nopes!

The more I think about it and the more experiences I have in life, I get that one thing my brother about Delhi Station is true about life in general.

Delhi Station is a mad place. You get off and you are accosted by touts of all types of slime and sleaze. Everyone wants to thug you and you can’t get a decent conversation happening with anyone. In fact what conversation, asking someone for directions itself can be very stressful and crazy. Many years ago we landed at Delhi station and we were told to move to the rail yatri nivas to stay. As a family we got down and started wondering where to go. A tout just kept talking to my dad and then finally showed us a few hotel pics and booked us a hotel to stay in. this was on the return leg of our journey. Dad thought he was booking us a good hotel.  Needless to say – the experience wasn’t that great. We had booked two rooms and the AC from one was flowing to the other via a duct made and other such weird stuff. Those days there was no internet and we don’t hear about the Lonely Planet and there were defiantly no Trip advisor. So choosing where to stay and where to go and what to do was one hell of a nightmare. Before you go anywhere, you have to ask people where they went, think of an itinery that was largely based on theirs and the hotel that they went to. People would have records of hotels and rooms and the phone numbers of the hotels they stayed in. this was very valuable information. The agents were essentially people who could arbitrage on the knowledge of hotel names and numbers. That was all. Things have moved up quite a bit. Now people know where to go and what to see from searching the internet. Jasmine and I came up with our own formula… Lonely Planet plus internet. Curation plus peer discovery! This has worked for us. And GPS… the bets thing is that now you know exactly where you are. When I was selling the Backberry concept to my brother in law – I showed him GPS. Now in a train, you don’t need to look out of the window or ask someone where you were. You simply opened your cellphone and you knew if your station is coming or is far away. This is especially useful if you are waking up in the middle of the night for your station and are wondering if the train is late or which station just passed!

Cut to my brother’s experience – he once alighted at Delhi station and refused to talk to the touts. He was making a beeline  for the tourist office. On the way the tout kept following him talking all the time. And then at one point the tout just said ‘look, the office is shut’. My brother lifted his head and sure enough there was a board of the tourist office and it was shut.  I don’t know afterwards what really happened but my brother then realized that the tout was pointing out to the wrong office which had moved. That’s when told me – in Delhi station – you should not even listen to the touts. Even listening is a crime.

I find this real in office as well. There are some real bad ass guys. People who gossip and spread evil vile around them. Even talking to them is a crime. They slowly make you believe that they are on your side, they gain your trust and confidence and then pass on gossip to you…. and then, they POISON your mind. Such people must be avoided no matter how sweet they sound or how nice a company they are. They give you the juiciest gossip but at the same time are the ones who will not hesitate  to use your name or you as a target of their gossip. Even listening to them is a crime. Hanging around, talking or texting or anything with them will only poison your mind. These guys are slow boa constrictors. These are available all around you. I keep telling Jispa that in school or in class or at the pool, these people must be avoided. After I have realized this and I preach it to all I care about, I have been seeing more of this. Positive nice people fill your mind with positivity. They help you think and take right calls and make better decisions. The bad ones, they figure out a way to co-opt you in their plan. They have sinister plans and then squeeze you in their plan. Without knowing so you are involved and a part of their support group and boom – there goes your credibility.

I have learnt over a period of time to simply not listen, avoid and if unavoidable – not encourage the conversation. And when they co opt you, it takes effort but there is no shame in saying, Sorry yaar – I am part of this. I disagree or nopes… I don’t care about this. At first it’s so difficult for nice guys to do any of this, but if you value your credibility and your sanity, you will disagree. Its then very easy to simply say no and weasel out. Avoid them like plague.

kya scene hai!

I was walking behind the office when I stopped to click this pic.

My colleague asked me what I was clicking – the Indian flag? Nopes. That’s just one of it. This photo has much more meaning than that. It is a long essay. You see the Indian Flag. It is on top of a defunct government company called the National Bicycle Corporation. The government post-independence set up the pillars or the temples of modern India in the form of state owned PSUs. These PSUs were all well-meaning but failed miserably to improve the quality of the Indian populace. They produced far less than  the demand. Everything was controlled. The state believed that they needed to control everything and all the resources so that they could efficiently allocate it all. As if it followed a neat mathematical model. That’s why waiting lists of a car were more than 5-6 years. Even scooters had hude waiting lists. The government produced stuff was of low quality and that of the limited private sector was too high on quality as well. Bajaj scooters was the largest in the country and he had a simple problem – he just couldn’t produce enough to fulfill demand. The shoddy scooters would often have a problem in starting. In fact people joked that they were made with tilt technology – you had to tilt them to get them to start. That way the petrol would get into the starter mechanism or something. But basically the Nehruvian dream of a well-planned state failed miserably. These dead buildings stand as a testimony to this.

On top of this dead building is the Indian flag. I guess there is enough budget or there must be an allocation of sorts for a flag that flies every day. There is no money to even repair the derelict building or the broken windows. In fact the broken windows story made famous by Malcolm Gladwell should  make for an interesting  reference point. The flag and the building make for this interesting contrast and tell a tale of corruption, lack of incentive, failure of planning and failure of ideals imposed.

In contrast what you see behind is the failure and success of a liberal economy. The success is simpler to see. These big massive buildings were only possible thanks to an increase in demand that liberalization through to India. Private builders can come in and get in modern technology to build these massive marvels of engineering. These are not your simple structure. They are designed differently so that they are abel to take in the load, wind etc while giving maximum space to the realtor for sale. Even dreaming of these massive buildings are now possible – in the old era, there was a cement ministry. CEMENT…why would you ever need a minister in the Union Cabinet to regulate something as base as Cement. But that shows – how much cement was important in building Indian and how less of it we were producing. I remember growing up and people talking about cement scams and bridges falling down. In fact the iconic movie – Jaane bho do yarron was all about a bridge that was a source of scams and the dam thing falling. And these massive buildings are also possible thanks to another development. The Slum Rehabilitation Act. Here the builders are allowed to rehabilitate the slums in buildings he builds and then in the leftover land he can build massive towers with some crazy FSI (the amount of floor space he can make and sell). So this is transforming the landscape. At first the socialist side of India allowed these slums and squatters to come up and occupy land and now we have this gargantuan problem that we have solved using the ultimate capitalist idea. But on the other hand this has given rise to the ultimate scrooge of Capitalism – Crony Capitalism. “Crony capitalism is a term describing an economy in which success in business depends on close relationships between business people and government officials. It may be exhibited by favoritism in the distribution of legal permits, government grants, special tax breaks, or other forms of state interventionism.”  Possibly the most hated business in Mumbai would be the builder community. Besides being seen as a goon that over promises and under delivers, the buyers worry whenever someone is buying a flat is that how legit is the dam thing, even as it’s being built.  There are many cases of the building being built and then the government coming in to say that the dam thing must be demolished. Sometimes this can even take 20 years. The other one is the game on FSI. Earlier before the rules straightened out there were weird rules of FSI allowed. Things like parking or open refuge areas did not take up FSI. There were weird cases of builders giving car parks to all residents outside their house one their floors. Yes you read it right – you had a parking outside your house irrespective of the floor you stayed on. Even if you were on the tenth floor. Basically you get the plan passed and then you let the residents do what they want. Like convert that massive space into a living room. Or show awnings outside the house but build them using concrete so that the residents then use it as a gallery. Real stupid stuff, using stupid rules against the system itself.

