for the cat. In fact, the fact that you have the choice to opened the box and look inside has collapsed the probability and influenced the life of the cat. We make our choices for our kids even by not making them, but by the very fact that we can choose to make them. Oh bloody hell. But well it was interesting conversation and I started talking about it at the dinner table, when Jispa got up for something, and then she got up as she finished the dinner and then was sitting elsewhere on the sofa in the living room. I looked at Jasmine and said “I was telling her something”. Jamsine looked at me and called out to Jispa and said “your dad was talking”.

I told Jispa to let it be. I dint want to talk anymore. I then whispered to Jasmine “I think she has its easy. Ever since she was a kid, she got me and whatever I could offer on a platter. I don’t think she values it as much.” And then I murmured something to the effect that outside people come to conferences once they see my name on the speaker panel and I have a lot to offer to so many people and students. I guess at home it’s not as valuable as it could be. Jasmine understood this. She knows what I have gone through or what I go through.

I study and read so much and learn so as to teach. Of all the students of mine, Jispa is my special one. It will be heart breaking when she will do this. But I don’t grudge her for this. This is what kids will do. They will not value whats in front of them. Possibly down the line, she may value what I bring to the table. I jokingly (possibly half-jokingly) told Jasmine that I am dying to meet her boyfriend. Possibly then she will know what her dad is worth. I know that weird people like me are less available, what are the chances that Jispa will meet two in her life.

But still, yesterday I was a little surprised with myself. I normally try not to switch off when it comes to family. I know how dangerous I can get with this. It can get pretty unnerving for the other side. I don’t wish it on people, but this is a simple response mechanism.

Because I read so much, I learn so much and I tech so much, I try and explain it to various people; and that is the exact reason I just shut up if I don’t find interest on the other side. There is no point pushing where nothing can be helped. So many people in day to day life, don’t know learnings from their freaking elbow, if they see it. So many don’t want to and are too preoccupied to or are just plain too arrogant to really want to know anything. Hence it better to switch off. But this works (actually really does not) with the rest of the world but is a zero-sum game with the family. You end up losing as much as anyone else. I don’t let that happen. This little blogpost is a reminder to me to say that I shouldn’t let it happen.

There are enough idiots in the world who piss me off and I don’t need them again in my life. Some have managed to be family, I can’t handle any more. This mustn’t happen. Today as I type this I realise that I have to resist this. Shutting off is not an option at home. I think this response is a means to not belittle what I have to say and not insult all that I have read. It is a way of preserving my sanity and desire to learn more. I see many kids every year. Some have an innate desire to learn and some don’t care about anything. It would kill me to see Jispa move away from learning. But then – see I have just done a Schrodinger’s on her.

I think we have influenced our kid’s reality in many more ways than we care to think.  This blog can serve so many purposes. It’s not meant to be a blog to help her understand and shape her behavior or be grateful towards us parents. It was meant to be a source of soup for her. A kind of soup you want on a rainy day, that makes you reflect and take heart in whatever issue you have. Soup, or perhaps coffee with some chocolate dust sprinkled on it. Warm. On a cold day.

Some day she will have to deal with kids, possibly her own. This will be awesome fun at the time.

Parenting is alike a freaking rollercoaster that just doesn’t stop, it slows down and when it does, its typically when its creaking upwards, making a weird sound to let you know that it’s going to just take you over the edge and give you the scare of your life; and when you are done with it, you should go back happy thinking that was a swell ride. Ya sure. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Of all, not on Jispa for sure.

Fun fact – I can handle roller coasters of all types, I find the humble tea cup ride a crazy nightmare. I can handle anything that goes round and round. Conversations included ;)

cobbling up some knowledge

I hate going down alone. I like to take someone with me for a short walk and possibly eat something or finish some work or something. This time I wanted to go down for getting my shoe laces replaced. They had frayed and I was worried that one day they would just snap. I took Dixi along and at the cobblers, he asked me which ones he wanted me to put  - the cotton ones or the nylon ones. This was all the invitation I needed to get as much information on them as possible. The cotton ones are the ones that look a little old and not shiney. They have a dull matt finish about them. The nylon ones look cool and shiney and you can clearly see the weave pattern on them. But the cotton ones are the ones that you want as they have the necessary friction to hold your boots together. The nylon ones keep opening up as they are too smooth. Hmmm. And everyone goes for the nylon ones as they are the ones that look good. He sells 10 times more nylon than cotton! Ah. I too would have chosen the nylon one without thinking. The cotton ones do look very old worldly.

