Another weekend and another bunch of movies seen.
When you have a national level swimmer in the house,
parenting becomes a little difficult.
You Want her to do well but you also don’t want too much pressure while
she does well. For many years at home we never did have a TV and when we did,
we sure as well never had the cable TV connection. TV never did make anyone
smart. Now we have the chromecast and we watch some sporting action like a few
IPL matches, some international cricket matches and we are waiting till we get
through to the kabaddi season. That would be fun. Now that Jispa has figured
how to download, we watch a few movies as well.
I see how the TV on demand and the mobile phone is spoiling
our habits at home. Before we had time so, we went out, read books, magazines,
slept, talked etc. But now, the mobile is eating away so much of time of the
family. I absolutely positively hate it. Mobile for me evolved as medium for
office work. Hence most of the time when I am at home, I keep the mobile away.
In the middle I found myself addicted to FB. Now I kept the icon out of the
home screen and hence I hardly have anything to do on the phone. Games as well
are completely boring for me. So, my mobile usage is limited to browsing
Instagram at times, window shopping at other times and checking on my FB feed
when I post something. Since I post quite infrequently, that too is not an
issue. I understand that tech is important to be given to these kids but a
mobile phone is too much of a risk. We have given her a mobile phone and now an
always on data connection but we are always vary of how she uses it and more
importantly HOW MUCH she uses it. At first she went crazy and we lost her while
walking, while in the car, while on the bed, while eating… but we have successfully
pulled her back.
I had a chat with her. I had to explain that yes, while I
understand that she uses the mobile often and it quite a necessity, but it’s a
complete waste of your time while you are on vacation. Right now, she is
training for the Nationals. He priority is swimming, eating, resting, reading
and watching movies. Things that she can’t do the rest of the year. Watch
movies as much as you want and read. Keep the mobile off limits, don’t respond,
don’t check your whatsapp, keep the notifications off.
After a nice conversation, things seemed to have turned.
Also, while chatting with her I got her interested in a few books that I
thought might be interesting to her. I used the right words in pitching the
book. I told her these books are highly seditious literature. Seditious. What
does that mean. Look it up, I said. Sedition: conduct or speech inciting people
to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch. That’s all our young
rebel needed to get interested.
I see a streak of rebellion n her. I think she is an
independent minded individual who is prone to thinking differently and takes
pride in being different. Some of it can be blamed on us and me in particular,
but I think this is a lot of what she is possibly from inside of her. She has a
rebellious streak in her. And unlike me, she isn’t that overtly aggressive. She
has a very pleasant nature and an ability far beyond her age to see reason and
at times – the futility of an argument. But yes – a very interesting rebellious
nature and a healthy disregard for authority, or let’s say, not blindly
subservient, while remaining within the boundaries of law. But whatever, I did
play on this nature a bit and got her interested in books that question the
current state of governance as we see it. It helped that the first of such
books was a book called ‘Curfewed Nights’ by Bashrat Peer. Thanks to Jispa
learning about Hamlet, we saw the brilliant Indian Bollywood version of the
same called, Haider. This was co-written by Bashrat Peer and a lot of his experiences
while growing in Kashmir were shown in the movie. It is quite a lovely book and
an excellent insight in to the mind space of a Kashmiri growing up under the
rule of the gun. After the insurgency in Kashmir, the armed forces have
dominated the space and to grow up in your own land and be constantly under the
threat of a gun (from both sides) can be quite a bit of a stress filled
childhood. The book is an excellent read for a young kid growing up to an
understanding of the nation state and the resultant tensions that are in built
in it. It is an interesting perspective. Nest I gave her ‘Hello Bastar’, which
talks about the rise of the Naxalite movement in Bastar. Another book, where
the people feel let down and dominated by the ruling nation state and where the
people feel like subjects and not citizens. It is only recently that I realized
the difference between the concept of the subjects of the nation and the
citizens of the nation. The third in the line of books that she read in the
miniseries is Gilani’s ‘My days in Prison’. This editor of a Kashmiri newspaper
was falsely incarcerated in prison for a year or so, and the book recounts his
case and his experiences bordering from the comical to the incredulous. The
fourth in the series which she picked up but was unable to close read as it was
a little boring for her was – “Until my freedom has come: the new Intifada in
Kashmir.”
In the last 15 odd years, I have read like crazy and I have
preserved all the books in only one hope; Jispa will read it. There is also the
thing that some day I might refer to them again, but the real big reason is
simply for Jispa to read it. My hypothesis is simply that if I surround Jispa
with books at arm’s length, and good books, then she would have read enough to
expand her horizon at a younger age. Compared to her, at her age I was a dumb
piece of shit. I started reading only about 14 years ago, and she is 14 now.
