what we align to

Religion is always an interesting subject. I have had a lot of time to think about this. It is a contentious topic. And if you have followed the blog in past years you would have realized that I have recently turned a complete atheist. But it difficult for me to completely be a 100% atheist as I grew up fairly religious and I can’t say that I have had a life untested by faith. Jispa is unique in that way is that she is going to grow up untested till she decides from her own free will to test faith.

By questioning religion openly I am sure I will rub a lot of people the wrong way. It is not the right thing to do in parties, conversations and discussions. People see atheists as anarchists that are dangerous. If you add the ability to have a cool well thought of and articulate debate to this, you have a really potent and combustible mixture. In India for sure, we don’t have this ability in a lot of people. We see faith as omnipresent and absence of which as unhuman. And if I don’t see you as human, possibly then the rights of mankind don’t apply in dealing with you and hence… I know, this is dramatic but this is in many ways a reaction that is immediate and predictable (predictably irrational) and is something I have seen again and again. But I can understand this. Religion is much more to others than what I see it for.

Ever since I have started questioning my faith, I have started questioning (or pondering about) the need for faith. It’s easy to say that faith is a useless emotion that pervades the mind of the weak. Even if I take that stand it is not correct for me to think of the same for people who have started religion. There is knowledge, philosophy and life lessons in religion. That cannot be discounted. Those who have founded religions or even set the path for propagating it are extremely intelligent and enlightened beings. Some who benefit from it are also smart and extremely manipulative people. So it is not a kingdom of foolishness founded by fools. There is some truth and merit in the institution of religion which must be seen and the surface scratched to gleam some insight.

After much thought I have come to this world view for now - Religion in my view now is not about God and his ability to run you but is about the ability for civil society to organize itself around a set of shared values. Wow that sounds pretty deep. Even I am impressed by own analysis. I think a lot of intellectuals in the past tried their hand at creating a civil society. They must have realized that society can only work in harmony if there are a bunch of rules coded that everyone follows. Rules can be enforced to a limit. There are so many invisible rules that work as a general understanding as opposed to an enforced by rule of law. Being kind and benevolent can only be a general understanding not enforced by law.

SO the elder would have figured that this order to be maintained has to be in a manner that is ingrained from birth. A simple set of guidelines duly imbibed in the population. These guidelines have be met even when no one is looking or in a situation where no one can prove ones act of moral departure. These rules can work only when they are enforced by a centrail all knowing allpowerful, omnipresent authority – GOD. He who can see all that no one can, he who instills fear into your hearts when you do wrong, he who has the power to forgive you or the power over your destiny. It can only be enforced by HIM. That’s why even forms of religion that don’t really have a central God, like Jainism or Buddhism, the central characters are given the status of Gods opposed to what they really are – enlightened humans who have searched and found truth for living harmoniously.

We take them and start praying to them as opposed to following their path and teachings and looking inward. We are scared of what is not known to us and hence we pray for a force to redeem us. Much like eth small pox goddess which was in favor till we found and eliminated the virus. Religion I think was therefore invented to create a moral fabric that binds people even when they are dark to everyone around. This moral fabric is important for civil society to function properly. It allows for people to trust each other – you often see people helping other people of a similar cast / religion etc. People may not donate normally but are happy to give copious sums of money for religious reasons.

So religion is important, or should I say was important when it started. It created a set of shared values and an ecosystem that was necessary for trust and society to flourish. It created a culture. In today’s day and age, is it required? Can democracy, a vibrant media, an era of information sharing, do we need religion? I don’t know. If we realize that society requires people to be together, celebrate together. Play together, would we need religion? Corporate houses don’t require religion o bind and hence they create a culture and they have various events around which the employees congregate and share their lives. These shared lives are a type of religion. Only difference is that in religion you are born into it and you can really get out. The others are indoctrinated into it and then it becomes a cult.

But why am I talking this religious mumbo jumbo? Over the last weekend we went to this place near Ahmednagar called Meherabad. My brother and his wife are believers and have a couple of bunglows there and spend a lot of time there. I am ok with that except when it comes to going to the Samidhi and the taking into many teachings from there. Nothing I saw there as Meher baba’s teachings are something that I can find fault with. It seemed to be simple and straight forward and it seemed to foster brotherhood. But I saw people believing in him as an avatar (he called himself that as well, I am led to believe). It made no sense to me as if I don’t believe in God then his avatar seems even more ridiculous. We quietly ignored that bit. As a family they took us to the Samadhi and we just went along. I was too polite to get in to acts of rebellion or debate. We played along. We went to the Samadhi (I think where his last rites were held) and folded hands.

I had a chance to talk to Jispa there as well. She too was polite. She and I looked at each other knowing, we don’t believe and that we don’t really approve of this. I was telling her that she is lucky to have a life untested by faith and that is something I can never have.

I often wonder if religion is a necessity that I have deprived a child of or have I given her something greater. The ability to choose to have a moral principle or like I tell anyone – I don’t discuss morals with anyone. I don’t want to create, impose or advise people to have moral principles. You have your own, I have my own. They are personal. Just because I am Jain does not mean I will not eat onions. My reasons to be vegetarian are not because of my religion but choice. Same is for anyone around me. I rather focus on logic and the ability to live harmoniously for everyone’s benefit and whatever it takes for it is good. This too is selfish as a set of shared principles are good for the society at large.

