fun

Ah well. The hospitalization was not as dramatic as I would have (not) liked it to be.

I like my attitude in life. So far I must have faced tons of shit in life. Most of the time, I look at the stuff that happened in the past and not be bitter about it. Some of my bosses were extremely horrible and I thought that was ok. They taught me a lot. Some of the incidents I have had in life have been quite tough but at the end, after a few years, I have been thankful for it. They made me stronger.

When I was about to be admitted to the hospital, I was quite sure I wanted to do all the stuff myself. I was determined to be independent. I did not want Jasmine of Jispa to fret over anything and I did not want o inconvenience anyone. I wanted to be a cheerful and happy patient. I was sure about it. Hospitalization is a very different experience and the only way to enjoy it is to think of it as a learning experience, much like a department store or going to Ikea. You look around you, you make mental notes, you think about how you feel and you enjoy, even if you don’t want to buy anything.

 I enjoyed the hospitalization in the same way. It was a new retail environment for me. I got admitted, filled in the paperwork across the three counters, changed into hospital clothes and was happily hanging around and talking to the doctors and nurses. It was pretty good going.

When I was being wheeled in to the operation theatre Jasmine and me were joking around and smiling. We were in high spirits. I was telling jasmine that’s its great thing that we got to experience the hospital, the operation theatre and other scary things on a minor knee surgery. It’s not a mission critical procedure. This was a voluntary surgery that we had to ensure I can lay sports. The risk of this surgery is very low. So the first, possibly intimidating experience was so easy to take in.

I was happy speaking to the nurses, doctors, staff and everyone around. That was quite a nice experience. I was telling jispa that I was very happy with my attitude. I saw this potentially scary and irritating experience as a learning ground and I kept my spirits and happiness around me high! That’s important. This ability to see adversity into an advantage or a learning experience while smiling is so important.

I hope that when my time comes and that I might be close to dying, I should still be able to smile, laugh and enjoy the experience. I want to think about my last few minutes and wonder – nice experience. I want to look at myself and say – good man, you didn’t stop learning at all. Of course it’s going to be emotional and tough to know you are terminal. But I still want to be awesome and fun at that. That’s my goal.

I wonder what may be the best way to go? A terminal illness and knowing it’s going to happen or a sudden situation like my dad. Sometimes I feel a finite time would also be interesting. I read two books written by people knowing that they were on their final journey.  One was When breath becomes air by Paul Kalanithi and another by the legendary Hans Rosling – Factfulness. Both were interesting reads. Paul’s book was amongst the best books I would have read in a long long time. His prose was brilliant and his description of his experience was mind blowing.  Possibly it kindled a bit of a thought in me. Possibly that now at 43, I am closer to death than I am to birth, has sparked these thoughts in me.

But I wonder.

Coming back to happiness. Yesterday I took Jasmine to Starbucks at BKC. BKC has three. Two of them I frequent. In both the places, the baristas know me very well. They greet me, talk to me and make me my awesome coffees. So when I reached there early with Jasmine, they greeted me warmly and asked me how I am and that it was a long time since they saw me. They give better service and they smile at me and talk. I even got a free extra shot of coffee to make the horrible one (Tahitian vanilla macchiato) taste better. Jasmine was wondering.

Next day, Jasmine was telling Jispa – do you know, dad is known to all the baristas at Starbucks and they greet him like a long lost friend. He has his girlfriends everywhere. Hah. No. It’s not just about frequenting the place, it’s not just about having girlfriends. It’s about knowing the people who serve you. It’s about speaking to them by calling out their name. It’s thanking them, smiling and being nice to them. This is how people know you, you get warmth and you spread warmth. There is a joy in that. I make it a point to make my coffee in a certain way, then I sip it in front of them and tell them, [name] it’s awesome, I love the coffee you made.

Such simple joys. I enjoy these little micro interactions with people where we chat/ talk/ smile move on. This is how we make friends in places that acknowledge us and are happy when we come back. This is the way to spread happiness all around.

I did that in the hospital as well. Spoke to the doctors, nurses, ward boys, everyone. Smiled, laughed, understood back story etc. This makes life so much fun!

learning joy

Jasmine is a sweetheart. She has the best relationships with all her maids. They love to work with her. In fact when we moved here, it was a difficult thing for her maids to now search for new jobs. They love her and want to work with her. Jasmine treats people like they should be – like people. With dignity and respect. When we moved out Jasmine gave away a lot of things to the maids. Including extra clothes, cupboards and what not. We even gave away random old electronic hardware lying around. Sure we could have made more money simply selling the stuff on ebay but Jasmine and me both reckon that probably there is more value to be derived from them using it than me getting a couple of thousand for old loose stuff lying around the house.

She also treats them well, feeds them, gives them tea and generally takes care of them. So for every Sunday when Jasmine wants the old maid to come and help her around the house, she comes and then refuses to take money from her for a couple of hours work. It’s funny to see Jasmine trying to force them to take money and them running away.

We learn by observing and I learnt how to treat other humans from other people. My dad, my wife, my bosses and my friends. This is not something that can be learnt from moral science class in school. You have to experience and be willing to learn. Different people teach us how to handle different incidents. As I grew up I was a bit confused on how to treat people. I had compassion but around me was an India divided by huge chasms. The gap between the have nots and the haves was wide and there seemed to be an atmosphere of mistrust. Servants had to be kept an eye on, as they could steal and one should not intermingle too much. I think slowly as we began growing out of our disparities we learnt to deal with people.