Then I got him to polish my shoes as well. I was in the NCC since I started college and thanks to that I learnt the art of polishing shoes. We used to have a routine that was passed on. Every Sunday was parade and hence every Saturday evening was the ritual. You sit down with a  brush and a tin of polish and you start polishing your shoes. You polish and polish away. Then you take nylon cloth and then shine your shoes. And if that’s not enough, the rule was to then use liquid polish and put a layer on top of that! Wow that was colossal use or waste of polish, depending on the way you see it. It was a similar routine for all the brass that was there on the uniform. There were brass buttons on the cap, brass buckle for the belts and brass on the shoulder insignias. Here also I had brasso liquid and a cloth dedicated to this. A full 40 minute ritual every Saturday night. I think that’s a good discipline for a 16 year old boy. Some of that NCC discipline stayed on for a long time.

Now I find the process very messy and hence I just step down the office for a quick polish every time. So when the guy picked his nylon cloth to give the shoe a shine, I was wondering why the squeaky noise was missing. He said – it depends, sometime you get it and sometimes you don’t.  Stations in Mumbai were famous for having shoe shine boys. I sure that would a legacy of the British in India. These guys are officially there in every station. Left to our own we wouldn’t have ever thought of having them here. It’s the marriage of the British love for trains and shiny shoes. I told the cobbler that the train guys make a huge squeaky noise when they use the cloth. He said they use a different cloth. I wondered that possibly those guys would have a special secret on the type of cloth to be used that made the sound.

I told Dixi that the noise is a call to action, like a ice cream cart bell. It tells people that come an dget your shoes polished. IN any case, Dixi was reeling under the amount of information that we got while getting a simple shoe lace. One should always ask. These kids call me Jugal… who is Jugal – brother of Google. Because I seem to know so much on so many things. I told Dixi that you guys call me Jugal, but the answer is here. It’s just that I am curious on everything and I ask and hence I know. So next time a topic on shoe laces comes up I will know, how a cotton shoelace is better than a nylon one.

Everyone has something to give as value to someone else. If someone spends time doing something as a profession it’s obvious that they will be knowing some angle of it better than anyone else.  The key is to ask the right questions. And their inner secrets will be exposed to you. ASK

teach

Sometimes I wonder where do I get all my gyan from. Sometimes when talking to someone I amaze myself. I also did not know I knew all this before I actually ended up speaking to someone about it. I know a lot of reading helps. Most of the time you just dip into your memory and figure out something that you actually read once upon a time and at the right time you were able ot dig it out for complete effect. That’s the easier one to fathom. But the difficult one to fathom is the one that you never knew at all. Like sometimes when I teach math to Jispa – I too did not know that I knew what I taught. Simple stuff that comes out mostly as logical deduction more than anything else. Like the other day spoke about the concept of infinity. How anything divided by zero is not zero but the answer is infinity (or indeterminate as I just learnt from google). Explaining this to Jispa was a nice tough challenge. But after explaining the concept explaining a practical example was even more fun. To keep it short – I explained how if you invested 100 bucks in a lemonade stall from your pocket money and made 50 bucks profit your profit percentage is 505 but if you borrowed that money from someone and you made 50 bucks then your Return on investment is – infinity (or indeterminate). That was fun.

We have been talking about a few things about town planning and today she wanted to discuss it further. I explained that town planners need to understand Brownian Motion. Each dust particle is impossible to predict but a group of them are fairly predictable and stuff like that. Planner need to understand this and make their planning. It was good fun.

Teaching is always fun. It’s the best way to retain what you think you know. There is some concept of unconscious knowledge that resides in all of us. Teaching brings this unconscious knowledge to the conscious self. I love teaching. Teaching keeps my mind running active and alive. The other day my digital agency wanted me to take a class for them on their offsite. They asked for stuff that I normally teach in any case in colleges. One thing stood out from the entire experience. They asked me for what presentation material I might require – projector etc. On no. nothing – just a white board.thats it? No slides no presentation, nothing. No dudes. I know this concept like the back of my hand. I have been teaching these for many years now. That’s the real test of knowing something I guess. So I took what was a roughly 6 hour lecture with only a white board (large). I know what it is.

