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 ;)

I am the bridge builder

I was explaining to someone that all my life I have always been the youngest one. The youngest son of the youngest son. From my mother’s side too I was the youngest son with only two female cousins younger than me. Being the youngest one should have been a natural to me, except that I didn’t ever do well at it. I think I was designed to be the eldest. I like to teach, to learn, to observe and to share. I like to protect and to have fun, I like to dominate yet cede. I am not designed to be the youngest but I learnt over a period of time to be one.

Now that I am 41, I am in many ways an elder. In this start up, I am the eldest in the office. The senior who must lead and manage the young. He who must nurture the young and initiate them into the ways of life. Ok – now that got way too dramatic. But as the years have piled on, I have moved to apposition of being the elder and I think I probably do a better job of being the elder than being the younger. Of being the teacher than at being the student.

Being the youngest helped me become a better elder. All I did was look very deeply at people who were older to me and see how they behaved. How they treated their younger ones, and more importantly how they did not treat their younger ones. This formed the basis of how I should treat others. In way that I would have expected to have been treated. That today is how I am what I am, as a boss, as a father, as a friend and as a teacher. You don’t always need role models to shape your behavior. You can do it just as well with the absence of role models. You simply ask yourself what you would have liked and you then listen to your own voice very clearly. That’s that simple.

Last week we were on vacation. I was very keen to have a camping experience with Jispa and Jasmine. Just about a month before the vacation, both of them pulled out. It was way too expensive they said and that they weren’t so keen. Oh Damn it. They broke my heart. I always wanted to go camping with family. Sleeping in the tents, walking all day, moving in the mountains, the bitter cold, the warm sleeping bags, the really silly places to go to the loo, everything. Discomfort is an important part of process. Only when you put men through real discomfort you realize what you are made of. And as a group of people, when you face hardship together, it binds you, it releases you. Camping together is one way to get to the same. Of course this was a luxury camp. We would have paid around 10k per night all-inclusive (including transport) for this experience. But at the last my family developed chicken feet. So we moved our vacation to Rishikesh where we stayed at a home stay, roamed the streets of Rishikesh and sipped on honey ginger lemon tea while having freshly baked butter biscuits. Some discomfort.

After which we went to Hathipaon where my sis runs a lovely small home stay.

It was a fun vacation, but it was marginally ruined or heightened depending on your perspective by the fact that I had an exam to give in the middle of it. This was an Insurance exam for which I had to leave the vacation mid-way and run to Delhi and back. The pressure was tremendous and I had to really learn the innards of the insurance business before I could have passed. The pressure was two-fold. On the business there was definitely some pressure as we needed a senior guy to pass the exam and be the principal officer for the firm and then as the elder in the office, I couldn’t have failed. It was too much of a loss of face. I put dramatic pressure on myself and pushed myself to study. I studied three books, marked a lot on them, read them again and again, and was generally prepared for what’s going to come. In the end of the multiple choice question paper, I scored 65 of 80 marks. 40 was passing. Wow – I had done it with flying colors. Serious respect. When you grow old, you lose something – something very raw, you lose your sense of fun, innocence and gay abandon. You lose the ability to chance a few things. You push yourself and your system to what you think is the most important thing and achieve it. This part is no fun. I have never studied this way as I studied for this exam. On the trip, I studied in the plane, on the train, in the hotel, on the bed and one full day in Rishikesh on the table studying for my exam. After the paper, I had a celebratory lunch in Delhi. I had my favorite Delhi lunch of chole and dal with naan at the road side thella (stall). That was yum. So much yum, that I took Jasmine and Jispa there when we were in Delhi switching trains. When in Delhi – do the Delhi!

