Dharam and Karam

Dharam
For quite some time now, I have avoided watching too deep movies. They might be nice and real, but they somehow disturb me. Especially if they are really well made. Dharam is one of those. A lovely movie with some fantastic acting by Pankaj Kapur. He is really outstanding in the movie. It also has some powerful moments. In fact it’s so good I wished I had not seen it. The impact remains for a few hours afterwards. I prefer the brain dead escapist cinemas that way. I think fantastic four would have been a perfect substitute. Funny. I don’t regret watching Dharam, in fact I am glad I did but I still would have loved to watch Fantastic Four instead. Opposites reconciling? … hehehe.

Karma
I have realized an important skill set that I have acquired over a period of time. The ability to have fun, be friends, guide my bachas at office and then if they go wrong be the strict masterji. I can’t tolerate ineffectiveness and other wrong doings. The companyis not going to pay for your mistakes dude. While accepting salaries one does not tolerate mistakes then why should one expect the company to tolerate bullshit. Galti karo, galtiyaan karo, Roz karo, Sau galtiyan karo, par ek galti dubara mut karo.I also realized that the team is a little scared when they do go wrong. Not that I scold much. A few lines strongly spoken would do the needful. Scolding as well as praise must be short and to the point. Praise might be a bit longer if needed but never scolding. I have managed to at leatst balance friendship and toughness for now. This was something I dunno why I could earlier could never do.

Things we keep discovering

After knowing Jasmine for 16 plus years there are still things about each other that we keep discovering. The other day I saw my daughter eating dal roti sabzi on her own. She took a piece of roti dunked it into the dal and then took some sabzi with it and ate it. I found this different. I normally pick up the sabzi with the roti and then dunk it into the dal before eating it. I was about to correct her when I looked at Jasmine eating. She too was a roti – dal – sabzi person. A-ha, so it was Jasmine teaching her. I spoke to Jasmine and figured that I am a roti-sabzi-dal person. Funny I did not notice this all these years of eating together. I guess when Jasmine and me ate together we were always busy, lost into each other eyes! hahahahahhahahah.. funny, nah?

One of my old trainees called me today. She said that she was about to get remarried. I was happy on two counts. (a) She was getting settled (b) She told me about it. It hardly anything but it matters to be in the loop

theory of scarcity and abundance

Hmmmmmm….. Breathe easy. I am just back after a week long vacation with family Singapore. It was quite a lovely vacation doing all the tourist things. I wanted to take my family ever since I first saw the place during one a business trip. It’s a kiddy paradise with the opportunity to get up close and personal with a multitude of animals.

Also for an arm chair anthropologist any new city especially a new country is a wet dream come true. It’s amazing to see the difference in the cultures. In just one generation they have transformed their culture and discipline.

As always it was depressing to see the Indian tourist making a bloody ass of him self in a tourist spot. We tend to behave as if there is no tomorrow. I have a theory here. I guess what has happened is that we have become a country of scarcity. The developed countries have a culture of abundance. They can handle abundance and we can only handle scarcity. We are trained and ingrained to survive scarcity. We always behave as if there is no tomorrow and that the first one wins. At Sentosa after one of the animal shows the handler invited the crowd to then get themselves a picture clicked with a python. The Indians jammed the guy by surrounding him, breaking lines, pushing and shoving to get first. The guy kept saying to have patience and that every one will definitely get a picture. One lady decided to get the snake on her head on her own while the handler was about to call some one else. Then she gets her entire family involved one by one. Tony idhar aa, photo le, bhabhi aap bhi aaiye, and so on. We just cant handle abundance. We can handle the trainer picking one person on a lucky draw but we cannot handle the fact that everyone will get a chance if they just wait. For anyone trying to test the theory just try giving free bananas to street urchins, or slum colonies or even free anything to office goers at Nariman point. Ensure you have an abundance of bananas. The more the bananas, the greater the chaos. We see abundance and just lose it all. It just seems surreal to us. Let’s run and garner the most for us. Like wise I think the developed guys can’t handle scarcity. Looting, anarchy and riots in times of scarcity are common. Just remember the riots at US when they had massive flooding and at the same time the order and restraint shown by Indians during the Mumbai flooding.

I see this changing slowly though. My generation was largely fed stories of thrift, conservation and survival. We had one chocolate being divided into three pieces for three siblings. Most of what we wanted was unavailable or unaffordable. Jispa’s generation is of abundance. She has choice in what she wants. She chooses what she wants, has more books than she can read and generally has abundance of what is primarily made available to her. We try not to spoil her but yes she definitely is the child of abundance. Hope she grows up with a level head. She must be able to reconcile abundance and scarcity. Heheheh…. Opposites reconcile.

remove them

Nothing has changed since high school. Everyone has a frustration in office that they wish to remove. I have concluded that the birthdays are the best way for people to remove their frustration just like high school. The guy everyone wants to take out their frustration on will always be the guy facing the most violent celebrations on his birthday. Our office techie guy celebrated his birthday on Friday. Everyone who is anyone would have a bone to pick with the tech guy responsible for running our systems. Over years I have figures that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. An understanding techie is a paradox. Most of these dudes will behave as if resources are super finite and sit judgment on what you can or cannot use or are entitled to. It is he who ordains how much RAM is enough for some one or has his own convoluted formula for processor speed. It is he who rules over the infrastructure monarchy with typically the business head not understanding the function and therefore letting power corrupt. With my few years of tech background (was a part of the first dot com gold rush) I have managed to give a few things back. Sometimes even explained to them the way to do things. That keeps them in check. A fine balance office life is. So coming back to the point. The poor guy was someone who the entire office had a bone to pick with I guess. Actually sometimes it’s not about the man but about the position he is in. He is not that bad. So this poor guy had everyone there on his ‘birthday cake cutting ceremony’. He got plastered with his own cake. Now that’s normal. Lots of them get plastered. But then he has the honor of the only guy to have got birthday bums in office. Oh man that was bad. That was frustration removal of the highest order. When I heard the counting around the corner, I realized it was bum hitting of the poor guy. In spite of my bad knee, I ran across and joined in the revelry. The poor guy got a few more bums than what his age warranted. But then, when the guys are at you, there is no stopping them from going overboard. Mob mentality at his best! I was quite worried if they would push it too far. Thankfully the hero took it in the right spirit and everyone was happy. But it was fun to see how frustrations have their own manifestations.

book book ki baat hai

I have had an amazing run with books. I went through 6 to 8 books in a row that were “unputdownable”. I have learnt a few things. When it comes to books, don’t listen to too many reviews. What some people praise to heavens may not be for you and what some people deride may be just up your alley. Also books have a timing problem. What I might hate today might be just the book I want to read ten years hence. Some require a level of understanding and openness; some just are something’s that cut across all ages. There is probably no bad book or good book. It’s either the right book or the wrong book. God knows which one you like or find useful. There was one book which I found too superficial to read. I kept ignoring it. I ran out of books one day and picked it up. One of the chapters spoke about employee communication and the need to communicate the P/L in simple. At the same I was doing a little work for the group finance office. Bango…. Sold them the concept and the result was a much appreciated piece of work. So its just a question of the right book at the right time. Here… this was the stuff that got appreciated a lot. As the boss said:- this time mktg, HR and finance is working together. I replied one back:- we were always here, kabhi maang ke dekha hoga. I can get senti at times I guess.