But at least a few things are happening. The construction is happening on an advanced level with professionals as opposed to ill trained contractors. Better safety of workers with a lot of workers wearing proper clothing and protection and modern equipment like cranes and lifts. The construction site does seem far more organized, clean and process oriented. At least more than what it used to be.

So I like the shot of the old derelict PSU with the New Indian Flag in a case of misplaced jingoism, with two massive buildings coming up in the background which are done under the Slum Rehab Scheme with a professional private contractor doing what looks like a good job! What a story in one picture.

wipe it clean

After having a shower you are supposed to wipe the floor. Now this was something my dad used to tell me and make us do. He said you guys should have been in UK. There he said it was very clear  - people were expected to wipe after they shower. Wipe after a shower was when I was growing up quite a menial thing to do and we did not like it. Who would take a cloth and wipe it. Till one day we got a mop. These mops were the nice ones that came with a  rubber blade. Now wiping became an easy thing to do. Then on I started getting ballistic on the dam thing. everytime I had a bath I would really look forward to the wiping thing. I still do the same thing. I take great pleasure in wiping the bathroom really clean after a bath. I start from the corners and keep wiping till almost every part of the floor is dry.  That’s the same thing I do even when the servant is on leave. I love mopping the floor. It’s an amazing thing to do. And I love the fact that the tiles are neat squares. So I can go from one line to another… cleaning in straight lines and not missing a spot. And then I take great pride in ensuring either a dry bathroom or a clean floor.

This is the same thing when I have to wash vessels, or wipe them or even make a sandwich. I keep telling Jispa that even when you make a sandwich you have to take great pride in making it. So I like making a really neat sandwich which is decorated. Plating a sandwich is an amazing fun thing to do.

Having meaning in life is so bloody important. I think I am crazy that I try and find meaning in everything I do. I think if I don’t find meaning then I would be reduced to a vegetable. I find joy in doing things that have meaning and purpose. If there isn’t any then I try and invent something with meaning or invent meaning in something I do. Meaning is very important to me. So when I swam I saw meaning in it, ditto for badminton or cricket or running or yoga or stretching. Everything can have meaning. This dam blog has much more meaning than almost anything else I do. Reading has meaning for me as well. Hence I have found it very difficult to read fiction, it just loses a lot of meaning. So even a badly written non-fiction in many ways has more meaning for me.

Which comes to my current job. I have had a chekered job history with many job changes but somehow I have stayed at this place for now an unbroken stint of eleven years and a total of 14 years. When I look back at all my years – I have always done well when I have found meaning. Even in silly jobs I have found some meaning. Sometimes the meaning is the way to add value to what you do and raising the bar unnecessarily.  Like when I was in wealth management. I had a very cushy job and I was paid well. It was a great time. That time I raised the bar on handling events and gave a lot of stress to my team. After many years I apologized to them and felt bad that I was tough on them, but it still was the right thing to do. You have a shitty job at worst and at best a job that doesn’t challenge you enough…  and if you simply just go through the motions then how will you move ahead. If you don’t push the boundaries in whatever you do then you will not add value to yourself or to your profile.

In all this the question is when to draw the line. Sometimes pushing the bar on so many things can kill you. People do not realize what you are doing. There are things you have to just let go of and things that you have to focus on. The problem is when you get to work with people who don’t share the same passion and excitement and the will to push the bar the same way as you do. Then what do you do? Do you let go or do you push people till they break or they mend. These are difficult questions to ask and difficult to implement.

Just because  I like wiping the bathroom clean and like a squeaky floor, does it mean that Jasmine and Jispa do it as well? Oh boy….

what you see is what you dont

You see the wiring inside the block that I am holding. Those are the Led lights. They are not there. I mean you see them but they do not exist. Confused? Welcome to office systems, processes and politics.

I like this as a telling example of what shit goes around in offices. When this office was being made the business head came to me to design something interesting as the name plate for the office. So I suggested metal cut letters ona wooden background. Then the business head wanted something even more interesting – so I suggested that we put LED lights under the letters and then allow for a teeny space between the letters and the wood so that they have a background glow. Whatever the business head wants – we give – no matter how ugly or kitsch it may be.

But the admin guy forgot to tell the carpenter that Led lights will be there and therefore he did not keep a provision for the lights and hence the electric connection. The option was to have a new veneer or have a cut in the existing veneer. The new option was expensive and the cut was ugly so we abandoned the light idea. But the admin guy did not tell the block guy so he delivered the blocks with the lights. So now we have the blocks with the lights but no connection to switch on the lights. When the bill came up for processing the admin guy refused to pass the bill with the lights. He reasoning was simple – if the bill ever came up for question, somebody would ask – where  are the lights – please switch them on and he would be unable to do so. So the lights as far as he was concerned were not there. So he passes the bill without the lights. The poor vendor wonders – I did as I was told. But finally he was not paid. Of course he was a regular vendor and he will manage and will make his money from somewhere or the other but the moot point being – the lights are not there. So what you see is a figment of your imagination – because can the lights be turned on? NO. Are they reflecting in the books? NO. Did we pay for them? NO? Nothing. The curious case of the presence of the invisible lights.

Office cultures are crazy, notorious and difficult. It takes a lot of expertise to navigate through this maze. Some manage it beautifully well. They know which side the bread is buttered and act accordingly. It’s crazy what happens. People will have lunch with eth boss, go home with the boss, inform and snitch on colleagues with the boss. I have always refrained from snitching on colleagues. It’s an old trick that some bosses use to fester a climate of ill will and hate. They turn one colleague onto another and ensure a network of spies. When I was much younger I was sucked into this, now I know better. I stay clear from these things and don’t let myself get dragged into this mess.

