brain wash?

This weekend Jispa went for a birthday party. It wasn't actually a party. Just a get together of close friends for some time out. Most of the time, when these girls get together, we parents wonder what they do behind closed doors. The door has to be closed with them in a room, when they are having a ‘party’. Whenever any adult opens the door, the only thing they see is that the girls are on mobile phones. Either they are together on one or they are on their own individual ones - but the point remains the same. They come together only to be in their own world. the parents go nuts on this.

I am beginning to understand this as a reality and that this will happen. There is no force as stronger than the mobile screen with an internet connection. This will rule and the kids will move in that direction. I wonder when we mean irritating parents will give Jispa a mobile phone. Currently at these parties she takes the iPod and does her thing on it. My individual opinion is that it must be allowed and how long can we really resist it. Soon we will lose sight of our daughters face and we will only recognize it by the mobile cover, whose back we will see at all times.

So yesterday, Jasmine at the dinner table remarked “yesterday, Jispa went for a birthday party. She did not have a gift or a greeting card or anything in her hand. She just went on her own”. I looked like i couldn't care less. I think parties and birthday greetings are a complete waste of everything! “then Jispa said” Jasmine continued “that she will post something to her on her birthday”. I was like fat chance. Jispa was not going to post any greeting card or anything. I am sure there is no way Jispa will mail a card to her friend or write a letter/ greeting. Then Jasmine and Jispa looked at me. POST does not mean POST as I understood it. Jispa would “POST” something on the Instagram feed! WTF. POST. I feel like a complete loser. Whats the point being a marketing head who claim to fame is digital integration, if he does not even understand what ‘POST’ signify. Sees.

Then then conversation soon moved to something else and Jispa was talking about what a ‘taaweez’ was. She said that basically its a prayer that you write and wear it on your body. Yes, muslims have this tradition of wearing a taaweez. I had seen a student of mine wear one around her hand. I think, I am not sure, but its a sufi kind of thing. Even non muslims wear this. then she asked even if ‘raksha potlis” have a prayer. Rakshapotlis are the jain version of the taaweez. They are red threads along which a little red cloth is tied. I never did know what they contained. Jispa asked if its a prayer. I said, for sure its not… I have opened one and it doesn't contain a prayer for sure. Its just little red cloth tied on a red string.

A quick online search tells me that it contains some holy ash (i didn't know jains had special reverence for fire) and that is put along with special chanting of prayers to the red cloth and then made into a rakshapotli. 

The I told her that as a kid, i really believed in the power of a rakhsapotli. I thought it would protect me and save me from a lot of things. I thought that it held special powers and that God would be on my side. She looked at me and remarked “you were such a brainwashed kid, weren't you”. Jasmine and me practically choked on our food. “Jispa you have no clue. We have purposely not taught you religion else you would have been brain washed ourselves. Its lucky for you that we have unwashed our head from all this brain wash.” Jispa disagreed. She said most of her friends in class are non believers and don’t believe in all this. I don't think the number is as high as 50%, but i grant her that. When i bought about he remark, I guess it possibly is true.  A lot more would be non believers today than what would have been when i was younger. Possibly today life is mare more practical and scientific. Slowly as we see economies growing and people getting educated with science and math, practicalities and scientific temper should pave the way for a less religion society. Its possibly a natural evolution. First as you are poor, you are too poor for religion. Then you are poor enough to understand religion and that some mystery will guide you. Then you become richer and you keep your kids rooted to religion and then as kids take their life’s predictability for granted they slowly understand that religion was not responsible for it and slowly - this mix of science and predictability brings about a non belief. So economic status brings about predictable life, which brings about change in belief. Thats one theory I guess.