Possibly also I learnt to deal with people as I grew up and there was no real economic change as I see it. Whatever be the case. I learnt to deal with people from other people. I do remember that being a training set. How to deal with sweet people and how to deal with irritating people. How to say no, how to cajole and how to reward. Jasmine has taught me a whole lot of all the people. She doesn’t try and influence people, she doesn’t try and push them, she just is. She just does what comes to her and people get influenced by her. They love her and work for her.

What may be my style? I am trying to hard or trying to less or the fact may be that I am trying, while Jasmine simply is being herself. I don’t know. But I do know that I try to treat people in way that I have learnt works for me. This is also basis how people have been with me. I see and I learn.

Learning is an everlasting process without a time line and structure. In fact structured learning is amongst the worst ways to learn. It surely tries to accelerate learning but it leaves much to be desired. I was talking to Jispa the other day. She goes for the international curriculum at school, which is far more advanced than what I had in school. She has critical thinking, an ability to reason and a freedom to write her mind. Her exams are more on experience, perspective rather than memory and rote. It’s lovely. But it’s only as lovely as the teacher makes it out to be. Awesome teachers make the classroom and the subject more interesting and the irritating ones make the subject boring. Some try and only explain how to attack the question paper and write things that are designed to get marks. There goes the studies.

That’s the problem with a structured education – it seeks to impart and then measure. While measuring it seeks to rank. To rank it needs a certain set of guidelines, schemes and structures for uniformity. There – we have reached a point where the twain are at odds with each other. It is now by definition doomed to failure. Should I learn for marks or should I learn for what I want to learn. I am screwed.

Yesterday with a friend we were discussing education and courses. My view was that it’s asking for way too much to get a child to figure what they want to do by the time they are 15 or 17. I didn’t know what my calling was till I was at least 25 years old. How can we ask for choice in these circumstances, so early of them? But the costs are high of wrong choice and the pressures, real. How does this work?

Forget. Right now I am trying to solve the leaking roof in the dry area from the flat above. It’s fun trying to decipher the leakage source, especially when it involves flooding that balcony with water and being Sherlock Holmes. Then taking a few calls and trying to be intelligent about things that you are so not really trained to do. Why didn’t we have carpentry, woodwork, masonry and other such base skills being taught in schools? A few classes of PT rubbish could have clubbed into this and we could have all been better off. The mechanics of a car, the innards of a toaster, the joy or raising a farm. Real life skills that allow you to work with your hands and give you immense satisfaction. Thye could have atleast taught us basic gardening, if not growing wheat. Or even now, a simple course on growing strawberries on the roof top garden… ok even parsley or basil growing would have been fun.

But this is not to be. I had a shitty education only redeemed by the fact that amazing women and a few amazing men wanted to teach as that was their choice. They loved us and we loved them back. They spoke to us, explained and inspired us. I am so happy that over that last 16 years I have done my little bit to alleviate boredom in the classrooms. Some little joys. In the process of helping people discover themselves, I discovered a whole lot about me. A WHOLE LOT.

That’s experiences and learning and joy.

she is my father

My daughter just me a lesson. A lesson that I should have taught her.

A couple of days ago a friend came home to discuss the contours of a game. A treasure hunt. How do you plan a treasure hunt? All the treasure hunts have already been done. There are variations that people have had. Most the time, these are clues all over the city where you have to go to and meet someone and collect the next clue. In the middle to spice things up there are challenges and dares to complete. But in any form, they are all done. So, our friend came home and we were thinking about what to do. Mumbai has an amazing British history and it can be felt in the old parts of Mumbai, within the erstwhile fort area. There were many ideas tossed around. We kept thinking on how to make it simple yet exciting.

Here I learnt to implement something I leant from a friend many years ago. It was something he learnt at a conference. In a group think, learn to say ‘and’. Whenever someone says something, make the idea bigger by adding to it and not by removing flaws in the argument. Keep saying ‘and’ to any idea. This way you are forced to think from a start point and forced to listen intently and hopefully come up with great ideas. So, while brainstorming I kept saying ‘and’ and we ended up with what we think is an awesome idea. We simply take photos of interesting places in a tight interesting area in fort. We also take photos of small quirky things around the place. People have to figure the place, click the photo and come back to base after they are done. In the photos we will also have clues as to where the place is likely to be. So we would have photos of lane names, or monument names or something or the other that would help them decipher the place. The odd ball curious would be in and around some bigger places. So the game is simple. You will probably have 10 places which are easier to find and then you will have around another four odd places in and around the main point. All photos to be released at the start of the game. Hence you have to look around the monument for the other hidden ones and get them.

Too much information is also a weapon of confusion. In a normal treasure hunt, the linearity of thought allows for a focused flow from participants. But this way with an information overload, the confusion should set and thence in a group environment so will atrophy. The hope is that the evil and greed in people will grow as the time limit gets pushed. How much time must you spend on a place to get all the objects. Ah… this should be fun.

You are free to use mobile phones, whatsapp and everything else including Google. Now go and get these mad places.

While we were clicking pictures yesterday at Horniman circle for our game, in one building, while I was clicking the façade, one security lady came to me and said, do not click photos, it’s not allowed. What? You don’t own the image rights to your building to start with. Complete rubbish. I have had run ins with various such security personnel whose job it is to do stupid things. Rich people believe that just because they can own security personnel they can ask them to do anything. A few weeks ago, one security guy came to me to tell me to not park on the opposite side of their gate. I refused to listen. First they try and use authority and then they try and use sympathy. He then said that please listen to him or his bosses will scold him. I am so done with these jokers. I told him to tell his boss not to ask him to do stupid things.  I wasn’t obstructing his gate in any way. It was on the other side.