That’s why I was telling that I am happy that festivals are celebrated in the building. It creates a common code for meeting and binding people. It’s like a cricket match as well. Same principles ally.  That’s why politicians promote sport and so do corporates. Bind over shared systems. In a hyper connected environment millions of loose connections will replace strongly held connections like religions or family ties. Religions will find themselves out of favor soon enough in any case. It will be interesting to see their reduction of preeminence. It will be replaced by loyalties to cities (sport teams in leagues – see), nations, hobbies (photography, dancing, exercise) and stuff like that.

The faster we see this the better it will be for us, after all a binding that is fun and chosen into as opposed to be born into will always be better and more connected. A well-crafted secular constitution with broad set of rules and leaves everything else to imagination will replace religious texts for framing our behavioral paradigms. This is my vison for the future but of course, it will have to fight a history of religion, hatred, brotherhood, family ties etc. So all the sporting leagues that use cities as a base are actually slowly denting the strangle hold of religion and giving people greater causes to bind themselves with. For the hell of me, I have never understood why we want to watch the matches of the cities we live in and support – we should be watching the sport for the love of it. But then….

the old will inherit the earth

There is so much to learn from everyone and everything. A few years ago when the founder of the bank I worked in, was given a kabaddi team to own and manage, he turned to the marketing head and he in turn, turned to me. I jumped at the opportunity. I had in my team a marketing resource who was ready to work on it with me. Later on, I migrated him full time into the team and now is the CEO of the team. Yesterday when I met him at the match venue, it was amazing to see him grow into an independent manager and he had managed through the force of his strong will and extremely amiable personality to run the fortunes of the team around. While being a part of this team’s journey and process, I too learnt a lot about the complex business of sports and the even more complex business of talent management.

When the coach and the captain are at cross roads who do you back? The answer is not so easy. When you have to choose one, who do you choose? The Indian cricket team was at this dilemma some time back. They had a captain who was young, aggressive and energetic. A player who might finish as one the greatest ever and a team who was moving into a brand of aggressive cricket, not seen by Indians before. This cricketer, Virat was given a free hand and he set upon destroying and rebuilding the team in his aggressive mould. He was the first captain we saw in a long time who decided to play 5 bowlers in a test match. This is serious aggression. The norm was to go in with 4 bowlers so that you can pack an extra batsman. Batsman typically help you consolidate your match while a bowler is what you go for when you want to force the game. Batsman react and defend and then wear down the opposition to win you the match. A bowler in a test match plots to get the batsman out and win the match. Bowlers are the artillery and batsmen are the moat for a test match.

Then news filtered out from the dressing room that the captain was not getting along with the coach. The coach was Anil Kumble, possibly one of the greatest players of the game. He was not too long ago an aggressive leg spinner with a different bowling style and was India’s go to man in any match situation. Leg spinners are an aggressive wily breed. They have deception, flight and variation; plus they love getting hit. The more a legspinner gets hit the more he loves it as that increases the chances of getting wickets. Also Anil Kumble for the first Indian test captain to start giving it back to the Aussies real hard and in Australia. He took on a side that was being built in the aggressive mold by Ganguly and then pushed it over before turning it to his successor. He added discipline, team work and aggression to the team.

Then immovable object met unstoppable force. When Virat and Kumble sparred, the board was forced to choose. They choose Virat. Kumble was asked to leave and another ex indian captain, known to leave a lot to the captain was taken in by the team. Which is the mot question. Who is the boss? Is it the coach or is it the captain. Cricket is different from football. In football, its not that important to have a great inspirational captain. You cant really control the pace of the game and strategize while at play. You practice set pieces and then the team executes them on the field. Cricket is almost all captain. The captain makes a decision every ball. He has the ability to set the field, make bowling changes and give instructions to the bowler every ball. He can decide to force the pace of the game or slow it down. He controls the batting order and keeps the strategy flowing. A captain is integral to the team and the coach has limited role to play while the match is in flow.

Kabaddi is also a bit of that. Every raid or defense, the captain controls the team on the mat. My kabbadi team is in a similar dilemma. We have had our share of captains and coaches. The moot question is facing us right now. Who is the boss? The captain or the coach. Who is the boss? We face this dilemma in office as well. It’s the work ethic versus the personality ethic question. Who is right?

The role of the star player is to perform but within the strategy of the coach. In kabaddi the coach very clearly told the star captain – don’t attempt the bonus against the corners, there are ankle specialists there. The captain promptly went and did just that and got out – twice. So now what happens? Who gets the boot? The coach or the star.

There is no easy answer to this. I have my answers but I also know in my heart that they are not so black and white, and definitely not easy. It comes from a perspective of the immediate ambition or long term health. My answer is easy – you have to know what the system that you are trying to create. To me the right answer is that the coach is the absolute total authority and that he manages the team and the strategies and that he is the right person in such situations. I have always believed that process over personality in the long run. But that also means that I have by definition removed the personality from flourishing. That is a serious mistake to make. If you remove the personality then all you get is clones who are designed to simply follow orders and commit themselves to the process. This is the start of the bureaucracy. Look at me. I want the process for everyone but I want personality for myself. Such a two faced ass I turned out to be. Personalities are important as they take society forward, they take companies forward, they break norms and they challenge status quo. But Process is important it brings predictability to the process and they have the ability to give consistent results. The theoretical answer to this that the coach’s job is to put in a process that people follow but also allow personalities to emerge and flourish.

