we love laugh stories

This Saturday I had a whale of a time. It was my lecture after a long time and I went mad. Literally crazy. It was a 90 minute lecture in which I think I taught for not more than 10 minutes. The rest of the time I was just making the kids laugh. That’s it.

I think somewhere in life I figured that I am a standup comic with a flair for comic timing. I can go on and on and keep cracking jokes on everything. In this lecture I just kept cracking jokes and making the students laugh like crazy. Even while teaching them something I was simply making them laugh.

It was so much fun. I know I getting them to really enjoy when the laughter erupts in loud noises and people start clapping at the jokes. The energy is so high that they don’t know what to do and clapping starts. When you hear that you know you have the audience and then you can teach anything.

I like to keep things simple and teach less. Teaching less is teaching more. A key few simple principals well told is my new motto. Teach less, laugh more and enjoy the lecture.

Yesterday I was called for some stupid rewards and recognition program in office. I went mad there as well. Someday I am going to get into trouble for all this. It was a division in which we were doing decently well and the kids were all the high achievers. I just refused to make any sense. I started of cracking jokes and I ended up cracking jokes. In the middle I insulted every department there was including my own and tore everyone to pieces. The crowd was in splits. They started clapping at the jokes and had a whale of a time.

This self-deprecating humor is the best one. You can say the truth without really offending anyone. And everyone enjoys. I think that’s the way it should all happen. Laugh your way through everything. I wish I would be able to give my own standup act in my own funeral meeting. Laugh at my own death and life. That would be something nah?

I find most comics too boring. Laughter is awesome when the situation is real and fun at the same time. I take real emotions and real incidents and make people laugh. My jokes are spontaneous and not rehearsed. That’s what I like about my own jokes and speech. Then of course as the occasion demands it, I intersperse with real intelligent comments and bring the seriousness back on the table. I actually taught the kids something on both the occasions and what I taught was significant.

To my students of case studies I taught them that by themselves case study is useless and with no ability to help them. But if you see it as a story and enjoy the story telling then you figure that it’s more fun and from there it’s up to you to take what you can from it rather than force a moral down your head. In office, I explained how significant their job is within the firm and within the finance industry.

When you try and teach, one thing I have learnt is that there is no such thing such as teaching something. It is up to the person receiving to figure what they want to learn from it. You can push anything down in anyone’s mind. Teaching is a process of drip irrigation at best. Keep putting small small things into people’s mind and see how they take root. A lot like inception.

Inception as a kick ass crazy movie. The key point is that to put an idea in someone’s brain is very difficult. You have put it in a way that they believe it theirs and once it takes root it is impossible to eradicate. How do I put an idea into a person’s mind in way that it is his? It cannot be by brute force. It has to be by smaller drips. The mind has to be fertile enough to bear fruit as well. The seed must be dropped but the fruit must be that of the recipient.

What a subtle art this thing is. It requires immense amount of patience and a willingness to let go of the fruit.

Recently with a startup that was seeking my advice, I simply asked them to reorient their brains on some basic parameters on how they look at business and boom – sales soared. Just a realignment of objective and the way you look at them. Simple. I hope the seed dropped in his head and now it’s up to him to see the growth the way he deems fit.

See movies are like this. Stories are like this. You take a story and see what you want to learn from it. That is the best way to learn. Not by teaching. Moral science class, no matter how stupid they were, I think they were effective explaining the principals by stories. Same is religion and the myths and the epics. Story telling can give context and richness to behavior. Stories.

learning joy

Jasmine is a sweetheart. She has the best relationships with all her maids. They love to work with her. In fact when we moved here, it was a difficult thing for her maids to now search for new jobs. They love her and want to work with her. Jasmine treats people like they should be – like people. With dignity and respect. When we moved out Jasmine gave away a lot of things to the maids. Including extra clothes, cupboards and what not. We even gave away random old electronic hardware lying around. Sure we could have made more money simply selling the stuff on ebay but Jasmine and me both reckon that probably there is more value to be derived from them using it than me getting a couple of thousand for old loose stuff lying around the house.