Now here this lady was telling me not to click photos of their heritage building. I refused. I told her that I will continue to do so and she could do whatever she wanted. I continued to click till I got a nice one. Now a senior guard came in. He confronted me and tried to tell me with authority that I shouldn’t click. I told him, that that is stupid and that I will continue to do so. He told me again and that’s when I lost it (not that I was polite to start with), I screamed at him and said, I will click the photos and he can’t stop as it isn’t legal. I was standing on the road dam it. I was loud and hard. He did not know what to do. He is used to subservient behavior I guess. This was an open challenge to his authority. We took photos and then we left. He couldn’t do anything.

Afterwards, Jispa spoke to me. She told me, that I uselessly shouted at the watchman. I said, that he was being stupid and the rule sucked. She agreed but she said, I could have just silently smiled at him and still kept on clicking. Cracked a joke or a remark or something or the other and managed the situation. Well ok. I admitted to her that she was right. She is right. I should have just handled it better. Yes, I should have broken his stupid rule, did whatever I want and yet still gotten out of it by smiling my way through it and not raising my voice. What good would it do?

Nice one Jispa. She waited till I cooled down, came quietly next to me and very nicely suggested… SUGGESTED, that may be there was a better way. She asked and suggested as opposed to directly attack an angry man. Nice. Real nice. Well done Jispa.

At home later in the day, I got rid of some my shirts. One of them was a slightly tighter red and blue plaid check shirt. Jispa wanted one red plaid shirt for some time now. I had her try it. What is a bit tight for me, was a little loose for her and she could wear it. She kept it and said “cool. That time when you can finally wear your dad’s shirt”, followed by a fake sniffle.

Child has become the father of man.

I cant tell you what to do

Jispa is turning 13 and with that she is also turning into a monster that I have no clue on how to control. But the hell… why should a parent even be controlling anything about a child. It’s just not right. I don’t think as parents we really know what is in the best interest of the child. Of course we know some stuff from experience that we know is dangerous – like smoking kills or that liquor is something that’s not really advisable or weed is bad. But most of the other stuff – we have no clue. We think we do… we believe we do but really – we don’t. Hell we don’t even know what the hell we want from our lives – yet we try and control a lot for our children – I don’t understand why we do it. Today I fight…. Almost every day I fight myself. There are certain dos and don’ts that I would try and implement. Besides that I try and fight the need to bear over her and try my best to let her be. Of course mommy is right. The more you let her be the more she will get into trouble that she herself doesn’t want to. But then isn’t the role of parents to stop her from getting into trouble versus the role of growing up is to get into trouble all the time and then figuring out two things. How not to get into trouble in the first place then figuring out how to get out of it, once you have gotten into it. This is the weird dichotomy of parenting. We don’t know. I think we naturally think we are good at stopping trouble and we don’t realize that stopping trouble now is inviting trouble later on. So what’s the right answer? In parenting there is possibly no right answer. You invent things as you get along. Especially if you have one child…. There are no mistakes to learn from.  Just simple stuff that you think you would have loved to have as a child and the stuff you don’t want or want to have for your children. In many ways that is simple parenting.

I want Jispa to be free… I want her to say that in someday that she is what is … thanks to herself and not thanks to anyone – not her dad, not her mom not anyone else…and definitely not God. She has to be like the apocryphal story of Napolean who on coronation – lifted the crown from the hand of the Pope and crowned himself – saying that none me is fit to crown myself. In many showing that he owed his entire rise to himself and to no one else. I have had many mentors in my life. I have a learnt a lot from so many people. Not all tried to teach me, but the simple act of observation has helped me more than anything else. I am so happy that my dad never could pick up the phone and get me going on anything. He also passed away way before I could really use his help. My college my girlfriend (now wife) my job and I dug my own mentors from those around me.

So all that I have or don’t - is thanks to me. At my death bed I have myself to blame or thank. Of course Jasmine has helped me achieve whatever I could have or couldn’t have (you have to take both). But at the end – I have realized – you are alone. You stand alone – you die alone. The faster you realize that the better you are. It’s like the story of Valmiki who wrote the Ramayana – he takes to being a ascetic when he realizes that his family refuses to take his share of sins as your sins are yours and you have to bear the consequences of them. In many ways sins are the metaphors for your decisions. You have to bear them yourself. Others have their own to bear.

In the years that I have worked or taught – I see that many times – in fact I feel most of the time – parents are wrong. After a point of time they can’t really tell you what to do in life. I think all advice is stupid. People have to decide what they want to do for their own. Your children, my child has to decide for herself on what to do. What can I do? I can advise, I can guide, I can push, I can convince – but do I really know what’s right… no I don’t. Experience will tell me something – something that tells me that the process of decision making may not be right – but it doesn’t tell me if the decision is right or wrong. To add to this – we don’t believe that quitting is the right option.