There, so easily said. But so difficult to follow through. In fact I think it’s impossible to do it. The problem is this is so easy and apparent in hindsight. Hindsight. It is impossible to see it coming when you are leading the pack in a certain direction. This is the bleeding edge of leadership and team dynamics. How to allow mavericks to perform within bureaucracy – consistently. Now that I look at myself, I don’t understand what I am. I am a personality and a process guy all rolled into one. I want process but I also know that personalities exist and for a good reason. For myself, I allow my personality to flourish and manifest in various situations at various points of time. But at the same time I firmly believe in the power of process to make things work. The ability to constantly follow a norm and a pattern so as to get the efficiencies of scale and predictability. The plan must work. Like a bowler who consistently bowls a nagging line outside the off stump to irritate the batsman more than getting him out. Or a batsman – like me who was not so good in the A team but played a 45 over match. Here we scored heavily in the 20 over but lost wickets and I got my batting as the 8^th or 9^th batsman in the 22^nd over. I batted like a joker and refused to play any shots as my job at that time was simple – bat out the 45 overs and tire and frustrate the opposition. That’s process and personality for you. I made the process of shutting out the game and not playing my natural style for 23 overs my personality. Process over personality.

This is one of the yo yo issues. As I said before, the cop out is to say – know when to use what. Or even better – the process must allow for mavericks to be within the process and shine. All this is easy consultant speak and impossible practical implementation. Managing people is an art and science at the same time. That’s why at different times, different people emerge as ideal leaders. Some do well in a crisis and some do well in peace. The trick is in understanding one from the other. Not in selecting one from the other – just a simple understanding. Because no matter what you select the odds of selecting eth right one is like tossing a coin. You have no real clue on what is really going to work. In hindsight it all comes out insightful and there are learnings to take on board. Going in – it’s impossible to know what to do.

Yet the belief for me is – process still counts. Push for process as without it you are doomed to fail. You cannot scale and you cannot build consistency. As for personality – at all times look to nurture personality. Allow for idiosyncrasies. Allow them to grow without disrupting too many people. They can disrupt the process but not the people alongside. They are important as they are the only ones who can bring about meaningful change. The others follow. Both have their own place in the sun. Balancing the two is a fine act. There comes the tyranny of ‘or’ versus ‘and’. Very few people can manage ‘and’, for the most of us it is an ‘or’ choice. That’s why when people manage ‘and’, magic happens. That’s why we have so few of these cases and that’s the reason when it happens, history gets rewritten.

As I have grown older I have realized that I am an ordinary mortal soul in the universe. I may not be destined for greater things. I am a simple father setting in motion a set of things for others to build out of. I see no greatness and I have no pretense of one. It will be difficult to do / achieve anything spectacular. In office, I am sure there are 30,000 people who love to be one day reach my level. But that is not greatness or anything to be proud of. It’s a passage of time with common sense.

When I was much younger, I shudder to think of what a hot headed dumb bum I was. Now I know I am a little less of it. I may still be dumb headed but at least I have the wisdom to acknowledge it and hence learn from it. Can you really change so much. I don’t know. May be not. May be you can reduce the intensity but when your guards are down you will again show your real side.

This does sound like a little bit of a depressed post with little hope for change. I don’t mean it to be thus. It is a reflection of the little mental setbacks that I am getting these days, I guess. It’s just a way to make up for the optimism that   I have exhibited in some of my past posts. I think I have written, rather naively about the belief that people can change and that managing people is a simple equation and a question of behavior. I guess it’s not. It’s far more complex than this. People will not change so easily and the group dynamics are far too complex than anything else. Possibly right now, I am in a zone that says, that the answers are complex and that opposites may not reconcile so easily.

Eesh. I now understand why older men are wiser and understand discretion to valor equation. I am growing older and the only wiser thing I know is that no one can really get much wiser …hehehe.

top 1%

This weekend was a day spent almost entirely at home. I think I needed all the time to rest and recuperate from the hectic week I had. Saturday morning was spent watching Finding Dory – the second part of the crazy hit Finding Nemo. Finding Nemo was a lovely movie that we had watched years ago when it was released. Our favorite story is that when Jispa was very small we made her watch Finding Nemo and she was terrified. She cried through the movie and we just couldn’t understand why would a kid cry in a Disney movie. I guess the basic premise is very scary – Nemo is a baby fish that ends up being separated from his dad. That is a very scary proposition and I think it’s enough to give nightmares to young kids. When adults make these movies in animation, its possibly impossible to understand the effect it has on younger minds. How scary can it get? Jispa refused to watch so many animated movies till she was much older. We kept taking her in the hope that she would like at least one. I think in Ratatouille she scolded me in the scene where the main guy is taking the rat down to the sewers to throw it there.

Now I think I am done with animation movies. There are very few movies that are clear lovely movies that appeal to all without being preachy. I think the last ‘adult’ animation movie was Inside Out. It was a movie that was lovely to watch and understand and it beautifully depicted the mind of a person and how it can work. I think they had very highly regarded psychologists advising on the script of the movie. It was one cracker of a movie idea, far beyond the realms of average people. It came and went in India without even causing a flutter. Hardly anyone saw it or knew of it. By comparison the movie Jungle Book in its new avatar did very well. I thought it had a really bad story line and hardly any great emotional moments or camaraderie between its protagonists. It was surely a visual extravaganza with the jungle coming alive in realism animation. The trailers were magnificent and very tightly edited. It was meant for an Imax 3D experience. The Hindi version was also awesome with some awesome actors dubbing the lines, but still –the story and the interplay between the characters left me very cold. It did not recreate the magic of the original Jungle Book in my head.