So yes, we were brain washed as kids. I did believe in divinity and that it could help me someday over come the power of the forces around me. It took enough of shit and set back to understand that you are responsible for your own shit creek. The more you look inside of you, the better it will be for you. God may be an external force to focus upon and rely upon to make sense of a world . Fatalistic behavior may help you reconcile with your externalities but I don't think divinity helps. You decide your own path, your own morals and your own lines and boundaries. Hopefully you don't harm too many people along the way. As long as you only kill dogmas you should be good!

yo!

just as an aside - here is one trailer that we saw and now Jispa and us want to see the movie 

I love the trailer - with the voice of Kaa being the lead voice of the trailer. Wow… I am queuing up for this one.

Its a nice thing that Jispa like the super hero movies, like Avengers and X man. With new scripts and amazing special effects these are movies worth waiting for and watching on the big screen!

Finally!

one way street

It’s a vortex that you are going to be sucked under. Power and politics is normally a one way street. You just can get out. The only way is to constantly try and push yourself up.  Entering is not necessarily a bad thing.  In fact we need to enter and make a change if we want to see the change. There is no point sitting on the sidelines and waiting for things to move in the right direction. Let’s take the example of the building society. A lot of stupid things happen, but you can’t really crib about it as when it comes for elections and meetings, you just don’t have the time or are willing to make time for it. Plus who really wants the additional responsibility that you take on for no real consideration, especially if you are a honest man.

At the Gymkhana I had no choice. Too many idiots were harassing the swimmers who were training. Change the timing, call them earlier (earlier than 5.45 am), restrict the batches, change the  coach. It was time to step up. And now I am a part of the committee and being a part of the change I want to see. A lot has improved. Water testing, monitoring the chemicals, life guard duty etc. Now, while we are the part of the swimming committee we face issues with the general committee and in the next elections we see no option but get involved at that level. I don’t want to do that. But the risk of idiots coming on top must be mitigated.

Power is one way street. Now that things are working fine, you want them to work fine. You want good things to continue. I think what motivates everybody is the fact that when you are in power three people  look at you greet you. The power you have over people down the line is really not that easy to let go of. It definitely corrupts. You will get and take some additional privileges and that are difficult to let go of. I try my best to ensure that none of this goes into my head.

In office I see more eyes on me than ever. The older I got the more adulation I got. Balls to it. It is a clear case of power shining through the backside. But how do I get it off from my head. How can I refuse it. I sit out of my cabin for a lot of the time. I can keep the door open, I can do a lot but the fact is that I can do all that because I have it. I can sit outside the cabin because I have the cabin. If I did not have the cabin to start with, what would I have sat out of?

Many years ago I worked at a construction company called Hiranandani. I was part of the upcoming projects of the daughter of the patriarch. I had got the manager’s cubicle. As the core team relating to sales increased I was asked to vacate and move into the smaller worker cubicle. I remember not liking it at all. I made a brave face but it hurt. At that time I vowed never to be bothered by the size of the cube or the status associated with it. Now that I have one, what do I do about it? I can’t get used to not having one when I have one.  

All this is a one way street. I am reminded of the movie Naam. Here the villain Paresh Rawal tempts a crestfallen Sanjay Dutt into the world of drugs and crime. He explains to him – this is a one way street. You can come in but you can’t get out.

I forget where the street comes in but here is one part where the temptation begins and Paresh Rawal brilliants explains – here you can get everything you want but …an exit. And then he laughs. Check it out. It’s in the first two three minutes itself

In this part go to around 12 minutes – he again explains that this is a one way street…

And here is the part where our hero gives it back to the villain when he shows the one way street back to the boss. Go to the 8 minute mark.

On that morose note…

It’s not that bad. I think the challenge is to remain level headed and calm when you have tail wind. You realize that it’s the tail wind that causing the speed. There is no real harm in enjoying it too much. You just need to get a reality check from time to time. You keep reminding yourself of the tail wind and somehow try and step aside on the one way street. To keep the parable running – the one way street doesn't allow a U turn but it surely allows you to step on one side and park. Wait quietly and try not to reach anywhere faster than others. Who says it’s important to go to the other side or lead. Stay in there. Knowing the flow of the street is also a valuable experience that you pass on to other travelers.