Right now Jispa is swimming. Realistically – she is not a great swimmer. She is a good swimmer, but I don’t think she would be counted as amongst the great swimmers. She finds it tough to break in to the state team. She does well to represent Mumbai. Now what’s the right thing for her? One of her seniors from another club was applying to American Universities. The university looked at all the certificates of the national champion and kept them aside and asked for her timings. Her timings were nowhere the ones desired by the University… so now what? Apply of academic merit. That’s all. Jasmine and I were thinking about this since some time. What the hell should Jispa be doing? He swimming regime is tough and her school regime is now going to get really tough. Academic excellence is something that will give her choice on what to follow in her years to come – not swimming. Indian Swimmers are nowhere on any stage. They have no careers and they can barely earn enough to make ends meet from swimming. It’s not an independent profession. In any case that’s hardly a choice to be made for now. Sure she can always be a sports led profession here she can use her swimming knowledge to great advantage but it still require s a decent academic grounding. So we thought that we let her swim this year and then the next year she focusses on studies while swimming just enough to enjoy and not really to break through. In any case she has to now trust her coach and really improve in this year.

Jasmine and I are tired parents. It has been really tough. Thanks to Jispa’s swimming we have made some crazy number of sacrifices. Waking up is the least of them. The Sundays spent at swim meet, the nutrition, the holidays foregone etc. we have had some great returns but physically / mentally we are done. Right now I am concentrating on something simpler – what does Jispa do next year, in three years and then in five years from now. I am glad that Jispa has no clue what she wants to do. Right now she says that she doesn’t want to be a doctor or an engineer. Her subject she likes are Geography and History. I love that. I would imagine having a child who wants to be an engineer… yuck! So we have to figure a lot of things for her. Actually see – that’s exactly what a dad says but shouldn’t. Why “we” figure what to do. She has to figure what to do. I should be only a sounding board… an absorbent as well as a reflective material at the same time. Hopefully she will figure.

On this here are two videos that I came across – very interesting ones. Believe me – they are right. see them!

Both are amazing characters who do really well on youtube

End game - One of our friends is an amazing gentleman form Denmark. He was telling me that his son was a really good tennis player and he took him to London to train at the Wimbledon. His son played a few matches there and just wanted to give up Tennis and then just did not want to play anymore and wanted to come back home. His mom said – fine – come over and you need to study there or train there if you don’t want to. Today after many years – his son says – you should have pushed me then.

learn all the time

I was explaining to some guys from my team that as a child my unhappiest memories are when we shifted from Dubai to Mumbai when I was in the fourth grade. We went from a land of everything to a land of nothing. It was just so trying on us kids.

It was made even worse as we as kids saw a side of our cousins which was different. In any case we weren’t so dam close. We stayed far away and came to India once a year for two months. At the time, coming to India from Dubai, you were royalty. You were the guys with all the foreign stuff that you gifted or stuff you brought on request. The bags would open and that would be a lovely thing as everyone would crowd around. When I grew up I made it a point not be around when bags open. When Jasmine’s brother or aunt would come in from US, I would be doubly sure not to be in the same room. I don’t want to be that person wanting something from abroad. Of course, India too has changed a lot. We have a lot here that we can get and we too got a bit richer than what we were and hence can afford it without being gifted – but still – no hanging around in anticipation. I don’t like it.

To add to that I think a little bit of political play happened. We would come and stay at our grand mom place – my Mom’s mom. She was extremely rich and my grand dad was a self-made millionaire with two buildings and a factory that printed labels. My granddad passed away many years before I was born. In fact he passed away before my mom and dad were married. The family steadily went into decline from then on. We were still rich, the factory was managed but the brothers couldn’t get along and slowly – nothing was really happening. So by then it was a household that was rich – but the fighting was slowly being brought to center stage. Then my grand mom contracted cancer. That was a bloody blow. That was the final hinge in the family door coming loose.

I think a wave on insecurity passed around the cousins. I was too small but in hindsight and from some of the conversations that I heard later, I realized that it just dint do too good for the family. In that atmosphere, I came in to Mumbai to settle down. Dad took another year and mom shuttled a bit.

Suddenly as I was telling them this story it struck me that in my office and in my own team the same is true. Around a month back I announced to the team that I was leaving. At first it was shock followed a little sadness and soon enough - given time – cracks started surfacing. Insecurity is such a big thing in our heads. People started bitching, back biting, started wondering about their roles, their future – power struggles started and funny things started happening. I am so upset with all this.

In many ways this is no different than the death of my grand mom. Here too a person is going with notice period. Here I can’t even settle the affairs completely as I would have wanted to. I don’t know whom I am handing over the stuff to. This uncertainty is what driving my office kids nuts. I hate how some of them have behaved and how they have easily declared war and how they decided to make space for themselves. The spoils are there for eating and to wait is to end up being late. So make your move.

All insecure people have a standard ploy – they build allies with others. Typically other insecure or weak people. They create trouble by building teams of us versus them.  They feed off each others insecurities or rather feed into each other’s insecurities. They waste their time and effort in trying to plot, plan and gather as much as they can for their own clan. This is a self- killing spiral. Of course it works well in many cases. Especially when the person on top is also insecure. Then he likes all these jokers. In fact many bosses I know like their kids to be insecure. They like it if they fight off each other. In secure people never ever build long term allies. They are busy plotting and scheming all the time that they don’t see anyone as full time allies. Their enemies are other insecure people and funnily – other extremely secure people. They can’t understand why anyone can be really secure. They think these secure people are put on and are not genuine. That makes them even more prone to plotting against them.

It’s a vicious circle. I see this everywhere… even amongst kids and adults alike. Cliques and gangs are built. The only real remedy is to stay away from these. There is no hope for them and there is no hope for you with them. As I have said before – even listening to them is damaging for yourself.

