a tooth story

Around a week back, Jispa lost another tooth. The tooth fairy came calling again and left another 5 rupee coin. I guess that’s how the government manages to circulate the money. It prints less and ensures that the rest is made up by the tooth fairy. That is also probably the reason it makes a record of the births in the country. Then it does an extrapolation and plots the number of babies born, their progression, expected mortality rates, the average age at which you get new teeth etc etc. hence it figures the replacement cost of a tooth versus the five rupee that the fairy generates and leaves behind. It adds that to the money supply in the economy and then adjusts for the same by printing less on its own. This ensures equitable distribution of the money supply as well. While this does all well, how does it manage to account for the missing five rupees in the net worth of the parents every time a child loses a tooth? I guess then it adds up the child’s income from other sources to include the tooth fairy gift and then totals that up as the net gain for a family to account for the net off in family income. Hence balancing the book. Though I wonder if this income of a child which is then clubbed with the parent is taxable at the maximum marginal tax rate. Or I guess that comes under the exceptions of winnings that are exempt up to Rs.5000 in a calendar year. But is the tooth fairy exchange of a tooth for cash a winning or is it a sale? Under which circumstances it is taxable on the profit. And if the basic raw material for the tooth is calcium then milk becomes the input under which am I expected to maintain the milk bills. Then that would be good for me as at five bucks a tooth I am making a huge loss on the transaction which could be set off against the other income I make. Now that’s a happy happy ending.

But to continue Jispa’s story, she wrote a message for the tooth fairy on the white board. She asked for confidence. I wonder why. She thinks she is shy. I don’t think she is. I guess it might be fashionable to be shy. Whatever, but the tooth fairy was quite clear. She said something to this effect - confidence is not something that anyone can give you. It is inside of you. Sometimes when it is a bit lost, take a deep breath and believe in yourself and it will come back. And at the end she even referred to her as ‘superconfident Jispa’. Here is the board as proof.

unemployment and a tooth

On Saturday my wife asked me to help her with making the theplas. Theplas is a type of gujju roti. So her job was to give me the dough all ready and in the right shape and I was to cook it on the stove. I had done this in the past before so I was pretty comfortable. As she churned out the raw material faster and faster the pressure was on me to keep the stuff going. Then Wifey comes out with one more pan and starts two at a time. On one pan the theplas get heated, then they get transferred to the other pan where I oil them on one side, cook a bit, then oil them on the other, cook a bit and throw them onto a pile. I was feeling pretty happy helping her finish the work fast. My servant also looked surprised to see me helping with the theplas. I was trying to do my part of the deal faster and was completely stressed out.
Then suddenly it struck me. I asked Jasmine “me helping is not really helping you do it faster is it? I think you would do all this without me at the same speed… isn’t it?” jasmine says “ya, I do all of this together at the same speed”
Hmmm… I remembered this theory of economics that we had learnt at college. I think it was in the first year. Suppose there is an acre of farm land that the farmer is tending to for years. After he has a couple of sons they to join in the farming as extra hands. So now we would have three heads employed, but if the productivity of the farm land has not gone up in the same ratio then we have what is called ‘disguised unemployment’. It just looks as if more are employed while the net effect is actually negative.
You get the drift….
Disguised unemployment at work.

One more tooth in the life of Jispa and her tooth fairy. Here is the long and shot of it. The ‘OK’ with the circle is her response to the entire episode. The no5 in the top corner is my wife clarifying which tooth number this is.

legacy, eh!

Back after a two week hiatus. It was family time with Jasmine, Jispa and me going to Kumaon. Every year vacation planning becomes very difficult. Where to go, what is the climate, how do we reach, what do we do etc… we wanted to go to Rajasthan for some time and visit Udaipur and Jaipur but somehow the plan never went anywhere. You can go there in July but we realized that if the monsoon is delayed then you could get temperatures of around 40 degrees. Whew.. so we suddenly made a u turn on the plan the finalized this plan within an hour one night and proceeded to make the bookings. So it was us visiting Pangot, Jilling and Naukuchiatal in Kumaon.of all things I missed was – updating my blog. I thought of so much to write. Now I almost feel like buying those pocket PC and fitting the dam thing with a data card. I have this kida to start writing. I would like to write on my blog, write a children’s book, write some travelogues, but sitting here and doing it from Mumbai is almost as impossibility. I would need to get away somewhere and figure.
Once I read an article on people taking up writing. One of the guys was quoted as thus – whenever I say to anyone that I am writing something, they ask me when I am going to publish it. Its like asking someone who likes playing basketball, when are you playing for the NBA. I found that quote quite inspirational. Writing for me is so personal. I write because I want to. I really don’t care who reads it. I would be most happy if my daughter would one day read it. She is probably my one and only target audience. That reminds me that I have to proof check my travelogue. Wonder why I haven’t yet found motivation to do it. Well there is precedence – I never did get around to checking my papers while writing exams and I assume I would not change anytime in the future.
Yesterday was summer solstice. Nothing about it but I had taught Jispa what it was and she had fun experiencing it. she realized it was a loooong day and it wasn’t dark till quite late. It was also a perfect date for her to shed (?) her fourth tooth. Fairy came in again and wrote some message for her. Fairy needs to get a bit creative though I believe the back pain stopped her from thinking too much.