On the last line – a poem got triggered in my mind. It’s not exactly in context but I like this one. There is a story behind it – but that is for another day

The Bridge Builder

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."

Its the chair

Its really quite funny. The head of marketing in a 250 man company is different from the head of marketing in a 4,500 man company. I have been head of marketing for a long time now. The roles kept expanding and now in my current division which has around 4,500 employees, I am the head of a department. And here I am being made to feel like one. If you have read some of the old blogs you would know that here I have a largish cabin to sit in. I think the visibility that it gives others about me is something very very different. Like I was telling someone, this can get to your head. It can bloat your already expanded  ego. It takes effort to be level headed. Simple stuff can be seen. People look with some amazement that I drive only a hatchback. Now that can mean two things, either I am a really simple humble guy or I am a stingy miser. I guess I must be getting equal measure of both. The other day, I did not get my car. I was about to catch a taxi to go home, when I saw a colleague of mine leaving at the same time. So I offered him a lift. He pointed to the company bus which takes people back to the train station in the evening from the office. Ok, what the hell, let me hop on to it today. The station is on the way home. I was the last one in climbing the bus while it left. As soon I boarded it, I felt a silence. For a few seconds all eyes were on me and the bus fell quite. The receptionist who was sitting at the front, looked at me and remarked “sir, the first time some senior person like you has come on our bus”. I just smiled, shrugged and walked on. Two three remarks “you, sir, are in this bus?”. “err, ya”. I just took the seat at the end and felt like a Chinese doll at an exhibition.

I must be the only hatch back to be given a designated parking slot in the company. For an overcrowded place like Mumbai, I must have really achieved in life to get this slot. So when I once got my sedan, which normally Jasmine uses to office, the watch man loved it and even remarked “Sir, nice, this car is good. It suits you”. I could only smile back in response.

I think we humans area  show off society. We like segregation. We like us and them. We like to show off our feathers and mane and other forms of success.

All this can get to you if you are not careful. In one of my earlier avatar, I was easily one of the most powerful people in the mutual fund industry in India. It was because of a default. My business head who was really the most powerful man (because his decisions could swing the future of the fund houses) would refuse to meet any one from the industry. SO the only way to him was to convince me and everyone in the industry would meet me. The same guys would get their CEO’s as well as their fund managers to meet me and try their best to talk to me. I would have meetings lined up, one after the other meeting these guys. It was tough but I think I never managed to get heady. My immediate boss Prakash Dalal and my colleague Suman who taught me about the industry, always maintained a level head and I , I think, followed in their footsteps. So I tried to remain level headed. I always maintained, that they are not here to meet me or respect me. They are here to meet and respect the chair I have, I sit on and that is not mine. It belongs to the company and I am nothing compared to it. This attitude kept me level then and it keeps me level now. When the bust followed the boom and slowly that job lost its importance, fewer and fewer people came to meet me. Slowly the role got swept into oblivion and I moved on. I was right. They only wanted to meet the chair.

Sure enough I must have gained some respect. I treated people right. I never kept them waiting and I tried to be honest with them. At the same time, I was a tough negotiator and I extracted every penny till the very end. They probably realized that as well. I have many acquaintances from that period but almost no friends. A sales guy who has come to pitch to you is not likely to be friends with you for life. He is focused on the job and his smile, manners, discussion is focused. I don’t think he has the time or the inclination to court you beyond his scope of work.

I have had friends from my marketing side of my work. Agencies, vendors etc. Some people for whom immediate sale was not the priority. Slow happy relations that translate into sales, perhaps.

So here I am sitting on my chair with hope that I never lose sight of it. I should never ever think that this is my ass doing things. The sun doesn’t shine off my ass. It shines off my chair and that my ass is on it is just a coincidence. It fools most people. They think it’s their ass. But no, believe me, it’s almost always the chair.  

