the young will inherit the earth

Today was a nice morning. Jispa had a shorter workout. Typically I pick her up from her workout and drop her off near my office, which is half the way home. She then takes a rick back home. Today we had some time to kill. I asked her if she wanted to have coffee with me in the morning.

It was a nice coffee date at Starbucks. We spoke on a lot of things. She first got to see my office. Her reaction ‘it looks so much like a … like a BANK!’. Yes. It is a… a bank office you know. But I get it. She doesn’t mean it like a compliment. Our reception and office and everything is so traditional with all the cubicles and the reception area holds a bank branch with red being a dominant theme. It is very bank like and it is a total put off for a young kid. I remember the bank office when I was a kid. Large cubicles and counters behind which bank personnel were sitting. Very imposing and intimidating. Bank designs have improved over the years. But this comment by Jispa is very insightful.

The reception area is recently designed but it also shows how much out of touch we are with the rest of the young world. Our office space is also designed for old people and not a young crowd. Innovation cannot happen by an old person or by young people conforming to older standards. We must change and welcome new ideas, new thinking and new systems into our lives. That is the only way to change and continue to be relevant.

After coffee I was explaining to her, that as a father, my big dilemma is exactly this. How do I put blind faith on youth. I told her – remember Jispa. If you want to be wildly successful, mark my words. DON’T LISTEN to older people, and don’t listen to your parents. Older people advice will ensure survival, but to grow big and break everything you have to learn not to listen to us. So while you are with us, listen, you have no choice. But once you do become 18 and you don’t live with us, DON’T LISTEN TO US.

Curiously she was defending older people. She was saying that isn’t it that older people know more and wont they be right. I spoke to her about my office experience. Older people are often wrong and they work at preservation. When I worked at a startup for 2 years I learnt that the startup thinks very differently as a means to do things. They think very differently from older matured organizations and that one of the reasons why they have achieved scale at a rapid scale. Some the best guys in the VC business have understood this. It’s their job to trust the young kids and give them money and get out of the way.

Young kids don’t need older people in the company. I told her that in the startup I think I sucked at it. I think my role should have been only limited to advisory, not really working on systems and day to day work. That is best left to younger kids with energy and drive. I also told her that parents are the worst at giving career advice. We just don’t know what new things are out there. My mom would been so proud of me if I had given some banking exams and become a branch manager at a government owned bank. What did she know about careers?

I told Jispa that there years ago I did not know what my job would be. It has changed. The rapid scale at which change is happening, every three years jobs and industries are changing. Old people don’t know anything. That’s the biggest dilemma we as parents have. Your mom is right most of the time. If you follow her instructions, you will survive for sure. But if survival is your goal then sure. but if you want to be crazy successful, or at least have a chance at being crazy successful, you have to break rules. That’s the dilemma I am in all the time.

I want you to not listen to me. She countered that won’t we get things wrong if we don’t listen o sound advice. Yes kid exactly. You will be wrong but that is the right thing to do. To be wrong and then learn from it is to be right. As a young kid your job is to wrong and wrong again. Keep being wrong to be right.

A ha… after a long time – opposites reconciling. I know when I am on a roll. I get the title of my blog into my writing.

But all in all it was a morning well spent with Jispa. The job of the young is to guide the old and not the other way around. Old must learn actively from the young. I loved understanding and talking with Jispa. She is 16 and she has so much to explain to me. Her training programs, the fun they have in school, the things kids do and the life from her perspective. It’s time to simply sit back and absorb a lot from her. Its really fun growing up with her.

Pandora is it.

Jasmine reads my blog diligently. But not because she needs to read it but i suspect its just that she had it in her feedly link and it shows up there. She has hardly ever said anything about anything that I have ever written. She is a quiet spectator to the blog. So yesterday i was pleasantly surprised when she out of the blue remarked – you haven't written in a long time. Yup, I told her. My mind hasn't been clear.

You know having the best intentions aren't enough. I had the best intentions that as i join the new place i would write everyday. It would be a great experience trying to articulate and note down all my experiences as i see them for the first time in 11 years. A  new company, a new environment, a new culture. I would be excited and all fired up about cataloguing all my experiences. But i guess, nothing of the sort happened. First, this place sucks by giving a keyboard. I am so used to a key board that i find it pretty irritating to write on the laptop key board directly. Bah.

That is one hell of a bad excuse for a blog that is dedicated to my daughter. But then if my wife asks me for something, how can i not give her, so in fact of the matter that i hate typing long on the laptop, here i am writing this post. Of course there is enough of stuff to talk about...

