parenting is a lot like making a nuclear bomb

“Jispa, I hate you combing hair in the car. Your hair are all over and then you don’t collect them and throw them properly. When you throw them out they fly back in. Take your hair and roll them up before you dispose them”

“ok, ok, I am doing that”

“you know my grandmother would comb her hair, roll them in a circle and then before disposing them put the bunch in a folded paper”

“why would you do that?”

“she did that so that the hair don’t get stuck in a little bird’s legs. She was all jain”

“oh, all Jain and all… Hmm.. Why are we not Jain?”

“you are Jain. We are Jain. You were born a Jain”

“no seriously, why are we not Jain, really. Why don’t we practice and all”

“ah. Jasmine and I were religious at one time. Not too much, but we did believe in God and we did go to temples and pray. But then once when we were in Haridwar..”

“there is a story to this as well? There is a story to why we do not follow Jainism”

“oh ya. There is story to that as well”

I have written about this story before. I explained to her the story of how we turned completely non-religious and it was thanks to her. In short when once we were in haridwar and the dam hotel guide happened to be a pujari who made us chant a few mantras before releasing  lamp into the river. Jasmine and I did not bother too much but we saw Jispa repeating like it was important. That day, I told her, that day I took a decision that “you may learn to pray form you grandmother or anyone, but you will not learn to pray from me”.

Yes Jispa, almost everything has a story to it. A lot of what we do is dictated by our interactions with you. A lot of it willingly and a lot of it unwittingly. I don’t we have complains but its true, parenting shaped us much more than we anticipated.

Finally! Jispa and I went to see a movie with each other. I waited 13 years for this day. She is finally into action movies and Jasmine gets tortured watching these thaka thaki movies with no head or tail. Jispa and I went for the X Men Apocalypse yesterday. Quite a sad movie it was. My view is that 13 year old kids are happy with all the special effects and the action heroes doing all kinds of mind bending tricks but nothing can work with an absent story line. It was an ok movie but just going with Jispa for it was well worth the experience. We have stayed next to the IMAX theatre for 10 years now but finally we are enjoying the proximity. The Imax screen does allow for a lovely 3D experience with bright screens and a large format with great sound. It is quite an awesome thing to be staying next to!

When we thought of parenting we hadn’t bargained for all this. We knew it would be fun and that it would change us in a definite sort of way but we did not really know the large consequences of our small action.

This is chaos theory in full action. Chaos Theory or the butterfly effect is basically a theory that explains that small differences in the initial conditions can have large, profound impact with almost unimaginable results. I think parenting is just like that. It is chaos theory in full effect, where you can see it in full action. For Jispa’s upbringing joining Matunga Gymkhana for us was a chaos theory in action. I remember convincing Jasmine to join the Gymkhana. We had a little extra money and the memberships were available. So we joined it and for a year we did not even do much with it. But then we got to the gymkhana and did a tour of the various sports facilities and met the coaches involved. We thought she should play some sport and zeroed in on badminton as the sport she should play. The timings or something matched well. Then we thought that she also might as well learn swimming as that is a life skill. ‘She should at least learn swimming’. This small change in initial conditions changed our life in a way that we could think possible. Now we have a Mumbai champion in the house. We wake up, do our shit and learnt so much about ourselves in the process. Wow. Who would have thought.

Going to the evening aarti at haridwar was a small decision we took and it changed our views on religion in a way that impacted our thinking and possibly impacted Jispa’s religious thought forever. From an atheist mindset, who knows what leap she shall take!

Such is life. Small changes in initial conditions take on a life of their own. They bring about changes in your life that you are completely unable to think through. So why do we even bother about big decisions in our life. These big decisions are most of the time not too smart and in any case we cant really figure out the consequences of what we do. Smaller decisions, like who are friends are, what books we read, whom we talk to, what we experience and what all we want to do, shape us in many ways that we think impossible. I think the simple rule is – try something new. As long as you have exposure to multiple things you have a chance to grow from it. Exposure is the key to it. You have to keep trying in an effort for the chaos theory to take shape. You have to keep making small small initial changes to the conditions you see around you. These will have massive impacts in your life. Not having them is a real problem, because then you don’t have a chance to break through and create systems that are beneficial for you in the long run.