Finding Dory was also similarly cold. Dory was a great character who brought a lot of stupidness to the mission of the original movie. A father is in search of his son and there is a stupid fish with short term memory loss. The whole contrast in the desperate situation made for a memorable story. Here the whole thing just died out and too many leaps of faith had to be made with the fish moving from one place to another, across land forms. I think this movie was a miss.

On Sunday, it was time to simply vegetate at home. In the evening, the city saw the monsoon setting it and the climate became lovely. I tried convincing Jispa to play something with me. Anything. Any game. We tried playing one round of battle ship which we quickly abandoned as it was quite boring. Then I convinced her to come with me for a walk. She only agreed if we went for a walk to crosswords the book shop near our house. I agreed. Down I pushed her to walk along the longer route via the garden. I am desperate to have longer walks with her. While walking we started talking. She is easier to talk to when we walk. At home she answers in monosyllables but while walking a conversation can ensue. We spoke about the upcoming kabaddi tournament and how I get damn frustrated when dealing with individuals. I told her that people just don’t like to change and they can innovate. You have to first say yes, it’s possible and then think new. I was speaking about the stadium experience and how we must enhance it. In India we stop everything from being taken inside a stadium. You can’t take anything inside, no food, no music instruments, nothing. I was telling her that we should have a carnival inside and outside the stadium, have lots of face painting artists free inside the stadium with only your team colors. People should have fun and talk about eth stadium experience. Jispa then remarked, that yes, exactly – otherwise people will slowly stop coming. Yes., Jispa  - you said something that 99% of India and especially the sport operators just don’t get. You need to allow people to take photos, share selfies, post online, get families and have a great time. I think and I have been screaming hoarse – we must get the women and the children, if they come in then the families are in. If you attract men, you sell one ticket if you attract the families then you sell four tickets. This is an air-conditioned auditorium, with the best setting to get the best crowd, but we end up screwing things up. We should have very fair priced snacks at the stadium and in fact have many more hospitality seats that allow for seat delivery of food. Simple snacks and peanuts must be allowed. Plus allow for players to meet the fans after the game. The experience must be awesome, enough parking and enough food and enough experience enhancing gimmicks. A well thought out plan. And then there is the in stadium experience. Encourage the crowd to get in early, have a flash mob, have a band playing and have people in the crowd with trumpets to cheer the team. I was telling Jispa that many years ago, I had watched a cricket game in Wankhede stadium. It was West Indies versus India. I don’t remember the game  or the score or who actually won. All I remember is that suddenly in the crowd one Parsi looking gentleman would stand up randomly in the middle of the game and play a particular tune on the trumpet. It was a simple 5 tone tune and he would play it and the crowd without any encouragement or prodding would simply shout “hey” at the end of the tune. He would emerge suddenly and he would then go somewhere else in a different part of the stadium and play his tune. He would come and go as he pleased. This was extremely entertaining and that’s what I remember. Why can’t we do that? We will have a lion (our Pune kabaddi team mascot) roaming around, but the mascot is not told what to do, he probably does not even know how the game is, he has no signature moves and he like an idiot only moves in the VIP areas. He should be the CROWD where there are hundreds of people not in the VIP area where you seat a few. He should be running up and down the aisles, dancing and prancing around, cheering the team.

But I guess we only know how to milk the cow, not create an experience. The great Indian sport tamasha is the IPL. This was invented by a marketing genius in London who with the help of research brought innovation to the game. Of course he made it 20 overs but he also brought in a few innovations like cheerleaders and the dugout. The dug out makes the team sit out in the field in one corner and not in the dressing room, it brings the players out in the open giving the fans more time to see them. Simple innovations bring about a greater joy to the sport. If you don’t have the crowds in the stadium it makes for a bad TV experience as well. People want to live the stadium experience on TV!

This is the simple truth about sports that people don’t get. You are fighting for entertainment money and every time you will listen to organizers talking about – the core audience, the kabaddi clubs and they rue that the crowd is not the same. How will it be – what have YOU done to create your fan base? What have you given them to love you as a team, how have you helped them enjoy and support the team. You just show up during the tournament and expect magic to happen. Where are your camps, meet and greet sessions, coaching programs etc?

It’s easy to skimp on all these costs and then wonder – WTF? People don’t support the sport.

You need to have loyal raving fans who take the game to the others and bring about a ‘Junoon’ in the stadium. These are the guys who will cry and scream for the team. They will follow the team across the country and create a noise and a cheer that will spur your team. But It requires effort and care.

Jispa and I were discussing all this and she added to the discussion and she got it. She also said that you must enjoy the stadium and you must do all the exciting stuff. She can’t understand why the organizers don’t get it. I was telling her that this is the most frustrating part of the work. Working with people who just don’t get it. I was telling her that she has a good brain and she has the ability to think. It puts her in the 1% of Indian population. She did not believe me. She thought at least 50% should be good thinkers to which I corrected her – no way – only 1% will be good thinkers. It is impossible to get more than this.

I explained to her about me being a secretary at Matunga Gym. In spite of all my ideas and all my efforts I could hardly get a few wins. There are so many egos and other issues at play. People just don’t think clearly and what you have is just a slightly better pool. I wanted to change the bathrooms and get the women to have the bigger bathrooms with better facilities but I couldn’t do so. People have issues with everything but if I wanted to change stuff, it would take a whole lot of time and dedication at my end and I would need to get involved with the politics of it all. So then Jispa asked – in your new job here, you can do what you want nah! “nopes” I can’t do what I want. Of course I have far more power here than what I had in my earlier job, but its still not an autocracy, I still have people that I have to work with, people that piss me off and dumb ass guys who just don’t get the point. I have to manage them and its not like I can fire anyone at will.