Thats my chair.i have given up on the normal office chairs with wheels and reclining back support after facing severe lower back pain. I love my chair and i am thankfull to my earlier division that allowed me to bring this chair along with me when I moved. Thanks Agnel, you are an angel.

power here power there - part 2

That’s the right song to start this second part of the power blog. Nopes, it’s the blog that is powerful but the blog is about power. Seesh. Bad comment.
Why this song? I guess this is the perfect aggression anger anthem. It’s got an expletive at the heart of the chorus, repeating itself again and again. I couldn’t help shouting my throat hoarse while I was listening to this song in the car. Just a few days back I met a respondent in my research in a southern city. A decent corporate sweet guy. He took us out for a coffee in his car and played this song loud. He apologised but said he couldn’t help but like this song. This is the aggression anthem. It is telling the world to go screw yourself. What is it about rock music that is a so dam bloody aggressive release? Is it the screaming, the straining of the guitar strings, the tempo, what? But it does feel like an aggression release. I also think the bhag bhag bhag (run run run) in the song contributes to the effect. The trader we met was an aggressive investor and like all aggressive investors, sitting on a net loss.
Aggression. It never helps. It probably helped man survive and grow from a roaming Neanderthal to a stable farmer and progress as a species. The problem is that these aggressive genes are impossible to control when you are younger. Your brain starts working for the first time in a manner that you think is logical. You see the gross injustice being meted out to you or probably to others. Your natural empathy and reaction takes over and you want to do something. Your brain is not well developed to handle the overflow of emotion and your willingness to do good and pop, aggression becomes physical. You use what you are best at, using your arms and legs.
Also when you are growing up simple things attract you. I always wanted to join the army and ‘serve the nation’. I guess today I believe nation can be better served in many other ways. But why would I want to join the army? I guess there is a simple explanation that I have to offer. It was the uniform and the machinery they have at their disposal. I wanted to join the tank unit. It guess it is no better than the young boy who wants to be an engine driver as the guys seems to be in charge of a large big engine or a fire fighter in charge of a large big red bus. It’s important for the bus to be large big and red. I think the best recruitment drive for the army would be to have these army barracks in the middle of the city which don’t have walls. There they should be doing military drills in shiny uniforms and they have these big tanks roaming around for young kids to touch feel and dream. In the good old days I guess sexy equipment and smart uniforms were only available with the army and hence the young impressionable minds would be inspired by them. Now the sexy equipment is the iphones and the blackberrys and the laptops and the music players and the …. You get the point. And they all wear the uniform to work. They wear their suits and ties and the formals and go to work. Jispa notices when I wear a suit and leave office. She looks at me and wonders something. I guess she is making an impression in her mind. A positive impression I think. These are critical cues that get formed in an impressionable mind. I wanted to join the army and I ended up being firm on it when I got a chance to visit the national defence academy at Khadakvasla while I was around in the fourth or fifth standard.
Two can play the same impression game. Both the books, which I mentioned in the earlier blog (Curfewed Night as well as Hello Bastar) talk about impressionable kids being drawn to the rebel cause. There are mentions of the locals seeing these rebels flashing guns and in uniforms moving with a purpose. It is enough for them to want to enlist with the cause. And I guess that most of these young kids don’t even know what they are really fighting for or don’t really care about it. They just are swayed by the system and they are then drawn into the quagmire in which they possibly perish or possibly grow old and have no other option but to be a continuous part of it.