I have another theory why no books can be bad books. Even an absolutely bad, ugly book will at least help you know understand what’s so bad about it!

ceaseless whispers

Whrrrrrrrrrrr….sometimes its just is difficult to write something. But the trick to write anything and hopefully the sting catches on with one thing leading to another ad another. Khyati, a very dear student of mine is in office these days. She is doing a project with some other department. We are using the time to catch up during lunch time and coffee breaks. We share a special relationship and she comes every day to say hi and bunk for coffee. And I guess that we are pretty close, laughing, talking in whispers etc. I had a doubt but then it came to the fore when someone commented wryly – you are spending a lot of time with trainees, huh?. You dickhead, she is my student from long… ohhhhhhh… some wise guy then says, sir, I am also your student, introduce karoa na. Oh god. Corporate life never changes. But then I guess its their fault. Khyati will treat me like some kind of papa figure, so she obviously is much more comfortable with me and office will never see it the same way. Hmmmmm…. Kaa Karen?

as someone once told me - platonic relationship.. hahahhah new words... how about good friends?

mind map

Once on a lark, when we were in a lift, I just asked Jispa “which lift do you like”. Our building has two lifts you see. Why would she prefer one over the other? Nah. Didn’t expect her to. It just was one of the stupid questions that Daddy likes to ask daughter. Absolutely stupid. She replies in an instant “ I like the other lift better”. Huh!!?!! “why?”. She replies “the other one has a round zero, but this one has an oval zero”. What? I don’t believe that. On closer inspection I saw that this one has an oval zero on the ground floor button for sure. See below.


Then I saw the other lift. Sure enough, that one has a round zero. See below.

Jispa – either you are some prodigy or you just plain whacked

Mom and Dad often sent us on stage when we were kids and made to compete on stage, talk on stage and generally help us overcome stage fright at an early age. Thanks to that I was always ok being on stage and I did not care too much about it. We have been trying to get Jispa on public forums as much as possible. She has to be comfortable with mikes, audiences etc. we go along with her for that as well. There are tons of malls with some contests or the other constantly happening. We keep sending Jispa for that. Now she is quite comfortable with it. There was one in which the compere kept urging anyone to come and scream – I love you mom three times. She asked me if she could go and scream. For sure, what do I care? There she went on her own screamed and came back happy. Attaboy girl! Way to go. Here is a pic of her with Jasmine kissing her 20 times with heavy lipstick on. Yuck! She won something for the effort.

eat a lot

My wife is very rich. She decided to buy grapes. Not just any grapes but grapes imported from New Zealand I think. Reason – Jispa likes them and the normal grapes are out of season. Fair enough. She refused to tell me at what price did they come. Yup they were tasty all right. I happened to see the price sticker and I fell over. 179 bucks for a packet. Each grape was a nice big piece. So since I was at home resting and nothing to do, I counted the number of grapes that came in the packet. Bottom line – each grape costs around Rs 1.75. hmmmm.. oops I dropped a pair – that’s three bucks. Should I eat ten pieces or should just eat one mango. Hahahhahah. Man the last I knew what fruits cost was around ten fifteen years ago when I used to go with mom to buy veggies and fruits. Now I have no clue what they cost. So they always come as a surprise. Jispa, you better like the grapes. And the mangoes.

Jispa can sleep anywhere when she is tired. Here is she sleeping at the Café Coffee day chair.

Wheel-chair anthropology

I have an allergy cold, a bad knee, body ache, troubled tummy, a little rash, a bad morale and a little resilience. I am bouncing back … not so fast as ever but bouncing for sure.

Thanks to the bad knee, I was not going to spoil our family outing to InOrbit mall. We went after checking if there were enough wheelchairs available. My wife’s granny in one and me in another. That was really cool. Its nice to see Mumbai reacting to wheel chairs. Some make way, some smile, some ignore and some don’t care. While getting into the lift nobody cares for your wheel chair. Everyone wants to go in first. Dam cheap. They get out without bothering to see how I can get in. since the doors close fast enough they close before I manage to wheel in. I had to request some one getting out, to hold it open for us to get in. Not happening. But I recommend all the arm chair anthropologists to get on to wheel chairs and see how the city truly behaves with the not so privileged. My final take, Mumbai in a mall is polite enough, but enough to give up on their time for you. Time is this fast city is money. I can smile, talk, show sympathy but I can’t wait. I got to go >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> next time, try and give time to others, that’s the only thing we have a need for. As once I learnt a valuable lesson from Rajesh, his daughter had brought two books to my home with the aim of giving one away. He asked his daughter (Twishi) which one she liked more and to give that one away to Jispa. I saw, I learned but did I conquer? I hope to.

tie me up

I can’t believe that I used to wear ties once upon a time. Today is a big meeting that we are getting done and it’s obviously a formal affair. I got my tie and jacket to office to wear just before the function. On a lark I just wore the tie while still in office. Oh shit man. That thing feels like a rope around my neck. It was off in less than 15 minutes. How the hell did I ever wear ties to office? Unbelievable! How could anyone wear ties to office? How could any one wear ties at all? That too in the Mumbai heat. Then we wear jackets. Oh man. In marketing most of the functions that we organize are in the evening, so I normally get away by wearing a jacket and no tie. But these afternoon functions (HIGH TEA) bloody require a tie. Oh man. Why do we do it at all? Why cant we just wear what is comfortable for us? When I was in sales I used to wear a tie in office as it was expected of you, but I never wanted my sales guys on the street to wear one. What’s the bloody point? The guy roaming around buses and train and oppressive heat has to figure with a tie. Most of the time he was not a tie enthusiast as well, so that made for ugly ties. Most of the heros did not even know how to tie a knot so, they would be roaming around with two three ties, whose knot has not been removed. SO they just wear them over and tighten them. Lengths, knots be dammed. Purple ties on brown pants, green shirts with ties with psychedelic prints and God knows what not. Ah, yes the lengths… some would be longer and would hide the crotch, the others would end above the navel. Some would be broad and some would be “that 80’s” think look. Almost all of them were stripped, and when stripes finally come into fashion they would be prints. They would be worn over every kind of shirt, even the ones with two pockets and a ruff washed look. Oh the death of the tie. So, I just banned them. It’s more convenient, the team loved me for it and the poor fella looked better. Improving motivation was never so easy.

Murals

Jispa did some murals...priceless i say on the walls. She had some finger paints which she decided to experiment with. I sure love her painting the walls of the house. Slowly but surely we would have no bare walls.

Now the problem is I dont think I will ever have the heart to paint these walls over.

Har Ghar chup chap se kehta hai ki andar isme kaun rehta hai

the following one is a butter fly with antennas

Papa, mama joined in to leave their mark as well

The Rainbow lollipop, done with a brush

A tree with a black outline followed by yellow and green outlines.

crutches

Continuing with the cricket series, I learnt something new. One cant be an Australian on Indian grounds. I was fielding in the seven a side tournament and the captain decided to experiment a bit. He kept only one person on the leg side, ME, and everyone else on the off side. Interesting strategy it was, to use the fastest fielder for the covering the most ground. Fair enough. But then the bowler is supposed to bowl on the off stump, full pitched not short balls that can be swung around on the open leg side boundary. I saved one boundary, then some more runs, and then I was running to stop one more when I suddenly felt my ankle turn (uneven ground) and consequently my knee. Oh shit. I twisted my knee big time. Dead duck. I collapsed on the ground. The medic ran in. I know this medic from a lot of matches, all he does is put a lot of spray and some screwed massage. He can’t make out a dislocation from a fracture and he won’t know what to do about it. The only time I screamed was when I screamed at him not to touch my knee. I was scared about a crack and I didn’t want him testing it for sure.
So that way I spent most of time yesterday with the knee strapped up. I was at my in laws and my wife found the sight of me hopping around using her granny’s crutches extremely funny. In office my guys also find it extremely amusing to see me stuck to a chair the whole day. In fact they are dying to see me limp somewhere. They are also plotting on how they can get me to drink lots more water.
I only hope I get some cute chick sympathy in return for all my troubles… aaawwwwwwwwwww.

soul

Barista has closed down their Nariman Point outlet. Sad. The only decent coffee shop in the area. I wonder why there aren’t more coffee shops in the country’s densest and possibly richest commercial district. Coffee probably makes less money than lunch and dinner, thus making a coffee shop unviable. Hmmmm. The NCPA bang in Nariman Point has a decent ‘campus’ with a few gardens thrown in. it must converted to a coffee shop during the day with some decent food for the lunchers. That might work. When developers develop land as a commodity it will purely price it self out most of the time. You cannot just sell land to the highest bidder. You need a good mix of all genres. Mall development is not about just leasing out the land and keeping it clean. It’s about getting your mix right with the complete package with some loss leaders and some winners. If Nariman point has to thrive as well, it must see itself as a one big entity and not as some disparate parts that make a whole. But our town planners will never understand that, I am sure. Nariman Point has no soul. What a pity. It is perfectly poised to have one.