I don’t think even an entrepreneur can do this. You can try and surround yourself with the best minds you find, but then you cant really grow. When you grow and scale you will have to take calls and get stupid dumb people on board. They will fill your system. Else the other option, run a consulting service with exactly 4 employees. But here to get anything done you will require to deal with clients who are dumber and you have ass lick and get your payment. After all if he were so smart why would he need a consultant. So the real real option is to work where you find the least amount of these jokers in your life. Accept that these jokers are a reality. People will not understand odds and people will refuse to accept mistakes and admit failures and repent. People will do stupid things all the time. Understanding that and living and making some amount of peace with it is critical to sanity.

Stupidity is just one angle to it. Insecurity mixed with stupidity is a Molotov cocktail. But that is another angle for another rant for another time.

Till then just live with the stupidity around you and try to reduce it. Very few people read, very few listen and very few change. Try to read, listen and change. Believe that you are wrong when you start the conversation then only can you change and then only will you improve and then only will you remain less stupid. DO IT!

small buckets of life?

In many free advice blogs on the internet – one common one along with travel is – learn a new skill. So what if you are 40! Well I am not yet 40 but I still have it in me to learn a new skill. And as I always say at 40 – its your brains doing the skilling!

Jispa wanted a wave board this vacation. She said she was reasonably good at it and she wanted to enjoy the wave board. Sure. Her friends have it too and Jispa learnt to balance with it at her friends place. Interesting! Skate boards are largely a guy thing but these wave boards seem largely unaffected by gender. When I was in dubai, dad had got us one pair of roller skates. I think these were meant for my sister but one between all three of us was enough. I skated in them. My dad supported me when I started skating. I remember skating the most when we moved back from Dubai and for one vacation we went to Abu Dhabhi, were dad took up another job for a year. There, a promenade was made at the sea side called the Corniche, which was great for skating. I would skate a lot. I practically learnt to skate there.  One incident I especially remember; I slipped and I was about to fall on my bum and one foreigner who was running right behind me caught me in an attempt to protect himself. He too was taken by surprise. I do remember that those days I really enjoyed myself. What was it about having wheels on legs that made me feel really nice, I don’t know, but it was amazing.

Jispa too never asks us for too many things. She is largely a satisfied girl. So when she asked for a wave board I was more than happy to oblige. I told her we would get one before her vacations start and sure enough, we bought one just in time for her vacations. She tried it at the store. The sales guys corrected her a bit as she had problems starting off. He said ‘put your front foot forward first and then you can take off without support’. Jispa needed support in terms of a rail or a hand to start off.

We got it home and Jispa has been fooling around with it at home. Lying around the house – I too tried to ride it. The wave board is an interesting piece of invention. Unlike a skate board you have only two wheels. One in front and one behind. It very cleverly uses the twisting of the board to somehow convert that motion into forward motion and propels you ahead. It’s a nice one. So I climbed onto it at home with support. Then I did something that I am proud of – i just suddenly decided in my head that I have to start without help. You simply put the front foot forward and step onto the wave board. Of course – this is a two wheel thing – it can only be stable if you are moving. So you just step onto it pushing it forward and get your second leg on – there- -ho gaya. I knew something even Jispa didn’t.

Yesterday I took Jispa to the garden to try her waveboarding skills. It was pretty cool. I told her how she needs to simply trust herself and walk onto the board. That’s it. Its like a cycle. You need to be in motion to be stable. And she managed pretty soon pretty well. She was skating all over the palce. The paver blocks are a pain in the compound and the tar has too much gravel that’s not been swept. Luckily I remembered one part of the garden, which was supposed to be a water body with a  water fall. Obviously these things are not what gets maintained in India. The pond was dry as a bone and this stupid pond was all cemented making it a perfect thing for waveboards. Smooth and with slopes on the sides, making it fun to approach and learn as well.

Then shen she was a bit tired – I tried my hand (or leg) at it. I am really scared of the dam thing. Not so much at failing or falling, but I am shit scared of my knee. So I cant put my right knee forward. I put my left knee in front and then I take off – confidently. Confidence in the mind is the key to take off. The problem is the twisting motion. I just cant get that right. That is bloody difficult. I kept trying and kept trying. Jispa tried helping. I fell off every single time. rather – I had to step off. Only once I fell hard on my butt, but I picked up and started again. Am I proud – at 39 years – doing this fearlessly – I was proud. At the end – I did manage to get the hang of it for a few meters. The twisting motion is still proving difficult. I have to get that one. I managed in the end to twist myself to a few more meters, but is still difficult when the initial momentum wears off.

So now I hope in this vacation – I learn to play with this waveboard. The greatest joy will be just stepping up on the waveboard in front of others – especially in a shop – where they are only expecting young ones to know this. I haven’t seen anyone my age knowing how to ride this stuff. That will set a few guys wondering on how the hell has he managed to pull off this stunt. Hah! Lets see.

