ramble in the morning

Writing is a bloody habit and a skill. I feel that the days I have written my blog regularly, I have written better and the days that I have just lost touch – I have, err… lost touch. I have nothing much to write about. I miss the 2009 days, when I wrote a blog for every working day that I had. It was a particularly fecund time for the blog and also for my mind. I had nothing to do in office but I had loads to read. I think some of that quite dramatically impacted me in a way. I realized that even if there is no work, I can invent work and figure out a way to make life much more productive.

Right now where I have joined, I can still decide to just sit down and relax and let time and tide work its way. I can relax and not push the pedal on anything. But I hate that. I don’t think that defines me. I am defined by the work I like to do and the knowledge I gain. I want to push the people under me to reach their levels of work that they did not think possible. I want to push hard. I don’t know why I am doing this. This is a recipe for disaster, frustration and anger. But I like doing it.

I think over a period of time, I have understood what makes me happy and what drives me. I like this in me. So I guess it’s pretty stupid to stop this. But on the other hand I am 42 years old. So I understand these things about me. I think I have learnt to know that my push is my problem. I can push but people can only take so much. I have the ability today to sit behind as well and relax and chill knowing that things will happen at their own pace. This is what the prime example of opposites reconciling is.

I push but I wait. I demand but don’t expect. I lead but I also allow you to float away. The concept of opposites reconciling is something that only age can teach. Today I understand far more about it that I thought at the start. It is more profound than ever to me. We are a bundle of contradictions. So many times I see people lie, but I don’t think they do it. I think they are merely telling the different truth, again, and this time it’s different.

Sometimes people love me and then the next day they won’t. What’s the truth? Hah! There is none. I have argued much about this in my past blogs. Opposites reconciling is also a case of truth and lies reconciling. It’s also a case of emotions reconciling. An old friend reached out to me after a long time. We were practically out of touch. Her mother passed away. I connected with her and felt for her, but I don’t really feel for her. Move on. Another friend connected with me – she was frustrated with her job. I felt for her, but I don’t feel for her. Another friend…. You know the drift…

In both cases I was warm, genuinely so. This is how emotions are when you are older I guess. You retain the warmth in your heart but you don’t let it fool your brain in wondering if you really care. I think I really care for no one really. Yes I care about my daughter and wife, more so than anything else in the world. But sometimes I wonder if I have become more cynical and hardened over a period of time.

Yesterday for brief time in the night the electricity went out. In her sleep (she didn’t remember it in the morning) Jispa came to our room and asked if the electricity went out, and that it was hot. Jasmine asked to sleep with us, as we have a net window and it was relatively cooler. As Jispa slept, Jasmine fanned her with a newspaper. That is motherly love, untouched by father’s world weary cynicism. I told her not to, but she still did it. Then I took on the newspaper and fanned Jispa. Not because of my love for Jispa, but because I wanted to give Jasmine’s hand some rest. Dumb ass.

Was this love or was this sharing the burden of parenting or sharing the stupidity of an old friend. I freaking don’t know. All I know was that Jasmine’s action had more love than mine.  My thinking for this is that she is yet untouched by the world or she is refusing to be touched by the world. More the former. I think if Jasmine would have worked in corporate life, then she too would have been worldly cynical. But she is unscathed. That’s why I take extra care of her. That’s why sometimes, I let her even face some of the shit – there, realise that it’s stupid, to love unconditionally or give unconditionally. Slowly I have seen her also harden with the ways of the world. So far she has managed a bunch of friends who are loyal to her, by being who is. That’s a happy cocoon to have. I draw from her well of goodness. I wouldn’t have ever been able to have these friends on my own.