Jispa at a movie….

tararumpum

I saw tararumpum over the holiday. It’s a movie that I will feel a little ashamed to say that I enjoyed. But fact of life is that I kinda liked it. I like any movie that shows struggle and triumph against odds. No matter how humbug it might be! Down and out, resilience and victory. Seeing this movie made me think that some day I must write about the various companies and the bosses that I worked for and my learnings from the same. I started very bad in corporate India. Very very bad. Some day I will write it about it and what I learnt from it. I almost got fired from my first job. The reason I did not get fired was that I resigned in time. Oh man. How wrong could I be in understanding job requirements.

In any case, the movie is quite ok. Not too hot. Might be a decent forgettable movie. But not irritating on your senses. Which compared to many other movies seems like a stand out. At least the stunts look nice and real. Jispa is slowly getting used to movies. Till now she could see only movies that were happy through and through.

Typically I have always had short closely cropped hair. For some reason I am growing it. Not that it is very long. Even remotely long. But it’s longer than what I like to have. Normally I just love the crew cuts and I realize that I need a haircut if I have to comb hair. So if I need to comb it then I NEED to cut it!

drop me

I should be dropped from the Kotak team, that too from the bloody B team. I seem to be in horrible form and like most bad patches, bad luck runs along side. The first match that I played this season I was doing well, knocking around, decent contribution. I hit a lovely cover drive on one knee piercing the offside. I am not likely to forget that shot. But then on some 20-30 odd I got run out. It was a silly mistake by the other guy and I was the one out. It was downhill from there. A few more lackluster matches thereon. On Saturday for some reason I was feeling like I was in some great nick. I knocked a few balls at the side and they went like rockets. I went in to bat with a swagger. This is my day. The first ball I got was a full pitch outside off stump. Bread and butter shot for me. Whack! Neatly hit over the long off area sailing away. I did not run. Six for sure, worst case a boundary. Now in Mumbai cricket is played on infinite maidans and the pitches are spread all over. So some pitch you will find that the offside boundary is at 35 yards and the leg side at a 100. Sometimes the long on is a normal boundary and sometimes it is defined loosely by a tuft of grass, a tree or the end of some other pitch in the maidan. The lengths can be completely random. So, coming back to the shot, I saw it sailing high and then to my horror, I saw someone under it looking at it. With over 50 - 60 cricketers on the field, you never know who for sure are the opposition fielders. Caught! First ball duck. When I hit the ball, I loved the noise of a sweetly timed shot, the trajectory, the feel. The team in the tents shouting, SHOT SHOT, six, four. Followed by the leveler – walking back into the tent without even a sweat, leave alone a score to your name.. On Sunday, was the lovely seven a side game. My traditional favorite. I normally do very well here. A few balls inot the match I was bowled by a decent Yorker. Fair enough. Happens to the beat of us. It did not help that I was in bad form. The next match I concentrated hard. Knocked a few balls around. Stroking it well. The guy bowling was pitching it well and bouncing it hard. You normally gauge the bounce in seven a side and hit through the line. With the old balls used you don’t get the swing that beats you. I charged down got to the length I wanted to swing over the top and the ball never got up. It kept low, almost close to the ground. It was the only ball in out innings that got variable bounce. Out again. When form deserts you, luck will too. Or is it vice versa. Ha-ha!
This made me even more focused on the fielding on both days. I am easily the best fielder in the side. I run the fastest, stop everything. No one ever chances my arm for a double. Now with the benefit of experience and reading of the game / batsman style, I normally know where the ball is going to go before hand. There was a key guy batting us out of the game. I knew he kept hitting to the covers. The bat face was opening a bit and the bowler was maintaining a decent offside line. I was fielding at point, just behind covers. I screaming at captain to get me one more fielder. I tried again after a few balls. I got the fielder from wide midwicket to point and stood at covers. Sure enough, two balls on and I got an awkward ball into my stomach for a nice sharp catch. Game changed. That opened their batting at the other end. We got them all out. The significance of the catch was not lost on the team who knew that they had dropped three before.
The fun of cricket for me is now completely mental. Physical is fun but the mental side is it. The ability to mentally change the game is a different high. I explained to the batsman later how I plotted him out. The seven a side game, the match can change by clever handling of the bowlers. In the B team we have many captains, but I was happy that the guy leading respected my experience and effected the changes I suggested. That way we start strong, hide a bowler in the middle and have options to finish strong. With only seven over to be bowled, it’s a rapid fire game with one mistake costing the match. We won both.
But I still need to be dropped on batting form alone. Probably my fielding and experience is letting me remain in the side. Not bad – best fielder and good experience is not something that comes together. Opposites do reconcile.

Here is Jispa's drawing and coloring. Ain't I a proud pa?

long live buddha, kill him on the road

One thing leads to another. Someone left a small note “check out 'if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!' by sheldon b. kopp”. I checked it up on the net and found a para which I think is bang on. I have always looked for answers within and I so believe in this and i quote from the link

The Zen Master warns: "If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him!" This admonition points up that no meaning that comes from outside ourselves is real. The Buddhahood of each of us has already been obtained. We need only recognize it. Killing the Buddha on the road means destroying the hope that anything outside of ourselves can be our master. We must each give up the master without giving up the search. The importance of things lies in the way we have learned to think about them. How often we make circumstances our prison and other people our jailers! At our best we take full responsibility for what we do and what we choose not to do. The most important struggles take place within the self.

bananarama

A small banana is a roughly 5 inches tall and 100 gms in weight. Around the same as a cell phone. Let the significance of the size not be lost on you.

A man going home from work likes to buy something to eat before the commute.

Men are normally paranoid about their belongings, specially in public areas and keep checking their pockets to ensure that the wallet, cell phone etc are there.

Normally the cell is kept in the top right hand pocket of the shirt.

Most people in trains are helpful and point out if you forget something or the other while getting off.

Bananas are seen as nice nutritional food by the common man.

A man can eat one banana easily, the second one may be eaten after some time.

Bananas normally get squashed quite easily.

Your shirt pocket can’t hold too many things together.

People normally keep the same stuff in the same pocket everyday. Habit.

Bananas are often sold as a pair. 5 for 2

People normally read books in trains to pass time.

Now to connect the threads...

One man bought two bananas for five bucks. He ate one. He then boarded the train. He put the second banana in his shirt pocket. When he sat he put the cell phone beside him. He began reading a book. When his station came he did a mental check. His felt his wallet and his cell and got up and began to leave. The guy sitting opposite pointed out that he left his cell behind. The man turned in horror to find his cell on his seat. He then realized that the weight he felt in his top pocket was actually the banana and not the cell as he made it out to be.

I am that man.

cut throat spirituality

On Sunday we decided to go for the build a bear workshop at the juhu shoppers stop. This is the local franchisee of the global build a bear network. Its quite a cute place to take your four year old. Here Jispa would get to customize her own teddy. First she chosses the basic type of bear and the ‘skin’. She had to choose from bears, dogs, lambs, leopards and different colors. She quite went bonkers. Then she chooses the sound that goes inside – she choose ‘I love you’. How typical a girlie. Then she has to name it, and push the pedal through which the stuffing is filled in the bear. She named the bear chocolate brownie. She even got to put inside a small heart. Then she chooses the clothes, the accessories, the cute chappals and finally prints the birth certificate. Pretty cool. Almost a version of the all American Quasi Spiritual Experience. Very cool I say. The price tag – like the bear , completely customizable. Every thing that goes in has a tag attached that decides the cost of the bear. And the bear is a small teddy size not a jumbo size. So with the bear, one pair clothes, one pair chapels cost around 1500 and then a carry bag like the baby sling bag adds another 500. Making it 2000 odd bucks. Not cheap but then that cost of making your kid feel like a mother. I don’t think Jispa enjoyed it as much as I did. I thought the whole experience was just great. At least she will remember the entire buying, oops, ‘birthing’ process of her chocolate brownie. Hopefully! I loved it for sure.