At 40 I learn new lessons. People are like this all the time. I give out a lot of love with my kids at office. But some of them love you back and some of them just create more issues for you. some have not really loved you but have only used your love to get themselves more secure. And as you leave they search for security elsewhere. Bah!

You learn… all the time!

worth its while

In life a public service post is extremely critical for a whole rounded experience. A not for profit, free charitable public service post. That is the toughest thing to do.

My friend and I got involved with the swimming department at the gymkhana a little over a couple of years ago. The pain is immense. If I thought that the idiots at eth office were a bit, these guys at the gymkhana are to be seen to be believed. Everyone and his grand dad would have an opinion and most of the time they are not controlled or driven by facts. Most of these guys come from business backgrounds and used to running their businesses in their own way. Controls, processes and scale is something alien to them. Most of them haven’t run retail customer centric business and have no clue on anything. These guys then get elected to various posts and then all hell breaks loose.

They don’t understand service, the ability to keep your audience first and they definitely are alien to marketing concepts. All the bums are a legacy of the Nehruvian era where the man who controls the resources is hell bent on preserving his control over them and believes in the scarcity of resources. Anything is looked upon as a privilege that is given to the members. Hence they will put barricades everywhere. They will first put in rules that don’t allow stuff to happen. They will never bother about the demand side of the equation. Creating a  demand is alien to them. In fact in many ways it is an anathema. They are those people who have bought membership cheap and then want to extract the maximum benefits exclusively for themselves. They like their empty pools, empty courts an dempty spaces. Buzz? … that is an alien concept to them. Attracting youngsters to the club? OMG that is the greatest sin on this world. Guests – let’s stop the members from getting them. Let’s charge higher! What will you give for that in return… oops that’s another bad question! The next thing we know – they ban shorts in the restaurant… hell knows why! I got thrown out of the restaurant. They tightened the rules about guests along with raising the fees… and boom – now the restaurant is empty. Now sit and enjoy eating in a ghost town. The quality of food will suffer, the service will suffer and the menu will slowly shrink. Who will bother about that.

They started redesigning the restaurant.. and no one is bothered about redesigning the menu. So whats the experience going to be? What is the theme of the place? What is the average serving size and the number of people per table that we are talking? Is there going to be a peak and a non peak time… how are we going to maximize revenues and have bar nights with live music or match screenings. Is the place designed for that? Nothing. If we have larger tables should we also have a few larger portion plates? Should we have enough starters and do we have enough on follow-throughs. Are we using light to generally zone out the place? Wow… I told them all this and they didn’t have a clue.

Then on pricing… they wanted to increase the pricing for using the general facilities. The club has a reverse problem. we have a large corpus that’s sitting and doing nothing. Just… a large corpus. So we DON’T need the money. And in any case, from all the monies collected to run the place on a daily use basis doesn’t pay for the maintainence. This comes from the interest on the corpus. So your biggest revenue is not this stupid yearly fees but new members who have to be suckered into coming in and joining. In fact you need more BUZZ in the gymkhana. More use of pool, more use of restaurant, more use of bar and then more use of all the sports. You must have training programs that attract the bets talent that attract the best money from people who want access to this talent for their kids and themselves. So you problem is different. In fact I was arguing that reduce the fees, reduce it drastically so that more and more people are tempted to pay off and believe that they will use it. and get people to use it… You need a problem of plenty and not scarcity. And this is the only option. If you believe that you should build walls around your scarce resources then these resources will only deteriorate and will eventually die. You lose in the long run.

But alas.. I am tired of these jack idiots. But I also learnt that this is the Indian Democratic system. Nothing moves. There is a log jam everywhere. And there is merit in it. I mean, I am the secretary of the pool but I report into the Chairman who reports into the general Secretary who really has no powers over the swimming pool directly but can stop us from doing a lot, who reports into the managing Committee which consists of all the chairmen, which in turn reports into the trustees who really don’t really do anything. So who is in charge… really… no one. So it does take a lot to move the system and precedence is king. So if you have done something in the past then its ok. Doing new or changing it is a problem. That’s why in legal and democratic systems past precedence is a great thing. This reduces the new thing you can do but also stops all the shit that can possibly create havoc. Its difficult (not impossible) to create dictators, its difficult to have idiots blowing up money, and every risk is answerable to almost anyone who asks a question. But I have also learnt to game the system… you can keep asking questions and as long as I am replying them and following due course, you cant do jack. And there is no limit to the number of replies I can give to the number of question you ask. And to add -  I can keep whining on in the replies and it can go on forever. Plus there is no real time frame in which we have to reply. In fact there is no real compulsion in which I have to reply. I can always defer and defer and just let matters sleep.

But at the end, it’s been frustrating and enriching. I know exactly why the system is designed so and I know how it works and its loopholes. And I leant to deal with more nitwits! And not lose cool…Worth its while :)

guide to the future and past

I have on my left hand something that also tells me the time. I bought the Moto 360. It is basically a smart watch. On a lot of the mobile revolution I was wrong or caught napping. When mobiles first came out, I thought they were hardly of any use. Then when Black Berrys made a lot of noise, I was late onto the market. I couldn’t understand what the fuss was all about. What do you get by checking your phone regularly for email? Why would you need that? And of course all those investment bankers in their suits in the lifts, spending eth valuable 30 seconds to see their mail as opposed to simply saying hi, or at the least acknowledging the presence of another human being. So when the iPhone first came out, I too was unimpressed. What use could it possibly have in my life.