I think that’s the case even for most of the other rebels from the city. The young aggression which wanes in a few years gives rise to power dependency and these guys might just stay on for their thirst for power. What else will a 30 year old do if he has spent the last 15 years fighting ‘the force’. He has no skills else but the cause and the reason he fights. And then the power game starts. His interest is clearly in maintaining his power equation. He has to survive and this is the only way he can.
While we attract the best talent in office and other places, it is important that we realised that what attracts them here in the first place is not the reason why they should stay on. Dreams change, people change, and if we are able to constantly upgrade skill sets these people will also move with us. But if we let them remain there, forget to upgrade them, worry that if we do upgrade them; they will run away; then they end up being power brokers. They will cling onto their existing equations and become satraps in their own rights, ruling over their dominions. They will naturally be threatened by their status quo and would protect fiercely. The problem when they not only protect fiercely but when they start proactively attacking other dominions in anticipation of their attack. There is a reason why as you grow older and higher in an organisation the attacks increase gets more vicious. It’s a proactive attack by someone who is not increasing his dominion but protecting it.
If we constantly improve these skills the person knows that he can get hired elsewhere, he knows that his status quo is constantly changing; he is busy using his brains productively. He knows he has an option other than where he is present. This option in his mind will free him from his inward circle of control.
Big rebel leaders know that violence is pretty much useless and it will annihilate the very class it seeks to protect. But the wisdom comes after ten years of sloganeering. He can now not eat his ego and say this can’t work. You have to work with the system to change it. You must embrace peace. It is possible to work from inside and given the effort these guys tackle in recruiting friends and putting implants, I can’t believe it’s not possible to do peacefully. Without being the enemy of the people you seek to protect.
Sigh… too much gyan for someone who is basically an arm chair critic. I haven’t been to the jungles and I haven’t been inside their homes, huts and existence. All I know is that they don’t deserve ot die like this and have their livelihood snatched away. Both sides are guilty. The rebel is as much the culprit as the oppressor.
No one is bad to start with; it’s when the situation leads you to become power hungry, when you want to maintain what you earlier stood by, when your ego does not let you admit; that is when the rot sets in. it is easy for me to say all this and extremely difficult for me to understand and see it happen and stop. It needs an amazing ability to constantly see yourself from a few feet away, and ask yourself – what, why where? Are you sure?
Too much philosophy is definitely not the core of my blog and most I know simply get bored by it and move on from my blog. I try and stop writing once I exceed one page – but this blog is not meant for these people. It is meant for me as a father. It is meant for Jispa to once read and understand if something hits her.
Jispa I hope I didn’t bore you too much. You are a sweet imaginative and sensitive kid. I hope you face your share of shit and grow stronger for it. I can’t make you a good or a bad person. But I hope after you read this, you will realise what my belief of a good or a bad thing is. Or if shit hits you and if I am not around, you know what I thought of the shit hitting me. And I sure hope you find your own answers. Your own answers.

