shut up and stop complaining

The contrast could not have been starker. From the wild jungles to a gilded cage. Last week I was on a trip to the north east. I have always wanted to someday got o Kaziranga. The last refuge of the one horned rhino. It has been a desire since I was a young boy. Assam always had this mystical aura around it. Heavy rains, tribals, long really long grass; so long they call it elephant grass. And of course the mighty grass chomping rhino. My wish was fulfilled and I hope Jispa was also richer for the experience. We went to two places. Nameri and Kaziranga, both quite nice and pretty and so far – almost unspoilt.
Here’s the Nameri tent!


The Bharatpur trip that we as a family made a few years ago was the turning point in our lives. That exposed us to the scores of birds around us and we began to take an extraordinary interest in the birds around us. Suddenly then a national park comes to life. If you are normally in the hunt for mammals then you tend to get disappointed at these parks. You can go from one point to another rushing and driving just in a bid to see the elusive tiger or bear or another wild mammal. You will miss the beauty of the barbet clattering or the lovely elegant hornbill flying. Such elegant life. They have their own ecosystem. It is a lovely thing to see birds along with animals.
Nameri was a different experience altogether. A jungle where you are supposed to walk through. That itself is rare. We walked through the woods and the tall swampy grass in a bid to catch the white wood duck. I had no clue how endangered it was and how rare a sighting was over there. But to merely reciprocate the enthusiasm of the guide and the forest guard was worth the entire walk! Kaziranga too was alive thanks to the birds more than the lazy chomping rhino.
Coming back to Mumbai I came to this new office of ours. The big shiny new office with the shiny new cube. I have always coveted I guess the cabin but on getting it I am first to admit – it is kind of too large for my taste. Really large. And it blocks me out from all the buzz that is happening in the office. In office the bigger you get the more caged you become. Offices look like botanical gardens. With the simple common species that could be found everywhere but really large wild cats will be found in the cages which commensurate with their size. So here I am in this cage, large cage which thankfully has a window right near my computer. I was lucky to be around when it was getting built this helped me choose the right cage of the three options. One had no windows, the other had a lot of windows but also had a pillar and the third was just right. Not too enamoured by vaastu I just choose the one I thought whose window will be nice and bright and just the right size. Nice to have light filtering through in the morning.
I can also see some greenery around here. The best of all, one of my favourite city birds, the coppersmith barbet makes it tonk tonk sound all day long. What more can I ask for. And today as I am writing this post I almost jumped in joy. I spotted the lovely bird from my window. Wow. Nice. It put me in a good mood. This cage is not so bad after all. Besides the gilded trimmings it also has a view. And I can see a barbet from it.
A week back I was happy to be in the free and open, watching the blue throated barbet making its chattering sound and now I am here watching the coppersmith. How we amuse ourselves. How we look at our situation and find joy in it. What must be the animals at the zoo thinking. The pelican must be happy to get his dose of fish served to him. I too must remain happy thus. Every month end I get my cheese delivered to me in my bank account. For that all I must endure is this cage. It’s got carpeting, it’s got a small personal TV, air-conditioning and a view to the tree. What more should one ask for? Why do cribpots complain? Who said man is free to roam around and explore the wild. It is for him to be happy like a lion is in the zoo. He is the star attraction and he is kept happy, vaccinated and fed. It seems (I was reading somewhere) that animals in the zoos might enjoy a longer life than in the wild. Here they are free from disease and hunger. Most importantly they are free from predators.
So all those who believe that man is essentially meant to be in the wild, take your theory and stuff it down your..... *&^%. Be happy in the zoo. You will be well fed and your fat around your belly is just a sign of prosperity. Sure you might get a few illnesses thanks to fat and overwork, but you rather get ill than be eaten by predators, right? All you have to do, like any other zoo, is keep the performance up. Keep fluttering your feathers and shine your mane. The peacock who keeps showing his feathers no matter if it rains or not, is always the pride of the zoo. Similarly here. Keep the act up and you will be well fed, you cage will get bigger. You might get more toys in your cage, better seating area. The big guys are even allowed to eat in their cages and the really big ones have opaque cages so that they can get their mate in them and enjoy moments of privacy. Haven’t you been to a zoo? The big cats always have an ante room in their enclosure, where they can catch a few private moments. It’s the same here.
Oh come on, don’t get too cynical about these things. Unlike the zoos, here you have a door in which you can you walk out anytime. There is no one holding you back in it. No one. Go... shooo... you crib pot.
here's my cage, opps cabin. two views of it. u like it?



oh hell I just realised. It also faces the east tying in with my desire to see the east! wow. yaaaa