Here’s a pic of her with the skin she choose.

Post this we were hungry and therefore we decided to try out Govindas at ISKON (part of the ‘Hare Rama Hare Krishna’ movement. Govindas has built a reputation for offering ‘spiritual’ food. I assumed it would be like something like pure ghee and ‘satvik’ kind of food. Jasmine also told me that it should be nice and less oily. We enter the place and board outside proclaims – Govindas – “the cuisine with a philosophy” and “spiritualise your eating”. Wah wah! What a stylo! It was a thali buffet system that day. Possibly due to Sunday. Quite a crowd. Hmm I assume this is good. Jasmine says – thali!! I am not sure. I ask for two thalis in any case at the billing counter. You need to pay first and then get in the restaurant. Spirituality comes only with cash down. Fair enough. He asks for 500 bucks. At 250 a head, philosophy especially about food is not cheap. Theek hai. Must be expensive to make good food with the purest of ingredients. We settle in with a welcome drink. Option of juice, jaljeera or chaas. Cool. We get to the buffet counter. I see the salad counter an almost die in shock. The fucking place resembles a marriage set up. The salad counter has green salad, Chinese salad, dhai vada, dahi bundi, fried ticklies, fried wadas, fried everything. The main course has veg clear soup with the Chinese optionals like soya, vinegar and chilly sauce. At the main course I just froze and died and went to heaven. There was paneer makhanwala, bhendi fry, some other stuff, schezwan rice, manchurian and a some thing else, actually much more something else. Full shaadi mandap it was. The ISKON guys seem to have got this right. Get the food oily, greasy and unhealthy, the gujjus will come in and then spirituality will spontaneously occur. Well, its not like the food was really bad but it definitely was not ‘spritual’ or with a philosophy. It was your plain old marriage pandal food. I am sure the gujjus enjoyed it. But also it must have brought them a little closer to their cardiovascular bliss. I had regard for them when a good friend of mine went over and dedicated his life to the movement. Today after this I have no respect or regard. They must be doing a lot of good but one such experience is enough for me to be on guard. See what’s at the entry of the restaurant. Such blatant spin doctor stuff. How can one trust spirituality to them?

weekends are best for thinking

Today I seem to have a lot of things on my mind to write. It’s always a lot after a weekend. There are so many things that one notices and promises to… well… make a note of. To start with I have always seen a lot of women crossing the road on a lark. Most of these kind are in their own world while crossing the road. No left no right just cross and then look at the incoming car in their path with horror as it swerves to avoid them. Aaiiii. Its not that I have anything against women (for those who accuse me of type casting), there are many men who seem to do this as well but the sheer numbers of women who do this is unnerving. The man will always at the last moment jump out of the way but the women will just stand there and scream. This thing is going to get worse. Why? Because of the earplugs that are now in their ears perpetually as they listen to their iPods or the music from their FM/MP3 phones or they are simply merrily talking away. This way they won’t even notice the most blaring of all horns. The numbers of iPod accidents are set to rise before we see an outrage in America calling for banning them due to this increase. Or closer back home I assume some fanatic mob will break the shop of the nearest iPod vendor blaming them for the accidents.

I put another call to the bubbly content editor at Oxfords (random) and was pleasantly surprised to get a warm bubbly conversation at the other end. This is the same lady whose service paeans I was singing. I remember reading one book that said that customer service people are inherently a different breed of people who are naturals. There is nothing you can do with the rest of the sad people. You have no option but to recruit only the good ‘born with the attitude’ guys. Hmmm.. I am beginning to believe he is so right. You either have it in your blood or you don’t. People who are cynical or skeptical of all around and believe that the world is out to cheat them make for lousy customer care people. I think people with inborn trust and cheerful disposition must be kept for these roles. Thank you Ms Ray for teaching me more.
People teach by just being themselves.. what say?

I went to attend a wedding of an old kid who used to report into me. She and her team will always be special to me. This was the first team that I led purely by following Theory Y. I refused to get angry, always believed that they were right, treated them with love and affection and protected them from the horrendous sales guys. They were the customer service guys who used to get smashed left right and centre. They had no leadership, no standing and were generally bad on delivery. I was heading marketing then. I was given additional charge of the team. Past sales experience always taught me to crack whip and kick them into performing. I remember changing my mental note when I took them on. I transformed them slowly but surely into a team that believed in themselves and gave the sales guys back when they deserved so and also built a sales focus so as to not unnecessary kick the sales guys as finally that’s where the moolah came from. So coming back. The head of that team was Kavita and I took a particular fondness for her. When she was given to me she was broken, her review had just gone very average and she was bypassed for a promotion. Her morale was down. I worked on her, gave her ‘teeth’, and energized her. The result that at the end of the year she got her promotion, performed phenomenally, and a huge raise and bonus. She almost had tears in her eyes when she got that letter. More than that the best compliment came when the operations head (a person I really respect) told me that Kavita has come of age and she now has the confidence she required. She and I have now gone on to many more milestones in our respective lives. I was attending her reception on Saturday. There was a queer sense of pride in my heart while I saw the couple arrive. I don’t know but I found myself grinning from end to end. I felt so nice to see one more milestone in a nice person’s journey.

There is more that I want to write but generally I try to limit myself to not more than one page. So tomorrow I shall some more about the experiences about the weekend.

Can god die?

Well, if my daughter Jispa is to be believed then for sure. “When all the men die and then god will die and then the world will become smaller and smaller and then break”. Something like that. So yes God can die. To which I asked how is it possible for God to die. “If God does not eat then he will die” – came the matter of fact reply. Fair enough I say. “But God is in everything, plants, leaves, flowers. So God will always live” To which she asked – “do flowers die?” “Yes”, I said. She then looks with triumph and says – “see then God can also die”. “But then he is the sky and the ground. Does the sky ever eat anything? Can it die? See, God cannot die.”. “Noooo. How can God be in the ground” she laughs. Ok at this point I wanted to tell her that I am a pantheist, but I decide against it. “look, see, your school bus has come. Bye, see you”
Saved by the bus.

Another sign of daughter growing up:- she went to the loo at Imax alone. She went in on her own, did her pee and came outside to me waiting. This is around two month’s old photograph. I never did manage to put it up. But I thought ut might be well worth capturing. Quite a historic moment in the journey of our little Joan of arc.

work hard then fry bheja

Its been a long time since I have written anything. To use a popular phrase – I think what is urgent many times takes precedence over what is important; there is a lot to do in office these days. Some amount of fire fighting. I have been very busy mentally and therefore physically. I think I its time to take stock as one needs to from time to time. I had given a free hand to a lot of my kids. I am disappointed that it did not resulting higher productivity. I guess it takes time for people to evolve and mature. Well this will definitely reflect on their overall growth but hell, at least I tried to make them grow. End of the year there is no blood on my conscience that I did not try hard enough. There is a fine line between outstanding and exceeds expectations. This line is for an employee to see. You get salary to do your job well, very well, but growth; you bloody need to be outstanding and a clear outlier to go beyond. That is instinct, that is something you push your own self for, that comes from within. It is that push that you make when no one wants you to. You do it of your own accord. PUSH PUSH PUSH. It has its own perils. By pushing you do sacrifice a bit of yourself. You lose yourself, your heart, and bit of yourself. But it’s a choice that you have to make. When you are in the shower and you are thinking, do you think about your love life, your hobbies, your passion or your work. What is the big thing that you are pushing for? That big thing will decide your fate and your life. If that big thing is your job your work, then you are looking at your self make that transition into something that can give you growth at your office. I am not for once advocating that that is the right thing to do but then that’s the truth. What you want to be the big thing in your life will have to occupy that much more of your life. Work, painting, love, whatever…… so the question is what do I do? Well my work is not my life, in fact I do not define my life from it, but it does pay for a lot of things that define my life. That too my mind is the clincher. So work has taken a part of me, a large part of me. I think about it a lot of the time. I get ready for to do’s, follow ups, ideas, directions etc before hitting each day. So I have given up a part of the soul to work. But what to do? I try and balance it.