This knowledge that I try to pass on to my students helps me in so many ways. It improves my grasp of the subject, makes me conceptually clear and makes me revisit the logic again and again. I have found new logic, new criticisms of the model and reinforced my beliefs in them. It’s so important to think aloud. All my conversations with Jispa help me as much as all my teachings with anyone else. Finally it’s a sum total of all things we do. Reading, talking, listening, teaching come together in a potent combination. The thing is to have enough of it.

The fun side is that when you meet a lot of people and read other stuff, you gain a great ability to see the bullshit from the stuff being thrown at you. It’s not easy for people to just simply lob pies at you. You know what shit is being thrown and you can quickly ask the most pertinent questions disarming the pie chucker. It happens in meetings all the time. Never stop learning and never stop teaching what you have learnt.

Coming to random rubbish. Here is one shit piece I saw on the internet. Read and laugh about loud. They say planning a trip gives a high level of happiness and after the trip you feel unhappy. Well that’s pretty intuitive but their conclusion is worth a million bucks – plan a trip but don’t take it…

Plan a trip – but don't take one

 As opposed to actually taking a holiday, it seems that planning a vacation or just a break from work can improve our happiness. A study published in the journal, Applied Research in Quality of Life showed that the highest spike in happiness came during the planning stage of a vacation as employees enjoyed the sense of anticipation: In the study, the effect of vacation anticipation boosted happiness for eight weeks. After the vacation, happiness quickly dropped back to baseline levels for most people.

If you can't take the time for a vacation right now, or even a night out with friends, put something on the calendar—even if it's a month or a year down the road. Then whenever you need a boost of happiness, remind yourself about it.

I am reminded of a joke once told at the family dinner table.

Once a guy took a cockroach and cut one leg and said – run. The cockroach ran. Then he cut one more and said – run. The cockroach ran. This went on till the cockroach was left with one leg. Run – the cockroach still ran as best as he could. After all the legs were cut and the guy yelled – RUN. The cockroach refused to move. The guy wrote in his science journal the conclusion – after cutting six legs of the cockroach, the cockroach turns deaf.

how little

When we grew up in an India of less resources we fought for more and more for ourselves. The age was characterized by have nots and an amazing string of shortages. I have heard stories (probably not apocryphal) about 7 year waitlists for cars. I know for sure that when my dad came to Mumbai from Dubai, he bought the Bajaj Chetak scooter and got it immediately by paying in foreign currency. I think it was almost exclusively available in foreign currency. A lower end brand was available if you paid local currency.

Like idiots we fought and discussed all the issues that lay before us. Corruption, economics and everything else. The big cause as we and almost everyone saw it was a Malthusian curse of over population. It was only natural to think so. When you have less to go around, you think the best solution was to have less demand to start with. Everything boiled down to lowering population. Having less children was patriotic. First I remember the family planning programs having this slogan – hum do humare do. (we two ours two), alluding to one couple having two kids.

I remember noticing when the not so subtle shift happened to the program showing one couple and the male child simply removed from the posters. It was one couple with one girl.

All of us looked forward to the China model where they strictly enforced a one child policy to curb the effects of population growth and enough and more statistics emerged which showed that while being larger for now China will soon be eclipsed by India as the most populous country the world. We would have the ignominious reputation by, I remember, something like 2035! Wow that was a scary statistic. If you thought there wasn’t enough, here – have even less. Compete with more people. Eat less food. Wear less clothes. It was crazy.

I am suddenly reminded of these arguments as on Independence Day I was at the club where there was a bit of flag hoisting and celebration. The chairman or someone got up to make a short speech and he highlighted the population problem. He obviously was from the 60’s. I sniggered to my wife that he definitely hasn’t heard about the demographic dividend. China with its one child policy has another weird set of issues. You have older population that now has a much smaller younger  population to support it. India seems to have a, what they now term as, demographic dividend. A larger younger population earning money for a smaller older population. Some even split India into four zones and talk about how the demographic dividend has already been witnessed in the west and south while the north and east are now poised for reaping the benefits while a host of factors need to be considered.

