daddy rules

Yesterday in the morning, we probably had a premonition or something. Jasmine told me to wake up Jispa. I told her to wake her up.  None of us wanted to wake her up. Waking Jispa is not an easy deal. She keeps asking for two minutes and makes a huge fuss while getting up. Of course when it’s the 5 am wake up call for swimming she knows better and is much more reasonable, but on normal school days, it’s a task. She knows she has enough time. But we parents have to wear an albatross.

Jispa has a punishing swimming schedule. She loves it but we are punished as parents. We push ourselves to the limit while parenting her. The burden is much more than physical. We have to ensure she is well fed, well rested and she is well prepared. Now the school has begun to crank up the studies. And no matter which school you go to, the teachers are always in a hurry to finish the portion and are possibly unable to give enough attention to each child. You always have to supplement the studying schedule at home. You need to revise, you need to learn and you have to redo as homework what you got wrong. So far I had been pretty sanguine about it all. But this year I realized the pressure and the need to do regular home work.

So the crucial 30 minutes we identified for revision is in the morning when there is no swimming. This si the time she should finish her breakfast at 7am and she can study till 7.30am, at which time we need to go. So that necessitates waking up on time. And that’s where the pressure builds up.

I used to take extra pride in waking Jispa with a smile, by singing, by talking and by whispering stuff in hers ears. Now that is impossible. Doing that will take away her crucial sleeping and studying time. So I can’t start early. I have to let her sleep as much as possible and then get her off the bed.

Yesterday Jasmine had her way and I had to wake Jispa. I tried to be nice, spoke well, tried to pull her off. She delays by asking for stretching time. Which I allowed and then I had to physically lift her, which is now a heavy thing to do. Then while holding her and talking to her, I was taking he rot the bath. She kept resisting and then she let off the dreaded ‘aaaeeen’. Nothing pisses me off more than the ‘aaaeeen’. It’s a scream of irritation. She signifies that she is irritated and possibly we are doing something wrong. Woah… that’s the ultimate wrong thing to do to me in the morning. Especially if I am all sweet and nice (but firm) while I am waking you up. She got a mid-sized whack on her back from me. “Stop the ‘aaaeeen’ Jispa. Just not done. I am talking to you. I am holding you, I am waking you and you can’t do this.” She cried – more for the rebuke rather than the hit. I told her stop crying. “you know why you got it and I did not hit that hard”. She went for bath and then came out refreshed and she had stopped crying. She told me “sorry dad”. “it’s ok kid. I am sorry too. Just please wake up properly. It’s just too much stress that can be avoided in the morning”.

This is just too stressful. It’s not easy being the parents of a sporting champion. Especially when you want her to be good in studies as well. We have to keep the pressure on studies. Keep revising. Keep working. Do your homework. Do your tables. Do your spellings. And that’s a job that only the parents can do at home. Schooling is just not enough.

Yesterday evening was one big realization for me on this. I am the worst Hindi teacher there is. Jispa corrects me with the correct pronunciations and the spellings. I have no freaking clue how to spell or what the meaning is of the words. I can only do some take up shit. Jispa’s job is to know the stuff and my job is to ask her what she knows. But yesterday we were doing occupations. She was struggling with a few. And engineer is called abhiyanta in hindi. She kept forgetting. So I explained this.. When you want to fix something you call an engineer and when you want to fix something- you have to fix it NOW. NOW in Hindi is Abhi hence abhiyanta is engineer. Yayyyy. She got it. Then I explained the simpler ones like Sona is gold hence goldsmith is sonar. Loha is iron and hence blacksmith is lohar. Gwala is cow herd. Cow is gai and gai ko sambhalne wala is Gwala. Reporter is one who writes letters hence patra and hence patrakar. I explained that chikitsak is one who checks you and hence a doctor. And so on and on.

Finally as a dad I felt I did my job on teaching as well. That too Hindi syllabus. Jispa remembered them very well. She was struggling with them. Similarly I explained the numbers. I was explaining that the numerals across the world were basically invented in India and then taken to the western world by the Arabic traders and then universally adopted. That’s why the sounds are similar – two in English or deux in French or dos in Spanish sounds like they do in Hindi. Same with three, teen, tres, tran etc. so now you know the English ones get the Hindi ones similarly. And once you get the counds you will get the numbers. Only one difference is the numbers ending in 9 such as 59 or 69 which is called 60 minus 1 or unsath or 70 minus 1 to give you unhattar.

I don’t think her Hindi teacher has that much time or possibly you need to be a non-hindi speaking hero to understand and learn it via other shortcuts. But hell who cares…. There is stress and sometimes bucket loads of it but if in the end “DADDY RULESSSSS” then that’s that. Daddy rules.

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On a side note from the earlier blog… a question that Krishna raised set me thinking. Why does Jispa still take water from home? Yes sure. She doesn’t really need only home water. She drinks water everywhere. In fact she is a swimmer. We even give her sugar cane juice off the road side stalls. So why does she need home water. Well she doesn’t need the water but she needs the water bottle. So she can drink at will and she doesn’t really need to hit the water station every now and then. So now we are sending her only the bottle. In case of longer days she will take two bottles, one plain and the other with the Glucon C powder in it for her to mix. Well – that gets rid of one and a half kilo! BIG.

champion inside

Inspiration passion motivation. And many more words that keep coming out from a lot of idiots at office. I feel stupid discussing these words. There are only thrown about while pretending to mean serious business.

The other day this lovely young lady in my team was having a discussion with me. We were discussing how to choose the designs for putting the opaque stickers on the cabins. She remarked “aren’t these designs too dull. They would restrict the light and make the cabins duller.” She was referring to some design someone liked. “ya sure. But it’s ok. I don’t care. Do it if they like it.” I have learnt to buy peace. Of course I say my point of view, but if it’s not worth fighting, I don’t bother. There are many battles to be won. You don’t exhaust your energy on a few. “but, your cabin will also get affected, wont it? Shouldn’t that bother you?” she urged. “luisten lady. First things first. Its not my cabin. I sit there and I work there. but its not my cabin. It belongs to the company and they can take it away whenever they want. You never ever fall in love with your cabin or work space or anything else.” Then I explained “once many years ago, in the year 2000, when I was around 25 years old, my office shifted to a new location and they gave me one of the new ‘manager’ cubicles that lined the sides of the room”. This is a typical design thing. The big manager cubicles line the outsides with the chicken stock getting cubicles in the middle. I have always felt that the design is fundamentally flaws. It should be the reverse. The ones doing monotonous work should get the best views and windows. But no one will possibly listen to me. “so, they gave this lovely cubicle and I liked it. And then suddenly another division of the firm, the core division with its sales guys wanted to move in and they downgraded me to another cubicle in the middle. I felt so bad that time. I think I almost cried. From then on, I never fell in love with my place. I try and stay focused on the work and work around the place. That’s why I sit out many times, I come out and everyone uses my cabin and they are free to roam around. You never fall in love with your seat. You never do that.”. “acha, she said. So is that incident what motivated you to reach this level”. “NO. Impossible. No insult can motivate me to perform or do work. That is gone long back. My motivation is inside of me. Myself. I don’t look for motivation outside. No one can motivate me. Not my boss, not my family, not my peers, no body. I decide what I have to do and how much to perform. My standards are internal to me. Why look outside? It’s all inside.”

This has been my belief for many years now. Look inside. No such bull such as positive reinforcement, positive thinking and goal setting. I have never done any of this and I don’t really believe in it. You do your best, stay in the moment and look inside of you why you want to do or not do something. When I work, I decide how good I want to do or what I want to perform. So far the standards are the ones I have chosen to keep or benchmark. Why should anyone tell me what I need to aim for? They might guide or I may be inspired. But the goals are mine and mine alone. They are for me to set, understand and follow. And what goals are we talking about? Whose knows what the future holds like? I have never been a great goal setter. I am talking about lofty goals. Sure I have small milestones, some inspiring benchmark to achieve but not really goals the way the rest seem to have or preach to have.  And for the first time I read something somewhere that resonated with I am saying. This guy in the video is talking about still power which is opposed to will power. He has written a book called still power. Listen to the video.