The touch screen sensation missed me. I had just upgraded myself to the Black berry and used it for a good three years before one day; the BB gave up on me. I came back from a vacation and it refused to spring back to life. Now I recently saw a friend using the smart watch and I was hooked. My first reaction was what my measured reaction is – I am not spending that kind of money. No way. Why should I spend this money? I am a bit of a gujju here. Does it really add that much value to my life? Do I really need something like this? What use is it actually? I kept thinking about it and I realized that I am what I am because I understand technology very well. I am constantly ahead of the curve in technology, I read technology, I use technology then I can’t let the iPhone mistake to happen again. I must be there in the middle of it all. I must be the early adopter and I must see how it works and evolves. Today I claim to understand Google and what it does for me because I have seen it evolve from what it origins were. I see it as a human. If I understand its soul at its core it will bare it to me, with all its mysteries. So when the android wear 1.0 has launched, I should be stupid not to adapt to it first up. I must.

Coming back to the soul. Technology is nothing but the manifestation of the human mind. It tries to do what a mind has taught it to do. The inventor has a belief and a philosophy. What is that philosophy? We must understand it and we must internalize it. Once you understand this core, you will be in a position to leverage it for you.  Mathematics can do everything; it can twist the universe and bend it. It proves that the world is far more than what we can see. In fact it predicted what you cannot see and hence you have to look out for what you cannot see and then find it – aha – the black holes. But at the end of it, it also has a philosophy, that of its writer. So if you understand the writer then you understand his philosophy and then you can understand its core. Whenever I try t understand some math guy or some algo, I try and decipher its core philosophy. Once that’s done – you can understand where its come from. That’s why history is so interesting. Once you understand where you come from you can predict where you will go… atleast it will give you probabilities.

Here is one – you are what you eat

Researchers have found that people from rice-growing southern China are more interdependent and holistic thinkers, while those from the wheat-growing north are more independent and analytical.

The researchers call it “rice theory”, and they believe the psychological differences of southern and northern Chinese stem from their ancestors’ subsistence techniques – rice farming needs co-operation and planning; wheat farming requires less co-operation between neighbours.

…The last experiment assessed the nepotism, or group loyalty, of the participants. Students were given hypothetical scenarios and asked how they would treat friends and strangers in reaction to helpful or harmful actions. A defining characteristic of holistic culture is that people draw sharp contrasts between friend and stranger.

“The data suggests that legacies of farming are continuing to affect people,” Thomas Talhelm, of the University of Virginia and lead author of the research, said. “It has resulted in two distinct cultural psychologies that mirror the differences between East Asia and the West.”

Talhelm and his team concluded that the co-operative nature of rice-growing has cultivated a culture of interdependence, while wheat-growing has cultivated independence.

“I think the rice theory provides some insight to why the rice-growing regions of East Asia are less individualistic than the Western world or northern China, even with their wealth and modernisation,” Talhelm said.

We went to Elephanta recently and I had read up on it before hand. I had a book that I had bought many years ago but we never did manage to go to Elephanta island. Here we took a local guide but I soon asked him to keep quiet. He got his facts wrong. I started off explaining to the kids what each statue was and the significance of the story behind it. Each one is a picture that tells a moral much like Aesop’s fables. It was lovely. I also did not know how much I knew. Now I plan to read more and more and then I want to be a guide at least to Elephant. I want to explore the island and go often enough. I want understand it more. This is near home, it is exquisite and then let me see if I can do guiding to Elephanta for certain tourists on weekends. I would love to be a guide. Today I know more and I can explain more than most guides on the island. I know the stories and the mythology behind it. The significance of Shiva murals and the other gods in it. Just a little more research and I could be in business. What say? I want to be a guide that says – come along – really low or free to join and work completely on tips. If you like you pay, else it’s up to you. Just like teaching – money can’t be the motivator. In teaching you don’t get or want tips, but here that is critical. If I am able to make it fun and happy for all, who knows, this could be a great source of self-fulfillment. Teaching helps me learn so much, being a guide will also help me. I want to be a guide. Elephant is the perfect starting block.

I was speaking o Jispa about Elephanta and was asking her about the trip. She then remarked that if I loved history and mythology so much, why I didn’t pick it up as a career or something. What to do… in school, I hated history which was nothing but a bunch of dates to remember. I remember asking mom – what use is history to us? Hmmm.. today I try and explain the importance of these subjects to Jispa. They are important. Yesterday I was explaining why civics is important. And I explained how she wouldn’t appreciate it now, it’s almost impossible to appreciate it as a young kid but it is extremely important to understand how we are governed… by ourselves and how the structure is critical to be understood by every citizen. I have to teach her civics one of these days… I hope I can teach it without boring the crap out of her.

sssssh

I was listening to a podcast. The podcast was about being quiet. This was in an interesting program that I stumbled upon – it’s called the TED radio hour. If you have been reading this blog then you must be familiar with the TED videos which are a constant course of fantastic information. The speakers there get 20 minutes at best and the successful ones become overnight worldwide internet celebrities.  This podcast takes these interesting talks and makes a show by creating theme and getting two three talks, stiches them and then supplements them by interviews with the speakers. It’s quite a nice radio show. It makes commuting so much more bearable.

A few days back there was a talk on quiet. It just talks about being quiet and a few talks around it. A few interesting points did come up. One of things I resonated with is the point of being an introvert versus being an extravert. Today in offices or anywhere in social life, being an extravert is being seen as a sign of strength. It’s good to be an extrovert. Leaders are extroverts. We are taught in school to be an extrovert – go out and seize the moment – talk to a 100 hundred people and taught confidently. Reach out and blah blah blah. The speaker argues that in the modern world we have placed a large amount of emphasis on being an extrovert and this is a modern phenomena. Just about a 100 odd years ago there was an emphasis on character that is measured and thoughtful and – introverted.