power here power there

What’s better than one good book? Simple – two good books. And when they seem to complement each other I truly enjoy the experience. While many times you get to read books that complement each other, very rarely do you get the chance to read them in quick succession. I was lucky recently.
I normally don’t pick Indian non-fiction, but I was lucky to pick two books by Indian authors discussing home grown Indian union issues. One was Curfewed Night by Basharat peer and the other was Hello, Bastar by Rahul Pandita. The first book is about Kashmir and the second is about the Moaist / Naxal movement in India.
I have learnt over many years that India is not the ideal democracy that we grew up believing it to be. The newspapers and the media are not really interested in showing any real side of the truth. The closest I seemed to have gotten to the truth has been thanks to the Tehelka magazine.
These two books, despite all their flaws in writing style are interesting in the fact that according to me they are courageously trying to unmask the government. There is a clear idea of two Indias. One is the urban shining India and the other is the rural India untouched by the growth and modernisation. These books are revealing that there is a third India, the oppressed, raped and pushed under the carpet India. This is the place where the government not only does not care but is actively involved in oppressing and raping its own populace.
When I was much younger I always wanted to join the army. The notion of patriotism had been drilled into my head. Not that it required much drilling by external parties. I managed to drill that into my own head by own will. I wanted to pick up arms and serve the country. That was dream that lasted till very late. Only tons of reading and understanding real stuff later made me realise the false bloated notion of the nation. I refuse to now honour and respect these man made lines.
As regards Kashmir, my first experience with it was as a child with parents visiting the paradise on earth. I don’t remember it being particularly beautiful as much I remember it being arrogant. A people who knew that the world wanted to see them. I then saw it as an adult in the year 2003, and I saw no progress in the intervening 20 years. I saw people shattered, their egos broken, the desperation writ large in their eyes. While I was able to put the two together, only after reading Basharat peer was I able to live the horrors of the people of Kashmir. We could naively say that Kashmir has only itself to blame but the atrocities of the Indian forces and the rape by the powers that be, have also massively contributed to it. While there might have been a fire we managed to really add fuel to it.
Jump to the Naxalite movement in India and you realise that it is nothing but a rebellion against the state that is busy pillaging our resources at the expense of the tribal livelihood. Oh god. It’s horrific on how we manage to do it.
These are also case studies on power. While its clear that for those oppressed the state is the culprit and for those in the comfort of modern air-conditioning the rebels are to blame, to my mind both are completely totalitarian regimes corrupted by power. It is both that extract their meat from the populace. The rebels who pick the gun are reluctant to drop when they realise the power they wield. Power corrupts and is an addiction like no other. And it works at all levels. Even I look at the grass root, as a father the power I wield corrupts my thinking. Sometimes Jispa get the unnecessary brunt of rage which is nothing but a power equation. Surely I think I do it far less (I think, I hope) that what I might have faced; but hand on heart, the power is what manifests on my child.
This power equation is crazy and it is this that makes us cling on to our status quo. We are afraid of change, we forget the reason and the power itself becomes the motive. Like the book on social entrepreneurs I was reading, one do gooder realised that he could not go into get into Maoist bastions and uplift the people. The Maoists have a vested interest in keep the area underdeveloped.
I see this in offices as well. I see too many bosses having a vested interests in keeping their employees only happy enough. How much should I pay him, for him not to go? WTF? They actively supress any learnings and actively ensure stagnancy. As growth inevitably is followed by demands and market forces that put a price on the persons head which the organisation does not want to pay. Why should it? Why should I develop a person only to lose him or her? I have only in the past learnt one thing. Keep pushing the person to grow and learn. The bigger he gets the more the space he pushes around him. The wider his span of vision gets. This only benefits the organistaion, and if he leaves, be happy that he has created a big enough void, so that the new person will have to first fill that void and then try to do some more. I don’t know why the organistaions can’t see this, why the bosses can’t see this, why we can’t this?
Power lies in letting go. Yet we hold on. I so want to let go. I will try at every opportunity but dam it. I don’t see it. I only see it in hindsight. Dam.

power

Yesterday I experienced a complete power moment. Wowie. Jispa’s school had some problems in getting the ICSC certification and the parents have met a few times, between themselves and with the management to sort this out. Now most of the time this nonsense degenerates in to confusion and no consensus is ever built, with rarely any go aheads. Very few have the power of voice to silence everyone and the ability to build consensus. I have managed to get the group on previous occasions to move ahead and take steps of action and common sense. This time the meeting was at 6 and I was late due to office shit. I entered at around 7.30 pm. I walked in and walked a few steps.. and…suddenly there was a murmur in the crowd. Heads turning and looking at me with a sigh of relief, heads nodding my presence, welcoming me, urging me almost to take charge of the situation. Mothers telling, come on, we needed you. Almost as if energy flew from me. Hahahahah! That was easily one of the biggest power moments in my life. Ajsmine who was there from before also felt it. Around 80 people and huge impact by merely walking in. I realized after the meeting was over that this was due to the fact no one was able to build action points and take charge. People, people, people… get them together and they lose all common sense. But thank god, I have enough sense to not let it get to my head too much. A little heady is ok, but no inflated egos. I have always maintained that your biggest strength is going to be your biggest weakness. And this is due to you using your strength one time too many. Conserving strength is the surest way to strengthen it! What say?

These days I am working on the travelogue and it making it difficult to write daily. Lets see. Its turning out to something I personally like. Complete self trip.