Coming to which – I am looking forward to my family Singapore holiday. We are going there for a few reasons – 1 – its free stay. My friend (ex colleague) has settled there and we get free stay. But more importantly – Jasmine and I wanted a nice stress free holiday. I have been to Singapore three times and with family – once. It’s a stress free city. We know the city and all he attractions. There is no rush to complete them all and see them all. We can do it at our own pace and time. The public transport runs like a breeze and is predictable to a fault. There is very low crime and everyone is honest. Jispa can do things on her own there. What more do we want? No stress, foreign, happy vacation. I want that.

Also we are almost broke doing up our new home. We have no money for a large expensive vacation. By the time it’s done, I am going to be so broke. But I see that as an insurance against the vagaries of life. Now that it will be done, there will be less stress on me. It’s a home built for a hopefully a longer period of time. And a home that should last me till retirement. I never knew that at 42 one talks about retiring. But age does that to you. I am pretty aggressive for an old man… hehehe… opposites reconciling.

Last note – a blog that I was writing and didn’t bother to publish – I have a recurring nightmare that I can’t run to catch a train, my legs freeze. With my knee problem, I see that as a reality. While taking part in the parent’s race, this time, I felt that my legs froze and couldn’t go faster. They went slower than they could. I was worried about the knee popping out again. Man… it’s scary to see yourself live your nightmare in some way. I hate it. But I live with it. It’s a big bad dream come true. Arrggghhh.

Free irrelevant song

my search for meaning with my daughter

One of the best things we did on this vacation is the decision of coming back to Mumbai in the Rajdhani train. When we were young train travel was always second class and always non air conditioned. It did not matter where we traveled, this was the mode of transport. I remember going from Mumbai to Kolkata by train in a second class non A/c train. This was the norm. Somehow I also do remember trains being far cleaner than what they are now. We would get down at the stations and fill our jugs with water and buying bottled water was never on the agenda. But eating out for a Gujju family was an anathema. We would have lunch and dinner and breakfast packed along with tea. There was a box my mom once bought from Kolkata. It was called the patharo, I think. It was a mid sized aluminum box which was used to store food for a journey. We would carry theplas, khakras, pickles, tea and everything while travelling. Food was an essential part of the travelling. We liked our food and we kept it with us, everywhere we went.

I think the first time we went in an air-conditioned train was when I was in college (around 1995-95). The demand for air conditioned trains was going up and people then started travelling in the Ac trains. I remember using the Rajdhani for the first time and it was a lovely experience. You get your beddings, a bottle of water, all meals and an ice cream as a desert. Hah! It was heaven. As we (the economy) got richer, we used the AC train for more often. It was definitely the AC and if you are feeling rich then you use the second AC, otherwise the third AC was the minimum norm. The big difference is that the second AC has two beds bunked up on either side and the third AC has three on either side. And the second AC have the horrible unwashed dirty shitty curtains. I hate those curtains. I hate touching those dirty curtains.

For a long while it was the AC trains that we used till we got even richer (here we is economy and family). Also the price of airline tickets also started to fall. We started flying everywhere on vacations. It saved time and time on vacation is money. You want to use the time to enjoy your vacation, not travelling to a place.

This time, while we were planning the vacation, we decided to take the train back from Delhi. I thought that the best time to have a conversation with your daughter is in a train. Rajdhani is the best of them all. No stress while travelling, no random people climbing on and reasonably clean with your food taken care of. We got one upper side bunk. Jispa climbed onto it and made herself at home. I joined in after her in some time. We then started talking. I started explaining to her the US elections. How they are managed and how the President is elected. Of course nothing is that simple when I am explaining anything. I took two hours to explain the whole thing, including the election of Bush and Bill Clinton. It was an awesome conversation. In the middle while I was explaining to her how a friend of mine was in a government job in India, working for a minister, she was quite amazed and she asked me why I did not tell her about it before. I simply said – we don’t have time these days as we are all busy with a lot of other things. I later told Jasmine about this and we both smiled. We both knew that I always have time, but she is too busy these days and too moody and too much of a teenager to listen. She is lost in her phone or in her music or in something else altogether.