She also treats them well, feeds them, gives them tea and generally takes care of them. So for every Sunday when Jasmine wants the old maid to come and help her around the house, she comes and then refuses to take money from her for a couple of hours work. It’s funny to see Jasmine trying to force them to take money and them running away.

We learn by observing and I learnt how to treat other humans from other people. My dad, my wife, my bosses and my friends. This is not something that can be learnt from moral science class in school. You have to experience and be willing to learn. Different people teach us how to handle different incidents. As I grew up I was a bit confused on how to treat people. I had compassion but around me was an India divided by huge chasms. The gap between the have nots and the haves was wide and there seemed to be an atmosphere of mistrust. Servants had to be kept an eye on, as they could steal and one should not intermingle too much. I think slowly as we began growing out of our disparities we learnt to deal with people.

Possibly also I learnt to deal with people as I grew up and there was no real economic change as I see it. Whatever be the case. I learnt to deal with people from other people. I do remember that being a training set. How to deal with sweet people and how to deal with irritating people. How to say no, how to cajole and how to reward. Jasmine has taught me a whole lot of all the people. She doesn’t try and influence people, she doesn’t try and push them, she just is. She just does what comes to her and people get influenced by her. They love her and work for her.

What may be my style? I am trying to hard or trying to less or the fact may be that I am trying, while Jasmine simply is being herself. I don’t know. But I do know that I try to treat people in way that I have learnt works for me. This is also basis how people have been with me. I see and I learn.

Learning is an everlasting process without a time line and structure. In fact structured learning is amongst the worst ways to learn. It surely tries to accelerate learning but it leaves much to be desired. I was talking to Jispa the other day. She goes for the international curriculum at school, which is far more advanced than what I had in school. She has critical thinking, an ability to reason and a freedom to write her mind. Her exams are more on experience, perspective rather than memory and rote. It’s lovely. But it’s only as lovely as the teacher makes it out to be. Awesome teachers make the classroom and the subject more interesting and the irritating ones make the subject boring. Some try and only explain how to attack the question paper and write things that are designed to get marks. There goes the studies.

That’s the problem with a structured education – it seeks to impart and then measure. While measuring it seeks to rank. To rank it needs a certain set of guidelines, schemes and structures for uniformity. There – we have reached a point where the twain are at odds with each other. It is now by definition doomed to failure. Should I learn for marks or should I learn for what I want to learn. I am screwed.

Yesterday with a friend we were discussing education and courses. My view was that it’s asking for way too much to get a child to figure what they want to do by the time they are 15 or 17. I didn’t know what my calling was till I was at least 25 years old. How can we ask for choice in these circumstances, so early of them? But the costs are high of wrong choice and the pressures, real. How does this work?

Forget. Right now I am trying to solve the leaking roof in the dry area from the flat above. It’s fun trying to decipher the leakage source, especially when it involves flooding that balcony with water and being Sherlock Holmes. Then taking a few calls and trying to be intelligent about things that you are so not really trained to do. Why didn’t we have carpentry, woodwork, masonry and other such base skills being taught in schools? A few classes of PT rubbish could have clubbed into this and we could have all been better off. The mechanics of a car, the innards of a toaster, the joy or raising a farm. Real life skills that allow you to work with your hands and give you immense satisfaction. Thye could have atleast taught us basic gardening, if not growing wheat. Or even now, a simple course on growing strawberries on the roof top garden… ok even parsley or basil growing would have been fun.

But this is not to be. I had a shitty education only redeemed by the fact that amazing women and a few amazing men wanted to teach as that was their choice. They loved us and we loved them back. They spoke to us, explained and inspired us. I am so happy that over that last 16 years I have done my little bit to alleviate boredom in the classrooms. Some little joys. In the process of helping people discover themselves, I discovered a whole lot about me. A WHOLE LOT.