emptying shelves filling minds

I look forward to getting books that form some sort of series. When you get two or more that form a series in your head and you get to read them back to back, they make for an interesting argument in your mind. But that is not always possible. The next best thing is to get a series of unputdownable interesting books that one reads back to back. When I get these unputdownables, the reading progresses rapidly with the books rapidly flying off my table. I keep the to-read books on my table and the rest get pushed into the cupboards. And I also control myself and don’t buy books till I clear my backlog, else it will rapidly spin out of control with books filling up shelves but not filling minds. Hahaha. I liked that last bit of corn philosophy. Filling shelves without filling minds. I should put that up in the library that one day I will design. Hah!
The last few weeks I have got extremely lucky with my books. I first got the book ‘Born to run’ by Christopher McDougall followed by a book on the Taj Mahal, followed by ‘Employees first, Customers second’ by Vineet Nayyar followed by ‘Into Thin Air’ by Jon Krakauer. They were as disparate as they could get.
Born to Run (see link which also has an interesting video by the author) is about Ultra marathoners and an ancient tribe that loves to run really long distances. I loved it as according to me the marathon / ultra marathon is the greatest ever sport. In my pecking order it lies at the very top. While you compete with others you largely end up fighting with yourself. The ability to pound the ground every step, continuously for hours at a stretch is simply magical. The author also argues that perhaps we survived as a species largely thanks to our unique ability to run long, real long distances. It explains how humans probably survived by simply running down the animals. They would most certainly outrun in the short run, but if you understand them and are able to track them, then you can most certainly run them down by sheer determination and grit. The gazelle will simply run like hell till its body gets over heated and dies. Poop. That’s it. Of course there is a little more skill to it that the book describes in detail. It also talks about our running styles and how with the advent of padded shoes we have been susceptible to more and more running related injuries. And interspersed throughout the book are lovely descriptions of ultra marathon races. They keep you riveted to the book, waiting to see who wins. All in all an amazing book that has immediately moved to my top ten list.
It also makes a point that I completely agree with. It says that one of the most important things about an ultra marathoner is the mind and how ‘nice’ a person he is. The general sociable or amiability of a person is completely important in a long distance runner. This is a slightly less fleshed out point in the book but it makes enough references to keep my mind active to the concept. I think its worth having a look at in detail.
The next book was about the Taj. From when I remember I have always had a fascination for the Taj. I grew up thinking about it. When I first visited it I was a kid, I next visited it when I was 23. At 23 when I saw it I thought it was highly over rated. Over time I have come to think deeply about it. There has to be some mystery about it. What is it that makes the Taj, THE TAJ. Is it merely a makbara or does it have greater significance. Slowly I started understanding it a bit better. I started reading about it at every chance I got. Reading more and more gave me further insights and glimpses into the monument. I can safely say that today I understand it enough to know much more than the average guide who does not understand it nor it nuances. I understood the value of walking slowly from the front entrances and seeing the arches in line. Letting the Taj slowly emerge. Also one great insight to me is to slightly lower yourself and see the image from the pathways before the gate. Then you will realise the perfect form that architect is letting you see. It must emerge, slowly. There is a reason for it to have a gate that shields the monument from view. Else they would have just put it up without the surrounding walls. Why lower yourself. My theory is that over time we have rebuilt roads and pavement to a point higher than what was the original. If you lower yourself on the path towards the monument you will the perfect angle where all the gates come in a beautiful line of sight. But then that’s my theory. It worked for me. Another thing is to visualise the Taj with garden in front being full of fruit bearing trees a ala Eden. It would not look as naked as it is looking now. It was supposed to be full of fruit bearing trees that possibly even contributed to its upkeep. There are old paintings of the Taj that show it with trees in front. Imagine a beautiful white relief in contrast to the dense green eden. The Humayun tomb in Delhi also always held a strong fascination for me. The book also explains the taj in relation to eth tomb. I always suspected that you cannot fully appreciate the Taj without first appreciating the Humayun’s tomb. I was right there. I would like to again and again to Taj to understand it deeper and deeper. So many myths and so many explanations. It is a mystery that needs explanation and resolving.
Next in line was the book ‘Employees first, customer second’ by Vineet Nayyar. I have come to this conclusion since the lat six months that the key to happy customers is happy employees. Satisfied happy and motivated employees make for a great set of customers. Putting customers first takes the focus away from the enablers and is a recipe ripe for disaster. This book I picked up in crosswords and read it back to back, in two hours flat without leaving the shop. I simply placed it back on the shelf. No, I will not deny the author the royalty, but I promised my self that I will figure a way to buy not one but at least 200 books. And get him to speak to as many forums as possible. He has a very valid point of view. He is attempting to change the way we as companies think. I will do everything in power to ensure that the message is spread as far and wide as possible. Putting that one book down will ensure that I will remember to figure out a way to get my signed copy from the 200. How? Wait and watch. Things are already in motion. Vineet – if you are reading this. Trust me. I think I know what you are aiming for and I think I can deliver your objectives. Message will be received very very wide.
Then the next book was about the ill fated expedition on Mount Everest. Another very high endurance sport. A book that kept me awake at night and made me read like crazy. To give you an idea on how much I enjoyed this book – I woke up at 730 am when I was in Bangalore and I just picked it and continued reading it till I finished it at 830 am. I just wanted to complete it.
Now the book on hand is called ‘the human zoo’. I just started reading it. I have no clue how good it is but the opening two paras in the introduction is one of the most hard hitting ones I have ever read – I reproduce it here.

‘When the pressures of modern living become heavy, the harassed city dweller often refers to his teeming world as a concrete jungle. This is a colourful way of describing the pattern of life in a dense urban community, but it is also grossly inaccurate, as anyone who has studied a real jungle will confirm.
Under normal living conditions, in their natural habitants, wild animals do not mutilate themselves, masturbate, attack their offspring, develop stomach ulcers, become fetishists, suffer from obesity, form homosexual pair-bonds, or commit murder. Among human city dwellers, needless to say, all of these things occur. Does this, then, reveal a basic difference between the human species and other animals? At first glance it seems to do so. But this is deceptive. Other animals do behave in these ways under certain circumstances, namely when they are confined in the unnatural conditions of captivity. The zoo animal in a cage exhibits all these abnormalities that we know so well from our human companions. Clearly, then, the city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo.’

Very rare that a book’s opening paragraphs slap you so hard. Very rare. I am dying to read the book to find out how hard the slaps turn out to be.