There are a few things on the sports thing I still have to learn:

1 – wave boarding

2 – learning the tumble turn in swimming

3 – tennis – basic level and serve

It’s like a simple bucket list – but I am satisfied from it for now. Lets see how long I take to figure these.

bouncing back

Recently an international aussie cricketer got hit on the head while batting. It was freak shot and he sadly went into coma and passed away. The cricket ball is a really potent weapon in the right / wrong hands. I played my entire cricket in the dust bowls of Mumbai. Here when the bowler bowled most of the time he wasn’t that fast – we played corporate cricket – old misfits playing the game. Some would be genuinely quick but the dust bowls of India would not let the ball come anywhere higher than the waist. So when I went into bat I would have minimum padding on. Good gloves are essential as the ball has a knack for variable bounce and pads are of course important. In variably the low bounce would mean being rapped on the pads near the shin area. That was more than enough. No need of helmet or an arm guard. Of course no one ever made the silly mistake of going without a groin guard. That was extremely essential :). I remember the humble groin guard. When Jispa first saw it lying around in my kit she was putting in around her knee. She thought it was a knee guard. Err… yes sure. Only when I went opening or higher up the order I would use the thigh pad. There is no point using the thigh pad after ten overs. The ball stopped doing anything  - no swing, no bounce, it would just sit up there and wait to be hit. In Mumbai with the afternoon heat – even in winters – you are sweating like crazy and hence you want to carry as less padding as possible. The padding would just sit there and absorb the sweat and become heavy. It would become tough to run in them. I remember being hit when I first starting playing on the thigh. After that I don’t really remember being hit at all.

The bowlers would occasionally bowl the bouncer but most of the time it would really be a beamer that slipped out of the hand and that is the easy one to duck out of. I always ducked, never hooked, why do bravado when you get a no ball for it? Once or twice I have been at the receiving end of a well directed bouncer. A well-directed bouncer is bowled to intimidate the batsman and push him on the back foot. In Mumbai grounds, you generally take your guard a step ahead; this negates most of the late swing movement and almost certainly rules out most LBWs. If you stand ahead there is always reasonable doubt that the ball is going to hit the stumps and then you are saved. My captain Arun Solanki always taught me stay in front and out of the crease. And ensure that the umpire sees you come up. Then it’s the wicket keeprs job. The only way to get you back should be that wicket keeper comes up to the crease to keep wickets and then you as a batsman want to come back or risk getting stumped. That’s the way I always played my cricket. Step up and hit. I hardly got an LBW decision against me.

I remember the one time when a bouncer was intentionally directed at me. I had just driven the bowler on the front foot back behind him and got a boundary. The next ball was a awesome bouncer directed at my nose. I jumped and swerved out of it and avoided it. The umpire gave a no ball and warned the bowler. The next ball I still came on the front foot and again drove him. Sorry dude – it takes more than a bouncer to put me on the back foot. After I took a single the umpire told me that the bouncer was well directed and I did well to move out of the line. He said I did it well because I did not get my eyes off from the ball and hence I could adjust till the end and got my head off the trajectory. See the bouncer below. The one near the 1 min and 24 second mark was similar to the way I moved  - a jump and a swerve.

In Mumbai grounds the biggest danger of getting hit is while fielding. With the pitches so densely packed, you have to worry about the other match where you may be standing right where the batsman is looking at an empty spot from his perspective. One strong pull could put you out of action for some time.

Cricket is an aggressive game. Not playing a shot or ducking from a bouncer is an act of aggression. You know the rules; you have to play that to your advantage. Sledging or over hitting aggressively is not necessarily the aggression you want to show.

Here is a bonus video. Not directly related but it’s there – reason. Use cold and hard reason and you should be good. There would be no reason to do bravado when reason will tell you to just be smarter.

Where is your aggression?

What is aggression?

Going out and showing outwardly aggression. Showing off your anger. Pushing people, pumping fist, hitting hard shots. What is aggression?

I admit. I instinctively belong to the conventional wisdom of aggression. Trying hard and pumping fast. Show your aggression. Show your anger. Show your intent. Make it count. By nature I am an aggressive person. I used to use aggression to push myself in various situations. It helped me get my first job. They put us in a group and gave us topics for a group discussion. They also told us ‘kill the other guy if you need to but make your point and let it be heard’. What else would I want? That was all the invitation I needed. I pumped hard and maxed the discussions. Talking loud when chaos looms was my specialty.

But what got you here would not get you there. My age perhaps and my experience for sure has helped me change my aggression. I would say temper it… I would say change the way it manifests. A strong defensive shot is also aggression. Cricket has taught me that leaving the ball outside off stump is also aggression. In badminton, placing the shuttle quietly is also aggression.  Trusting yourself and pushing yourself in way that no one sees is also aggression.

See this video

I love this video. It typifies for me all that is aggression. All that is right and wrong about aggression. The Singaporean is outwardly aggressive. He is hitting the ball hard and fast. He is dominating the rally, but look at the Nigerian. He is focused on putting the ball back. Simply knocking it back into the table. Shot – Tap – Hard Shot – Tap – Harder Shot – Tap. No matter how far you are pushed and how less you dominate the game, finally the aggression can be simply in putting the ball back.

If you see his focus and see his anticipation and see how he released his pumped up aggression after the shot, you will realize that this sports person is as aggressive as the Singaporean. Not less. That is the aggression I am trying hard for.

Aggression that has no visual cue. Aggression that is internal. Aggression that has meaning. Aggression  that is not self-destructing.