That’s experiences and learning and joy.

student defines the teacher

Its summer time and the water is warm. This is the time to start your swimming again. Jispa was telling me that you will now struggle with your water feel and you will not enjoy the swim if you restart swimming after a long time. She is right. Water feel is a real issue in swimming. You tend to get water feel after a few swims and you get a feel of the water as you glide past pushing it behind. It’s like timing in cricket, there is no way to get it by theory but when you do get it you realize you have the gift and then you keep going. After a layover many batsmen work on it in the nets to get the timing and then they struggle to retain it. The batsman who are called gifted are the ones who just have it in them from the start and seem to effortlessly get it at all times. They may not score runs but they always time the ball and hence we call them gifted. I think water feel is the swimming equivalent of being in form and timing the ball.

I have always struggled getting back into the water and getting back into top shape. Somehow the water doesn’t feel right and the body doesn’t respond well to it. I end up struggling to hit the level of work out performance that I was capable of before the break. It was very difficult for me to understand it but Jispa summed it up pretty amazingly for me and called it water feel.

I entered the water and swam with Jispa for a while. She is a joy to watch in the water that she makes her own. While I swim on the surface of the water she will dive and swim under me with her face to me and keep blowing bubbles while kicks and moves ahead. It’s a really funny sight. Then I told her to see me swim and help me correct my strokes. I was pretty impressed by her instant correction points. Among other things she told me not to fight water. “don’t fight water. Let it flow easily. Remember Finding Nemo movie which said – fish are friend not food. Similarly Water is your friend not your enemy. Don’t fight it. Be smooth. Get your motions to be smooth.” She was right. I was pushing water to get ahead. I was trying to hold water and get it behind me. Then I understood a bit about the legs movement and I found myself moving quite faster and more “fludically” than before. Nice.

The best part was not just being able to swim better but the fact that Jispa now could simply see me and correct me at a very, can I say philosophical level? Not just the techincals of pulling the hand through, kicking in a particular way or something, but moving while not fighting water. That was one of the best advice I have ever received while swimming. Don’t fight the water. Now every time I enter the water, I will swim knowing that I need fight water but work with it. Water is not my enemy, it is my friend; and that this was taught to me by my daughter. These learnings are worth their emotional and technical weight.

Then she showed me something she figured about doing in water. She went to the bottom of the pool and faced up, and then she blew bobbles in the form of rings. These rings would then float to the surface. It was awesome. I loved that she could do that. I too tried to do it and after a few tries I did a swell job as well. Jasmine, as the judge agreed, that my rings looked rounder than hers. That felt good.

As a teacher, I think the best thing is when your kids teach you more and help you understand more. You love a kid who questions you and then applies your learnings and pushes you to do better. And then you get the feedback that this learning was applied here and this was the result. Teaching without learning and learning without application is pretty much useless. You have to constantly apply and see the result of your actions. That is good learning. I have taught so many kids over the last 14 odd years. I remember that I first started teaching when Jasmine was pregnant with Jispa. Over the years, I have taught scores of kids and tried to explain various different concepts to them. I don’t know what all I have taught but I hope that some kids take away something interesting from all that. Some lesson that must have struck some bell at some point. God only knows where and what. I see teaching as a kind of social service or a social good. It is my way of giving back to society something in a meaningful way. I hate giving money away for anything. I prefer giving time and energy and knowledge. This true giving. Money seems to be the simplest way but it’s not what I want.

One kid who worked at my friends start up, got friendly with me as we worked professionally. AS she realized that I taught at schools, she wanted to accompany me there and learn from my lectures. I was happy to have her join the class. Looking at her even Jispa joined in.  This kid seemed different. She had a curiously strong urge to learn a lot and start applying. She listened made notes and then started discussing my lectures with her colleagues and started applying stuff at work. This was interesting and incredibly rewarding. She would tell me on how what I taught was applied by her and how it affected her work and her colleagues. How this enriched her environment and her job. That felt nice. Slowly an acquaintance became a student and now a friend. I am sure as she grows older and in stature the relationship will be grow more equal. Today one of my best buddies is one lady who worked with me around ten years ago – Sonal Shah. She too learnt a lot from me and I learnt a lot from her. We have been with each other many times and I have even rehired her when I moved to a new role.