The mess intensifies the further you are away from home. So if you are someone who has migrated and depend heavily on this job – the fight and the insecurity gets even more nasty. That’s why I guess when Indians go aborad they get very very bitchy and competitive. They don’t have an option. I have learnt that about me as well. When I am secure and that I have another offer, I play well, I play fearlessly and the decisions taken are from a position of strength. They are invariably the right ones. One is able to better play and handle situations correctly. Sometimes I feel that is the one advantage the moderately rich kids have over the lesser kids. When I was starting off in life – it was tough and I had to make it. I was married at a young age and failing was not an option. Life strangled me. The other time was when I had a massive EMI. At the time also risk taking was a non-option. Those are the worst days of office life. Office life is bearable and equally good or bad at all times. Assuming of course we are talking about the same office. Different offices have different levels of politics. But in the same office most of the time the environment is the same. The difference is our ability to control or withstand it. We can better cope if we have options outside. If you are a skill set in demand and you know there is always an option for you – you don’t face these issues. But if you are forced to the wall, you are going to play the bitch!

The only way to constantly have an option is to be a liability light person with adequate investments and most important – constantly upgrade your skill sets. If you have skills sets that are in demand then you have the constant confidence to do better. These come by constantly being paranoid about new things and having a yearning to constantly upgrade. Only if you upgrade will you be able to have the confidence to move and hence the confidence to stay: Opposites reconciling?

you made me

I am so upset right now. really really upset.

I joined Jaihind college with a lot of dreams in my head. It was the 90’s. Life was full of insecurity. Parents would urge you to study – that was the only way out of the drudgery of life. Studying gave you and opportunity like no other. In fact that’s a wrong thing… no one or rather nothing gave you an opportunity. But if you did not study you knew you had no opportunity. I joined Jai Hind college because Jasmine joined it. It’s of course not that simple. Jasmine was applying in that college and I remember the phone call clearly. I had got around the same percentage as hers and I remember asking her on the phone that if you can, surely I would as well. So that’s my thing with Jai Hind. It was in Town and there was a huge uproar from mom when I stated that I wanted to join this college. But then I have already written about this and the way my brother fought for me on this issue.

The thing is that I remember not having too much self-belief while I joined college. I was plagued by doubt. I had no clue if I could ever do anything in college and if I could do anything after college. A BCOM student would get a job worth 10K a month writing accounts. And life was not going to run on 10K a month. What was college going to give you in the end? A degree? That’s about it. Some friends who would possibly help you later in your life? Who would stand by you… just because you went through shit together. It’s not that easy. You have to be a part of the group and do shit together to really be thick with each other and keep those bonds strong. For me this was a group of a couple of friends – one of whom I married. What else would college give. Definitely not studies that were going to be useful to you later in your life.

Basically college did nothing much than serve as a social gathering spot. The only thing you learn is to be more socially acceptable. That itself requires a lot of belief which I think I had lacked. I was the confident outspoken guy but – I still never knew what I was going to do with my life. And really no one can really tell you what to do with your life. It is something that you have to get to yourself. And in this set up – suddenly a few teachers come up who decide that they want to do something about you and with you and shape you and give you belief in ways you never thought possible. I think they too did not know it as well. I am sure they knew that they were doing good for you but i am also sure they did not know how they were doing good for you.

My first interaction with Mrs Dias happened thanks to Spic Macay – it was a society for promoting classical music and culture amongst youth. They came to campus to recruit us and I happily went along as the meetings on Saturday were near home at Matunga. Mrs Dias was teaching us one of the subjects and she asked the class who would come. I also formed deeper bonds with our good friend V-inu there. There Dias nominated me to lead the Jai Hind chapter and I worked with her on the events.  This was in First year Bcom. Then next year I was the assistant secretary to  the main secretary of the Hobby Centre. I joined that just thanks to Dias. Whereever she was – I would be happy to follow. In the third year – I became the secretary of Jai Hind college Hobby Centre. This was the big high in my life. This was thanks to Dias. She would actively promote me and towards the end of the year she aske dme to fill in my achievemnets and give her. She had nominated me for the awards for the best student. Finally I did not get that one – but I got the award that said – ‘Principal’s award for extra curricular activities’. This is the second best award of the school. Ahead of the second best student of the year. It seems I missed this by just a whisker – Dias pushed my case but some teachers were not in complete favor.

More than this – I think the only thing a young student needs is some level of interaction with an understanding adult. An adult who believes in him and his abilities. Who simply pushes you by giving you responsibility and freedom and the willingness to back you.  This was in many ways what Dias did. She only backed me – that’s all. She backed me with the complete trust that she had and that made me better. Simple. She was the anchor  of my college life. What she said or what she believed of me or simply what I thought she thought of me itself gave me a lot of confidence. More than anything its self-belief that helps. As a young growing teen, you know you have in you. You know that life will figure out right and that life is full of hardships and uncertainty – the fact that a teacher of yours thinks you are cool and you are ok, this is something that you hold on to when you step out of college. This counts for a lot.

Now after 20 years, I would claim to have said that I have reasonably turned out well. I haven’t sold my company for a 100 crores or anything like that but I am there – achieved whatever I have and most importantly I have self belief. When I look back at the professors who believed in me – Prof Dias stands out. I love her dearly and really wish her well. last week – she passed away. I came ot know of this yesterday. Even thinking about it makes me upset – really upset. Tears well up and I cant feel happy. She had more belief in me than my parents. She was the pillar and the anchor. She was amazing. She cared about me. At the time I was going around with Jasmine and she just gave both of us equal work. She accepted our relationship as casually as ever. Only at the end after I had passed out , she asked me once – do your parents know. By then they did. She was the best. Jasmine and me pooled in some money and we bought her some small gold ear rings. We wanted to show her we loved her. We invited her to our marriage and were so happy she came. She finally retired as the vice principal of the college. She was very dear to me.

I think when you are reasonably successful you luck back at the times when you weren’t so and think a bit. At the time you were a piece of shit but some people trusted you, believed in you or were your friends. They were there with you at the start. They don’t care about where you are right now. These professors and friends are something I value the most. Now at 40 – I am at an age that I see death and I am none too wiser. I understand this inevitability but as I just realized – I can’t really be unaffected by it. I am that emotional. Possibly I am what I cannot understand myself to be.

Professor Dias – you shaped me in a way you cannot imagine. Your belief in me helped me push harder. You trusted me when many wouldn’t. I don’t want this occasion to thank others. There have been others but there has been none like you. Jasmine and me both owe you a lot. Thank you.

I hope to be a better teacher and a better human. I hope to give that what you gave me to others who possibly seek it from me. That would be my ultimate tribute to you.