So it’s a bit of a U turn that we see. Similarly such views are also seen in immigrants. At first cities flourish thanks to the waves of immigrants that come in and then we suddenly hate them with the right wing stroking fears of ‘them’ overpowering ‘us’. Then we want to throw them out. Then different statistics come out explaining how the immigrants that come in are the best brains from around the world and that if we shut them out our own innovations die out and we as a city we will die. Today India’s (arguably) two richest cities – Mumbai and Delhi are completely immigrant led. You would struggle to find anyone in these two cities who could trace their ancestry for greater than two generations. I haven’t found any son of the soil in Mumbai at least, nor known of anyone like this in Delhi.

Such u turns are common and thanks to the amount of reading I do –I am reconciled to them. In fact the law of unexpected consequences shows up almost in everything. In a lot of my life I have seen myself turning around and questioning my own beliefs. There are two sides to the coin. These days I have been far less opinionated on a lot of issues. I have spoken of this in my earlier blogs as well. This has also led to me blogging a lot less. If you have fewer opinions to talk about you obviously are going to talk less. Unless of course you have this space and time to rant on both sides. It becomes difficult to talk to start with.

You can hear about a bit of it the demographic dividend and other stuff at this talk.

And here is the link to why population growth is required –

In fact I never would have imagined seeing a story title like this  - ‘Low Birth Rates: Causes, Consequences, and Remedies.’ Remedy for LOW BIRTH RATES? I thought that was the cure. Oh man… how little we know. How little.

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2013/08/low-birth-rates-causes-consequences-and-remedies-becker.html

ask and you shall know

This post was written in Igatpuri but uploaded from Vizag.
I am trying to catch a couple of days of rest and relaxation in the midst of all the chaos around me. The chaos is my doing and I love every moment of it. within a short span of a couple of months I am doing an all India research trip meeting customers, business partners and employees across India in an attempt to find out the soul of the broking market and the findings are amazing, startling at times and at times I want to kick myself for not seeing it before. So many times when we sit in Mumbai and hypothesise about the kind of customers we might have, we like most others take references from our immediate surroundings and create marketing insights out of these which we action. I feel like an idiot. In the past when we were drafting emailers for our customers I relied too much on long copy and the play on the English language. One big insight is that most of our customers dont really understand or know too much English. I haven’t had more than a couple of interviews in English as I understand it. Those who understand it are also comfortable not talking in it. Beyond Mumbai, they seem to be thinking, talking and interacting in their mother tongue. Even in places such as Pune and Nashik the clientele is largely happy in vernacular.
If I looked carefully enough and seen the signs I would have noticed this long time back. All one has to do is look at the comments and forums and check the language. People are conversing in the English they are comfortable in and it’s not the English I know. It’s full of grammar and typos and with a good mix of local words. English is purely the language of writing it is not the language of conversation. The qwerty key board has ensured we write in it but has not ensured we think in it. India is conversing in its own language. What does this mean for advertising and communication? The new brief for my agencies is to write from my daughter’s English text book. You may not use any word not found in that.
There are these and many more insights that can be had by talking to people across the country. This has been an extremely enlightening period for me. My day typically starts at 7 am nd ends by around 12 midnight. The whole day consists of meeting people, talking, thinking, ratifying and junking theories. No matter how different people are the core of what they are is the same. We can look for differences across the spectrum of clients and that’s the easiest thing to do, but it does not take much to see that at a particular level they are the same. A few threads run through them and that define them as my customers. Thanks to my teaching in the colleges I have constantly reinforced to my class and hence to myself as well. The best way to put basics in your head is to try and drill it to 60 kids every year. I am so thankful to them. Almost as thankful as I am to Dharen Chaddha.
These days he comes so often to me in my mind. I see the rubbish being thrown about and remember his lessons, his methodologies and his clarity of thought. One of his biggest contributions to my thought process is to belive in my research and not to theorise outside of it. Hence what I see I say, and what I don’t see, I refrain from commenting. Some basics that I remember clearing with him years ago come back to help me again and again. To use relationship with the category as opposed to segmentation, which is contrary to what most marketing text books preach.
The power of doing research yourself while understanding the market cannot be underestimated. I find it funny to see marketing managers relying on the research presentation instead of their own eyes and ears. Getting out of your comfort zone and meeting clients at their own liars contributes tremendously to our understanding. And those seeking to contribute without the effort come across so shallow. Yesterday was an interim presentation in which we had two senior resources who were trying to understand from the presentation on the state of the market. they came across as tremendously shallow and surprised, while those who have had the good fortune to be in the market were able to put the presentation in better context. Of course it did not help that while the two extremely talented ladies in research did a great job in researching but an absolute bummer of a job in putting the presentation together. I guess they were too used to putting together different segments, plenty of stupid insights and were unable to string a line together. I guess most companies want that. Give me differences, not what is common. They want to take apart every small segment and niche. I really don’t understand it as a base for a broad over arching marketing thought. But forget it. Let me not get too critical. I too know little and what little I know is also open for debate, discussion and plenty of learning.
What I do know is that too many people fart too much knowing too little. And too many people base their strategy by superficially knowing too little of those in and around themselves. I am happy and proud that I have forced, coerced and ensured that my team gets into the market themselves and see what the truth is. As I keep telling them, the company is dumb. They will be happy with whatever we give them, but it is up to us to know what we are doing, why we are doing and base our strategies and thought process on something we have found out. Even at the end of it all if we get five immediate action points, most research would have paid off.