Yesterday was wifef’s birthday. Thank go I remember it. Now I try my bets to remember it well in advance. I saw two movies – the march of the penguins and Bheja Fry. The first one was a classic National Geographic style special. Nice but quite boring. Bad prints that have been played in a zillion theatres before coming to us and a tad too long. In fact, when the interval broke I thought that the movie would have ended. Slow paced, but ok ok. The other one was a masterpiece. Bheja Fry is easily one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. It is just too good. I dare say – its in the same league of Jaane bhi do yaaron. Dam funny. No crude vulgar comedy. The whole theater was laughing non stop and that too very loudly. One joke would make the people laugh loud so much so that the other joke was lost in the din. The newspaper (HT) gave it a one star and the penguins got a 4 star. Oh fuck you raters…I am never going to believe in the ratings. I guess they just want to guess the reactions and give smaller ratings to movies they assume will be a flop and more to those they believe to be “classy”. The director is definitely going places, if he does not burn out – Sagar Bellary I think. Dam funny guy. It reminded me of the plays that are played at college festivals or annual day. I would like to see this movie with my entire joint extended family. I hope it runs well and encourages more such movies as opposed to the fucking irritating movies like Namaste London. The only time I laughed in Namaste was actually in the emotional spiel that the protagonist was giving in defense of his motherland “India” to the gora’s who were degrading it. Really sad.

There is so much to write. There is backlog of ideas and photos in my head. Hope to clear my head and write more, and more regularly. I think the break from the blogging was probably a cool thing to do.

it's only a gift for heaven's sake

People give the darnest of things. Sometimes I have no clue what to do with it. And I specially love the show pieces that they give. Once I got a clock held together by two elephants, once I got a fake fish bowl with fake fish in it (you have to plug it in), a desk set with my name engraved on it (wrong spelling), tons of card holders, notepads, a serving tray, glass coasters, stumps (yup cricket stumps meant to be an invite), a Buddha look alike statue (pretty though), mugs and some more mugs, mug with my name etched on it, and other paraphernalia. But the last one I got took the cake. It’s a ceramic plate with some enameling work done on it. It’s pretty no doubt, but for hell of me I can’t figure out what to do with it. I have no clue to its possible use.

There is no hole at the back to hang it. It did not come with a stand to put it on somewhere as a desk top, its not even flat that I can use it for keeping hot vessels. Its just there. A thing of beauty is a joy forever. It is very pretty but it’s just there. So it’s one more thing that adds more color to my already colorful desk.

I even tried to keep it as mouse pad holder.

Nahhhh… not happening.

I even managed to chip while it was just lying there. Oh the things people gift you. I wish it was atleast ugly. I could have thrown it, but now since its pretty I cannot throw it. I do not want to risk living the rest of my miserable life as a person who could not understand or even appreciate art, in whatever form of style. Have I no respectable right brain throwing away this pretty, pretty, ehhhh.. pretty ceramic enameled plate. How sad could I be…. :(

So now its just there. one more dust gatherer on the desk, one more color disseminator, one more wise crack attractor....

risk

Risk means that more things can happen than will happen

- Elroy Dimson – London Business School

sauce the boss

Sauce is a good thing for kids. It gets them to eat anything. Whoever invented sauce was one of the greatest inventors of the modern era. No other invention has given mothers and fathers so much relief. It is sauce that makes the world go around. I am convinced. Sauce with bread, thepla, paratha, cheese, roti, chips, burger, fries…. What not…. Sauce is the boss.

Below is the creative I need to do to get her to eat that one more thepla.

thats a bottle that she wanted drawn with the sauce



this is the smily with specs and a frown.

I am going to start a new line of creative expression based on the humble sauce on plate. no more simple pushing the sauce down by whacking the bottle on its butt.but gently squezing the squezy bottle into designs and shapes as requested (read demanded) by Jispa

completely random thoughts

Sometimes it is fun to write in english that no one underdstadns. I wrote this mail to someone who had applied once before and though she was good we could not offer her a job. So this time around when we could be hiring again, I contacted her….
Excerpt of mail :-
We are in receipt of your CV in application to the unmentioned profile. We realize that you have been in prior consultation with us as regards your employment with us. Rest assured that we continue to hold you as eminently employable and we would look for opportunities to gainfully employ you with the services of the firm. It is in this regard we have begun to initiate our conversation with you. While there seems to be some element of doubt in our minds with respect to the profile in question, there exists a possibility of your candidature being suitable for a plurality of openings. We hope you could trust us to come back post the veils being lifted from in front of our paths. We thank you for your patience and continued confabulations. We do wish you the very best and well and hope to have a long and beneficial relationship.

Translation in English – thanks, will get back to you next week after the role is spelt out.

The other day I went to Siddhivinayak temple. Yes I am a pantheist but I still go to temples once in a while. I was telling Jasmine about the good old days with hardly a shed, a small structure, no security and no arrangements. Now they have a huge building, a huge wall, shade outside, stacked lines, lots of arrangements etc etc. they made it a small holy oasis in the middle of bustling Bombay. It’s kind of a nice place. Here is an interesting board outside the temple showing a voluptuous woman, not so well dressed. They expect women to be dressed modestly.

this is the temple cat sleeping next to the devotees at the temple.

The other thing i find extremely amusing is the proliferation of the humble silver mouse. This is the escort of the lord and is believed to act as an emissary. There is always crowd at the mouse with people trying to tell something into his ears, that he is supposed to get eth lord to grant. Now the authorities have installed two of them and kept them in a separate area where the devotees line up and have their chance at fulfillment.

We saw two movies over the weekend. One was Namesake. Nice movie. Did not lead anywhere for me. Probably will move and resonate with the NRI’s but was just a nice movie for me. Good performances. The movie was not going anywhere in a hurry, it was going anywhere at all. It was just there. I liked it though. Then the next day I saw Little Miss Sunshine. I liked that one as well. That too was going too many places, but it was in a hurry. Nice fast paced and quite funny. I liked it as well. My daughter enjoyed it as well. The people running around the bus, the guys dancing and the audience laughing. Kids feed off a lot from the environment. They understand too much but I am so sure they feel a movie much more than any of us. She did not like in Pursuit Of Happyness (sic), she could feel the environment more than anything else.

Attached is the photo of how we see late night movies with Jispa. Jispa- please see the same and experience a deep sense of sympathy for my very numb bum.

who am I

Agnostic: somebody denying God's existence is provable: somebody who believes that it is impossible to know whether or not God exists
Atheist: unbeliever in God or deities: somebody who does not believe in God or deities
Pantheist: The belief that every existing entity (humans, animals, etc.) together, is a part of God. The entire universe is divine. They do not view God in personal terms, as having a personality, having the ability to make decisions, able to interact with humans, etc.

I am not a deeply ritualistic person. I kind of like to call my self religious though. Well but not the conventional religious person. So all this while I thought I was an atheist but I suddenly discovered a word that describes me better. Ladies and Gentleman – may I present to you the humble pantheist. Clap clap clap clap….

brain food

The surest way to mind fuck is not to read two contrary books but two complimentary books. I am currently reading A journey through Jainism by MS Abhinandan and Siddhatha by Herman Hess. I read one in the morning and the other at night. how much philosophy can you tolerate at one go? The former is an account and factual narration of jain principles and history; the latter is set as a novel of a man’s thirst for truth in the time of Buddha. Full mind fuck. Rarely does one come across simple English philosophy and not the screw ball robin sharma types but deep rooted types. And to get two books together and that one happens to read then together is not something that happens often. As of this time both seem to be a cracker of a book. Let’s see how they pan out. They are quite chotu books in almost pocket size, but they are something one cant read fast. Typical process is like reading, introspection, reading, dreaming, reading, distraction and therefore rereading… something like that. They don’t finish fast enough. After this the perfect book to read would be the God Delusion. This would be a complete 360 degree view of the world I guess….. dimag ka dahi ke barabar hoga.