The Rajdhani experiment was a success. I look forward to many more such successes. Now that she is growing up and she has a mind, I am finding interesting things that we can share. We also booked trains to Dehradun from delhi. Here I shared my kindle with her and asked her to read another book summary that I had. This book has influenced me a whole lot. It lead bare the marketing of food and how the food giants got us to eat more, much more unhealthy but tasty food. It’s called Salt Sugar Fat. I had read the detailed summary and then recently I had bought the full book. I had the summary on the Kindle and I got Jispa to read it. She read it and enjoyed it. We then could discuss elements of the book and understand how the bliss point is achieved by the manufacturers. It’s quite an interesting book and is easily my top read. But the real fun is when I could discuss it with my kid.

With the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)movies coming out, another point of mutual fun is getting developed. Jispa and I went for the Doctor Strange movie together. Jasmine is not a great fan is happier sleeping this one out. I enjoyed watching it with Jispa and laughing on all the attitude jokes with her. Then at the end of it, I explained to her the concept of the infinity stones and how the MCU has used it across all their movies to tie it all in together.  Now that was a seriously cool bro moment (we call each other bro and we fist pump. Yes… sigh). I know that because there are enough and more, young MCU fans in my office who are original comic book hero worshippers. Then we sat at home and looked up videos and blogs that explained the concept of the infinity stones and how all the movies in the MCU somehow connect to one or more of the infinity stones coming towards a huge final showdown. This is so bloody serious. The guys at MCU must have be crazy to take such an audacious move wherein they are thinking years in advance where the movies have story lines that are crisscrossing each other towards a grand finale. Every superhero story is to be seen in relation to the other, with Easter eggs in all of them. Discovering this is awesome, telling it to your teenage daughter to see her mouth wide open – priceless.

If this much bonding wasn’t enough – we are suddenly now reading a book together. This one is deadly serious - Man's Search for Meaning;  a 1946 book by Viktor Frankl chronicling his experiences as an Auschwitz concentration camp inmate during World War II. He is a Psychologist by profession and was thrown into a concentration camp. He uses the experience to delve deep into the mind of man and comes out to share his experience. He tries to be as objective as possible in explaining his situation and his experience. Then he explains how people who survived probably found more meaning in their life than others. Jispa and me are reading it at the same time. She folds the top of her page to mark her page and I use the bottom. The book is divided into two sections and the second section of the book explains describing his psychotherapeutic method, which involved identifying a purpose in life to feel positively about, and then immersively imagining that outcome. This was in my to-read list sine a long time, We found it in a mall in Dehradun and picked it up immediately as train reading for Jispa and me. The book has been an outstanding revelation. In many ways it resonates with what I think is true in life and have known it to be true for me. It captures beautifully the essence of what I think is purpose and meaning in daily trials. Most importantly – it talks about sufferings as being something in which you find meaning.

I have read Buddha and his various teachings and lessons. There also there is talk of suffering as real and an important part of life. I never did understand that till now. I always used to think that suffering cannot be the motive of life and how can it be the truth of life. Aren’t we all trying not to suffer, then why must we accept suffering as an important meaning of life. Here, reading this book at age 41, I realise what suffering is. To extract meaning and purpose in life we do things. We aim, we achieve, we face degection and sadness and we face trails and tribulations, we strive and we work, we think and plan. The moment we do anything we are expending effort. This effort for me is suffering. Jispa finds meaning in her tough swim schedule. She braves cold waters, tough workouts and sore ness in her body. She suffers but in that suffering she finds meaning and that is why she does it.

This what I explained to Jispa while we were discussing the book and I explained that I never did understand it till I was 41 and I read this book. Was it the book or was it the maturity? Many books are awesome but in many ways you are probably too young or too old to read it or understand it. Many books are awesome but they are not there for you at the right time or the right mental frame of mind.

Who would have known that a book is all about timing and at the right time it finds relevance and meaning?