Last month was a revelation as far as Jispa’s studies are concerned and we have decided to focus on studies every Saturday. This way there is no pressure to study just before the exams and it leaves me free to explain stuff in my own way. This time, I dont know what I was teaching but i ended up listening to the Great Hargesia Goat Bubble along with her. This a great radio play that explains how asset bubbles are formed and how markets react to them, create them and then how they eventually go bust. All using the story of goats. Its a 40 min play which i sat through with Jispa, explaining to her while pausing it where it got a bit technical. Jispa and I really enjoyed this one. Then we moved onto History and math and other stuff. History is even more fun. Indian history is simply understood by reading the official school book. Its enough history to understand a lot of what you read around you. Right now its about Babur and the advent of the Mughal kingdom in India. After Babur, Sher Shah packed Humayun off and ruled Delhi till as Jispa told me – he shot himself while cleaning a rifle. This last bit is possibly apocryphal. But the poor guy supposedly would have never let the Mughal rule take hold until he died early. He is the same guy who laid the foundations of an ably administered kingdom which the Mughals used.

So that is awesome fun. I am going to keep reading her textbooks and other related stuff and enjoy all about growing up with the pains of exams.

I think another thing i must make her do is simply google or read at least the main wikipedia  page of any character she encounters in her history book, or the main wiki page of anything she studies. It just might give her another angle to what she is studying.

Chemistry is another thing i am rediscovering. I was always reasonably good at it. So now, only a few videos later, i can explain largely most of the stuff to her. In fact the videos are so good that i don't even require to explain stuff to her. She and me just watch the videos together and then we are done.

This weekend I took sometime off to give an interview over a con call. I apologised as the call took an hour long. After that i apologised to Jispa saying ‘sorry, interview for a new job’. She was wondering that I just got a new job.

I told her that right now I am in high demand and that this is something I have to do at this point of time.

I told her that the single most important quality that i have that got me here is – now this set me thinking – I wanted to say something that completely summarises my life so far and leave something simple and interesting. I said – the single biggest quality that got me here was ‘constant curiosity’ . that came out nice, considering i thought about it for about 2 seconds. That is true. I have been curious about everything and that has led me to constantly try to learn and experiment and improve. “ah” she said “so you are like Pandora”.

Sigh – my entire life being brought down to Pandora. What else are daughters meant for?

hang there... i got it.. i got it...

If you did not read the earlier blog, i guess this blog will not be much of a read either... but well.. here goes. It’s funny that when I am down and searching for answers everything seems to leap in front of me and throw me lessons. While searching for something else I found the wisdom of Oogway from Kung Fu Panda and while on my reader feeds, I found the lessons from Greece, thanks to Devdutt. A crisis is a dam good opportunity to waste and similarly so is a mental mess up. Here are the two pieces of wisdom I just came across and gave me some light. I see answers to the dilemma from my earlier post. This is the one from Devdutt – “In Greek metaphysics, there are two principles. One is called the Thanatos principle and the other is called the Eros principle. Thanatos means the death-principle while Eros means the life-principle. We are governed by death-principle or the life-principle. When we believe that the next flyover is going to make life only worse (by destroying heritage buildings, by destroying mangrove forests, by destroying familiar slums) then we are stricken by Thanatos. We believing that doom is near. However, when we believe that the next flyover is going to make life better then we are under the influence of Eros. We believe that life is getting better. Who speaks the truth? Is it Eros or is it Thanatos? Thanatos is the grim reaper. He kills and destroys every day. So if we look at him, we are convinced that the world is coming to an end. Eros is the cherubic archer, striking people with love, desire and inspiration. He is constantly turning us one, giving us hope. If we look at him, life is always getting better. Thanatos is looking at life as half empty while Eros is looking at life half full. Thanatos always frowns. Eros always grins. Are we frowners or smilers? Greeks believed there was only one life. And so life was seen as either Tragedy or Comedy. Thanatos sponsored Tragedy, Eros sponsored Comedy. Tragedy was about looking at the flyovers and feeling helpless that we have no say in the matter. Comedy is looking at the flyovers and realizing with delight how foolish man is to believe this will really change anything. Thanatos makes us the victim. Eros makes us the hero. Since Indians believed in rebirth, they modified the Greek ideas a bit. Indian thought says two things. Firstly, Thanatos and Eros are points of view and not reality. Every human being will look at the same situation differently. Secondly, all things are temporary and so we will move cyclically from Thanatos to Eros, from being victim to hero, and then back again. It will happen again and again and there is no stopping it. Scams will come and go, corrupt politicians will come and go, idealists will come and go, and life will move on. Thus Thanatos and Eros are delusions, maya, delusions we cannot live without.” And here is the stuff from Oogway Oogway: My friend, the panda will never fulfill his destiny, nor you yours until you let go of the illusion of control. Shifu: Illusion? Oogway: Yes. [points at peach tree] Oogway: Look at this tree, Shifu: I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time. Shifu: But there are things we *can* control: I can control when the fruit will fall, I can control where to plant the seed: that is no illusion, Master! Oogway: Ah, yes. But no matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach. Shifu: But a peach cannot defeat Tai Lung! Oogway: Maybe it can, if you are willing to guide, to nurture it, to believe in it. Shifu: But how? How? I need your help, master. Oogway: No, you just need to believe. Promise me, Shifu, promise me you will believe. I BELIEVE!