Also very rarely does one get four unputdownables in a row. I have been four times lucky. Lets see the fifth book… depends on what I pick up.

Reading the book on Jainism I was reading about the four simple principles, not to lie, not to hurt, not to be greedy and not to steal. Bahut hi simple hai. I figured these some time back in my life and I try to follow them. Most are relatively simple to follow except the not to lie. I am by most standards truthfull, but a few white lies come about and some real bad ones in the course of business. I don’t outright lie, but if the greater good is for the company then sometimes white lie surface and sometimes clear lies. I try to minimize but what to do. The job demands it at times. But no lying to boss, peers and bachas. Overall honesty still rules. That’s the only thing that takes you further.

when the cell phones first came out i figure that thae market for cell phones would be 100 to a 1000 cells at the most.

Now i think the BMC will soon come with a policy of sweepers not allowed to carry cell phones while they are at work.

mirror mirror on the wall

Jispa drew a picture of me and Jasmine in her school.
Jispa, i am taller than your mommy and I DEFINATELY have more hair than that and no, I dont wear earrings. AND mommy has not dislocated her shoulders... ever.
Thanks for noticing my toothy grin and my amazing V shaped torso

what a good boy am I

Yesterday was an unexpected holiday. It went like a breeze.
Not in any particular order - I met my brother for strawberry milkshake at home, made a tossed fantastic salad for wife, made a desert for her girlfriend, broomed the house (no maid), cleaned the vessels (no maid), hung out the clothes for drying (me maid), slept in the afternoon, read a book (finished it), started a new book, took Jispa to the garden, gave a lift to an old friend, folded the clothes, put Jispa to sleep, got her to eat her dinner by drawing things on her plate with the tomato sauce in the squeezy bottle, slept early, washed the vessels, had a south Indian breakfast date with my wife, ironed Jispa’s uniform and some other small stuff. Wow nice holiday.

really hot cricket

I have finally finished the travelogue which I have been writing for over two months now. It was about the Ardh Kumbh that I had gone for with my good friend Vinu. It’s definitely not any great piece of work but I loved writing it. hope I am able to write more such stuff in the future. If any of you is interested in reading it then do mail me and I would be happy to send you the pdf file.


Yesterday we had a cricket match. It was a 20 over affair. In the morning on the ground I get a call saying that some of the seniors would not be coming in and that I am the captain. With two main bowlers and two main batsmen missing, it was my job to take the team forward. Oh hell. I was not even mentally prepared for the job. I had no thoughts in my mind on how I was to take this forward. But it was fun nevertheless. I could see my maturity improving in the game. I could see my abilities improving and looking at batsmen and making field placing accordingly. In cricket as a captain I have a very strong role model. It is my captain Arun Solanki through which I owe everything. For me being eth captain was about telling each team what is expected and trying to play on strengths. We were definitely a weak team but managed to do quit a bit. First thing, since we were the minnows and we barely had 11 people turning up, the first thing was about conserving energies. No sledging and no frustration to be shown on the pitch. We had our share of dropped catches. My instructions were clearly not to scream at the guy but to go on and encourage them to be better. No kicking, no abuse, nothing, but focus on the game. The objective is not to win but to perform to your best and if that results in victory then fair enough. When you are putting on your minnow’s hat I think the game is more internal than external. You have to do your best irrespective of the surrounding or the opponent. It’s the same everywhere. Even at the job. If you are the underdog, or small fry, its pointless trying to compete with the big guys. The smarter thing is to conserve resources, take a small niche and dig deep and real hard. I love the simple V graph showing the relation between ROI and market share. The big few will have the highest ROI along with the last few niche players. The ones in between are in our jargon called the ditch. You play the ditch you die in the ditch. Therefore my goal was simple. This is just the league, not the knockout, let’s get the player to understand themselves more than anything else, play to their strengths and take back positives. Surprisingly, we ran them very close, losing by a very small margin. More importantly we went back with positives with what we achieved in bowling. We went back with amazing learning on bowling to field placings. Almost through the 20 overs I kept a 6 – 3 field placing dominating the off side. The leg side was only deep fine leg, a square leg and widish mid on. With huge leg side gaps, as Arun often said, ‘dum hai toh maar’. Play across the line. This field placing would have been butchered if the bowlers bowled short on middle and leg. But it worked like a dream. The off side cordon was within the circle almost all the time. The bowlers with the placing knew exactly where to bowl and what I expected them to do. We got wickets with people playing across the line, people trying to pierce the cordon and cutting straight deliveries and through frustration. I think as a captain, in field placings purely it was the best day of my cricketing life. Life is as simple….. get the guys to play their individual best, conserve and look to take positives, give clear and simple instructions and back for performance. You cannot place fielders for bad balls all the time. Then you have lost it before you even started. One team guy kept telling me to take point to short point and get the covers back to deep after one shot found a gap through the ring. My answer was “ek shot tha boss, that too it was not a brilliant cut piercing the infield. Weak shot. Luck got it through. Wait and see” and sure enough the guy frustrated with the infield and got out trying whacking it over.
It was also one of the hottest periods of time I have ever batted. The Midday sun was at its worst ever with the sun beating down and transforming the ground in to a steam sauna room. I went in at number four, and saw five six and seven fold up in front of me. The game was on singles with the number 8 to accompany me. We took a lot of singles and doubles. The fast running in the heat completely killed me. I had no strength left in my arms to clear the ground and for power shots. I normally back myself up to clear the ground and I have hit enough on many occasions. I hit an odd boundary when necessary but too few and far in between. The heat was just killing me. The crazy running between the wickets just finished me off. I also guess a little age is showing. I need to get much fitter if I have to prolong my cricket. Carnival 7 a side cricket will always be manageable but a 20 over full ground cricket in oppressive midday heat will be tougher if I let my fitness leave me. I might easily amongnst the fastest runner and fielder in the team but clearly the team is hardly a bench mark; I need to better myself. kuch karma padega on a regular basis. I dived to prevent my self being run out and then was happy to remain there for a few minutes. The sweat was pouring in droves. It kept getting in the eyes. I stopped the bowler on a few occasions but the sweat kept pouring. I played a few one eyed shots with my left eye blurry. It was sure tough. Its good thing that the mind kept going in spite of the body failing. More positives to take away.

I did not know tomorrow is a holiday until one of the bachas mentioned it to me at office. Earlier I used to mark out and know the holidays way in advance. Now I have no clue… oh god what a monster have I become?

right left and no harness

Last night Jispa’s stomach was aching, very mild though. I was wondering which side. So I was knocking on her tummy and asking her, here? Here? Here? Then suddenly she was looking at her thumb in the light and the she said her left side was paining. Why does she need to look at her thumb to tell me where her stomach is paining? I asked her what she was doing. She then told me that she was looking at her thumb to figure her left side. Huh? Then she showed me a small mole on her right thumb. So that’s the difference between right and left, and when she gets confused she looks at her thumb :- the mole is the right and the one without is the left. So now you know. Vinu …learn… search for a mole and if you don’t have one, get one. NOW.

Today as I started office and suddenly four men turned up outside my window. Yup. Outside my window on the 9th floor! One guy was singing away. He was trying to look inside. They are doing some renovations and that’s why they are there. Sitting outside, enjoying the breeze, not a care in the world. Pretty weird. They all had the safety harness on. But the harness was hooked on to any thing! Nothing! They had it wrapped around themselves. What the fcuk man, this is crazy. Looking at them work is giving me the jeepers.



the rope is wrapped around himself--- look closely. real shit..


While reading Liar’s Poker I read an interesting line. I quote – “I’m now convinced that the worst thing a man can do with a telephone without breaking the law is to call someone he doesn’t know and try to sell that person something he doesn’t want.”