You know, I was always an outgoing extroverted guy. I couldn’t keep quiet, was happy in the company of people and openly gave opinion on all matters. Happy to take the lead in meetings, talk my mind and do all sorts of stuff. The Quintessential extrovert.  This is what I was taught to do. There are marks given for class participation and I would maximize them. In the last ten years after I started reading I realized that I did not know so much, I taught myself the value of keeping your opinions to yourself. Listen, actively listen! When listening, try and convince yourself that the other person’s point of view is correct and important. This is a difficult thing to do and it is extremely difficult for an extroverted person who jumps to ideas and thinks fast. So my mind works fast and gets the point and I have exhibit extreme impatience while talking…. Dam shit… this creates more enemies and it creates mistakes and it leaves a lot of meat on the table that must be heard completely to have impact in your head.

So its been a 360 degree change for me. While growing up the role models for me were all extrovert but now the role models are in many ways introvert. I am sure the right answer is between the two. I like to brood over, quietly think, and relax in one place with a book. Speak to a few people only on things that are interesting and people who are knowledgeable or thirsty for knowledge. Its interesting how things change.

Two other things I heard on the same program – I knew this story about George  Mallory wherein he was asked in 1924 –why he wanted to conquer mount Everest – He famously retorted “because it’s there”. This is a legend amongst mountain climbers. There is no other real reason to climb a mountain besides the fact that its there, waiting to be climed. This question was asked to a tight rope walker who has walked across various places without a safety net. He retorted with his variation – “because it’s in there”. Which is also true. He does it because inside of him there is something that is in there. Which I thought was cool.

The second thing I was inspired was by the speaker talking about the importance of quiet time. It’s difficult for me to get quiet time. But that is an excuse according to the speaker. If we get time for exercise or going to the gym, then we can definitely get quiet time for ourselves to get our mental balance right. Driving in an around Mumbai is a pain and a blessing in disguise, depending on the way you look at it. I hate the commute but now it has become an amazing opportunity to be in silence and listen to podcasts. I guess podcasts aren’t necessarily silent hour. But it still beats talking to people. I used to use this rule – listen while going to office and catch up on the phone while coming back. Now when I am tempted to reach for the phone and speak on the Bluetooth, I resist and decide to hold on to the podcasts. My silence is golden, you can keep on talking.

My mother would die laughing if she ever read this piece. Her youngest could never be silent and now he is preaching it like he has mastered it. Bull shit.

across the spectrum

Sports a great thing. but understanding sports is an even greater experience. I have been lucky in that my dad was always encouraging us to play sports. We had a club membership in Dubai and when I was of age (and of wage) I invested in a membership that is paying me huge dividends. Now we have Jispa, who is bringing another angle to the sports discussion in the family.

While I have been playing sports for long, I first started understanding the mental aspects of sports only much recently. I guess it all started when I started playing in the team as a captain. I forced to think about the game and not only of my game. It made me aware of my game as well. It helped me think completely different about sport in general. Post which I have tried to understand and bring the brain into other sports as well. I have played cricket, squash, swam, run and a lot of badminton these days. The more I understand any sport the better is the understanding of sport in general. Over a period of time one understands different sports but is able to draw a set of lines going across all sports.

For example let’s take the head. The head position is so critical in sport. As a general rule, the head position must be as stable in sport. The head position maintains the balance and posture. It helps you see better and your hand eye work great. You don’t fall over while playing and you play with a firm balance. It also helps you recover better. I have seen this is batting, bowling, fielding, badminton, squash, billiards, TT… everything. Natural athletes typically don’t move their head too much. It’s only the eye that follows a moving object. Very little of head movement is done. Swimming is also similar. You keep your head stable as much as possible and you only turn enough to breathe. As little movement as possible. While I was being coached for swimming I realized that the head position is also critical for maintaining a position that keeps your body afloat. You don’t look ahead; you don’t look down – you look at an angle that is roughly 45 degrees ahead. This keeps you afloat.

Recently Jispa attended a swim camp organized by Rehan Poncha. Rehan was one of the Indian swimmers at the Beijing Olympics. He is now running camps and trying to fund his golfing career. He is very good with the kids and he basically is giving tips on land training, stretching, followed by swimming drills and then a talk on nutrition, mental preparation etc. one of the things he explained was to have loose muscles. Keep your body loose then they move faster. Hands if kept loose move faster than if they are tight. That’s an interesting thing. It works well with what my coach was trying to show me to do while swimming as well.

Now one of the things that I can’t do in badminton is smash hard. As in – I can but I don’t do it consistently enough and I only do it from far. If I am close to the net I try to rely on placements and not on power. But that’s not enough to kill a point. I am always worried that I will hit the net and so to avoid an unforced error I tap the shuttle. This then extends further and then I stop smashing altogether as I realized today. I just refused to smash. My partner then looked at me and begged – Smash kar yaar. I do have a decent smash when I pull it off. Then I just out of the blue decided to loosen my muscles and try. I remembered what Rehan said. Keep them loose. And then boom boom bang.  A flurry of smashes later my friend exclaimed – Your smash is back. We won five points in a row with my smashes. Just keep them loose and let it go.