It’s not that I can preach because I have achieved this. I haven’t. God knows I haven’t. But I am trying hard. Real hard. I have learnt it’s always better to be internally aggressive than externally so. But its  a Buddha state,  so painstakingly impossible to achieve. But the best way to achieve it is to have someone as a counterfoil. If you want to teach someone to not be aggressive then you have to not be so yourself and that helps you realize what it is to be such and what it takes. Teaching has helped me with many such instances. When I took up the teaching assignment around12 years ago I did not know it would permanently change me so.  I have become a teacher in class and in office and at home. It has helped me in many ways that I cant really understand or fathom. But surely it has helped me channelize my famous ‘doshi’ temper as my mom calls it.

My mom still thinks I have the doshi temper, possibly because she sees the temper. The aggression in me still. It may be masked for others but for my mom it may be just a different mifestation of the aggression. To her I may have never reduced my aggression. Possibly she is right. Aggression is core to me. I cannot possibly change it. can I fight genetics, but I can surely change the way it comes out. Aggression that is internal as the Nigerian showed can be different, useful and even heart warming. The goal is to reach there, inch by inch!

Inch by inch. Here is the other more glamorous side of aggression. This is what people call aggression and movies like these promote the notion of aggression that leads to results! Possibly it works as its easier to inculcate and transfer. But I doubt if this aggression is what leads to results. Matches and competitions are won in the head and not with your arms and limbs. They are there after years of practice but what makes you win – it’s the head.

Inch by inch –

Now listen to this as well….

This is also highly motivational. One could argue that this is what motivates people.

On the face of it this completely debunks everything I have said. But I would argue otherwise. I think this completely proves everything that I have said. The champion lies inside me. It is me. It is for me to figure what I have to do to be the champion. And more than anything, if I have to win I have to have belief in myself and in my ability – because who am I? I am a champion!

See the video below – the same wordings being used at possibly a talk before the game. Possibly to push the players.

But if you are losing and on a losing streak would this be something you want to mumble. I would argue not. But if you are a strong team and you love each other and back each other, you would scream this out even if you were losing. This I argue is nothing but a war cry, a chant that makes you feel like a team, because you shout out something in unison. It is a bonding ritual and it gets you going (it definitely gets me going) because we are at heart the hunter gatherer, the team that works together and fights together, because you can only hunt if you are a pack. Alone a hunter is often just simply dead! This riual makes you a part of a team. A team that is ready to perform and support you and fight for you, with you. But it doesn’t take away the fact (actually it’s an opinion) that the game is internal and in your head! And your head is better off knowing that if you do your job you have your team to back you up while they do theirs!

Eat a lot of chocolates

The Pro kabaddi league is off to a great start. I happen to be in the middle of the entire drama as one of the teams is owned by Uday Kotak in a personal capacity. Like always I love being exposed to a variety of experiences and being involved in a sports team is definitely amongst the most interesting experiences of a lifetime.

The first thing was naming the team, then some designs and some posters… I have blogged about being involved in the making of the song and video… here is the final video

Man it was amazing fun!

The matches have started well in earnest. But I see quite a few issues that need to be ironed out. At the start itself I had told the team to focus on diet and nutrition along with training as a core requirement. Budget constraints pushed it out of the reckoning. I had my chance again when we lost two close opening matches. I saw what the team was having. They were having energy drinks and protein drinks at no predefined intervals. No plan no thinking only drinking. This made no sense to me. Thanks to Jispa and her sport I am aware of a few things. You need carbs before the matches and you need protein after to recover. Simple basics and you have to be hydrated with electrolytes and not with high sugar energy drinks. Sugar is a killer. And where the F are the bananas in the entire picture? The team was without any such food. Hence I got the ear of a senior guy and I directly rammed it in. This team is eating all wrong. They are getting wrong nutrition and wrong training.

I see being a team owner as a kind of responsibility. A responsibility to all the players that you have bought for your team. They need to be taken care of. Especially in kabaddi when the players are from the hinterland and are not really well off or are not really exposed to the scientific training mindset. These guys are players whom we need to groom and prepare for the long run. They will go back to their teams and they have to tell everyone and spread the word what they have learnt. So now thanks to Jispa I could push my point across and thanks to that we have got a budget sanctioned for a trainer and a masseur for the kabaddi team.

Then I remember the experience I had with the cricket team and then the interaction I had with Anil Kumble once and how he spoke about enjoying practice and I found that a big thing. Even Tendulkar and Dravid can get bored doing the same net practice every day. That’s right. You may be the best in the world but you can still be bored at doing the same thing every day. The idea is to have fun and do a wide variety of things that can get you to be the best at what you are. Its fun and a challenge.

The point being that life is a collection of experiences. You build on what you experience. On what you learn from anywhere. I never knew that Jispa’s swimming and an event with Anil Kumble along with my cricket playing would help me help a Kabaddi team and then who knows where this experience will take me. I am reminded of the movie Forrest Gump and eth famous dialogue of life being like a box of chocolates. Here look at this scene… its lovely and extremely philosophical.

Life is like a box of chocolates. Only thing is that you have learn from every chocolate you eat!

here.. one more bonus video!

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.

with a song on my lip and a stroke in her head

https://soundcloud.com/shraddha-radio/rave-lutionised-sheila-ki

Listen to this

I asked Jispa whether there was a song stuck in her hjead this time around. She said ‘no’. normally she hates me singing and especially before a swim. She says that the song gets stuck in the head and she finds it extremely irritating. And if I sing it then it gets stuck in my ugly tune. So she hates hates it. Normally I like to irritate her and continue to sing till she gets really upset but this time I didn’t dare to try. This time my baby was participating in the ultimate swim marathon. This is the third or fourth year that she has had the chance to take part. The last three years, something or the other had always come up. A cousin’s function, school sports day… something. This time she was it.