Jisap talk plus some more random thought

Jispa did just fine in school. Yesterday she did not cry in the bus or at the school. I guess she just was crying as she fell before boarding the bus and that set her off a bit. Now all is ok. She went today in the bus happily and willingly. Good for her. Good for me. The new bus stop is giving me even more time to spend with her in the morning. We have to cross the road and I prefer using the foot over bridge. More quality time.. yahoo….so I guess I am enjoying the drop offs.

Its fun to talk stuff with Jispa these days. She figures out quite a bit and is really funny on some stuff. I have spoken before about the ten Ganapatis that are near her bed and are protecting her. The other day she told me that 16 gods are protecting her. I was like “ya? How come?” she then counted the ten Ganapatis, one night lamp with a god image on it, three of Buddha from the images formed by the spines of the Buddha series on the book shelf. That’s 14. one of the Ganapaties has an arm broken and is lying next to the Ganapati; that’s another God for her. So we have 15. Then she points to the Bob the Builder figurine next to the Ganapaties. I protest saying that’s no god. But she replies “but he is protecting me, no?” “err, yup that he is”. So that makes a grand total of 16 Gods. Now she is not scared to sleep alone. Whatever!

Once she pointed out to an ox and she was telling us about the udder underneath. My wife corrected her saying that was not the udder. So what is it? oops, well, errr, that’s the pee pee of the ox. I was driving and I decided to keep to my self…… better to concentrate on the driving I say.

I just finished off a huge bar of rich dark raspberry chocolate over two days in office. I had sent my junior on an official trip to Paris and that was one of the goodies that came back. Its such a great thing that I am the only one in the department who likes dark bitter chocolate. No body else wanted it and I loved it!!!! hehehehehehe (evil smirk)

Travelogue 70% complete….. yes yes… I am working on it yaar.

All appraisals over… mine, my bacha log, my normal boss, my dotted line boss (different types of boss a la condoms. After normal and dotted I want to see ribbed, scented flavoured, extra protection bosses. What say?)

Random SMS sent to me by a dear friend: If life was like a walnut….I’d be a squirrell :-)

random musings on day one

I don’t know. Just started my week in a terrific edgy mood. I am ready to bite the hand off someone who pisses me off, and ready to hug someone the rest of the world. Fuck man, I am really edgy today. This is in continuation of yesterdays mood. Basically, I am just so tired with being patient with shit that I have lost all energy for shit. I can now just kick hard irrespective of consequences. Not a nice mood to be in but sometimes these moods gets more work done. Just hope not too many people cross my path. After all these years and moving up shitcreek in corporate ladder life has changed soo much. My attitude and tolerance for mediocrity, crap and unwanted nonsense has changed. I was telling someone the other day that I might decide not to play politics and not hurt someone through foul play and hitting below the belt but that does not mean I am a chutia. I will get back if you try and hit me uselessly. I will not proactively hurt the other guy but, I refuse to take shit flung at my face. How simply we define our lives. Lets see today, I hope not to be too abrasive to too many people. But some just have it coming for them, just have it coming. Its just interesting to see two moods coming in together at the same time. Opposites reconciling.

Today was Jispa’s first day at her new school. She cried a bit in the bus, not wanting to go. Today her mommy and me were both present. Tomorrow it going to be only me. Daddy will have to keep a stone on his heart and use all the resources that he has at his disposal to patav her to go without crying. One will have to be extra cautious and extra smart on this one. Will let you guys know what happened.

its really tough for a dad (especially me) to send Jispa crying to school. Even more when Jasmine is there. I want to comfort her and talk to her and when the bus comes in there is time only for one parent not two, and I take a back seat. This is such a 'so not easy' thing to do.

how bored can i be in office?

restart

Sighhhh. Finally I get some time. I have been on leave the whole of last week. So no comp no blogs and no mails. I was busy the whole morning trying to figure out the optimum way to answer 200 plus mails. It was simple actually. Just start by deleting. Then by forwarding and then by delegating and lastly action. Spending time with family. Lots of fun. i just had too much leave left over in the year and decided that its really stupid to let all lapse. Better to use it up I say. So one week, no office. I even switched off the cell for a few days, read a book and relaxed. We went to a quaint little resort just off in the beach town of Manori. Jispa loved the place, the hammocks and the beach outside. Nice clean and cheap resort. I relaxed, built sand castles, bummed on the beach and stuff. There is so much to write but I can hardly clean my mind though.

As I was writing my travelogue the other day I decided to stitch the photos I had taken though the panoramic mode. Interesting results. You say. You will see people cut but then that’s becoz people move all the time. these are around 270 degrees.

kuch bhi ho raha hai

India might be seeing the highest incidence of heart disease in the world, but this is I think stretching it. I was at a cinema hall yesterday called Chitra. Chitra is a nice renovated cinema, which is not a multiplex. The ticket prices at 85 bucks are half of those of a multiplex. Pretty rational pricing. I somehow cannot bear the multiplex pricing. My favorite line on this is that multiplex’s have killed the black marketer as at their ticket price levels they are ones selling in black in any case. What will the poor black marketer do? Ya, so we sat in waiting for the movie ‘Honeymoon Travels’ to start. An advertisement slide speared that made me jump off the seat. It was of a Hospital ( I think Balajee heart hospital) whose specialty was heart treatment, namely angioplasty, angiography and bypass. What really took the cake was that the prices of each of these were prominently put on the slide as well with the bypass tipping the scales at 99,000. When did people start choosing bypass on cost basis? Interesting. Is it now become a commodity that the only differentiator is price, that one puts it upfront on the ad like Big Bazaar? Very funny. Imagine a heart hospital ad sandwiched between Gangar optics and the trailer of the next sex comedy…. The other interesting thing is choice of media.. a cinema hall? Not a multiplex but a single screen hall in middle class mumbai (dadar)? I can just visualize the fat obese consumer munching his pop corn (highly buttered of course) and watching the ad. Chomp Chomp. Can you pass the chips please?

On the movie … I don’t know what to say. I liked it. Nice and candy floss. Boman is fun as always. Lot of random things happen. Just sit back and enjoy the jokes. No take aways.

arm chair economics

Keynesian economics is pretty simple. Increase in supply reduces price and increase in demand puts upward pressure on price and vice versa. I have long been a quasi capitalist in that sense. I have believed that the market forces will make most things work and that town planning, zoning etc etc must think about market forces. Today while I was doing some random thinking about taxi stands I figured something that apparently contradicts market forces.

I hate taking the taxi at the arrivals at mumbai airport. With the airport being in the process of a getting a facelift, the taxi stand is better managed than it was before. There are no shortages of taxis at any point at the taxi stand, at any time of the day or night. There are tons of taxis in a line. In fact when the airport was being renovated the airport authorities had a smallish run in with the taxi union on parking space for the taxis. The Airport wanted fewer taxis to be parked than currently. Talking to the taxi drivers one realizes that there are clearly a glut of taxis waiting at the airport. In fact the taxis at the airport are specialists and run only from eth airport to wherever you want and they run back as soon as possible and get into the line again. In a shift of 12 hours the general consensus is that the taxi gets around two to a maximum of four passengers. Giving that the waiting time is large the average taxi can’t really get along with short fares and normal fares. So they normally doctor the meters to show a higher fare. And invariably after they realize I am a local and a regular (in other words I know the fare), they ask to pay whatever I think is right. Obviously hoping for a little more. The ricks are also the same. In fact I am still a good 150 bucks from the airport. The guys who stay very close to the airport have a tough time trying to persuade the cabs to get him home. If you actually analyze the situation, simplistically, there is upward pressure on fares due to a glut of supply. Here over supply and the resultant longer waiting lines create a contradiction of supply actually increasing the price. So theoretically if we were to regulate the number of taxis (the hand outside of the market forces) and reduce the number and therefore waiting time, we would actually get the price pressure down in this situation. Reduction in supply reduces prices here to an optimum number, till a point after which the prices would again go up due to shortage. These are some queer v shaped curves in operation here. There are obvious holes in the economic theory where in other forces must be constant and fair, like doctoring fares and taxi meter pricing and not free market forces pricing etc etc… the same logic I would also like to apply to prepaid taxis which generally charge a premium over the normal fares. If there are a large number of taxis then prepaid taxis must get cheaper, therefore resulting in lesser taxis and therefore lesser waiting time for the taxis and therefore higher return on time for the taxis that are actually ready to go at cheaper fares. That optimum number is obviously elusive but can be scientifically brought down to a range that can shift during the day depending on the study of load conditions. So the interfering hand in market forces is actually a good thing.