Cross sport understanding is a great thing. You have to keep the basics simple. Its always the case. Placing is important in squash and the similar principals work in badminton. Head position is crucial, less movement, more balance.

Such is also in life. You learn from everywhere and anything. You have to understand and know a lot of stuff. This helps you think clearly and apply lessons learnt from one to another. Of course it obvious that to apply you have to exposed to a lot. That’s what I always try for. As many exposures as possible. I try and expose Jispa to various experiences and I try and expose myself as well. Anything new – worth doing once or twice. At worst – the worst experience will tell you what you don’t like about the experience. The principal is simple – if you have enough exposures you will have enough learnings. You must be curious at all points of times. We had a management meet recently with some psychometric tests thrown in. I went off the scale on the curiosity parameter – and the shrink was telling me that I have a practically insatiable appetite for learning. Yes of course. Insatiable. Constant and always on. I will try and learn every second and form anyone and from everything. It drives me crazy but it’s the only thing that keeps me sane. Hah. After a long time – opposites reconciling.

its a sexy job

Yesterday I was justifiably proud of myself. Yay yay. Jispa had to do a project in geography and it was about data and research. She and jasmine were like – this is right up Jasmine’s sleeve. Perfect. Well that put some extraordinary stress on me. I can do that in an instant. Jispa will have the best and sexiest project if I get involved but hell – that is not the job. I am not on trial here. Jispa is. She needs to learn and she needs to understand the magic of data and the bigger magic of showing the data in way that it tells stories.

Jispa had once told me that she doesn’t like me teaching because I can get very stressed out and upset when she doesn’t get the idea. She doesn’t like it. So I have been doing some deep amount of introspection. Why is that I am a great fun guy when I teach at the classrooms and such an ass for my daughter. I can have infinite patience with 60 kids but I lose it with one.  Shame on me. So I thought I probably need to change the setting. Can I use the whiteboard and teach like I teach in a classroom putting distance between the student and the teacher. Space in a classroom could be a liberating factor versus the direct and arm distance gaze (hence pressure) of a private tutor. Much like a book… what you need is also an ability to switch thoughts in the middle. Or like what Salman of the www.khanacademy.org founder says of why his youtube videos were such a hit with kids – the ability to pause and rewind.

Well I couldn’t pause and rewind or even give Jispa the button but I surely did put myself in a special mood before I started. I asked Jispa to sit on the table first and get her books and note book that has square checks on it. Then the BIG CHALLENGE. How do I explain to her without solving her problem? How do I assist her in thinking and put a basic process in place without giving out too much. Answer dena easy hai but to teach in a manner that she finds her own answers is extremely difficult. Admittedly this is the ultimate daddy teaching test. Because even in class in many ways I give a lot of answers, but homework help can never be giving answers. It has to be constructs as opposed to method. This time around it was even more difficult as the topic was not straight and especially since I have some strong and trained views on it. I pride myself in the firm for someone who not only understands data but I am especially good at structuring data so as to analyse it better. I have thought of terms and measured campaign along those lines. The very description of a term to be used helps in understanding the data in a way it makes sense. I am easily amongst the best in our office at this. My MIS over a period of time …. Ok ok… you get the point.

So how do I explain it to Jispa? So I was proud of the way I structured it for her. I sold her the magic of data. How data by itself means nothing. How more data would mean more of nothing? The context is a story. I taught her that data is nothing but a series of stories. These stories must be relevant, must have meaning must have context. Now in your project what stories do you want to tell and what is it that you must ask so that you know what to fill in the blanks. Then once a set of stories were told then the simple act of using existing data to tell more stories can be done – that ladies and gentleman is correlation without using the dirty.

I was so proud of myself. Now hopefully this weekend I will teach to draw up the loveliest questionnaire that is short but pertinent. And then after collection of data – the challenge will be to get her to be inspired to tell the best stories as possible. She shows a lot of promise and I am loving it. at the end of it I hope she not only loves the project but she loves doing a project with me.

There are two skills which will define the young individual of tomorrow – one is language. The ability to convince the other/ converse with another… the other is statistics. The world will belong to the statisticians. If you can’t read data you are dead. I am so happy with the chance to get her to love data that I am trying my best not to screw it up.

Here is Hal Varian on statistics and statistitians and how they are so sexy. Hal is the guy who worked with Google for their famous adwords bidding alogarithim. Basically – a very smart guy.

“I keep saying the sexy job in the next ten years will be statisticians. People think I’m joking, but who would’ve guessed that computer engineers would’ve been the sexy job of the 1990s? The ability to take data—to be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, to visualize it, to communicate it—that’s going to be a hugely important skill in the next decades, not only at the professional level but even at the educational level for elementary school kids, for high school kids, for college kids. Because now we really do have essentially free and ubiquitous data. So the complimentary scarce factor is the ability to understand that data and extract value from it.

I think statisticians are part of it, but it’s just a part. You also want to be able to visualize the data, communicate the data, and utilize it effectively. But I do think those skills—of being able to access, understand, and communicate the insights you get from data analysis—are going to be extremely important. Managers need to be able to access and understand the data themselves.

You always have this problem of being surrounded by “yes men” and people who want to predigest everything for you. In the old organization, you had to have this whole army of people digesting information to be able to feed it to the decision maker at the top. But that’s not the way it works anymore: the information can be available across the ranks, to everyone in the organization. And what you need to ensure is that people have access to the data they need to make their day-to-day decisions. And this can be done much more easily than it could be done in the past. And it really empowers the knowledge workers to work more effectively.”