I haven’t yet read the book and its always dangerous to extrapolate from a single interview but the fact is that I hear this man in the this interview and I resonate with what he says. Look inside. Don’t sledge your opponents. It’s not needed. Feel good about yourself. I think most of the time my sledging has never helped us.at best it may have helped my team rally around. But over the years I have learned to respect my opponents. Be friendly its ok. You are here to play your sport. In cricket as well I keep telling my team, relax, and don’t bother about the opposition. Look at the ball and then you have the bat. That is all. The game is still played with the bat and ball. Put your mind to the game and read it well.

The last year I was in the zone multiple times while playing or leading. No need to give great pep talks, no need to tell people to focus on winning. Focus on playing the game well. If enough people play the game well, you will win. Winning is an outcome not the destination. The journey, the plain, the mental toughness, that is the destination. Love it and live with it.

I kept worrying that with Jispa I never ever let her push toward a medal. You swim, you improve your timing. You enjoy your sport. She wants to do well, because she wants to do well. You win – great. You don’t win – great. Did your practice and preparation be worth it all. Yes. That’s important. And the Zone. The zone is always inside of you. It’s not outside. Whenever I have played the best cricket is when I have been in a stillness as far as my mind is concerned. It is focused on what to do then. Freedom from fear in turn is the freedom to play. Not regretting the past nor anticipating the future.

For Jispa, the freedom to lose is exactly the freedom to win. So when she swims she swims for herself, for the sake of swimming, for swimming as fast she wants to swim. When you have a 50 mtr dash, you can’t think or not think anything. You just go and swim. You back yourself. Whenever I have run the parents race – what was I thinking. Nothing. Just the feel of running fast and running through the race. You are just enjoying the moment. The rhythm and the grace of it. That’s all. You can’t think positive or negative. Of course longer sports like cricket give you a lot of time to think. But when you are about to play, you come back and you stop your thoughts. You see the field and then focus on the ball. Time always almost stands still when you are in your zone. You don’t fight negative or positive thoughts. You merely enjoy the moment. That’s all. Focusing on yourself and in your role vis-à-vis the team.

Talking about negative thoughts – I just chanced upon this article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/opinion/sunday/the-positive-power-of-negative-thinking.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

The power negative thinking it says. I like that. I like this paragraph a lot “The Stoics recommended “the premeditation of evils,” or deliberately visualizing the worst-case scenario. This tends to reduce anxiety about the future: when you soberly picture how badly things could go in reality, you usually conclude that you could cope. Besides, they noted, imagining that you might lose the relationships and possessions you currently enjoy increases your gratitude for having them now. Positive thinking, by contrast, always leans into the future, ignoring present pleasures.”  This stuff has worked for me innumerable times in the past. Whenever I have faced tremendous pressure or stress, my counter has been to know what’s the worst that could happen and how I would deal with it. Then the present doesn’t seem so bad after all. It’s right. That’s been my coping mechanism for the last decade or so. That’s helped me block out the issues, helped me block out the pain. In fact once your worst case scenario is acceptable then you don’t really mind the pain. In fact I would even so much as say – I end up enjoying the pain. Possibly in saying – take that dumbass, I am unaffected by you.

There is another para in the article that caught my attention “Even goal setting, the ubiquitous motivational technique of managers everywhere, isn’t an undisputed boon. Fixating too vigorously on goals can distort an organization’s overall mission in a desperate effort to meet some overly narrow target, and research by several business-school professors suggests that employees consumed with goals are likelier to cut ethical corners.”  This is also something I have argues for. Too much goal setting always, always gets employees to cut corners. To achieve only to please. To tick mark. Yes the work is done. These guys look for external goals, external targets and then simply tick mark saying that work has been done.

Surely goals are important but mindless pursuit of them and relentless follow up of goals that are generally given top down without participation lead to such a situation. In the video the author argues that goals are limiting. They don’t allow for freedom to work around. That is true. Goals are limited only by your imagination. A set of smaller victories sometimes helps a lot. Play every day, every ball. One at a time. The broad strategy fits in by itself if you take care of small victories. That’s why it always difficult to be bounded by a large inflexible goal.

Well anyways. That’s a lot of gyan for one post. But nice. It was good to stumble upon this video and the article. It suddenly reinforced what I seemed to have found and believed in – all these years.

what a burden

“Ok let’s go. No wait. Let me see… where is our weighing scale, Jasmine?. Yes got it. Come here Jispa. Ok… that’s roughly six kgs. And you still don’t have it all. Some stuff is still missing”

Whenever we came in from Dubai for a vacation in India, we would stay for almost two months at our Granny’s house. My Granny was rich. The family had two buildings that belonged to them and she stayed on the top floor of one. One entire floor was theirs. That was great fun. We were treated like royals. Especially because we came in from abroad so we would come with bags full of foreign merchandise not available in India in those days. Simple stuff like chocolates, t shirts, chewing gums etc. We were the toast of all our cousins. OK possibly it was not all due to the stuff we bought. I am sure some would be happy just to meet us. But it was nice to feel like royalty. And yes the biggest thing in India. Servants. In Dubai you may have been rich and drinking Pepsi but in India you don’t work. You get the servants to work for you.

This was in many ways a cultural shock for us kids. It was a mixed feeling. While servants are good fun when you are sleepy and you need someone to make the bed, it never felt good to give them work. I still don’t like giving them work or getting them to do stuff for us. So as a kid from Dubai I never understood how to treat them. Was the full time maid who was possibly just about 15years old my friend, my servant or what? She would play with us but she couldn’t really win, could she? Whatever – I remember it being very very confusing.

Then we moved in to India and I was in the fourth standard. Our Granny’s house was a stone throw away from the school. Mom was a bit worried about us walking to school all alone. Would we brothers from Dubai be able to cross the roads safely? So she came with us for a few days and then I later learnt she would send us alone but follow us from afar and check if we went right. Softies from Dubai can’t negotiate the Mumbai roads. And this was in 1984, when we didn’t even have enough cars. Afterwards she sent the maid along with us to school and to pick us up. The maid would come along and we never understood what her role was. I don’t think she understood it as well. She tried to ask us if she could carry our bags. NO WAYS. Not a chance we would allow her to do that. I was around 8 or 9 years old but I would have enough dignity to carry my own school bag.

I have never understood why someone needs to carry your bag for you. It just isn’t right. We had a few kids in school whose moms or uncles would carry their bags for them. But they were few and far in between. As I grew up and the economy progressed, Jasmine and I saw a lot of maids around us. Almost anyone with a child would have a full time maid and the way we saw it he maid’s essential role was to follow the child and carry its food and drink and other essentials. They would carry the bag, carry the tiffin, carry the sports kit, everything. Oh I so bloody hated looking at it. The menace was so widespread that party invite would sometime specify that ‘no maids allowed’

Among our friends Jispa was the only one without a full time help. So she was quite used to carrying her own stuff. Her friends when they would come with us would just walk away without picking up after them in a picnic or expected to be served. Argggg. Do your own stuff dudes.

Cut to present. These days when Jispa sometimes picks her school bag I see her struggle with the weight. The bags are really heavy. Jispa has her taekwondo in school so she carries an extra amount of water – glucon C or something. So there is around one and a half litre of water in her bag. Then she has a snack box. Then she carries her taekwondo uniform and then she carries her books. The bag is really heavy. At first I tried not carrying it for her as we left home. Then I realized that it was too much for a child. So just the other day I weighed the bag (it was a light day, with a few books coming home for review), and it weighed 6 kilos. On a light day. So that would got to 7 kilos at least or possibly 8.