These experiences helped shape me and give the joy from teaching. Some kids will remember me and some will forget me and some will curse me (hopefully few here). But at the end – if I can make a difference to at least one in a class who can then affect others in turn and start a possible chain reaction – that will be just so awesome.

Today in the morning while I was in the Gymkhana early after dropping Jispa, I realized that it was the birthday of this new kid who has been attending my lectures. I hate wishing happy birthday. It’s something stupid and highly impersonal. I like writing a note. And when you have had a groggy night thanks to the AC being switched off and then on again, with the fan being full (that’s a old grouse with my wife), one tends to get a little philosophical. And with that mood I wrote her a note.  A long one for whatsapp. But I thought it merited being reproduced here. It has enough lessons for me and for those who read it and for it to be passed on. Here, groggy mornings can produce philosophers. (I think I think best in my half dreams and in long showers. Really. Seriously)

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Hey kid. I am not the one who likes wishing on birthdays. I don't do that. I think it's stupid and a complete waste of time and energy. Too many jokers who don't mean anything to me catch me and wish me and appear to love me. Aaahhh.. but then don't let the cold of a damp 41 year old put water on the red enthusiasm of a young 28 year old. (Did I get the age right).

Enjoy your birthday and your life. You have been an amazingly great student for me. At some core level, I have found greatest joy in teaching and imparting my learnings to people around me, that I care about and those that care about me. In you I see someone who just wants to squeeze maximum possible from me. That encourages me a lot. And in teaching you, in talking to you, in discussion with you, I end up learning a whole lot myself. I learn about my thoughts and that of a young turk. These thoughts are invaluable as they are considered and honest. It's like a game I loved playing as a kid. I would fling a crazy ball against the wall in the house and try and catch it on the return. I would then impart spin to it and throw it and the catch it. It was tough and an amazing fun game to play. I hope u know what a crazy ball is and what happens when u fling it at a wall, with spin.

As you grow older you will realise that you have a debt to pay. If I were to listen to you then you have a debt to pay on my account. I seemed to have taught you a lot. My great guru, Dharen, never asked me for anything but I still want to give me my right thumb. So, I think the best way to pay him is to teach the world to be more considerate marketers, and through that change the world. I think he would appreciate that the most.

Funnily, as I pay my debt in this way, it gives me greater learning and greater Joy and the act of paying off the debt makes it paradoxically larger. So, I have to pay it more and more. Never did I realise that paying off an EMI on an usury would be so much rewarding.

Creating such a debt made my life rewarding. Very rewarding. It allowed me to connect to lovely people like you and some others as well as not so lovely people who turned out quite caustic in the end. But even a fire that signed the child left him a message.  But like we all know the reward of playing with fire more than compensates for the occasional burn.

I hope you find your debt and u find paying it rewarding.  I wish you many such debts of joy. To receive and to repay. Hopefully they add meaning to your life the way they added meaning to mine. And Dharen doesn't even know it that he can create an angulimal from my many thumbs.

I wish I could wished for everlasting happiness and live and everything that a fairy can offer. I am no fairy and you are no doe in front of headlights.

Birthdays are a good time to be philosophical, both from a receiver and a giver perspective. They have their uses afterall. A time to reflect and to ponder. But then, not too much. It's more a time to soak in all the unwanted, unrequited, unreal and unfelt love as well. There is perverse joy in that as well. Enjoy that while the optimism of youth is yet unscratched by the cynicism of grey.

So that's it. If u reading till here and you have reached here without a yawn drawing tears and making it blurry, I think I have possibly conveyed what I needed to. Not wisdom but experience.

There... Pass it on, no backs. (Did you girls play this game)?

Enjoy.

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hope makes the world go around

Teaching has a new meaning these days for me. Jispa started coming for my lectures. That is crazy awesome. I have taught for so many years for the joy of teaching but also for a secret joy – of being able to teach Jispa. Of course, she doesn’t open her mouth in class but she sits through and tries to understand what all I have to teach. It fires me up no end.