While reading and buying books on amazon, it’s a fun thing to see the reviews and understand the book before you end up reading it. The negative reviews are also there which enhance the experience of the book. At first, some negative reviews used to discourage me from buying the book. As if I was searching for some holy grail and wanted to use my time (arrogance) only for reading the best of the best. But now, I also understand that it’s only a point of view. The book is a point of view, the reviews are a point of view and you as a reader is only reading and forming a point of view. There is no real truth, as in everything is relative. And in books, there is also the question of timing. Hence it’s nice to read the reviews and nice to understand them, but you still have to make up your mind on your own. And never let anyone stop you from reading your book. Because I have often said that even the worst book in the world will tell you why it’s the worst book in the world. So there is knowledge everywhere.

I am the bridge builder

I was explaining to someone that all my life I have always been the youngest one. The youngest son of the youngest son. From my mother’s side too I was the youngest son with only two female cousins younger than me. Being the youngest one should have been a natural to me, except that I didn’t ever do well at it. I think I was designed to be the eldest. I like to teach, to learn, to observe and to share. I like to protect and to have fun, I like to dominate yet cede. I am not designed to be the youngest but I learnt over a period of time to be one.

Now that I am 41, I am in many ways an elder. In this start up, I am the eldest in the office. The senior who must lead and manage the young. He who must nurture the young and initiate them into the ways of life. Ok – now that got way too dramatic. But as the years have piled on, I have moved to apposition of being the elder and I think I probably do a better job of being the elder than being the younger. Of being the teacher than at being the student.

Being the youngest helped me become a better elder. All I did was look very deeply at people who were older to me and see how they behaved. How they treated their younger ones, and more importantly how they did not treat their younger ones. This formed the basis of how I should treat others. In way that I would have expected to have been treated. That today is how I am what I am, as a boss, as a father, as a friend and as a teacher. You don’t always need role models to shape your behavior. You can do it just as well with the absence of role models. You simply ask yourself what you would have liked and you then listen to your own voice very clearly. That’s that simple.

Last week we were on vacation. I was very keen to have a camping experience with Jispa and Jasmine. Just about a month before the vacation, both of them pulled out. It was way too expensive they said and that they weren’t so keen. Oh Damn it. They broke my heart. I always wanted to go camping with family. Sleeping in the tents, walking all day, moving in the mountains, the bitter cold, the warm sleeping bags, the really silly places to go to the loo, everything. Discomfort is an important part of process. Only when you put men through real discomfort you realize what you are made of. And as a group of people, when you face hardship together, it binds you, it releases you. Camping together is one way to get to the same. Of course this was a luxury camp. We would have paid around 10k per night all-inclusive (including transport) for this experience. But at the last my family developed chicken feet. So we moved our vacation to Rishikesh where we stayed at a home stay, roamed the streets of Rishikesh and sipped on honey ginger lemon tea while having freshly baked butter biscuits. Some discomfort.

After which we went to Hathipaon where my sis runs a lovely small home stay.

It was a fun vacation, but it was marginally ruined or heightened depending on your perspective by the fact that I had an exam to give in the middle of it. This was an Insurance exam for which I had to leave the vacation mid-way and run to Delhi and back. The pressure was tremendous and I had to really learn the innards of the insurance business before I could have passed. The pressure was two-fold. On the business there was definitely some pressure as we needed a senior guy to pass the exam and be the principal officer for the firm and then as the elder in the office, I couldn’t have failed. It was too much of a loss of face. I put dramatic pressure on myself and pushed myself to study. I studied three books, marked a lot on them, read them again and again, and was generally prepared for what’s going to come. In the end of the multiple choice question paper, I scored 65 of 80 marks. 40 was passing. Wow – I had done it with flying colors. Serious respect. When you grow old, you lose something – something very raw, you lose your sense of fun, innocence and gay abandon. You lose the ability to chance a few things. You push yourself and your system to what you think is the most important thing and achieve it. This part is no fun. I have never studied this way as I studied for this exam. On the trip, I studied in the plane, on the train, in the hotel, on the bed and one full day in Rishikesh on the table studying for my exam. After the paper, I had a celebratory lunch in Delhi. I had my favorite Delhi lunch of chole and dal with naan at the road side thella (stall). That was yum. So much yum, that I took Jasmine and Jispa there when we were in Delhi switching trains. When in Delhi – do the Delhi!