shaped by attitude? nopes... shaped by knowledge

It’s impossible to deal with arrogance especially if it is coupled with ignorance. I hate getting into arguments. I would live not to. Over a period of time I have learnt that arguments are largely useless and there is no one side to reality or knowledge. There is always another side. Also if you listen to people about their experiences and knowledge you would always tend to gain from them. The problem starts when an opinion hits the conversation. This opinion is strong and driven by attitude as opposed to knowledge. The stronger the opinion the greater chance that it is driven by attitude and not knowledge. Knowledge driven opinion tends to be circumspect in its view, while attitude driven opinions will be accompanied by a large amount of table thumping and rhetoric.
I have seen truly intelligent men be very quiet and understated. They realise the duality of thought process. They are ready to listen to people, the other side of view and realise that every opinion can be countered. Many times there is much to learn from your opponent if only you don’t see them as such. Also the really smart ones are the one that choose not to comment on almost all things. They reserve their judgement on issues they knew little about, they are secure in their knowledge and ready to admit their ignorance.
I sometimes fail to see why so many people have such strong opinions with so little knowledge. I guess five years ago my knowledge was limited as well but my opinion was vast and vehement. Over the last five years the reverse has happened. I think our education might have something to do with it. In school ion a debate you have to take a string opposing stance on anything. You can’t take an opposing stand that says that the first team is not taking a moderate stance. Your stance has to be at the exact opposite. You can’t take centre line.
A centre balanced line that is unable to see black or white is what I have typically seen as the truth. People jump to criticize issues or stands but are unable to see the reason why it has come to fore. People like me who say, relax, see the reason why the act has been done without judging it are complete bores at beast and completely impractical or preachy at worst. We have been taught to take a stand, be the judge and take decisions as if all actions are being played before a court of law that is expected to pass verdict. No dude. Don’t pass verdict. It’s ok. The action happened. That’s all. The moment we pass a verdict too soon we don’t realise the silly errors we are making and are blindsided by the information we don’t have.
Take the recent example of a hotshot tennis star marrying a Pakistani cricket captain. It was alleged that the cricketer was already married to a lady in Hyderabad. One friend of mine explained that bullshit he married her. Look at her she is so fat and ugly. Haha. You have taken your decision not on the facts of the case. You have taken your decision purely on one instance. The lady in question is fat. I asked this lady friend of mine –if it was a hot chick who starred in b grade movies and has a slutty reputation then you would have not believed her at all, if it was a slim pretty girl from a simple family, you would have and you are suspicious of a fat girl. The facts of the case remain the same, yet you believe a case basis some really random peg.
It is so silly. She could have been really slim and then put on weight. Which media report you read said that she was fat from the start. Why is that he could have not fallen for a fat girl and then realised that he could do much better. You have no information but you have an opinion based on your attitude.
Another issue is the feminists that believe that they have it tough and the men have it easy. How can you so say? I truly genuinely believe that women have it tough. The ones who work manage home and office. They do very well. But that does mean I have addressed the issue of tough‘er’. I find the whole argument so brittle. Sure its bad but both sides face issues all the time.
It’s like someone once asked me if I dominate the relationship with me and my wife. Stupid ass question. Just because I seem more outgoing and vocal of the two. I left it to my wife to answer, who at first chuckled. I don’t think anyone can completely dominate anyone in a healthy relationship. It is so difficult so say that. Yesterday someone asked while talking about egos, that don’t men have stronger egos than women. Hah! Ego is not about men or women it’s about power and the situation you use it in. Everyone is equally prone and susceptible to ego, not men more than women. I could only think of one example to counter it. The mother in law and daughter in law fights. They are largely driven by ego and they are prevalent almost everywhere. Does that mean that women tend to have more egos? We take the biggest example in front of us and generalise the rule. So unfair, so driven by attitude as opposed to knowledge.
The criticism of my stand is that is that I have no stand and I will not be able to take a side. Uhhh. Ok. So? It doesn’t stop my decision making. I take my decision basis what I know best at the time simple. At least I am aware and actively receptive to the counter. It will help in changing stand as well. At the time of decision my stand is clear. Till then I don’t need to have a stand. Especially on so many issues that have little bearing on my life. Having mental paradigms stops us from seeing the whole picture and we are unable to see the game unfold. In the current cricket saga, I am not holding anyone guilty, hence I think I am better placed to see the game unfold and the moves being made. This is making the show much more entertaining or enriching. Sit behind, grab a mocha gande and sip it slowly. The world passing by is pretty interesting only if we care to see it unfold.
It is not easy and by all means its not that I can maintain this stand of equanimity at all times. But I try and I keep my senses open. I actively seek fault in my argument and thinking. This helps me learn and improve. Its helps me conquer ego and arrogance. It’s a slow burn. It will take time. Those who know me from before will not believe this blog of mine. I was a twerp, an arrogant one at that. Working with my God Dharen Chadha for about a year has changed me in many ways. His unrivalled knowledge with his willingness to learn more and listen to noises around him while withholding opinion on things outside his knowledge has changed me as a person. My wife many times asks why I don’t call him and keep in touch with him. I don’t know. You keep in touch with God by talking to him. He need not talk back to you. His picture is always burned in my memory. I just can’t get myself to talk to him. I feel so low and insignificant. How can I talk to him? I just can’t.
Thanks to him I started reading, started listening started to understand the value of being moderate. I am not a patch on him, but I am trying as best as I can. So far it has changed me in many ways possible. I hope it is for the better. I sure hope it lasts.