But however – I am so happy that she is reading these books.
That she is expanding her horizon and that she is understanding and
appreciating these books. Many people have asked me that when you read so much
how do you remember? It’s just not possible to remember so much, or is it?
Nopes. It’s not possible to remember so much. In fact, for me, even if I remember
one small thing from every book I read, however small, just one itsy bitsy
thing, then I think I have done well. I have forgotten the names of the books I
have read and in many cases, I have forgotten the contents of the books. But
that is not the reason you read books. In the long run, I have realized that
the most important by product of reading a variety of books, especially by good
thinkers, is that you get to learn a new, better, smarter way to think. You are
not easily influenced by arguments but have understood that there is duality of
opinion and interpretation of truth. You realize that as times change, beliefs
change, people change we are influenced by many factors that beyond us. This
simple understanding of the world view helps us shape our thinking and that is
more important than anything else. A shape change in the thought puts your
brain into another orbit altogether and that is hard to measure when you are
reading books. These changes come slowly but surely. They seep into the
crevices of your cranium, helping you structure thought and conversation. This
is the invaluable effect of reading tons of books and meeting tons of people. I
am so happy that Jispa is now reading these books and not some shit fiction. I
hate fiction. I understand that a person must read some fiction, fiction that
is beautifully written. But to read mostly fiction and that too pop fiction is
disastrous. This way you not read useless stuff, but you also waste the time to
talk interact, learn and shape thought and behavior.
Possibly I am doing the wrong thing. Fiction is also by
itself lovely for people who love it. It gives meaning to them. But I can’t
help it. I see it as utter total crap, and I can only teach what I believe in.
this is what I believe in. So Jispa – I am really sorry. I don’t know what I
have possibly done. Have I treated you wrongly and possibly guided you in a
direction that wasn’t your own to discover. I really don’t know. All I know is
what I know. I know what gave me joy and what gave me happiness. Not knowing a
God gave me happiness, reading non fiction gave me happiness, playing sports
gave me happiness, spending time with family gave me happiness, hugging my
loved ones gave me happiness. I think fatherhood is all about transferring my
source of happiness to you. I also realise that it’s about allowing you to find
your own happiness. I have been accused in the past of being over bearing,
being too big a personality for your own good. While I have always protested
that I have given you freedom, I also realise that as a personality I might
have been far too big for your own good. I guess it cuts both ways. You also
get the benefit of all that I know but you probably miss out on discovering
your world on your own for now. Possibly this will last till you are 18. Then
possibly you are on your own. Possibly and hopefully you wont need my
personality or lean on me.
This blog is to serve that purpose itself. To allow you to
lean on my thoughts at your own pace. Read it when you want, sit behind and
reflect, think through. Possibly you will have kids nad you will have choices
to make yourself. Possibly you will have bad bosses and you will have to face
some music when you don’t want to. Possibly you want to read stuff and
understand stuff, more than what you already know. There are a lot of
possibilities on what you may want to do. These
blogs are a way of me being there for you at the pace you want me to.
With a family history of heart trouble, my mortality is not
lost on me. I am well aware of this. A good insurance cover, a gymkhana
membership, a home and a blog. I am content that if death stares me in the
face, I would have done most of what I could have done to ensure that you and
Jasmine are good for period in which you can set up your own lives. This is important
to me. This what I strived for all my life. Live enough to manage.
Now life is at an interesting stage. I have achieved a basic
security that can set you guys up. I have just another 3 to 4 years before you
are independent and I wonder what I will do and what Jasmine will do. Sit and
do some gardening? Some investing? Some consulting?
It’s very important for life to have some purpose. Wake up
in the morning have something purposeful to do. Right now – I am between jobs
and I haven’t been busier. I am meeting people, packing my day, doing things,
writing blogs (long ones), consulting for friends, advising and everything
else. It’s been a hectic time out if it were. Having a purpose is so important.
In fact on the other side – having a purpose has become so
important to me that even a game of badminton serves a purpose for me. A
purpose to have no purpose. As my very dear friend Sonal Shah tells me – Jaimit
– you need to relax that brain of yours. She is right. I need to.
But I cant. My brains work all the time. Even while
sleeping. While eating, while playing. They are constantly trying to decipher,
read, understand, make notes, store notes – everything.