So when we were back, my sis asked me for feedback. I knew that was coming and I had discussed a lot with Jispa and Jasmine about the place. We seemed to have cracked the travel thing. We go for cheaper home stay options at distinct places that seem to have captured the heart and soul of the place. We know the service and we know the way the thing works now. We know how to look at the reviews and how to manage and plan the trip. So far, it has hardly let us down. Trip Advisor has been so helpful in all of this. My nephew was wondering why would anyone put up a review on trip advisor. A rational human wouldn’t want to waste his time once he was already there. What could he possibly get. I told him two things – from a selfless perspective – it really helped me and hence it is my job to help others. From a selfish perspective – the more reviews I give the better the site gets and that leads to a positive cycle where hotels and home stays know that if they screw up you get bad reviews. This was the whole ecosystem is forced to improve if they have to thrive. My review about Rishikesh will in some way help my travels in Pondicherry, because of the general uplift in service standards.

I am reminded of this poem about which I think I have blogged before.

The Bridge Builder

- Will Allen Dromgoole

An old man going a lone highway,
Came at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm, vast, and deep and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.

The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fear for him;
But he turned, when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.

"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim, near,
"You are wasting strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again will pass this way;
You've crossed the chasm, deep and wide-
Why build you this bridge at the evening tide?"

The builder lifted his old gray head:
"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said,
"There followeth after me today,
A youth, whose feet must pass this way.

This chasm, that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him."

This poem was especially significant for me for in the 6^th standard, I tried to take part in the poetry recital competition in school. There was no one to help at home but I knew I was good to take part in the competition. I told my teacher that I was interested and she gave me this poem. By the time the trials came in, I was hopelessly underprepared and I was not selected. What a total loss it was. I laughed at the end. There none but me to crown myself!

Recently I understood the bride builder and its metaphorical significance. I am in many ways a Bridge Builder. Yes, good friend, I am building this bridge for him.

So yesterday I went over to my sister’s house and discussed what all you can do to improve the service. Small things that cost very little but can make a dramatic impact on your stay experience. In the end, today she puts on the whatsapp group something akin to ‘when did you get so smart?’. Oh well. Now the fun starts. The dichotomy of being an elder elsewhere nad being the young one at home. Sometimes I wonder how I manage it in my brain and in my behavior. I wonder.

travel to learn

The fun bit with being a client is that you have agencies trying their best to vie for your attention. Of all places that I have gone thanks to work, this month I found myself in Russia.

Moscow to be precise. I have had a fascination for the place ever since childhood. Russia, the big super power of the world and an ally of India, against the mean big consumerist USA! Oh what a fool I too was. The communist country collapsed under its own weight and then came Peristroika and complete confusion. I don’t think Russia knows what they are anymore. Whether they are a controlled or a free market economy or a political nation.

But I was super happy to see Moscow. These are cities that will not normally be on your tourist radar. I am happy that my work has taken me to these places and I was able to add to my experiences. Jispa has to find her own experiences that take her places. I feel bad for Jasmine though. I would love to take her places that she hasn’t been to before.

Travelling abroad is a real irritating thing for me these days. The fact that you going abroad means you are spending a whole lot of money and then you really want to make the vacation count and take in as much as you can. You have to do a lot of research and you have to plan and figure and do everything. It’s a painful process. I then suddenly realized that I have been a real pain. A complete ass. Now I am making a decent sum of money. Our daily life is small and our daily requirements do not really amount to much. We can after we have accounted for all our expenses manage to spend that money once a year.  Jispa wanted to go to Greece and I agreed but then when we researched we realized that June July is peak season with long queues and high prices it may not be the right thing to do. And then in any other season we would get a smaller break and then I would love to go for at least two weeks! So we ditched the plan. I feel so mean.