Pit that against the 28 kilo frame that Jispa is and you get the idea. So I kind of feel sorry for her and I carry it till the car. But to ensure that life isn’t easy for her, I let her carry my tiffin or my sports bag or something. She gladly takes the exchange offer. But from the car to the bus– she is on her own.

Wait – the car till the bus? How is that a big thing? Well I did not think of it as a big thing as well. Till I saw one kid at the bus stop. He is possibly is the 6^th or 7^th grade. He comes with his mom AND his maid. His maid carries his bag while his mom marches him to the bus stop. For the record his maid is tinier (build) than him. And then when he comes to the bus stop in the car, he walks without any encumbrances till the bus and his mother or maid carry the bag for him till there. So there. Possibly I am being quick to judge. Possibly the poor boy has a condition not allowing him to carry weight. Possibly.

But the case still is a vivid example of what I see wrong. Yes the bags are getting stupidly heavy. I also don’t understand why Jasmine has to fill water and give Jispa to take to school. The school has a filter and when I was in school, we saw anyone who carried water from home as a wimp. But that still only solves around 15% of the problem. We give the bag too much weight. And then we give the child too much care. You definitely need to carry your own stuff. Jispa must carry her own stuff, but I guess it also must be adequate for her to carry.

I feel like noting the bag weight every day and then writing a letter to school. Just stating the facts. Just stating them. Let’s see what happens.

lets watch it together

The Olympics. It’s been a deep desire of mine to one day witness a live Olympic event. See a few races yourself, live. Sigh… someday. I will be rich enough or retired enough to see one. I want to play a game of cricket in England, watch Wimbledon, and catch a test match in Australia. And ofcourse watch the 100 meter sprint at the Olympics. Now thanks to Jispa we have started watching swimming and understanding it. It’s a completely different experience.

We have a TV now at home but we still don’t have cable. So we still can’t watch the Olympics. Getting the cable just for this is quite a pathetic chore. So we were lucky to be at friends place to catch the finals of the 400m individual medley, which had the legend Phelps finishing a poor fourth. Jispa was excited and we all watched eagerly. It was fun watching a sporting event with Jispa. I have always wanted to watch sports and play sports with Jispa. It’s awesome fun. Full on bonding. At the other swimming races, there was considerable excitement as well. Our friends also caught our infection as we cheered for the swimmers. Normally the swimming would have become a bit boring if not for the introduction of the World record line. They show the line (superimposed for TV) at which the swimmer must be to beat the world record. So it quite visible if the swimmer is ahead or behind the record. It makes for an exciting race.

So we were cheering and very excited towards the end when you see how fast the swimmers are going and if there are in line to beat the record.

The next day I tried to catch a few swim races with Jasmine and Jispa on the cell phone on YouTube. There we saw the race and then tried to analyse and learn from the swimmers. We were discussing how the hand is stretched just for that little bit before it pulls the water back. This is quite clear from the underwater shots. Then we were looking and rewinding and forwarding to see how the relay guys are ready to jump and have taken off just as the swimmer approaches. It’s timed to perfection. They begin their jump and only the toe is touching while their compatriot is reaching for the touchpad. Lovely. At that level you save every half second. Finally a sport that our whole family can watch and not just watch, we get technical about it. Wow. That’s one dream come true.

Normally when we watch cricket I struggle to show Jasmine that see – see the ball pitch and turn. There.. Can you see it, the ball is swinging in the air. In the middle, I used to try and predict the googly from Anil Kumble hand while he was bowling. All that was lost. Now we all can look forward to see one sport. I am thrilled. And all the angles and the innovation make for a very engrossing viewing.

A dad's gotta do what a dad's gotta do

This is a really tough one. Jispa doesn’t like her school taekwondo teacher. He is a bit tough on the kids and the kids seem to hate that. Before him there was this fun teacher who taught them and made them play games while teaching them taekwondo. Last to last year I remember that just before the annual play off while practicing Jispa hit leg against the wall and got a sore foot. Her teacher then still motivated her and Jispa fought despite the pain. On the other hand this year she has been trying to get off the taekwondo co-curricular class.

Taekwondo is something that I was pretty keen on. I was keen that Jispa take up some form of martial art. It would stand her in good stead when she grows up and it also builds strength and discipline. The kicking in taekwondo also helps build legs, that possibly has a rub off effect on her swimming muscles. So it’s a good thing. Till the new teacher came in Jispa loved taekwondo and is now proficient enough to kick the wooden board that they use and break it in one clean swipe.  She was doing pretty well.

The problem is now that the teacher is one tough guy from the old school of hard knocks. He makes the kids practice hard and bores them to death by getting them to kick in the entire class. Then sometimes he denies them loo breaks or water breaks. I don’t know – what would happen if you don’t drink a bit of water in one hour. Then he scolds them if they get it wrong. Then he takes one kid aside and teaches him extra stuff. Then once when Jispa took a loo break he got another kid to teach her stuff she missed as opposed to teaching it himself.

When I heard this I was wondering. Where’s the issue. This sounds like the school I went to. My teachers were like this and the ones not like these were the exception rather than the norm. We all got screamed at, scolded and stopped from loo and water breaks. He seems like any of my PE teachers. Only a bit better. I remember getting whacked on the bum with a hockey stick as well. Ouch.

But the problem is that Jispa hates it. She positively hates it and I guess the class hates it as well. They seem to be bitching about the teacher within themselves a lot. The words that Jispa speaks has stuff that I would never have thought of her noticing. Its sounds like kids bitching together and coming to a conclusion that the teacher is bad.  Whatever the truth – Jispa hates the class. So today morning I had a longish chat with her. I understood and I then explained to her – “understand kid, this is similar to what I had in school. If the sir hits you then it’s bad, if he is partial all the time, then it’s bad. He took a kid aside and taught him extra because he must have seen something more. Remember he took you aside from your friends and made you kick the board and not let your friends do it. That time you did not complain. Don’t complain now. I think the issue was that your sir did not speak properly. He needs to talk sweetly to you guys. Or at least less harsh. Think again that seems to be the issue.” Jispa replied in affirmative. I guess she understood. I explained that its ok if someone screams. Let them scream as much as they want. It allright. What you want is for them to teach you. As long as he does that, its ok. As long as he doesn’t hit it ok. Rest we will manage. “but still” I added, I think I need to speak to him. I need to tell him that I think the kids are a little scared of you and don’t like being scolded. Can you please be a little more soft or little less hard on them. If I call him and do that, will that be enough”. Jispa nodded again.

So today was a test. To do something good for her while it being bad in the short term. Its tough really tough. I love my daughter. I surely don’t want her to have bad irritating teachers but also that is reality around you. People scream and speak rudely all the time. Get used to it. You can run from it. Especially if you are getting stuff that is good for you.

On Jispa’s guitar class, Jispa doesn’t have the will to practice every time. I also recognize that Jispa can’t do it. Just no time. With one full time sport it’s impossible to have one more hobby. Taekwondo is school is enough extra, on which we top up with swimming. Sorry man. I had to be the bad guy and say – fine Jispa. No guitar class anymore. She was a bit relieved as well. We can’t make her a super kid. I don’t want that. I wanted a simple kid, and yes a few great achievements would be nice. State swimming is good enough. To push her for more is sheer torture. And as parents I did not want to punish her anymore and quite frankly I thought the family was falling apart thanks to the hectic pace. I am most worried about Jasmine. Somehow being the super mom she is, I don’t think she knows what the pace was exacting upon her and her mind. Yes. I thought I had to be the final bad or tough guy. The guy taking all the decisions, especially if they are tough to be taken.

So I took the taekwondo decision and will take it to its logical conclusion and I have taken the guitar one as well. It’s best given the circumstances.

So anyone want a second hand guitar?

a new scrap everyday

After all these years some things never change. The stress of education is always there on the child and add to that – the greatest stress ever – the stress of homework not done or homework incomplete.