So when we were back, my sis asked me for feedback. I knew that was coming and I had discussed a lot with Jispa and Jasmine about the place. We seemed to have cracked the travel thing. We go for cheaper home stay options at distinct places that seem to have captured the heart and soul of the place. We know the service and we know the way the thing works now. We know how to look at the reviews and how to manage and plan the trip. So far, it has hardly let us down. Trip Advisor has been so helpful in all of this. My nephew was wondering why would anyone put up a review on trip advisor. A rational human wouldn’t want to waste his time once he was already there. What could he possibly get. I told him two things – from a selfless perspective – it really helped me and hence it is my job to help others. From a selfish perspective – the more reviews I give the better the site gets and that leads to a positive cycle where hotels and home stays know that if they screw up you get bad reviews. This was the whole ecosystem is forced to improve if they have to thrive. My review about Rishikesh will in some way help my travels in Pondicherry, because of the general uplift in service standards.

I am reminded of this poem about which I think I have blogged before.

The Bridge Builder

- Will Allen Dromgoole

An old man going a lone highway,
Came at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm, vast, and deep and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.

The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fear for him;
But he turned, when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.

"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim, near,
"You are wasting strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again will pass this way;
You've crossed the chasm, deep and wide-
Why build you this bridge at the evening tide?"

The builder lifted his old gray head:
"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said,
"There followeth after me today,
A youth, whose feet must pass this way.

This chasm, that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him."

This poem was especially significant for me for in the 6^th standard, I tried to take part in the poetry recital competition in school. There was no one to help at home but I knew I was good to take part in the competition. I told my teacher that I was interested and she gave me this poem. By the time the trials came in, I was hopelessly underprepared and I was not selected. What a total loss it was. I laughed at the end. There none but me to crown myself!

Recently I understood the bride builder and its metaphorical significance. I am in many ways a Bridge Builder. Yes, good friend, I am building this bridge for him.

So yesterday I went over to my sister’s house and discussed what all you can do to improve the service. Small things that cost very little but can make a dramatic impact on your stay experience. In the end, today she puts on the whatsapp group something akin to ‘when did you get so smart?’. Oh well. Now the fun starts. The dichotomy of being an elder elsewhere nad being the young one at home. Sometimes I wonder how I manage it in my brain and in my behavior. I wonder.

I could be your hero!

With Jispa growing older it’s a big thing for me to adjust to her growing up. It’s not the same thing! I remember coming home and my daughter jumping in joy and running to hug me… we had a puppy at home! Now of course I believe she is happy to see me but it takes a large effort for her to show her love. She is growing up and I don’t know how to treat her. It’s going to take some doing from my side, to grow up at 39 and behave older :)

It’s been so much growing up after being a father. A lot of fun and pain and love and laughter and tears. I never did know that it would affect me so much emotionally. I remember the day I was in the room when she popped out from Jasmine. She was so small and she fit into my hands. Her head was smaller than my palm. I saw her eyes open as she was put on the weighing scale immediately after birth. And I gave Jasmine a hug and told her – its Jispa! We had the name ready for a girl!

Cut to when I traveled a lot. I used to get her a plastic spoon from the airline. She would be happy and I would be the cheapskate getting away by hardly spending a penny.

Cut to when she was so small that I would come home and insist that I would give her a bath. I would wash my legs and then place her on my legs while giving her a bath. The face I would leave for Jasmine.

Cut to when I would wake her up and take her to the loo in the morning to give her a brush and then give her a bath so as to get her ready for school

Cut to when I she would need me to sleep next to her when she did not get sleep and I would fall asleep alongside her and Jasmine would wake me up to sleep on my bed.

Cut to when she would wake me up in the middle of the night saying she had a bad dream and I taught her to solve it, and she would then wake me up when she couldn’t solve it

Cut to when I invented the naanu motu game with me being the naanu so that she had to hold me to take care of me and not the other way around.

Cut to when once I was dropping her to school and I slipped on the stairs and I was safe as I held on to her

Cut to when I first took her swimming with all her floats on

And cut to the point when she tried in vain to teach me tumble turn while swimming. I just couldn’t get my bearings right.

Cut to…. Me feeling emotional whenever I see this video below. It’s so difficult not to shed a tear. While of course these soldiers face grave danger while away from duty… a travelling sales man or even a corporate warrior on offsite hates to be away and feels so nice to be home and hug your family!

Here the bonus video – nice song – almost (if you remove some bits) a fathers song for his daughter. I would love to be your HERO