I am upset but this piece makes me feel better. A little lighter. I have done my crying. I am a little stronger.

dance as a rebellion

Parents and kids have this constant tug of war between freedom and compliance. Should we allow freedom or should we insist on compliance. What is the right thing to do? Like many things it is a balance and the right thing to do is completely dependent on circumstances and the safety precautions. But sometimes safety is not even the consideration here. Deciding what to wear is the most important thing that teens do. Jispa is a teen and deciding what to wear is something she wants to do right now. She is gaining her own sense of style. I see that in her. She decides what looks good on her and what doesn’t. It drove us nuts till one day I decided that now she is old enough to be what she wants to be. I haven’t ever stopped Jasmine from wearing or buying anything she wants. I have sometimes given my opinion on what looks good and what looks like crap in my opinion but I don’t think Jasmine can ever accuse me of being overbearing or even largely influencing what she must wear. I am clear about my life – I like to wear certain things and I don’t like to wear some things – I want to be in control of that, and no one else.

I don’t want to wear formals and at times I am happy wearing them. These are my choices. Those around me only have the right to have a clean, non-stinky hygienic person around them. The rest should be completely dependent on the individual in concern. What is clean is also up for debate. Now days people are more tolerant towards a stubble – in fact it’s in fashion. Before I remember it was sacrilege to come ‘unkept’ to office. Now I think people spend more time on keeping a stubble than ever before. Fashion by definition is edgy. It has to be different, it has to break convention. The younger you are the better you will be at breaking convention. It is by breaking convention and breaking laws that you will get ahead. You will have to fight the naysayers around you, people who tell you that it’s not worth the risk, people who will demand conformity. These are the fights you will have to take on to push for change. As my favorite quote from Gearge Bernad Shaw – Change depends on the unreasonable man.

Its been great since I have sat outside. I like to see these guys doing crazy things and rebelling in their own way. The last post of youtube videos from Dance India Dance was also thanks to them. I saw the movie ABCD (part 1) over the weekend in an effort to understand them. They liked that movie and I was happy to see it just to understand that. Now that I think about it, when I was their age I too liked these movies. Dance as a form of expression of rebellion is something that refuses to go out of form. The movie is nice – it’s has no story whatsoever – besides what can be written on one side of a cheap plasticy tissue paper that an udipi cuts into four quarter and leaves on the table, it has no acting – in fact since it casts newbie dancers, the story tries to stay clear of giving them too many emotions or dialogues. Most of the shots are long and involve more than one actor. They took an aging but amazing dancer as the lead to manage all the main shots and at the end the focus was clear – DANCE and everything was an excuse to dance – and rebellion was the emotion in the dance. Competition is the biggest driver – but the real driver was competition against odds – against the entrenched – against the rich and against the norms. What is dance without rebellion? Dirty dancing also was in many ways the same thing.

Now coming back to rebellion back home. Jispa is rebelling in her own small way. For one – she pissed Jasmine by wanting to put purple laces on her pink sports shoes. Actually make that shoe – with the singular. She put it only on one shoe. Wow that’s cool. Jasmine  was not too amused and I had to step in. You will have to allow this. This is simply a sign of individuality – and individuality is by definition – rebellion.

I think this is going to be some cause of tension in the family. We are going to see more of this rebellion. And I am priming myself for a mindset that accepts this rebellion and in fact actually encourages it. I don’t know how I can take it and I don’t know where I would break. But I know if I constantly try, I will do better. Much better than ever. She may get into a lot more trouble but that is the only chance she has of being herself, being who she truly is. This way she hopefully will find out what she is without any encumbrances from us. It has to be in spite of us and not thanks to us. Because if it thanks to us then the rebellion is mine and when was the last time you trusted a couple of 40 year olds to rebel for you.

dance can be inspiring

Ah. The fun of sitting out with the young kids in office unbeatable. Alos it helps that I don’t really interfere or look over them all the time and let them be what they want to be. Otherwise having a nanny around you is the most irritating thing that one can ever have. Of course it also helps me in a way that I can be a boss and not be bossy. Not bother about what people do whole day. I try not to even know what they have to do. I just sit around them, talk to them on random things and have a good time. I teach them a lot and they teach me a lot.

Today they were sitting and watching videos and I generally asked them what they were watching and they showed me the videos of ABCD movie. They first made me watch the Bezubaan video from ABCD and then Bezubaan phir se from ABCD 2.

Here watch the first video

You must watch the video to progress further on this blog!

We then got talking about the movie and the dance moves and how difficult it would have been to choreograph the moves. These days with the reality shows coming up on Tv with some amazing dance moves, there are so many dance studios mushrooming in the country. Now dancing and teaching dance is a respectable profession.  To my mind when I was growing up I don’t think one could tell a parent that one was going to dance for a living, unless one was a classical dancer. I am a hip hop dancer – ya sure – now can you get your accounts paper cleared. Sure . A lot of kids just must have grown up to dance and then bury their ambitions or passions in math books. Today thanks to the Karan Johar movies, having a sangeet function in the marriage is a must and in this marriage function all the near and dear come and dance to steps. These are carefully choreographed for maximum effect. People (a lot of people) come together for their friends or cousins wedding and spend time practicing their moves. This gives rise to a demand for choreographers who possibly might be able to make a decent level of income. I would surely assume that a lot of them from far humbler backgrounds. I saw a few and I thought this is a great thing for India. Jobs gets created in ways that we don’t imagine. Jasmine’s maid from her old house had a daughter who loved to dance. She then grew up watching these dance moves on TV. Now she teaches dance for a living. That’s great. That’s a step up!

Then these guys told me to search for Dharmesh sir on youtube. What? Just search for Dharmesh sir. What follows is one of the most inspirational audition clips that I have ever seen. I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you. WATCH IT NOW.

As a teacher, as a boss, to see this clip is something extraordinary. Now when you see Dharmesh sir, do you think you have seen him somewhere? The first video has this Dharmesh sir leading the dance in a movie. If there is a great story of Indian media opening

 up possibilities then this is it! If there a story of triumph then this is it. I was really moved by this video. This is Dharmesh sir teaching his wards – doing well and then trying to do it himself! Whoah! From Baroda. Saala full emotional kar diya

ore o parevda

Somebody gave me a collection of songs which included a lot of unplugged from MTV. These were some awesome songs sang unplugged by these great singers. Jispa has a musical ear. This was confirmed to me by her music teacher in school. She also listens to a lot of music thanks to jasmine who keeps the radio on whenever she is in the car. Music is something that has in many ways missed me by. I can hear some amount of music but not too much of. I find it distracting or I think worse – pointless  - after a point of time. It is amazing but not my passion. I am weird I guess in this respect.