Yesterday was Jispa’s last day of the vacation. Till the fourth standard – every year in the vacation they have to write a scrap book of the stuff they did in the vacation. This for us is the most painful thing. You have to think of stuff we did, print pictures and decorate the scrap book. The most tiresome of them all – get Jispa to write in the scrap book. Get behind here. It’s like getting her to write 20 essays. Arrgghh. We have to be real mean parents if are to get her to finish on time. Things don’t help when the highlight of your holidays which is the vacation we took is towards the end of the holidays. We even took the dam bloody scrap book to Udaipur and made her write in her vacations. Whenever we had free time, we would goad her into writing. She would curse us, curse the dam book but she had no option but to write. After she writes, we can choose the pictures and print them accordingly. Jasmine had been telling her to write a few pages of Hindi as well. Jispa maintained that it was optional. Yesterday, on the last day, Jasmine read the circular that explained quite clearly that a few notes in Hindi are expected. But since getting Jispa to do the scrap is so bloody stressful, we let it be. Don’t bother.

At around 8 pm, when we are all ready to sleep and Jasmine is so tired that she even falls asleep, Jispa suddenly sees something that every school going kid sees. The consequences of not doing what you have been told to. Till now the school and the home work seemed far away. Hindi pages – sure – it’s optional. Its not required. But now, she was suddenly convinced it is not optional. It is required.  She comes to me with an upset face. What am I to do? Nothing, chill I tell her. We will figure. Now have your bath. After her bath also, she comes to me. Now really upset and almost in tears “what will happen tomorrow?”. “arey” I tell her “you enjoyed your summer vacation, nah? Why regret? Don’t worry. You said it was optional and what can your teacher do? She will only scold nah? Don’t worry”. “no” Jispa cried, “she can mess with my grades”. I wanted to tell her, chill man. Shit happens. It’s not the end of the world. In school, shit always happens.

When I was her age, shit happened all the time. We were three kids. Of course my mom couldn’t completely focus on all our studies. And then my dad had a heart attack when I was in fifth standard. So shit just hit the roof many times. Homework not done, answers not learnt, talking in class, all sorts of shit. Even rubbish like – paints not got for art class. And we used to sometimes get slaps, punishments, kneeling and what not. That stuff is at least banned in school these days. We used to get the dreaded remark in the diary. This had to be signed by the parent, which was a really BAD thing. So the biggest worry was not the shit hitting you. That was manageable. It was the shit hitting you once you get home. Who wanted that? School was enough. You plead with the teacher for mercy – she refuses takes your diary and then you go home and explain the shit all over again. The pain was getting home and facing crap.

At least in this – I wanted to tell Jispa – you can’t get any crap at home. I am saying ok. Shit happens. Not writing a few pages of Hindi is not exactly a bad thing that I am going to scold you about. But then how do I tell her that its ok for teachers to be angry at you, it’s a pathetic thing you shouldn’t be bothered about. I couldn’t do that. So I looked at her and said, ok let’s do something about it. I wake Jasmine up and explain the situation. We press code red. We get the papers, the ruled papers, the blank papers, the colored papers. Then we think about how to write stuff that will fill at least two sides in Hindi. Then we think of something. Tomorrow is Monday. Monday is no Hindi. Hindi subject is on Tuesday. Cool Jispa. Write the stuff now, we will decorate it tomorrow and you can tell your teacher that the Hindi pages of the scrap book are coming separate and you will get it for Hindi class. So I dictated a lot of stuff on the Hindi essay to Jispa. That itself was a crazy situation, I shouldn’t be dictating stuff. She should be writing it herself, but when you are about to sleep on a Sunday night in anticipation of a whole week ahead then you really want to get all the stuff done fast and easy. Thinking anything in Hindi is a big task for me. It ok to speak in ‘Mumbai’ Hindi but it’s another task altogether in writing decent fourth grade Hindi. Getting all the grammar right is very very stressful.

So we finished by 9 to sleep on time and Jispa was happy. “Thank you mom, thank you dad”. “ya sure” Jasmine said and the asked her “so do you enjoy working at the last moment? Would you do this again? Will you do so when I tell you?”. “yes mamma, sorry mamma.”

Sigh. All’s well that ends well. I try not to give too much stress about the education bit. I try and take all that stress on my head. If you have to learn tables, fine, let me do it along with you. If you have to do homework, ok, let me help you. It’s pretty boring getting to do all the work alone. Also being the only child, you can’t force the old “all of you sit down and do your homework together” bit. So I try and be extra sensitive. As it is, there is enough grief in a child’s life. I don’t want to contribute to it. There are many benefits of having siblings, but there are many cons as well. We took a call and had only one child. That was so that we could focus our time and energies on her. Completely. So we must focus on her. That’s the way I see it. I have no other excuses. Hence also no complains.

In the morning over breakfast she was telling me how the scrap book completely spoils her vacation and she hates it. I explained to her about a research I read. Kids who leave for the vacation end up not studying at all or reading at all. This largish break makes the child regress in his learning. So while a vacation is good for a child to play freely, it also means that the child must do small little work that keeps him up to speed with what he has already learnt. Two months a long time in child years I guess. That settled it for now. Luckily next year onwards she does do the scrap book, but I am told they have book reviews to be submitted. Hahahha. Have fun. Jasmine and I are happy that theoretically we are off the hook on those kinds of assignments. Hehehe.

a question of faith

Ever since I remember I have had this fascination for the Haji Ali Dargah off Worli sea face. The setting of the Shrine is perfect. It is around a kilometer off the mainland. The sea face is a very busy Mumbai arterial road. I remember passing through this place many times when I was a kid. Whenever we had to go to town we would pass by Worli and I would put my head out to see and admire the shrine.

Here is the satellite image. The little white thing out in the sea is the shrine.

My parents were largely secular. I remember whenever we came to Mumbai in the vacations from Dubai, we would have one scheduled visit to Haji Ali. So as a kid I have been there quite a few times. But after we shifted back to Mumbai for some reason it fell off our ‘to visit’ spots. I must have hardly been there once or twice since. When I was dating Jasmine I remember asking her if she had ever been there. She said that she had never been there as it was a Muslim place of worship. That’s when I first thought of it as a Muslim place. The dargah is largely Sufi which meant that its appeal would largely be open to both faiths. But I also guess it would be a question of faith and exposure. After having stayed in Dubai, I guess my family would be obviously more open to the Muslim faith. But then Jasmine also stayed close to a Muslim dominated locality. But would that have meant bringing them closer or further widening of the divide? I don’t know. It could cut both ways. Like next to Jasmine’s building was a Muslim dominated building. The problem would arise during Bakri Id. This is when they would have goats in the compound a couple of days prior to the Id and the same would be sacrificed on Id. This would happen in the open. Most vegetarians would find this highly disgusting and unbearable. Possibly this would further divide ‘us’ from ‘them’. The Moharram mourning with self-flagellation is also something that is a point of misunderstanding. But if I were to put on the opposite cap – I don’t think the Muslims would understand the 7 day fasting that Jains do or the fact that Jains don’t eat onions and garlic and other stuff that grows underground. In fact I guess the biggest grouse that anyone can have of Jains is that on religious grounds they are holier than thou and in business they just are complete blood suckers.

But this is not a blog about disparity. This is about plurality and the open embrace of Sufism. So when a friend from UK came to Mumbai and requested to see the shrine I was more than happy to her around. As timeline would have it, we only had a morning slot free. Which meant a visit to Haji Ali at 6 am. You can only go there during low tide as high tide submerges the half km entry path. 6 am is also a good thing as it meant availability of parking. In that area there is absolutely no parking available. I wonder where the pilgrims park their car during normal hours. I would guess the availability of parking would tempt many more pilgrims that what the shrine currently gets.

6 am also meant that the path was relatively free of all the beggars that normally dot the sides. No crowd to jostle with and a peacefull prayer time for my friend. When I walked to the shrine and when I walked in, I was somehow feeling a bit ‘nothing’. I don’t know. A bit let down in some sorts. Let down that I felt nearly nothing. I was expecting to feel nostalgic at the least, or even possibly feel a vibe or some thing. I was left unimaginably cold to the whole thing. Watching the Mumbai skyline also had no effect on me. Possibly the tide was way too low. A higher tide would have made for a dramatic scene with the waves lashing. But hell it was a really cold trip. Walk in walk out.