In around 2008, we had planned to got o Hong Kong and then the economy went kaput and we felt scared and did not go to Hong Kong. I think that was the biggest regret I have had with respect to Jispa and taking her to vacations. I think while she was growing up she would have enjoyed Disney Land. I have always wanted to go to Disney land as a child but never did and I wanted my child to go to Disney land. I am feeling like a joker now that we cancelled the plan. I so goddamn regret it. So now we have a 14 year old kid who hasn’t been to Disney and because her father was a jerk.

Now I realized that I wasn’t taking her anywhere else as well because of the same reason. SO we ended up doing a lot of India vacations. Not that India vacations are bad. You can get to see a lot of what is interesting in India. It can end fun and enjoyable and enriching as well, but there is of course a lot of enrichment that can be done outside India, that will completely help you expand.

One interesting thing in Moscow that I noticed was that Moscow built the most amazing dense network of underground tube stations. All the lines cross the city and try and connect people. They started this following the British and I think they picked up steam after the world war. In the heart of the network they built a circular line through which every other line would crisscross. Obviously these would be the most used lines by the people. These station on the circular line were chosen for beautification and beautification in a totalitarian regime is nothing but propaganda. The stations are amazingly beautiful. One has beautiful stories depicting the great Russian history on the ceiling, one has absolutely magnificent stained glass and the other has statues of brass alongside the platforms.

Everyone saw it as beautiful, which they were, but I saw it for what I think it was – propaganda. The tube stations are used by the proletariat for their day to day life, and it would be impossible to miss the main circle line on your daily commute. It is here that these monuments were built to the glory of the working class, instilling a pride of being a Russian.  A lot of the statues were about humble people working and of course believing that this work is going towards nation building. The poor people are always fed on dreams of a greater society working for a greater good. No book comes close to explaining this within the communist context than Animal Farm, which explains how the poor and the hardworking just have to work harder and harder. Large beautiful nameless generic statues are built honoring the hard work and selfless dedication of these beautiful people. You are supposed to look at them and find yourselves in them and believe that your boring drudgery is a part of the greater purpose.

This is also one the reasons we honor the soldiers through another long set of nameless statues. The tomb of the unknown soldiers is a perfect example. These poor kids went off to battle and died saving the motherland. These wars are fought on the behest of idiotic politicians who put these young brave soldiers in front of bullets without much care about these lives.

When we in corporate life took a lot of these structures and ideals onto the organization, we too took these ideas and put them as at the hall of fame thing. We inspire and make professionals believe that this is the glory of life, we make them believe that we are what we are thanks to the effort of the common worker who slogs his ass out from 9 to 9 leaving his health and family at the altar of the common greatness and shit like that.

What a pain. No wonder I have never received an over achiever award ever in my life. I have never won anything like that – no best student, no best worker nothing. I don’t think that I have ever received any incentive for anything either. Just end of year bonuses. Nothing else.

I guess I am proud of that. The only real award I received was in college, ”principal’s special award for extra-curricular activities”, that’s it. That was good enough for me. I won that for basically not attending class but doing all sorts of fun things in college. I was put on the college magazine as one of the stars of the college. Hah!

So yes travelling is fun and you do get to learn a lot, and the further you travel from home, the better it is for you. Any pretext is good, as long as you travel. So I am planning to do so as far as I can afford to. Let’s see. I plan for sure to go somewhere in the next summer vacation that Jispa has. Till then, this vacation, I am going to the Indian Himalayan foothills this Diwali vacation. A cheap simple vacation where the most of the learnings are going to come from the train ride that we will be taking with Jispa after a really long time!