With my analytical brain I possibly try to over analyse the music and in the process I possibly don’t enjoy it at all. Amongst the music I enjoy – I love good fusion music. I remember once dad listening to fusion music on the radio. I think was the government AM channel. I was asleep and I remember waking up slowly to the music which was in its last fast tempo.  Dad also I think liked his music. We had a big stereo in the house in Dubai. It was big sexy looking Sanyo with a recorder and all. I remember listening to some classics – especially the songs and dialogues of Sholay!

Jispa and I have had some interactions on music. I have tried to get her to listen to some of the music I like. I remember especially eth sound track of Bunty and Babli which we ejoyed listening to. The other was of course – my all-time fav – With or without you by U2. But nothing consistent. So this time I suddenly have started listening to the unplugged Indian songs.  On the menu of the car – the song name was flashing with the Unplugged suffix. Jispa asked me what unplugged was. While explaining the same – I had an interesting discussion on the Unplugged genre. Here the singer sings with no electronic instruments and has only acoustic to back him up. The focus is on eth singer and we agreed that the singer in many ways is infusing his soul, his version, his life into the song. He changes the temp a bit, he adds a bit of his variations while singing and overall it creates a different experience. Jispa even felt that singer is changing the lyrics. I guess – he reorders them basis his liking. But clearly the singer is in focus and that I what makes the experience interesting.

Another thing I learnt from the kids in office is the amazing breath of coke studio. They too take music and allow the artistes to reinterpret it and reimagine and to have conversations with it. With multiple artistes coming together in a melting pot of sorts. What I found most interesting is that cool young people showed me these songs. I was young and cool (hopefully cool) cool was definitely not hindi and definitely not this kind of melting pots of classical, folk and fusion. It’s interesting that not only is MTV doing this but it’s something that is resonating with the people that are cool. I would love to know how this works across India. This kind of studio set up mish mash was the exclusive domain of Doordarshan in my time with only oldies watching it.

Wow. Here listen to this episode. I love the explanations and the discussion of the artistes on what they want to achieve in the songs and how they bring them all together. The first song in many ways in as ode to Jispa – my daughter - ore o parevda tu kale udi jay re. Dear birdie – you can fly away tomorrow, today stay over once with us. Hah!

But all there are three songs in this and all of them are interesting with cute back stories on the arrangements…

I sure wish that we as aq family were able to let Jispa learn the guitar. In her swimming and studies – Guitar got the boot. I don’t forgive myself for this. Dam shit!

small buckets of life?

In many free advice blogs on the internet – one common one along with travel is – learn a new skill. So what if you are 40! Well I am not yet 40 but I still have it in me to learn a new skill. And as I always say at 40 – its your brains doing the skilling!

Jispa wanted a wave board this vacation. She said she was reasonably good at it and she wanted to enjoy the wave board. Sure. Her friends have it too and Jispa learnt to balance with it at her friends place. Interesting! Skate boards are largely a guy thing but these wave boards seem largely unaffected by gender. When I was in dubai, dad had got us one pair of roller skates. I think these were meant for my sister but one between all three of us was enough. I skated in them. My dad supported me when I started skating. I remember skating the most when we moved back from Dubai and for one vacation we went to Abu Dhabhi, were dad took up another job for a year. There, a promenade was made at the sea side called the Corniche, which was great for skating. I would skate a lot. I practically learnt to skate there.  One incident I especially remember; I slipped and I was about to fall on my bum and one foreigner who was running right behind me caught me in an attempt to protect himself. He too was taken by surprise. I do remember that those days I really enjoyed myself. What was it about having wheels on legs that made me feel really nice, I don’t know, but it was amazing.

Jispa too never asks us for too many things. She is largely a satisfied girl. So when she asked for a wave board I was more than happy to oblige. I told her we would get one before her vacations start and sure enough, we bought one just in time for her vacations. She tried it at the store. The sales guys corrected her a bit as she had problems starting off. He said ‘put your front foot forward first and then you can take off without support’. Jispa needed support in terms of a rail or a hand to start off.

We got it home and Jispa has been fooling around with it at home. Lying around the house – I too tried to ride it. The wave board is an interesting piece of invention. Unlike a skate board you have only two wheels. One in front and one behind. It very cleverly uses the twisting of the board to somehow convert that motion into forward motion and propels you ahead. It’s a nice one. So I climbed onto it at home with support. Then I did something that I am proud of – i just suddenly decided in my head that I have to start without help. You simply put the front foot forward and step onto the wave board. Of course – this is a two wheel thing – it can only be stable if you are moving. So you just step onto it pushing it forward and get your second leg on – there- -ho gaya. I knew something even Jispa didn’t.

Yesterday I took Jispa to the garden to try her waveboarding skills. It was pretty cool. I told her how she needs to simply trust herself and walk onto the board. That’s it. Its like a cycle. You need to be in motion to be stable. And she managed pretty soon pretty well. She was skating all over the palce. The paver blocks are a pain in the compound and the tar has too much gravel that’s not been swept. Luckily I remembered one part of the garden, which was supposed to be a water body with a  water fall. Obviously these things are not what gets maintained in India. The pond was dry as a bone and this stupid pond was all cemented making it a perfect thing for waveboards. Smooth and with slopes on the sides, making it fun to approach and learn as well.

Then shen she was a bit tired – I tried my hand (or leg) at it. I am really scared of the dam thing. Not so much at failing or falling, but I am shit scared of my knee. So I cant put my right knee forward. I put my left knee in front and then I take off – confidently. Confidence in the mind is the key to take off. The problem is the twisting motion. I just cant get that right. That is bloody difficult. I kept trying and kept trying. Jispa tried helping. I fell off every single time. rather – I had to step off. Only once I fell hard on my butt, but I picked up and started again. Am I proud – at 39 years – doing this fearlessly – I was proud. At the end – I did manage to get the hang of it for a few meters. The twisting motion is still proving difficult. I have to get that one. I managed in the end to twist myself to a few more meters, but is still difficult when the initial momentum wears off.

So now I hope in this vacation – I learn to play with this waveboard. The greatest joy will be just stepping up on the waveboard in front of others – especially in a shop – where they are only expecting young ones to know this. I haven’t seen anyone my age knowing how to ride this stuff. That will set a few guys wondering on how the hell has he managed to pull off this stunt. Hah! Lets see.