Dam me and my realism on god values. I see it nothing but an interesting monument. As of now at least I have nothing to ask from him or him to ask from god on my behalf. I think every time that this robs me of the magic that a more religious person might have felt. And this stuff is what I teach Jispa. That a temple is just a monument. God can solve your issues. You don’t need to pray to God for anything. So forget me and Jasmine, even Jispa won’t feel that magic. I felt that faith as a child growing up. It was there till about I was 21. Even after that I went through the motions till I stopped on day on the banks of the Ganga. Now it’s a cold nothingness. I am not really complaining but I wonder if that is an important part of life skills that I have not passed on. I wonder.

zoom

Last week I was in Udaipur for a personal leave. Jasmine and I have realized the value of staying put in as few places as possible during a leave. First we would go to multiple places in one leave. Like our honey moon, in which we did more than 6 places in 15 days. We covered practically the whole of  Kumaon region in Uttrakhand when we were there. Slowly slowly we were down to three places, then two and now we are at one place one week. The last two holidays have been just that. Reach, plonk yourself and if needed use that as a base to explore further. So this time, it was one week in Udaipur. This also affects the hotel choice. We end up taking a smallish but cute and clean hotel, that is typically family run. And this time for the first time, we deliberately went for a hotel with a pool in it. if you are there for eight nights and you might get a bit of hot weather, you need a pool. So we got, history, culture and relaxation – all in one vacation.

Another thing that we have discovered in India is the Golden Quadrilateral. The new highways of India. I have been hearing about how good. I used to try and get Jasmine to agree on driving holidays. The last time we had no option but to drive to our spot as it was pretty remote. The highways are amazing. These are segregated lanes with flower beds in the middle. And enough space to zip through. When I first drove on Indian highways, it was around 20 years ago. We had a Fiat premier padmini car. Here is a similar model. Ours was white as well.

My dad had bought it second hand. My mom had insisted on buying a car as my eldest sister was marriageable age and we must have a car to prove that we were well off. That we had two flats and that we had stayed in Dubai or whatever else was probably not too much of a show off value. So dad bought his car for around ninety five thousand rupees. A princely sum of course in those days. Must have been around in the year 1990 or thereabouts. The only thing we kids did not like about it was that it did not have an AC in it. We were keen that we have atleast an AC car. We wanted a Maruti but our conservative parents preferred this car, which we made do with. BUT NO AC? That was a bummer. But hell, we still loved that we had a car and as soon as we turned 18, we enrolled into a driving school and got our licenses. Dad actively taught our driving and soon enough we were driving on highways.

The highways. Oh the highways on a premier padmini. It had no acceleration to talk about. It was good for doing 60kmph at bets. Reaching any speeds beyond that required a large empty stretch of road and 90 would be around the best available speed. That too only if we got like a straight road with no traffic on the way. I must crossed that only once in my padimini. Add to that were the state of the highways in India. I was explaining to Jispa that the highways were just one road with one lane going up and another lane going down, with no segregation. The lanes were simply painted. So when you drive you have to be very carefull. For overtaking every time, you would have to tail the truck in front of you and then move little to the right and check for oncoming traffic. Then if you found the coast clear you would press the accelerator completely and hope to pass the truck before an oncoming vehicle came face to face with you. But that’s not enough similarly you have to constantly look for incoming vehicles that are overtaking by coming onto your lane. You would have to adjust your speed accordingly. I have been pushed off road one more than one occasions by a truck who has mistimed his overtaking. So I move off the road rather than get smashed into as pulp.

I was explaining this to Jispa and she found it quite amusing. The highway to Udaipur is around 800 km long and is one super straight drive. Only in one 50 km patch between Ahmedabad and Ghandinagar is the old style highway. I guess that is because it is the Ghandinagar bypass. If you go through the city then you get the segregated lanes all the way. This is like a shortcut. It helped to have it as it was like giving a live demo to Jispa. I talked to her while I was driving. See now I must overtake this way. Now I must look for this truck. She now found all it even funnier. All the cars waiting behind a truck and then suddenly all of them accelerating together and overtaking. Then she saw how we were stuck behind a truck at 40kmph waiting for a chance to overtake. As opposed to 100 -120 kmph on the normal highway, it felt like a hare waiting impatiently behind a tortoise waiting for an opening.

The superb highways made me think about my political leaning. The bridges in Mumbai which got much acclaim were thanks to the right winged group in power. The Golden quad highway project was a brain child of the same right winged combo in power at the center. The more secular party leans almost left and is a ‘welfarist’ at heart. While I think some of the legislation like the NREGA which guarantees employment may have much greater long term impact than what most understand, I need good roads and bridges now. No I am not talking like a spoiled brat who wants roads for a self drive vacation. But I see the benefits of good infrastructure.

Long ago in my naivety I had argued that India does not need so much infrastructure. After all we led the IT boom in spite of the no government support and in the absence of any backing. Adversity led to innovation. But I couldn’t have been more stupider. We desperately need it and the multiplier effect is for there to see. Good roads means better transport for goods and materials, we can now use large trucks on the highways, better trucks, better facilities for drivers, faster transportation. May be capital intensive in the short run but cheaper in the long run. Business comes up in and around the area and you definitely gain in terms of efficiency. It’s bloody important. So this time around if I vote right winged, it’s not that I love secular less, but that I love infrastructure more (sorry Brutus).

Maya

Maya. Commonly understood as illusion. The Wikipedia say thus - Maya or Māyā, in Indian religions, has multiple meanings, usually quoted as "illusion", centered on the fact that we do not experience the environment itself but rather a projection of it, created by us. While this sounds simple enough or complicated enough, depending on your world view, the followings words  are even more obscure “Māyā is the principal deity that manifests, perpetuates and governs the illusion and dream of duality in the phenomenal Universe. For some mystics, this manifestation is real. Each person, each physical object, from the perspective of eternity, is like a brief, disturbed drop of water from an unbounded ocean. The goal of enlightenment is to understand this—more precisely, to experience this: to see intuitively that the distinction between the self and the Universe is a false dichotomy. The distinction between consciousness and physical matter, between mind and body (refer bodymind), is the result of an unenlightened perspective.”

 Wow. I completely skipped that one. For me Maya is simply that there is no absolute truth. Only versions of it. Many times truth twists itself in a manner that is not known to us. I have argued this before on my blog. And I see it everyday in our lives. Most so in office.

Just yesterday I was explaining to someone the absurdity of office situations and the games we end up playing. I read somewhere that ‘a person refuses to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it. Suppose there was an instance where a particular way of showing numbers was proposed to me by my subordinate. But my job depended on not understanding it. I refused. Now one could call me the bad guy. But I knew if I start showing the numbers suddenly in a  new format, the other guys would falsely compare those with the preceding numbers and raise a false alarm. The alarm would be loud enough to set the fire itself, leaving you with another existential question – what came first – the chicken or the egg. So by that logic who is the idiot? Me for refusing to move forward, them – for refusing to see light when I show them statistics or he for not understanding this equation and putting us all in a situation where have to make a call – if we are idiots or not. Where does the buck lie? All are right and all are wrong because for the innocent bystander – YOU, you see the truth. Improve it you say. The right thing to do is always what the right thing is. But what you don’t understand is the chain of repercussions you could start of. So sitting judge on these issues, make you  dear friend, you ARE the idiot. For you haven’t understood the real issues, which are something else altogether. Possibly ‘them’ are under pressure to perform. Possibly ‘them’ see threat from ‘me’. Possibly ‘me’ has conveyed the wrong impression to ‘he’. And possibly ‘he’ is just bugging me to expose the real ‘me’. Who said what is a big question?