But since she has had a shoulder injury she hasn’t been training as intensively as before. So no morning swimming and a lighter workout. Around ten days back while I was discussing with the coach he had told me that he is sending Jispa for the marathon. That’s cool by me. I did not think much of it. I assumed Jasmine knew and I thought it was some time away. Jasmine came to know only a couple of days earlier and she was quite hyper. A MARATHON and I don’t even know she is participating. She went into overdrive, read all she could and tried to be ready for it.

For me the holy grail of all sports is not the sprint but it’s the marathon. A test of brute will power. The ability to keep fighting yourself, your muscles and your mind. A lot of things that keeps telling you to stop and something that keeps telling you to go on. I have run a few long distance runs especially thanks to the NCC training I got. The longer the distance the greater the will power needed. You are essentially running yourself. There is hardly any competition that you see. I had told Jispa that to my mind this is the best race for me. I will be by your side. We were held up in traffic and we missed the first time trial and we caught the second one. Jispa very easily lapped her nearest competitor. Then the girl in the lane next to her tried keeping pace with Jispa even though she was 50 meters down compared to Jispa.

Jispa started very well, she paced herself and took easy strokes and at a pace she thought she could sustain. I spoke to her coach and we agreed that it was sign of a strong mental makeup. Normally I don’t cheer, but this was a long race. 160 laps of a 25 meter pool. She went on and on. I saw that she saw me looking at her and I tried cheering her, egging her on. Before the race I had told her that I would be busy playing temple run. If you see me waving my phone at you then it means I am playing temple run while you kill yourself in the pool. Good natured laughing and ribbing later, while she walked to the starting block, she told Jasmine to tell me not to make her laugh. So when I was cheering her with a phone in my hand, I saw her laughing. Her coach told me ‘she is laughing’. “ya, that is at me. There are many pressures already on her. At least I removed the one that a father puts. We are having our private joke’.

It’s a fine line putting pressure and asking / pushing your child to perform. I told her it’s important to race this one, don’t worry. I was sure she could do it but at the same time I explained to her “see, if it pains think a little. If your muscles are paining, then carry on, that’s a good thing to fight. But if your shoulder injury acts up then stop immediately. You don’t want to injure your shoulder. Its ok.” but I wanted her to compete and wanted her to finish. So we kept cheering her on. She kept looking at me and I kept walking along the sides, making actions, urging her, asking her to stretch. In the middle she was telling something to Jasmine. I went to one end and she shouted out to me – its cold. Winter in Mumbai and we had unseasonal rain that day. The weather was cold and the Khar swim pool where this was held is on the third floor, near the sea line. This is known to be the coldest pool in Mumbai. I kept saying, its ok, fight it, it’s worth it. I not sure how much of my shouting she registered but she surely could see me encouraging her.

She and the girl in the lane adjacent kept pace with each other. Both trying to shake the other one out, pushing each other. It was a fine battle to be seen. But thanks to her start she was 50 meters ahead and it stayed that way till the end. So in the second time trial she finished well ahead of the pack. If we had made it in time she would swam with her seeds and would have had a better timing. She finished fourth overall with a time of around 63 minutes. Wow. I know guys in my office (and chicks) who just wouldn’t be able to even walk that much in that time.

But what struck me is that the other parents put so much pressure on the kids. Some of the other medal winning kids were sitting glum. Because their parents were unhappy with their timing. WHAT. I wanted to shove them into the freezing pool and check their reactions. After Jispa came out she said she couldn’t feel her arms. Her arms from shoulder to wrist were frozen and she said in the middle of the swim she couldn’t feel them so she was jerking and throwing them to wake them up. Now that builds character. She got out and we rushed her to the changing room for her to relax under the hot shower. In such circumstances can you say anything to your kid? I don’t know. I can’t say thing else but ‘awesome job’. I cant understand, after completing a swim like this shouldn’t you be basking and soaking it all in. After all you just swam four kilometers in an hour.

I am sure if she had swum in the first time trail she would have finished amongst the medal tally. But freaking cares that much? It’s ok. I am happy. Possibly this was a blessing. This was good. At that level these kids start pushing each other and the undercurrent of competitiveness comes out and who know – an injury! So we are especially happy parents.

I told Jispa “really well swum. And I don’t normally say it, but yes, you swam really nice.”. She also said “ya, I know you normally don’t say it. Thanks. You really liked my swim”. “yes”. Awesome.

I asked her afterwards if she did see us. Yes. And she took encouragement from us. she laughed as she thought I was teasing her with the cell in my hand. Well I wasn’t, but hell, did the laughing helped? Ya. And the walking up and down as well. That was like a pace clock. So that’s good. She couldn’t hear anything but she knew I was encouraging her. Was that good – yes it was perfect. Thanks. And at the end – was there a song stuck in your head. No. then what were you thinking? I had told her to think of a marathon as a meditation exercise. Keep trying to correct your position. See your arms, body legs. Keep swimming and try to be technically correct. Get your rhythm going. She said “I kept thinking about my strokes and kept trying to keep them going good”. What more can I ask for.

this is how you do the tumble turn. The fun is when you have to do it 160 times and every 45 seconds. You have to blow hard when you turn over else the water goes in your nose. So you cant be out of breath during the entire 4 kms.

This one is just for kicks!