There are a few things on the sports thing I still have to learn:

1 – wave boarding

2 – learning the tumble turn in swimming

3 – tennis – basic level and serve

It’s like a simple bucket list – but I am satisfied from it for now. Lets see how long I take to figure these.

quit

I had a skype meeting at 8.45 am today. So I was telling Jispa to hurry up as I drop her to school. I told her I have a meeting and I was getting the car to zip. She looked at me and asked me what I was doing in jeans and a t shirt if I had a meeting. I told her that I have meetings every day and I don’t need to wear formals for all meetings. She understood and she was asking me why I bother wearing formals at all. Jeans are so comfortable. ‘shouldn’t you wear what you are wearing everyday rather than being who you are not’. Yup I agree with her completely. I can’t understand formal clothes. I find them so bloody irritating. People should wear what they want to wear. I had no real explanation on why we have formal clothes culture in office. Why should we force people to wear formals? People should wear what they wear regularly and what they work the best in. Formals are definitely not it.

I quit. I quit wearing formals. I can’t handle any more formals… please.

Fine… I am getting carried away. But I really want to quit wearing formals for good. I am inspired by the this quitting thing. I was listening to a podcast of a Freakonomics episode where they explain the upside of quitting. It’s quite interesting. They say that people normally gravitate towards an average happiness of 7 on 10. No matter how bad shit has hit you or how much you might have been luckily happy. Over a period of time – you hit a 7. So if you want to quit – great – do it. It doesn’t matter. You will hit a 7 in no time. It also talks about why you must quit something fast. If it’s not working for you then you must quit fatafat. It saves you so much time and effort.

I look at Jispa – now this is going to be severe – I hope Jispa you understand what I mean here. Jispa has been swimming for many years now. It has defined her and her identity. She defines herself as a swimmer. She has hit state level but has yet to break it into the nationals. She trains hard and long but – when I see her and I see the others – it’s there to see. I think that for now – this is her level. It would take an extraordinarily large amount of effort for her to break further in swimming. I would want her to quit and take up something else. Something other sport, some reading, some cycling or whatever else that catches her fancy. India does not have swimmers and a swimming culture nor the infrastructure. To break through I would have to send her abroad and across the world to learn more. Then she needs to forget studying or anything else. Too much to go nowhere… and most importantly she is giving up her childhood for this.

Kids can grow up and blame their parents that we did not push them enough. This is a double edged sword. Do I push them enough so that they don’t really love their childhood or should I push them so hard so that they achieve what they are meant to achieve. What to do is a mystery. But one thing we must teach them – which is the most difficult thing to do – is to quit. Quit when is not going for you. Quit when you don’t like it. Quit when you think its enough. Quit when you think that inspite of everything you may not make it. Quitting is a thing we don’t really like,. We have been taught to go for it, to push, to never see reality. The top industry titans carried along and refused to quit when everything was against them. They kept going. Tales of champions are filled with messages of don’t quit. When the going gets tough the tough get going. Whoever heard of when the going gets tough – take a reality check.

I wish Jispa quit swimming. I wish she spent that time reading, watching movies, roaming endlessly. I wish she picked up another sport, played some tennis with me or badminton. I wish she quit and started something else. She has achieved far more than what I dreamed of. She represents Mumbai for heavens sake! What more. She wants to hit the nationals once. Once – she says. Oh god. I hope it happens fast – for her. Then I hope she takes on something else, till she finds something she really enjoys – like swimming perhaps :)

loose talk and love

It’s difficult to deal with the bitch in office. Human tendency is to bitch and find a common ground to bitch on. People like to bitch. Often associated with women, men too bitch like crazy. But somehow I have seen more women bitch about than men. I think men play the games that are more virulent than the women. They get Machiavellian and start plotting. Actually all this I think is ultimate Bull S. I think men/ women – they are all similar. They all bitch, they all talk ill about others and all try to find common bitch stories. It’s pretty painful in office when they bitch about you and amazingly fun when you are bitching about someone.

Till a few years ago I too was quite affected by all the bitching that was going around. I too wanted to be loved. To be loved is an interesting but not universal tendency. I have seen guys who don’t care about being loved. They are way too much in love with themselves. They think that they are it and that people should naturally love them or don’t even care whether people love them or not as, long they fulfill their own objectives. And then there are the others who want to be loved. It affects them if people don’t love them and don’t understand if people don’t love them. Why would you not love me? They are on the ones who like to give love to their fellow beings and be nice to all around them in the hope that the people will love them back,. These are the guys who we call the nice guys and as in most real life stories… nice guys finish last. These are the guys who invariably get upset when people don’t like them and talk ill about them… after all that they did for everybody – why would they get this shit.

I was the latter. I always wanted to be loved. Then life teaches you a lot. I think fatherhood, public service, jobs and generally interpersonal relationships taught me that no one has a guarantee on love. Nothing is compulsory – no love is generally expected form anybody. I learnt that I cannot be the first type and the second type is really up for a disaster. There is a third type. Love for the sake for love. Love that is in essential selfish. I love because I love to love, because that is the thing that makes me happy. Getting love back is also happy but you can’t expect it and you don’t when you are going to get it back. Of all the people you love some will hate you for it, some will call you a fraud and some … some are worth all the trouble. They are ones who give you a lot of love back. But the timing is also in your hand. I see a lot of my kids every year grow up. Some kids keep in touch and some just drift away. Some in some vague ways give a chance to feel their love and some just go away… and you can’t predict one from the other. So the only policy is simple – love all, but stay nicely disconnected from all that love.

This is difficult. Can you love without expecting anything back? Is that real love? Can you have the intensity without expectation? This is the real test but it’s impossible for me to follow. I can preach it but I cannot live up to it. So I have found another way around this. I love, I expect but I don’t let the expectation burden my love and my loved ones. It’s easier around the office and society but of course more difficult when the intensity cranks up in office. But I am learning every day, I promise you that I am learning every day.  I am trying my best and it has helped. When you do something because you love someone and because you expect something back from your loved one – then believe me – the loved one rises to the occasion and give you a lot back and loves you amazingly well. This is the truth – the bets love is always the one that you get unexplained. The love that is there because it’s there (sorry Mallory).

That helps deal with expectations and of course frees the loved one from the burden of your expectations. They are free to express (or not) their love in ways that are unique to them. Sigh..

I was talking about office bitch and I landed here. On the office bitch – expect it no matter what. Laugh at it… have fun – they are humans after all and most of the time bitching is a way of team building and solidarity. Some are viruses that need to be removed – these are the negative people spreading the negativity… but largely the rest of us are well meaning bitches letting off a little steam. You can’t control so much in your life – if you can’t control your love and the love you get back – then what’s with these simple bitches….

sixers? mood pe hain.