There are lessons to be learnt everyday…..

getting things done

Writing everyday is not so easy. what the hell am I to have as an insight that I can hope to pass on to some one or the other. I try to refrain from doing simple cut pastes. I hate quoting entire lengths of paragraphs or entire songs… so sometimes I am just lost what to write. Sometimes its just the discipline of sitting down and writing something, anything. Words flow and so does the topic build up. Sometimes I set out to write something but end up writing about something else all together. I wonder how come I have so many things in my head. Itna sara bhusa bhara kahan se? Bhagwan jaane.

Any free time I get these days is more spent trying to get my travelogue done. Which is easier said than done. The bloody thing just keeps on going on and on and on. I cant get around to cutting it short and is taking an obscene amount of time. I am flowing back and forth between things related nad unrelated. But its fun doing that. I hope when it finally comes out, it should be something that I should be proud of. I am lucky enough to capture a lot of photographs as well. They add real texture and help explain what I would have never been able to with words. Quite a nice experience. I am not so sure how I would be able to write more besides the travelogue. This alone should be enough to keep my writing keedas suitably busy and suitably tired.

I have done the performance appraisals with my team. These are all marathon sessions, each anywhere between two to three hours per person. This is after all a once in a year thing and they at least deserve all the time that they get. This is the time to air grievances. While I might be an ok guy to get appraised from, I am notoriously difficult to appraise. It all depends on my mood at the time. At times I get very docile and disinterested, like the last time around. I was not even interested in the marks my boss gave me. Dena hai toh de, nahin toh mut de. And the year before that I was almost on a war path fighting out every point and mark cut or made. Man, these things can get very very volatile. End of the day its all on my mood. Most of the time I think my attitude in office has been that I will do my job better than you expect, just don’t get in my way. Don’t ask too many questions, just tell me what you want. I almost forgot how I behave till someone pointed that out to me. He called me something like the inner child or some jargon like that. One of the things that you learn over a period of time is to execute relentlessly. There is no substitute for mindless and excellent execution. There are times in middle where you might need to pause for strategy, but most of the time, its simple relentless execution. Mind numbing pace, and always witin parameters. The way we believe we bargain, we normally get the best rate for most of what we do. We try and lower costs every year. As my colleague once caught on to what I said and repeated it till it became folklore ‘inflation is in the minds of the seller’. There is always lower costs, Always. I don’t know where my streak comes from. I was always aggressive. With age I have learned ot channel it right. Channel it internal. Channel it towards the goal.

While reviewing my kids told me that sometimes I push like mad, I drive them crazy and I follow up like mad. I transfer pressure like crazy at times. At the same time they appreciate it and believe that I make them do better. I found this funny at first and not so while thinking again, because I thought I was always the easy going types, and I was not the tough guy. I might not be the stereotyped tough guy, but I realize, that I can push on what I think is priority. I hope I don’t push people too hard and drive them over the edge. I think over a period of time I have gained by alter egos which I can call upon in times of need. This also is self analysis. I don’t know how right it is. People working under me will realize.

One thing is for sure, I have changed over the course of the last three years and am able to push myself and my subordinates like no man’s business. I have been fair and tough at appraisals, whereas earlier I used to be more benign. God knows how I have changed, what has happened. Is it for the good or is it for the worse. As a good friend who knows me from the year 2000, once told me ‘Jaimit, the innocence is now lost from your face. You have hardened and it’s showing on your face’. I did not know if that was a good thing or bad, but I know it was the truth. :)

For all I recommend a book called “execution – the discipline of getting things done” by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan. If you just internalize the title 20 % of your life will be better. I don’t think I would have had the maturity to read and understand the same 4 years back and at the same breath I must add that I would like to re read the same after 10 years to clearly understand what more its trying to say. But basically get things done bozo. Get things done. It really left an impact on me. Whether it reinforced what I knew or whether it taught me something new, I have no clue. But a mark is there for all to see.

Old friends and triple win

Now let’s see. An old B school friend of yours is coming to your office and she (operative word SHE) is going to drop by and say hi to you as well. What do you do. Well for one, wear nice formals. The ones that make you look important. second…. CLEAN YOUR DESK. You got to look cool, uncluttered and important. hahahhaha. Ya ok, Sonali did drop by the office. She is as smart as she was 8 years ago, and by her own description, svelte. But doing all that just for her…Nahhhhh,…. Ok ok ok ok. I admit, I did clean my desk. But it needed cleaning in any case. It was long overdue. Can a catalyst be defined as a cause. I argue, as not. Your honour, I am innocent, set me freeeeeeeee.

Kya bakwas likh raha hun?

In continuation of my win win win experiments with other hapless victims. I took a cab today from my house to the station. Yesterday I took a cab home from office and it cost be around 160 bucks. While going to the station I asked him if he would go all the way to office at Nariman point for a 100. He said it would be around 130 and you could give 10 15 bucks less. So we agreed at 120. Now it was interesting to see the decisions he takes as regards the route. Some places he took the shortest route and some places he took a small detour but saved time. He maximized his time and money equation in a unique manner. It was very interesting. This way I got the best time money route to take my self in case I am driving in.
Another case was my regular taxi guy who was charging me 40 bucks everyday to get me to Jispa’s bus stop where I dropped her off and take a train to office. Now Jispa’s school going will start only in a months and a half’s time, so I asked him to come in at 7.45 or 8 am. But he already was booked at the time with someone who was going to Mazagaon every day at 7.45. So I suggested that I share some part of the journey with him. He loved the idea. Now for him the best option would be to charge be slightly less than normal, the other guy gets a discount as well, and he must be better off than what he normally would have got by a small margin. So if we assume its 100 bucks to Mazagoan and 40 bucks to Wadala. Then he should charge me 30 and the other dude 90 and therefore the taxi makes 120 versus 100 he would have got. WIN WIN WIN. Lets see what does he do.

when fooled, turn the tables

I have a firend whose nick is Goripari. She had sent me an SMS in February to keep my 29th free, as she was on the quiz show KBC and wanted to phone me on the phone a friend option. I ‘the sucker’ fell for it. This is how I weaseled my way out of the situation. I am quite cheap, I say. Following is the Google talk conversation.

goripari: I had send the msg to every one in my friends list.....not only u
jaimit: good...
cause you will realise that those who keep their 29th free will be your good friends and the rest not so
BTW , my 29th is not free
goripari: ha ha ha
jaimit: i will be very busy
goripari: :)
jaimit: so how many good friends do you have?
goripari: 3 of them called me up immediately to congratulate me ...among them one was Smita kapoor......
jaimit: hmmmmmm
goripari: after that they realised that feb has 28 days
jaimit: seee... people are so happy for you that they forget basic common sense and feel genuinely happy. these are the people who will not realise fact because happiness overwhelms them.
they are the ones who fell genuinely happy for you
they are your friends
goripari: right u are
jaimit: happiness is an emotion that come first to them, common sense later
interesting thesis?
think... again
goripari: yes very interesting....
jaimit: so who is the fool? The person playing the joke or the person on whom it is played out?
hahahhahaha
goripari: ha ha ha ha ha
jaimit: the person who cares for you or the person who cares not for the person who cares for you
who is the bigger fool
goripari: u proved its me :)
jaimit: you decide
i prove nothing
only make you think. :)
PS: nice to know i am on your friends list
goripari: ok...will definitely think over it and let you know :)
jaimit: hahahahhaahahah
dont bother tooo much
but small experiments make interesting anthropological deductions
goripari: :)
jaimit: go now, run along. You know your friends now
goripari: yes.....
jaimit: run