Bahut bolta hai tu, chupke se soch

Sometimes one looks upon the past and looks at oneself, one almost smiles, smirks, shrugs off and wonders what happened. My arguments were so immature, the blood so hot and the belief that I was so supremely right. I also now realize that a bit of knowledge without humility is so dam dangerous. It is important to know but even more important to know that you don’t know the entire truth. No one can know the entire truth. One can only presuppose and guess. The day we realize that, we argue much less, we argue much better. We may discuss and argue on the logic but at least no heated argument ensues. Oh humility, I love. Don’t desert me ever! Hehe.
I was reading Nandan Nilekani’s book Imagining India. It starts slow and quite boring. But he does get in to grove once he starts discussing the ideas (that is the subject matter of the book). I have learnt to be patient with books. Allow the writer to hem and haw a bit in the start and then wait till he starts making the points. That’s when it gets interesting. I wouldn’t be fair to yet make a comment on it as I am still reading it but as of now, it reads well. The starting chapters have some great history built into it.
Coming back to my youth paradigms, when I grew up computers were just being introduced in India. There was this big debate on computers being the hot new thing that would take away jobs. I probably did not know whom to trust or believe. The near danger far outweighed on my mind compared to the far consequences. I was probably swayed by the Luddites (for more on Luddites, see last para) at the time. I remember once thinking that this will take so many jobs and wondering if it would really help us. But thank god I quickly got over it. Soon enough.
Also to add to my list of bullshit predictions. I thought computers were irritating and painful and how would they ever be useful to the mass. I hated the basic programming that they made us do in school. I also thought cell phones were a fancy and no one would really need one besides some really rich chappies. To give me credit, the call rates at the time were 16 bucks a minute (incoming and outgoing). I hope I am a lot more circumspect these days. I can weigh the pros and cons and then give what my current knowledge tells me, while accepting the counter logic.
Luddites – very interesting term I got while reading the book. the great thing with your black berry is the option to immediately go online and Google the term that you don’t understand.
The Luddites were a social movement of British textile artisans in the early nineteenth century who protested—often by destroying mechanized looms—against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt were leaving them without work. The principal objection of the Luddites was against the introduction of new wide-framed automated looms that could be operated by cheap, relatively unskilled labour, resulting in the loss of jobs for many skilled textile workers.