Sometimes I feel this is just the thing that I want to pass
onto to you – an ability to constantly learn from everywhere/ everything. But
at the same time, this is what I don’t want to give you – a mind that’s never
at ease. You should get your mom’s temperament, a sense of stability along with
my analytical brain with all its chaos. This would be an amazing reconciliation
of opposites.
There is a lot to learn from your mom, you know. I learnt so
much. Of course when you grow up together there is an obvious lot of things
that both learn from each other. The biggest thing I learnt from her is to give
and to love every one. I used to call her Florence nightingale as she would go
out of her way to help someone. I wondered if that was good and that she would
be doing it my cost. But over the period of time I realized that defined who
she is and then on – it started defining who I am. Funny nah. There is a lesson
in here somewhere. What is the lesson? Sometimes you don’t need to spell it out
completely. Life is full of stories and lessons are something you drive from
them.
These blogs have a lot of lessons, but they are mine, not
yours. You have to just listen to the stories and listen to the lessons I have
learnt but the stories are clearly the more important part. Within the lessons,
the important part is how a story affected me and drove home a lesson for me.
The lesson by itself is always impossible to understand by simply listening to
someone else. That’s why you can get morals from Aesop’s fables or Panchatantra
stories but you can’t really get life lessons from there. These you get through
a few hard knocks on the head. Then the stories suddenly will have a different
meaning for you.
So that’s the reason to write this blog. The happy side
effect is clarity of my own thought, and an ability to write which I think the
blog has honed. It’s funny how meaning this blog has given me and how much joy.
Writing this is time well spent. Reading it? I have no clue. That is something
that you have to say after 20 years. Was this worth it? Did this have insights,
did this have stories, did you get entertained, did you learn something, did it
inspire you, was it useful as a pick me up? What I think, rather I hope, is
that this blog someday should be like a Holy Book of sorts. With all its varied
writing and time scale, you should be able to pick up any part of the blog at
any time and read anything, in whatever mood you are in and find some thing –
something that you are looking for or not. Its like soul food, and to the
religious its like the book to find answers. When you are searching for
something, you will see answers in everything, from the bizzare to the mundane.
This blog can possibly be that. Everything you want it to be. Now that’s own
grandiose reason to blog. What are you writing? I am writing my bible with all
idiosyncrasies and my narcissisms and my observations. I am writing my bible.
Coming to which – since I haven’t ever taught you religion –
I never found any use for it till I read a very interesting book – Connected by
Nicholas Christakis. The book started really bad and I wondered if I could ever
finish it. But I stuck around as it kept explaining what I thought to be
obvious. The book at first was simply giving scientific evidence for something
that was known to us all – th epower and the ways on how social networks
function. One interesting point he made which was my “I told you so” moment was
when he was explaining that in one study, female alcohol consumption made
everyone’s alcohol consumption go up. This is something that I have always
warned all my girlfriends against. I have argued that you must not drink with
your husbands. Both of you must never drink together. And you guys must never
ever have alcohol at home. Have simple rules like – never drink alone, never
drink together with each other (if one drinks the other stays dry) and stuff
like that. To my mind when women drink all hell breaks loose. No – not that I
am a male chauvinist or a feminist – I am simply being a pragmatist who has
seen things happen when women drink. The way society is structured is that
women hold the seat of moral authority and restraint in our society. They stop
excesses and they stop breakdown of values we want to hold dear. They hold us
to our thoughts and our own restraints. We men hold the seat of power and at
best we have whimsical restraints put on women. Hardly ever we have too many
moral constraints. We tend to get away. With more women entering the workforce
and taking the traditionally male seat, the women seat is getting vacant. No
man will ever sit there for now and the emptiness has a danger of leading to
anarchy. When women drink, men think its ok to drink more. If women drink, men
think its ok to drink everywhere and often enough. They feel it’s completely
ok. From there rises addiction and dependence, and from there rises trouble. I
have been lucky, early enough Jasmine was this constraint and I never did end
up drinking. Now I have seen enough trouble being caused by drinking and I
shudder to even touch the bottle. Keeping drinks at home creates another
catastrophe – now you signal that any day is good enough and any occasion and
lack of thereof is good enough to stay and drink. And this is the signaling you
do to your partner and more dangerously – you do to your child. I have told so
many girlfriends of mine – drink as much as you like – but think a hundred times
before you have booze at home. This is now crazy madness potential. You are now
courting trouble that can snowball out of control. But finally now I have
scientific study that says simply – “the
Framingham social network reveals that drinking behavior clusters to three
degrees of separation, as do smoking and obesity. But the flow of influence
does not pass through equally – instead, drinking appears to be greatly
influenced by women. If a woman starts drinking heavily, both her male and her
female friends are likely to follow suit. But when a man starts drinking more,
he has much less effect on either his female friends or his male buddies down at
the bar. It is not clear why this is so, but it suggests that women are the key
to the spread throughout the network, and they may therefore be the key to
successful interventions”
So, as you read – the study doesn’t give reasons. The
reasons I wrote are my own assumptions. But there is a clear case of cause and
effect. That itself was important to me in this case.