My lectures are at 11 am on Saturday. This gives me the perfect schedule, to wake up, fix myself an awesome coffee and then attack the college. It’s a perfect start to the week end.

Practicing what I preach, every lectures starts with a test that I have designed on Google forms (thanks to another young friend who comes along) on a topic that I have given a note in advance. Then on we talk about the paper / questions etc and take it forward. This is something surprisingly that the students feel happy about. They want tests. They want to read and come to class and wonder what’s happening.

The last time around I gave them an assignment to see the movie – The Founder. This was on the McDonalds founder, Ray Croc. It was an outstanding movie and they showed brilliantly how the original founders – the McDonald brothers, invented the fast food restaurant business but couldn’t scale it. It showed how Ray Croc scaled the business and also how he needed to do some accounting jugglery as well. Ray couldn’t make too much money off the restaurant and hence to scale it an account advised him to move into the real estate space. He bought/leased the land and then sublet to the franchisee for a higher fee, plus the franchisee revenue from sales. This allowed for a crazy increase in expansion rate.

What I loved about the movie was how they clearly explained how the brothers invented the system by killing a lot of unnecessary processes and items that stopped it from becoming efficient. And how Ray Croc understood that and while he had major run ins with the brothers, as regards the business proposition, the brothers were essentially right and had gotten the efficiency formula perfect. He kept that alive.

This was, to my mind an awesome movie and the perfect movie for watching for the young kids who want to understand management. Its typically very easy to do various different things but very difficult to focus on one thing alone.

So, I give them some stuff to read or watch and then come to class, dur9ng which I give a small multiple choice test. This test is something that kids can take from their mobile phones anywhere. The time given to the test is also very tight and the test has around 6-9 questions which are given in random order. Hence, it’s very difficult to copy as well. Even if two kids are sitting next to each other, its near impossible to copy and take help. If the time pressure is so high that you barely have time to think and read the questions, you have no time to help or copy in a randomized test.

I love the class as I am prepared on what to talk and then we discuss various elements. That Jispa is present just simply makes it even more stressful for me. I want to do better for her. I want her to enjoy the experience. I want to discuss stuff with her. She too is very keen to understand and learn from me. She was missing one class but she insisted that I explain to her what I had missed and that she could catch up. That’s nice. That’s the best way to know if I am making sense. My teen age daughter likes to attend my lectures, that’s my ultimate vote of confidence. I was telling Jasmine that no matter what, possibly blood is thicker than water. I love teaching and I love my lectures. I do it for enjoyment and not for money. But you add my daughter into the equation and the pressure and pleasure goes up. Funny. Or possibly not so, in hindsight.

I write writing blogs but because Jispa is now grown up and I have so many conversations with her and she understands the issues, when it comes to writing the blog, many times I stare at a blank screen. What to write when the main motivation is outside of the process.

Recently Jispa told me that there are only 6 months more. More for what, I asked? For me to be 15. And then? And then to read your blog. Oh! Is that? Yes, she reminded me. I had promised her that I would allow her to read my blog when she turns 15. My god. Time did fly. I was quiet. She then said “you don’t remember promising, do you. You thought I would just forget eh. Well I have not and you will give me the blog to read on my 15^th birthday”. Of course. Of course. Surely, I will give her the blog to read. I wrote it for more than ten years for this moment. Will I continue to write afterwards, I hope so, but it will be interesting to write knowing that your kids will read it instantly :)

It will be an interesting birthday gift to her. A little more than 10 years in the making. Wow. Such a big thing from such a small start. I wonder how she will read it, from the start, randomly, will she get bored, will she come back and ask clarifications, kick my ass for what I have written or done, will she cry on a few blogs, will she understand, will she jump in joy, will it give her solace in trouble? My big one is the last one. I may be around or not, but I hope whatever I have written will someday assist her in some sort of way. Hope.