Yesterday I was explaining to someone that many times it is stupid to look at the truth in a matter. In office many times, people say something yet mean something else. They will come and tell you what they think they did in a situation. You will get another version from it from someone else. And then the two will conflict in your brain and you will invariably think that one has lied or has betrayed you. The truth is a lot in between. One may have just been misinterpreted or one may have tried to deflect from himself and named you but then made a comeback but the earlier version stuck. What should you do in this case? Should you try to get to the bottom of it all? What will you do digging for truth in a cesspool?  The smart thing is to know what you know and what you don’t. To live with the probabilities of what really happened. Cesspools are murky and opaque. Cleaning them doesn’t do much to anyone. It’s you who gets dirty in the process and it’s you who will get recognized as the one who throws stones in the cesspool.

I was telling Jasmine the same thing the other day. She wanted to clarify something from some other mother. I told wait. What’s it got to do with you? What they did to someone may or may not be without malice but you asking them will surely bring something out in the open. Why confront. What is the objective? What will you achieve? Quietly allowing them to think the way they do doesn’t not really harm you then why do you go for the truth? Why?

Our desire to seek out the TRUE version can only harm us. Because what we get we may not really like. Most of the time I have seen that we only seek to twist what we hear to we want to hear. I have that so many times. I used to counsel a lot of my subordinates and students. Now I don’t get too emotionally attached while doing so. People don’t want to hear the truth (at least your version of it). they want to hear their version of it.

OH DAM IT. this is getting to bloody irritating. Obviously I have seen something in office that has reinforced my belief in Maya and the power of illusions and truth. Two people said something to me. I love them both. I respect them both. The critic may argue that possibly I have no option but to respect them both. My job depends on deeply respecting them, so possibly I respect them. But I believe that both of them have been really nice to me and have helped me. So when I get two versions of truth I am forced to be philosophical. But not for long. I found myself humming this song which liked ever since I heard it. That makes me smile. Humming it to myself. Don’t you always remember the songs you listened to as a kid?

Bond

I was in the operation theatre when Jasmine delivered Jispa.  Besides obviously being happy that our child was born, I was so happy that it was a girl. We both wanted a girl. We even had the name in place. But if it were a boy, hmmm that would have been a bit of a tough one.

But you know how dads can get. I always want to bond with my girl on a man to man basis. I’d like to talk to her, explain her stuff, go cycling or swimming with her. Watch action movies with her. But my girl, well she is a girl after all. She hates action movies. So no super hero movies or movies where the bad guy gets thrashed about, smashed into pulp or bullets flying. So I have never been really able to see these movies. I remember many years ago when she was around five years old and die hard part 4 was released. We went to see the movie after she was asleep. Normally I would carry her in my arms and hold her through the movie, while she was fast asleep. This time she woke up and saw some action and I distinctly remember her getting angry at us for getting her to the movie. She started getting angry in the movie hall itself “why did you get me here, why did you get me here?”

Last week, one day she asked me, “how did Spiderman become Spiderman? I heard that some spider bit him or something. Is that true?” Ah yes. I then proceeded to explain to her the legend of the Spiderman. How he was bestowed with special spider sense and then I explained the part about ‘with great power come great responsibility’. Then I asked her, if she wanted to see the part thee (or is it part four) of the movie that was releasing this Friday. “hmmm. I don’t know. But shouldn’t I see part one before”. Well it’s not like they are sequential like harry potter or something. But ya. So we borrowed the first part of the series and watched it at home. She was ok with it. nice and fun, so we went on Sunday for ‘the amazing Spiderman’. Whoops. This one was a bit dark, tough and a lot more gore (blood) in it. I guess after the Batman in the Dark Knight, Hollywood must have thought about dark, confused and complicated superheroes with blood on them would make for more compelling viewing. I mean when was the last time you saw a super hero coming home and covering his bloodied face from his aunt. This is eth first spider man who I have seen who has removed his mask so often and been so bruised. It was like an action blood movie than a superhero movie. Either their target audience has gotten older or the kids can take much more violence these days.  Its rated UA but I strongly feel that families who get their kids for a ‘wholesome’ experience would be a bit rattled by the movie. I think we need a certification that’s between UA and A for this one. I think kids need to be at least 12 to really enjoy this movie. Jispa came out ok from the movie. There were parts she did not want to see for sure. Possibly the boys in her class would be more blood hungry, but it was a bit dark and gory for a 9 year old. After the movie, she was ok. I told her I did not know this would be as bad. She was ok about the whole thing. I finally got her to see a couple of super hero movies. I enjoy them and I secretly hope to see them with my kid. Possibly when she grows up. Anything is good when you compare it to the home alone 3 that she hired to see along with Spiderman 1.

And if that bonding wasn’t enough for the week end, yesterday night, both Jispa and I couldn’t get any sleep. We tried to hit the bed by 9. Jasmine was asleep but Jispa and I struggled. So I snug into her bed and tried reading my book, while she tried sleeping. Didn’t work. So I tried reading while she was reading. Didn’t work. She drank a little milk (wonder of wonders) and I drank milk. Didn’t work. We looked at each other for around an hour and then another… still we both were awake and wondering what to do. So we decided to watch a movie. Since we have no cable and our collection of movies ain’t that big, we had little choice. She did not want to see ‘my movies’ and I surely did not want to see ‘her movies’. It then I told her fine, I think the right movie from our collection would be …. Yes. I got it. ‘do aankhen baarah haat’ (two eyes twelve hands). This is an old black and white movie, I told her. I had seen it as a kid, about your age or a couple of years older possibly. And it was a nice movie. So Jispa and I were watching this 1957 movie about a jailor who is trying to take 6 hardened criminals and reform them by giving them freedom and taking them out of a jail set up to an open ground without encumbrances.  It was nice movie and the prayer song from that movie never left me.

I had to keep explaining the story and its nuances to Jispa from time to time.  The premise of the story, why he taking them to a free place, why is he breaking the fences and that he is giving them their murder weapons as tools to work with. The music score and the over acting of the cast is worth watching and is so different from the cinema of today. Jispa found it amusing and then even remarked “these black and white movies are quite nice and fun to watch”.

So yesterday we watched around 55 minutes of the movie till I felt sleepy and it was around 12 midnight. We promised to complete it later.

This was a lot of bonding for one weekend. But yes, I am not complaining.

piss on your problems

I was a sickly child. I used to fall sick often enough I took a lot of home remedies, ayurvedic medicines in addition to the normal allopathic medicines. I would fall ill every monsoon and my parents would be always remain worried about my health. Obviously I felt singled out by God especially because my brother was blessed with amazing health.

But all those years of being ill has had an amazing positive to it as I have become a dad. I can’t better relate to Jispa when she falls ill. I know what happening to her, what’s wrong, what’s the issue, what medicine can do what. I wrote before about how I know how to hold her if she is vomiting. Where exactly do you want to be comforted? How can Jasmine ever know? She has hardly ever vomited.

In office today people were talking about some ear infection and how to solve it. Oh that’s simple. You take your first pee in the morning and put a few drops of it in your ears. First pee? Had I lost it?

As a child one of my recurring complaints was a ear infection. Even today I think I have some remnants of this. In a smoke filled room like a pub or a bar (before the smoking ban) my ears would hurt. Even today when the AC vent in the car points at my ear, after sometime it starts hurting. As a kid my Ayurvedic doctor treated the ear infection by advising my dad to put a few drops of the first urine of the day in my ears. Embarrassing as it sounds, it worked like a dream.

Since Jispa swims so much, last to last year she got an ear infection. Jasmine went to the ear specialist who put some medicine in the ear and bandaged it and asked Jispa to stop her swimming for a few weeks. It went away. Last year when Jispa complained of ear ache, we realized she had an infection in the ear again. She couldn’t afford to miss two weeks of training. I suddenly remembered by childhood and told Jasmine that my dad would put a few drops of my first urine in my ear. We tried that on Jispa for a few weeks and voila… infection gone. All you have to do is put a few drops in your ear in the morning and then sleep a few minutes while it’s in, then put some cotton and go about your life.