Another brilliant analysis that the book then wrote was on
the importance of religion in the social network. That if man is a social
animal then religion is a natural result of our social skills. This was a crazy
revelation for me and I never did think of it in this way.
He says – “One way to make social networks stable is
to arrange them so that everyone is connected to a node that can never be
removed” This line in itself has far deeper meaning than everything else. He
then continues “There would then be a short path from each person to every
other person through this particular node. But even the most popular person in
a society could not fill this role, since, realistically, a single individual
cannot be connected to absolutely everyone. And even if someone could be
connected , the effect on the network would not be permanent because humans are
mortal.
But considerations do
not apply to God. If God were seen as a node on a network, large groups of
people could be bound together not just by a common idea but also by a specific
social relationship to every other believer. People could perceive a specific
social tie to others, and everyone would be one degree removed from everyone
else. People who felt a connection to God would have a way of feeling connected
to others, because through God everyone is a “friend of a friend”.
He then writes – “A
key function of religion, in other words, is to stabilize social connections.
Investigations of the fundamental ways in which the mind works further support
this idea. For example, functional MRI studies show that during religious feelings
and altered states of consciousness, the parts of the brain that regulate the
sense of self in time and space actually STOP FUNCTIONING (emphasis mine). This contributes to the sensation that “all
are one” and may help us overcome a built-in rigidity in the way we perceive our
position with respect to others. In essence, the brain is fooled into believing
that social boundaries do not exist or, equivalently, that everyone is
connected to everyone else. Thus, people who would be willing to do something
to help their friends suddenly have many more friends and may be more motivated
to act on their behalf. In this way, a religious movement can bring together
disparate groups of people to achieve a common goal, from caring for the poor
to building great structures to, alas, launching war of rival groups.”
This is crazy deep stuff. But so obvious in hindsight. It
shows that no book is wasted. Stay in there, be invested, you never know what
you get. Religion is a natural consequence of social fabric and a need (basic,
primal and genetic) of human. In other words, we are hardwired for religion and
God. That’s why we personify him, give him emotions and thought and hence
connect with us all as easily as possible. Now everyone in a given religion, is
imply one friend away from each other. In democracy, this God is the
constitution that everyone swears allegiance to. And the world – possibly it is
the common world trade agreement that we sign off on. Now everyone within a
trade agreement is simply connected to each other by one step. Leading to
greater prosperity, greater harmony, greater peace. No two nations entrenched
in trade go to war. Wow this is a crazy a-ha moment. Now religion for me has
moved from a blind useless structure designed to subdue, control and restrict
to a form of a need that enables harmony, common agreements and connections,
leading to greater prosperity for all. Wow. Wow. Wow. The more we agree to the
book of common law and common rules for trade and prosperity the less will be the
impact of The Lord!
This is crazy Aha.
Not that I am turning religious – but it now gives me
meaning to understand other people’s religious dispositions. And not arrogantly
blame them or judge them for being religious, after all, they only have their
genes to blame. So now by cutting religion from my life and from Jispa’s life
as well, we have possibly robbed a strong pool of connections from which to
leverage out of. But it isn’t so easy. Once a Jain, always a Jain. You cant get
yourself extricated from this that easily. So, in effect she now has two pools,
the Jains and the atheists, and with some convenient jugglery – Hindu. But what
a revelation this book has been in this one sense. That’s the great thing about
reading so many books, disparate books, different topics and different issues.
Read Jispa read. That is what makes me alive. And you – you also
have the gift of being able to listen to music. Music refused to be listened to
by me. It never did give me any great meaning. You now have audio, video and
written word. Hey – that’s an awesome thing going for you. Now, seriously, now I
am jealous. Your parents turned out pretty decent after all, at least so far,
well… in some respects, largely, hopefully, probably…assumedly, ok fine… we
will wait and see.
Last update – the book that she is reading now is ‘behind the
beautiful forever by Kathrine Boo. This is also of a bit seditious book… evil
snigger.