simple and practical

Today I am going to be the whole day at my Goregaon office. Which basically means that my lunch won’t be coming from home. On many such days we take the opportunity to have a family breakfast at the south Indian joints in kings circle. Within Mumbai these to be the best that south Indian has to offer. Though a lot of gujjus rave and rant about these joints I find them strictly ok compared to the real ones down south. But they are clearly head and shoulders above the rest of Mumbai.
So after we had our fill and I dropped Jasmine at the bus stop for her to go home, I was taking Jispa to her bus stop. Along the way we passed by my maternal grandmother’s house. I showed Jispa that look here, my granny (ba) stayed here. And when we used to come in from dubai for summer vacations we used to stay here. Now no one stays here. My granny died more than 25 years ago. The place is in a diaplated condition. Then I was explaining to Jispa that that was a big house and we used to go running around the house. The rooms were interconnected and we used to run around in circles with my granny chasing us. Poor thing used to walk around and we used to run in the opposite direction. That was good fun. I don’t know if my granny would be really furious at us or was merely pretending while chasing us down.
I was explaining to her how it was a huge house and ba had a full floor on top as her house. “a full floor? Your ba was very rich?”. “Yes” I answered. “She was. And not only the floor, that whole building and the next building belonged to her”. “now who stays there?”. Well now Jispa was opening the pandora’s box. Who stays there, now. “hmm Jispa, no one for now.” “why”. “well that property is in dispute”. “What’s dispute” she asked. I saw that one coming. “The brothers and sisters are fighting, rather arguing about the property. Whose it is and who can have it”. “Why are they arguing? And why does anyone have it. They all have homes in any case right?” “Yup they have homes. It’s not the home they are fighting about. They want to sell the land and then keep the money” “so then they can easily divide the money equally nah?”, “well ok, but they don’t agree on how to divide the money amongst themselves. Someone or the other thinks they want more. It’s like a cake and three of your friends wanting to divide it but always someone wants more than the other. How do you just divide it? And it’s not just this land. There is also a factory in Mahim that made labels. That too is in dispute and I think it no longer is running.” “Why has that stopped running”. Well... “There the two brothers could never decide on how to run the factory. One would want to run it this way and the other would want to run it the other way”. “but can’t they just agree that you run it in your half this way and the other just let me do his bit. If anything is wrong then they can just come together on the best decision” Jispa thus added her simplistic and pretty practical wisdom. Only if we listened to eight year olds more often. “ ya it possible but ego gets in the way. Let me explain. Like when you hate me sometimes, even if I am talking sense you don’t want to listen to me. Do you. You think I am bad and don’t listen. Same way ego gets in the way sometimes and things don’t improve” “but I listen to you afterwards nah?” “Sure you do. But sometimes when people fight so much that they start hating each other and stop listening to each other”. “strange”
Young Jispa did not understand why we idiots keep fighting and spoiling our lives. Young Jispa has enough wisdom to keep disputes away and enough practicality to keep her content and happy. Let’s just hope life doesn’t corrupt young Jispa.
This incident reminds of two of my best teachers. Dharen and Prof Navalkar, both believed that strategy is simple. If it is not simple then it is not strategy. Jispa’s solutions are simple and practical. Only the silliness and the complications in our brains stop us from adhering to them. Sometimes when Jasmine and I fight, I think we must get Jispa in to solve our disputes. She makes for a good reasoning board.

role model? look around

Once a friend came out from an interview and was talking about it. He said that he was asked a question on his role model. His answer ‘my father’ was dismissed as being boring. He then proceeded to narrate how he explained that actually, there are many role models, in all walks of life. If one person bats better, then he is role model for batting, if another presents well, then he would be my role model for presentation.
This was in college during my management when Shoppers Stop had come for summer interns. And the friend in question was the affable Cherian Varghese. God bless you Cherian. I don’t know weather he meant it or he was being sharp in an interview, but he gave me the wisdom that I have held for a long time.
Every one, everything can teach you a thing or two. No matter how bad they are, they still can teach you.
I have learnt to learn from everything and everyone. Everyone is good and look at the good side of it. It’s easy to be critical and find fault with probably anything. I have learnt that fault is a way of life and most of the time it is important for the fault to be there else the good will not be there as well. A simplistic example – a great painters vanity may be his driving force, another aggression might lead him to do great work but also is responsible for burning his team. Etc etc..

This is a video of Orhan Pamuk, 2006 Nobel winner in literature. A lot of us fail or have many failures. What do you look at? What do you look for?