Jispa did not even miss a day of training this year because of an ear infection, thanks to this remedy.

Moral of the story - You may be in shit for now, but who knows – when you grow up you might benefit from being in shit for now. In ways you can’t even begin to imagine.

zen in the art of mopping

The humble mop. This is the secret to a happily married life. Believe it.

My maid has taken a month off. She has gone to her village to get her son married off. Basically there are two important things she does, washes and then keeps the vessels in place, and then brooms and mops the floor. So in her absence the pressure is on us to do the same.

I think in the middle I had gotten into a negative frame of mind at home. I probably refused to see the work at home and I would possibly not help out as much, possibly I was tired or pre occupied, or just plain blind. But I never saw the work and now in hindsight I agree that I was not much of a help. This time around I was determined to be a better spouse around the house.

I think in the middle I had an unjustifiably large ego about myself. I thought I was helpful and did a lot of work. But I had gotten into a bit of pride doing it, which I now see and realize. So I picked up one thing on doing while reaching home. THE MOP.

Normally I would have hated mopping the floor. The way the maid does it by bending over and using a swatch is impossible for corporate backs like ours. But with the introduction of our house to this brilliant mop has made mopping very simple. This is a lovely magic mop. You just wet it, then squeeze it with the handle provided and start mopping the floor. I love going in lines, tile by tile and cleaning the floor.  The floor then becomes squeaky clean.

I think that’s the secret of my new found happiness. I don’t mind mopping the floor. The clean floor acts like a beautiful feedback. Keep mopping and keep seeing a clean floor. I was explaining to Jispa that while one cleans the floor one must do even a simple activity like this with pride and not miss a single spot. Tile by tile you cover the entire house and keep it spotless. I told Jasmine “you know what, I really don’t mind doing this.” And then I thought a while and rephrased. “I don’t mind doing this if I had the money to have a maid to do this. I would definitely not be happy mopping the floor if I did not have the money to hire a maid for this”. Jasmine and I had a good laugh on this. It’s probably true. There are a lot of things we really don’t mind doing or even possibly enjoy, but they are really fun doing if you do them by choice and are not forced into doing it. Don’t we all humans essentially want choice?

Talking about choice, I read an interesting book “the art of choosing” by Shreena Iyengar. One of the points she makes is that while choice what we seem to crave for, too much choice can be bewildering to the point of paralysis. She ran a famous experiment where she presented shoppers with a variety of jams to taste and followed with discount coupons for redemption. The findings were clear - The higher the variety offered, the lesser was the redemption rate.  She also says that while we don’t want that much choice, many cultures don’t even care for choice. Possibly Asian cultures defer to higher authority and want the choice to be made for them. You are the smart guy with all the authority, you should know better than me on these choices.

Listen to her TED talk here

It’s a very profound learning I have had. NOT ALL PEOPLE WANT CHOICE. I have struggled with some of the members in my team. No matter how much autonomy you give or force upon them, they would like to defer to you for your decision. At first I thought they were merely scared to make the choice. Now I think otherwise. They are just not trained or mentally tuned to make choice. You being the boss must choose. They probably see deferment of decision as a weakness. Why can’t you choose if you are the boss? Or your choice is obviously the right one, why should I change my world view. I think once I changed my view on this issue, I got a lot less worked up by this lack of decision making. I tackled it as a cultural issue and not as a personality issue. It’s been much easier then. I can handle this much better, and I can direct much better. My exasperation levels have surely gone down. And yes, possibly I have become a better husband, father, friend and an easier human being to relate to. Possibly… but then again…

State of the sport

This is a photo graph of the Swimming pool at Balewadi at Pune. This is where the state trials where held and where Jispa participated to win her relay gold. Beautiful isn’t it? Lovely infrastructure. This is part of the larger sports village. There are separate arenas for different sports. Coming at the first seemed like a cultural shock. We first passed the athletics track. As I walked ahead I realized that it was just the warm up track. The main track and stadium was elsewhere. Wow. Two synthetic tracks? Not bad. Then you have badminton, weightlifting and even an AstroTurf practice hockey ground. Pretty cool. I thought India has finally arrived. We stayed at the business hotel that is within the sports village area. We were recommended to stay here even though there were athlete hostel facilities. And since all our friends were staying here, we didn’t mind too much.

So we first enter this massive aquatics stadium to be greeted by a huge spectator stand (rightly facing east) and massive swimming pools. See the picture. In front is the main swimming pool with starter stands on the left and right, full out 50 mtrs, touch pads on the left for finishing, a massive digital board, a huge diving pool on the right with platform and spring boards, then a full size fully equipped warm up pool (or an extra pool for heats) at the back of the main pool, and the best of all, a cool down pool at the extreme left. You can see it behind the shamiana, and of course the lovely stands with colored bucket seats. There are even the shower and washroom facilities for the athletes in the structure you see next to the warm up pool on the right. Nice infrastructure, thoughtfully built and definitely spent a bomb.

Then you see closer. The water you see is green in color. That’s not photo tricks. Its actually green and dirty. So bad that you can easily see the bottom. So the swimmers really need to look hard to know when it is time to turn. The filtration is clearly not up to mark. Then see the diving pool on the right. Here the water is so bad that you can’t even see the floor. All you see is a green patch of water with some crap in it. then you see the seats, dirty and unclean. Everyone has to wipe the seats before you sit. And of course the loos. No water in the loo or in the showers. None. The taps are bone dry. So even if you have to go potty, do be smart and carry a toilet paper. And if you feel hungry or thirsty – no food, no canteen, and yes no water coolers. afterwards i saw one table behind teh stands selling boiled egg, pastries and some poha and bottled water. So much for nutrition. And no detailed schedule of events and no commentary of events. My GOD.

We spent all the money on building the infrastructure and now we have no money to keep in decent shape. Even for the prestigious state level championship meet. What on earth is going on?

On another day I asked Jispa, “When you swim in the competition can you actually see left or right if your competitors are ahead of behind you?”. “ya, ofcourse, I see them and I know if I am ahead or behind”, she answered, “but in this Pune competition, the water was dirty and I couldn’t see anything”. There, Maharashtra state’s top event is held at the top stadium in an elite sports complex and the water is so dirty that you can’t see the other swimmers.

And yes the touch boards. You would have guessed out by now that they don’t work. But the fun part doesn’t end there. Not only did they not work, but on the second day the competition was delayed by around two hours thanks to them. Well how can not-working boards delay the event? Because these non-working boards gave an electric shock to one the participants and they had to delay the event to figure out and solve the problem.

Indian sports is clearly in safe hands.

Feeling wanted or not?

This weekend we took Jispa (a few other friends joined in) to Esselworld. Esselworld is an amusement park that has largely not reinvented itself since it first opened… when did it open? Around 20 years ago, I assume. I don’t remember too many changes in the park since I first went there as a college kid. That was a fun thing to do. Go with the gang, and of course your girlfriend. You like bumping into her when you sit at the dodge’em cars or at the rollercoasters. It surely was a nice place to be away with your friends or girlfriend in the good old days. Today at best what I can say about it… it’s a neat place. It’s not a dirty place and over the years, I don’t think it has gotten out priced and expensive.

But for me most of the rides have been completely closed to me. I can’t handle any ride that takes people in circles. Any circle. Even the sweetest, cutest and slowest of merry go rounds can get me queasy and likely to puke within seconds. I can handle rollercoasters with jumps and dives and stuff but just nothing round. The worst ride for me will be a simple cup saucer ride. The whole ride goes circular and then the cups inside of it also goes in circles. YUCK. Jamsine is blessed. She can happily go for any of these rides and come out smiling or even bored. Jispa takes after her. She too can handle as many circles as these stupid rides throw at her.