After two years I played cricket. I had given up on playing cricket after my awe full knee that is impossible to contain on the field. So I was missing in action, till my building guys ganged up and gave me real emotional gyan for me to play in the team. This was the league organized between buildings in the complex.  The last time while batting my knee folded and it was impossible to do anything. This time I thought my knee had improved and I thought I could manage it.

It was obvious that these guys did not know much about field placement and when I took the field I could place the fielders correctly. And this one always works… when I change one fielder and ask him to move a little bit and the next ball comes directly down his throat for a catch. This one happened here as  well and the pretender was clear – I was to set the field and the others simply followed. And that was good fun. You choose who the good fielders are and figure where you want the better guys to stand – who might be a good runner to stop the boundaries and who might be good enough to stay within the circle and who is likely to take skiers that get hit…and of course where are the skiers likely to go to. All this without really knowing who really does what. I have met these guys just about a week back and I hardly got to play anything with them. Once just judges from body types and posture if the guy would be a boundary guy or an inner circle guy.

When I was much younger I wanted to bowl field and bat. Slowly I stopped wanting to bowl. I knew my limitations. I wasn’t too much interested in bowling in any case. With a bad knee and back – I had stopped bowling some time back. Also I hated this no ball issue. I would bowl amazingly well in the trials and the nets where there was no real issue of no balls but I would be horrible in a match situation. Here all hell would break free. I was forever scarred by one match where I kept bowling no balls. So it was only batting for me. Now as an old man – I did not want to go out to bat I was happy sending people one after the other. These guys wanted me to bat but I kept refusing in the two starting games. In a stupid four over game we lost enough wickets for me to go in. I promptly went and ran myself out. What else do you want me to do in the last over of a four over match? Next match I got myself bowled. I was out of touch. Then came the third match. this was against the top team.

Our team got me to place the fielders but we still had two captains. One guy who was the enthu guy who got the entire team together and another guy who was the good player who the other captain. Who was the captain? Between them they were making a mess of the bowling changes and the batting order. In a bloody four over game they were deciding the batting order and the idiots wanted to go one down or two down… same thing in the bowling – some idiot wanted to save his over for the last over as he was expecting some pinch hitting in the end. They actually take the logic of a 50 over match to four overs. In a four over match you just keep hitting. The best batsman come in first and then you use the best bowlers up front so that you take wickets and stop play. So in the third match some idiot gave the worst bowler the second over so that he preserves the best bowler for the last – that too against two in form rampaging batsman. They murdered us. I tried to switch the fielders a bit and get the field right. I got it spot on and got the field right – but all the shots went for sixers – right above the fielder I had kept. There were no boundaries… straight sixes. I was pretty irritated with these idiots.

So while batting first the opposite team made around 65 runs, with bowlers bowling no balls which went for sixes. I came off the field in a different mood. I asked who took decisions and people just shrugged. I saw the team highly demotivated and down. I just got really pissed and asked for the bat and went opening. And it was fun – I smashed two sixes! Then I was out but it set the tone – we still lost but respectfully.

I wondered what made me suddenly perform. It’s the same in badminton – I refuse to raise my game just for no reason. Why should i? I think I behave like this in office as well.  It’s difficult for me to keep my game at a raised level through the game, through the day or through the year. Something has to tick me off or tick me right or some stimulus. I have always been an aggressive person – very very aggressive but I have learnt that aggression is something people use against you. It fundamentally hurts us especially our own health and then it hurts all those around us.

But still I enjoyed. I still hit two more sixers in the next game and I took one really good catch that I was proud of. The team wanted me to lead them the next year. That was fun. But who knows what is there is store next year. Let’s see. But that’s why I like the game. It teaches me a little about myself. And it keeps me constantly guessing. In one match we dropped 4 catches. I kept seeing what I could do. I kept looking around… the fielders were placed in the right places. The miscues were going to the wrong guys and the right guys were making the wrong mistakes. So that felt nice – thinking and making decisions and seeing the results. Once I saw the field, the batsman and thought to myself – oops – a mistake. But I realized it too late and I couldn’t change the field and the next ball went exactly into the area I knew was the hole…. Aaarghh. It’s a bitter sweet then. Bad because there was a boundary and good because you predicted it. hmmm….

I could be your hero!

With Jispa growing older it’s a big thing for me to adjust to her growing up. It’s not the same thing! I remember coming home and my daughter jumping in joy and running to hug me… we had a puppy at home! Now of course I believe she is happy to see me but it takes a large effort for her to show her love. She is growing up and I don’t know how to treat her. It’s going to take some doing from my side, to grow up at 39 and behave older :)

It’s been so much growing up after being a father. A lot of fun and pain and love and laughter and tears. I never did know that it would affect me so much emotionally. I remember the day I was in the room when she popped out from Jasmine. She was so small and she fit into my hands. Her head was smaller than my palm. I saw her eyes open as she was put on the weighing scale immediately after birth. And I gave Jasmine a hug and told her – its Jispa! We had the name ready for a girl!

Cut to when I traveled a lot. I used to get her a plastic spoon from the airline. She would be happy and I would be the cheapskate getting away by hardly spending a penny.

Cut to when she was so small that I would come home and insist that I would give her a bath. I would wash my legs and then place her on my legs while giving her a bath. The face I would leave for Jasmine.

Cut to when I would wake her up and take her to the loo in the morning to give her a brush and then give her a bath so as to get her ready for school

Cut to when I she would need me to sleep next to her when she did not get sleep and I would fall asleep alongside her and Jasmine would wake me up to sleep on my bed.

Cut to when she would wake me up in the middle of the night saying she had a bad dream and I taught her to solve it, and she would then wake me up when she couldn’t solve it

Cut to when I invented the naanu motu game with me being the naanu so that she had to hold me to take care of me and not the other way around.

Cut to when once I was dropping her to school and I slipped on the stairs and I was safe as I held on to her

Cut to when I first took her swimming with all her floats on

And cut to the point when she tried in vain to teach me tumble turn while swimming. I just couldn’t get my bearings right.

Cut to…. Me feeling emotional whenever I see this video below. It’s so difficult not to shed a tear. While of course these soldiers face grave danger while away from duty… a travelling sales man or even a corporate warrior on offsite hates to be away and feels so nice to be home and hug your family!

Here the bonus video – nice song – almost (if you remove some bits) a fathers song for his daughter. I would love to be your HERO

crow away

There are many things that as a child you imbibe and no matter what the mental make up many years hence, some things wont go.