Reading and understanding Physics has contributed more to my understanding of Life and Marketing  than anything else. It is a beautiful science where at some basic level, the new science in physics, especially quantum physics is telling you that - you really don’t know anything for sure. It’s nothing but a chance and you have to give it enough chance to succeed. In my understanding the nuclear bomb design is also the same thing, at some level.

The theory was summarized by Edward Lorenz as: Chaos: When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future.

So there you are in simple words, the wisdom of life. Read it, understand it and know it that you don’t know anything in life!

I want to move it move it

I have written before on how I always wanted to study physics. But I ended up with commerce and accountancy. I cannot read even one book on accountancy but I keep reading books on physics. Or any science book with simple English. It makes me jump with joy to see simple mechanisms work and the ingenuity of the manufacturers. I specially love mechanics. One of the first thing I remember dismantling was my mom’s powder case. You have to wind the thing from bottom and it would produce the most beautiful tune from inside. I opened it to get to the mechanism. It has no battery and the sound so beautiful. The simplicity of mechanism had me enthralled for hours. It was basically a rotating drum with pins on it. The drum is connected to a metal comb which gets picked at when a pin of the drum passes through it. I don’t know if this makes sense to you but this diagram should help. It is truly beautiful. I might have been in fourth standard at the time.

I also loved the little carpentry that I could do around the house along with dad. Primarily consisting of banging nails and screws in the house.
Oh the choices we make and where we end up instead. Not that I regret it. I guess I might have gone crazy after taking engineering as well. I might have ended up as a engineer MBA as opposed to a commerce MBA. No great difference. In fact I might have been worse off and would have been confused seeing balance sheets. For what I am doing, I am better off.

One of the other wonders was always how on earth does a sewing machine work? While you do it with one needle and a thread with the hand, in a machine you require two threads, one from top and the other from bottom. As a kid I remember pestering mom, as to why you require two threads. I don’t think mom had too much of a scientific answer to give me. Or too much of any answer to a scientific question. I always wondered. When I saw my wife with the machine I would sit and stare, all fascinated. How does the bottom thread get through the cloth on top? Is there a needle at the bottom also? Why do you require two? How does the thread pierce through and get through the bottom to come back on top? Dam it.
While I could easily break and destroy the old powder music box, I would dare not attempt to open the sewing machine. Not as a child and definitely not even after I bought it for my wife. No way. Jasmine too had no clue how this worked.
The mystery got resolved thanks to a link my wife sent me. Here is the magical mechanism. Explained. I can stare at this gif forever as well. My god. I love the mechanism. The sheer simplicity of it fills my heart with joy. Everything beautiful must be simple. I am really feeling so nice just looking at it.
On the link there is also the Constant Velocity Joint and the “Maltese Cross mechanism, which turns smooth circular motion into segmented second-hand motion for clocks”.

Constant-velocity joints (aka homokinetic or CV joints) allow a rotating shaft to transmit power through a variable angle, at constant rotational speed, without an appreciable increase in friction or play. They are mainly used in front wheel drive and all wheel drive cars. Rear wheel drive cars with independent rear suspension typically use CV joints at the ends of the rear axle halfshafts, and increasingly use them on the propshafts.
It seems they replaced the Universal Joints in some places. The universal joints were simple but could get notchy and needed regular maintenance. It so looks like something that belonged to my dad's premier padmini car.


Pretty cool nah? I remember unlike others I could spend hours at a science exhibition or be at ease in an industrial museum. Like normal museums, even industrial museums must have an audio guide that should explain the beautiful mechanism to lay people. If you have an interesting guide then kids would love going to see things move and engines start. “NOW what would happen if I move this lever?” crank crank sputter sputter.. “Voila the ball has turned onto the opposite side, clever nah!” clap clap clap. And now we proceed onto the cantilever double axle shaft… (don’t look it up – I made that name up from all the mechanical words that sprang to mind).

But just imagine the possibilities of museums. We spend on making them and not on explaining them.

Like this blogger who went to a maritime museum and shot this. I loved the photo she clicked. Only if she knew what it did or I knew what it did and why it is in a museum?