While there is a lot I have to write about the trip – I hope to be writing about it one at a time. Whenever I go out vacationing or anywhere else, I experience new things, new stuff, I come back smarter. I learn from varied sources. It helps me lead a richer fuller life. All this comes back to me in my job. I can think of different elements that could help me do my job better. It is very important to have varied interests and be as exposed as possible. A simple interest in wildlife helped me design some collateral once. Using the right animals helped the design. Example knowing that Indian gharial is different from the average crocodile as in it has special mutations that have helped it survive by catching fish in the rivers, was used in one collateral. Some service example somewhere would have helped something else. When I was in consulting they realized this. They allowed for this. Brand strategy inspiration can come from varied sources. But companies rarely recognize this. They like to straightjacket their work, their thinking and their ideas. That’s why you get shitty slipshod work. People are trained not to get ideas, inspiration and references. One thing I hope is that Jispa leads a richer life and gets her inspirations from a billion sources. One friend of mine got it right when she saw the book collection. Her hubby was wondering what I am going to do with my book collection.
She realized that all I am doing was building a legacy.

tut toot tooth

Yesterday was historic day in the annals of Jispa’s spectacular growth story.. ok ok. I do get carried away with my rubbish at times… yesterday Jispa encountered the super natural. But that would be a bit ahead of us, wouldn’t it? Let’s start from the beginning.
Jispa’s front tooth started moving a bit sometime back. She was pretty happy about it. She used to play with it with her tongue. Slowly but surely it began to hang loose. I kept looking at it. “Jispa do you want me to remove it. It will come out any moment. I can remove it now”. “NOOOO. DON’T. it will hurt.” “ok whatever you say”.
Yesterday I got a message from jasmine ‘Jispa asked me to inform all of you that her front tooth has come off’. What a momentous occasion. She was excited all day after that. I came home and clicked photos of the tooth and her toothless (one tooth less) smile. Shot some macros of the tooth in question, and even shot some videos. Jispa was asking if we informed everybody. She said that when important things happen one should inform everybody. Well we sure did her bidding. Everyone now partakes their share of this joyous event. I even asked for a cover containing Rs 1001/- from her uncles and aunts. No harm trying to get lucky. :)
At night we put the tooth in the tooth fairy box. We had bought this a year back! What enthusiastic parents we are, nah. Wonder of wonders. When Jispa woke up today she suddenly got up and checked her tooth fairy box. The tooth had been taken by the tooth fairy and instead she got a brand new swanky looking five rupee coin. The one that has the Gandhi Dandi march on its side. Wow. Pretty cool. Some kids have all the luck. She then suddenly noticed her whiteboard. The tooth fairy had even written a lovely note for her. Now this is too much. She got a personalized handwritten note. It said, dear Jispa, grow up well and fast, love tooth fairy. Boowooo… I never got this stuff… in comparison we live / lived such mundane lives.
Let’s see if lightning strikes twice, she still has a few more teeth to go.

To get an idea of the lives we led here is a ridiculously old photograph, circa August1978. I was three years old and my cousin was donating blood. That’s my dad carrying me and my er… rattle? And my brother being carried as well. My mom to my dad’s right and my sister standing in the front. Also if you see carefully you will realize while we donate blood in plastic pouches, the measuring units (slang) for blood typically is bottles.

My dad’s brother (holding my brother up) and his wife (beside him) used to be champions of the cause of blood donation. Somewhere around 1985 I remember visiting them and reading that they had been honored for donating blood some 50 times already. Wow. Those impressions I still carry in my mind and I try as much as possible to be available for any blood donation drive. In office I even made all my colleagues donate it. Monkey sees, monkey does.

its the gene pool, stupid

Jispa is a sadist. I have proof.

Her front tooth is shaking and ready for replacement. So everyday she wonders when the curtains will fall on her teeth or should I say the curtains will rise on her teeth? But that qualifies her as a 6 year old not a sadist. The sadist part happens thus. She says, I wish my tooth falls when I am in an aero plane. I am like huh, where did that come from? She says the tooth will fall, then mummy will take the tooth and put in a plastic bag. Then you know the small flat place near the aero plane window, that place just where the window ends. That flat place. There we will keep the tooth… – you see still no sadisticism, only imagination wildism. - …in that place when we keep the tooth, it will fun (or some adjective like that she said) to see the tooth fairy come and take it.

There you crummy left brain bean counter bird pee cheap sadist…Beat that!