We have taken Jispa a couple of times to Esselworld before. The last was about three years ago. I remember her enjoying the rides and I remember me enjoying being with her. She would round and round on the merry go round, and I would be the stupid father, going “aaaaa” and “booooo” and “ wheeee” from outside the enclosure; shaking my hands wildly to get her attention and get her to smile. Then we would put her on one silly ride after another, spending good family time.

This time around at the entrance I should have known of what lay in store for me. At first, I had to shell the full adult fare for her. ‘HUH?’ Full fare? Wow. She is now above 4ft 6in, which means she is now a full price ticket with access to almost every adult ride. She beat it by a good two / three inches. Cool. Inside, it wasn’t as if papa would be taking her everywhere. She was going everywhere on her own with her friends. The ones that go in circles for sure, but I was quite amazed how she was completely at ease on her own in the dodge cars. She got into the car alone and she drove it all alone. Wow. How did she learn to do that? Elder kids struggle with the cars. Invariably there will be one adult stuck in the end with the car not moving. Without any instructions she was driving steering and banging into everyone perfectly. She was aiming the dam car right.

(thats her in the grey cap and jacket on the right)

Then followed the roller coaster. There too she was on her own. Who needs dad? So was for the tornado and the big splash. DONE. I told Jasmine, DONE. I am not going to go to Esselworld anymore. I always hated the rides, I hardly had two three rides which I could sit on; I went for spending time with my kids and here, I was completely …. not required. Really. It was so bad that in the middle I actually slept off on the bench.

Jispa is now growing up, no… Jispa has now really grown up. It’s difficult, but the faster we recognize that the better it is for us and her. Both Jasmine and I need to step off the pedal and let be free. The good old adage comes to mind – Permit where you can, protect where you must. Easier said than done.

Yesterday at night while she was going off to sleep she was protesting to me. She wants to enjoy her vacations but we are making her do half an hour of writing and then some tables and some Hindi. All that her school teachers asked us to do. I explained to her that she is now grown up. Her teacher wants her to write fast, as that’s the only thing that an issue with her. Her teacher says that next year, she won’t have the luxury of time. Her Hindi teacher wants her to improve her vocab so she must read a few Hindi books. And math tables are a bloody must – its even part of her summer homework.

I explained that – she has now grown up. I explained that she was on her own at the amusement park, wasn’t she? She doesn’t really need dad anymore in the same way. Thus she has a lot more freedom and a lot more power, and with it comes responsibility.  No option. She needs to study her stuff and write fast if she wants to do anything in her life. I explained how 100 mark papers have to be finished in two and a half hours. She needs to write fast. Then she asked me a basic question, why do you give less time in the exams. Errr? “Good question Jispa. I also don’t know why there is less time in an exam. Why would you need to write so much in so little time? I also don’t believe it”

Why do we have these stupid exam formats? It’s not like one more hour will make a bad student. Why are evaluated thus? Do we need a written pressure exam to separate the wheat from the chaff? “sorry Jispa, that’s the way it is. You will have to write fast for sure. And tables…. Tables are amongst the most important thing you must learn. Here I can help, by taking them up and making you learn, but rest… you are on your own in many ways. You will have to do the stuff”. “ok dad”.

What to do. I can’t understand why they still give dictation and notes in class. Just explain eth stuff, give out the notes and give us home-work and stuff. Why should we write notes in class? Why? I remember writing notes like crazy in school and college. There were limited text books, especially in B school, no internet and definitely no money to get the notes copied. But now all this is standard. But hell, we will still write and then we will insist on good handwriting and give limited time in the exams. What yaar. Come on. This shit must improve. How long can the education system lag. We are teaching kids to only expect questions from question banks. We are teaching them to learn by rote and we are definitely pushing them not to ask too much.

On asking… Jispa was asking me about my job. I was explaining marketing to her. How marketing should work and the role of marketing as opposed to simply advertising. How we must benchmark to the best across industries etc… and one topic was left to be answered. I have to explain to her this week about Sensex and Nifty. She heard it on TV once and she made a mental note about asking her Daddy. Finally I am suddenly feeling important after all. Dad seems to be in demand and of value. Otherwise the bloody Esselworld experience was leaving my self worth and self esteem in tatters.

Its the chair

Its really quite funny. The head of marketing in a 250 man company is different from the head of marketing in a 4,500 man company. I have been head of marketing for a long time now. The roles kept expanding and now in my current division which has around 4,500 employees, I am the head of a department. And here I am being made to feel like one. If you have read some of the old blogs you would know that here I have a largish cabin to sit in. I think the visibility that it gives others about me is something very very different. Like I was telling someone, this can get to your head. It can bloat your already expanded  ego. It takes effort to be level headed. Simple stuff can be seen. People look with some amazement that I drive only a hatchback. Now that can mean two things, either I am a really simple humble guy or I am a stingy miser. I guess I must be getting equal measure of both. The other day, I did not get my car. I was about to catch a taxi to go home, when I saw a colleague of mine leaving at the same time. So I offered him a lift. He pointed to the company bus which takes people back to the train station in the evening from the office. Ok, what the hell, let me hop on to it today. The station is on the way home. I was the last one in climbing the bus while it left. As soon I boarded it, I felt a silence. For a few seconds all eyes were on me and the bus fell quite. The receptionist who was sitting at the front, looked at me and remarked “sir, the first time some senior person like you has come on our bus”. I just smiled, shrugged and walked on. Two three remarks “you, sir, are in this bus?”. “err, ya”. I just took the seat at the end and felt like a Chinese doll at an exhibition.

I must be the only hatch back to be given a designated parking slot in the company. For an overcrowded place like Mumbai, I must have really achieved in life to get this slot. So when I once got my sedan, which normally Jasmine uses to office, the watch man loved it and even remarked “Sir, nice, this car is good. It suits you”. I could only smile back in response.

I think we humans area  show off society. We like segregation. We like us and them. We like to show off our feathers and mane and other forms of success.

All this can get to you if you are not careful. In one of my earlier avatar, I was easily one of the most powerful people in the mutual fund industry in India. It was because of a default. My business head who was really the most powerful man (because his decisions could swing the future of the fund houses) would refuse to meet any one from the industry. SO the only way to him was to convince me and everyone in the industry would meet me. The same guys would get their CEO’s as well as their fund managers to meet me and try their best to talk to me. I would have meetings lined up, one after the other meeting these guys. It was tough but I think I never managed to get heady. My immediate boss Prakash Dalal and my colleague Suman who taught me about the industry, always maintained a level head and I , I think, followed in their footsteps. So I tried to remain level headed. I always maintained, that they are not here to meet me or respect me. They are here to meet and respect the chair I have, I sit on and that is not mine. It belongs to the company and I am nothing compared to it. This attitude kept me level then and it keeps me level now. When the bust followed the boom and slowly that job lost its importance, fewer and fewer people came to meet me. Slowly the role got swept into oblivion and I moved on. I was right. They only wanted to meet the chair.

Sure enough I must have gained some respect. I treated people right. I never kept them waiting and I tried to be honest with them. At the same time, I was a tough negotiator and I extracted every penny till the very end. They probably realized that as well. I have many acquaintances from that period but almost no friends. A sales guy who has come to pitch to you is not likely to be friends with you for life. He is focused on the job and his smile, manners, discussion is focused. I don’t think he has the time or the inclination to court you beyond his scope of work.

I have had friends from my marketing side of my work. Agencies, vendors etc. Some people for whom immediate sale was not the priority. Slow happy relations that translate into sales, perhaps.

So here I am sitting on my chair with hope that I never lose sight of it. I should never ever think that this is my ass doing things. The sun doesn’t shine off my ass. It shines off my chair and that my ass is on it is just a coincidence. It fools most people. They think it’s their ass. But no, believe me, it’s almost always the chair.  

Thats my chair.i have given up on the normal office chairs with wheels and reclining back support after facing severe lower back pain. I love my chair and i am thankfull to my earlier division that allowed me to bring this chair along with me when I moved. Thanks Agnel, you are an angel.