My first tryst with a birds nest was in my granny house. In the good old days the deck up around the house consisted of having simple sofas and a panel that ran around the wall, around six inches from the ceiling. I think it was called the pelmet. In my granny’s house this pelmet ran all around the wall and not just near the curtains. It was on this pelmet that the pigeons and sparrows made their nest. They are irritating birds. The pigeons especially go coo coo through the morning and irritate you through the day. Pigeons like to make their nest inside homes as I guess they offer the best protection from the outside predators. It used to be made of hay and grass. My granny would try to keep the place clean and rid the house of the nests as they are being made. In variably one might just get made and before we realize it – an egg would be placed. Now we are Jains, we like to keep our house really really clean. The idea being that if you keep it clean, you won’t have the insects and birds coming in and then you won’t have to have the burden of removing them. The rule was simple – you keep clearing the nests so that they don’t lay the eggs. But once the eggs are laid, they you are done for. You have no option but to bear the dam thing. You don’t remove a nest in which the egg is laid. Once when my aunt was removing the nests from the pelmets one nest came out with the eggs and the eggs fell and broke. That time I saw repent on her face and she exclaimed, only if she had known. That was my imprint on how and when to remove nests. You have to keep removing them beforehand itself. Afterwards as a Jain you have no option.

I remember once the eggs were laid and the chicks came out. They were all scrawny looking ugly things. My mom woke me up early to see the nest and the babies inside. We would come in from Dubai not having seeing any animal life except the humble Camel. Even a crow, a pigeon or a sparrow was exciting and pigeon chicks…. Wow that was national geographic epic.

In our current house, we have three places where the nesting happens. One we managed to stop this year by putting a bird wire as that window was largely shut in any case. And now we have two places to manage. One near the bathroom window was where we had to let go last year as the eggs were placed. This year some determined work ensured the crows got wiser. The one under the big hall window is now the place where the some dour work is happening by the crows. It’s Jasmine versus the crows now. She keeps removing the nest and they keep building it. It’s an epic battle. They use metal wires to build the nest. They have adapted to all the construction activity happening in Mumbai to build tough metal nests which they later put soft feathers and material in the center cavity.  They weave the nest through the grill outside and make it very difficult to dislodge. Jasmine keeps removing the nest. She has to tug away and pull hard to get it out. while she does it, the crows (around eight she says) take turns to attack her. They fly away to the opposite building and then fly in crowing menacingly… kaw kaw kaw. Its an all out attack on Jasmine is pretty scared that they will peck her, so she gets her maid to remove the nest and she stands guard shooing the crows away. Over the weekend, Jispa was on guard. This week end they were especially prolific. They kept building the nest and we kept removing it. I think we removed the wires around 6 times in a day. Their season was really approaching. It was a fun battle. At eth endof eth weekend the pile of wire was three feet high. I also think the crows know whom to attack. They seem to attack less ferociously if I am around. I can remove the nest without external help. It’s crazy how fast the animals adapt. These crows know male from female and they have started using construction material. It’s like the militant monkeys at Matheran. They know whom to attack and when to attack. They go for the right foodstuff inside the bags, they like their colas and chips and candy!

It’s a fun thing!

pasta at the movies

We had a long weekend this time and we got a chance to catch up with the new Avengers movie. It was quite a disappointment. The story went berserk and the action went even weirder. Well what do you do when you have Hulk on your avengers team. The guy is out of control and indestructible. You can nuke him or shoot him or anything else. Anything you do only makes him madder! But what the hell. A movie that I could finally discuss with my daughter. She too thought it was a bit over the top. Then I tried to explain to her what the artificial intelligence they show is and how the basis of AI in the movie is in reality. It’s quite interesting how clued in good quality fiction writing is. They can take an idea from reality and close make it work with the story. Basically take the most simplest of future gazing and take it to its ultimate mess. Even hulk and the others were all products of the nuclear age where you needed to be radiated to  have super human powers.

Talking about radiation, when men discovered radioactive substances we went berserk. We thought that this is cool new scientific stuff and therefore lets sell it as the next best thing to sliced bread.  We put radium in toothpastes and even in water. In fact we sold a canister which contained radioactive substances mean to radiate the water before we drank it. Obviously people drank this to die! Don’t believe me – try this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Ore_Revigator. The revigator was the big thing in the 1920’s.

But forget that… yesterday I got Jispa to watch the movie ‘for a few dollars more’ with me. this was the movie I had loved to watch. It was a cult with the guys and Clint Eastwood was the ultimate cool hero with a billion dollars of attitude. This was Jispa’s first western and as I explained to her – it was her first Spaghetti western. These were called so as they were western movie produced with American actors but largely meant for the Italian market. They were shot without sound and then the lines were in Italian. The English versions were an afterthought. Released in 1965, these movies had an indelible impact on the movie loving public. And of course a ton of filmmakers. These westerns in their plot were inspired by the Japanese – especially Kurosawa and his band of films. We in india got inspired and made a few movies. One was a decent hit called Khotey Sikkey, which starred Firoze Khan in the lead and directed by Narendra Bedi. Narendra Bedi was the brother of my mom’s best friend and that’s why I knew some of this past story. It seems they all around the same time watched these westerns and decided to make movies. Narendra Bedi made Khotey Sikkey but the movie that created the maximum impact was – what else – Sholay. Sholay while being an absolute super grosser and a great movie – it still to my mind was a well made rip off. It seems to me that the villain in ‘for a few dollars more’ was an inspiration in many ways for Gabbar. The hairdo, the built, the beard, the laughter, the madness, the brooding – everything seemed so Gabbar in the movie. A la Gabbar, this guy too smashes insects on his hand, while brooding over. While I knew Sholay was inspired, watching this movie took a little sheen that I had in my head for Sholay. Of course Sholay was well picturised, they had some amazing dialogues, love story, music, everything… but still, it was copied.

Even the background score by RD was heavily inspired by the movie, the shots, the wide angle landscapes, the signature tune. I had taken Jispa to watch Sholay and when this movie was being played, I kept reminding Jispa of the similarities.

You can see the amazing title sequence here which sets the tone for the entire movie.

Jispa and I were having fun with the background score and the tones of attitude the movie oozed.  The full movie had hardly anything that made sense. Everything was just a lead up for a large dollop of attitude to be served up. Of course as teen boys in our time, we loved it. Jispa enjoyed it but couldn’t understand what the huge fuss was about. She found the shoe scene particularly dumb. Which Shoe scene? Oh dear – see this scene, where the two heroes face off against one another. One is obviously trying to better the other! And who of the two is really the Big Boss! And you really have to be a teen age boy to get the real fun kick behind putting sand on another’s shoe. It’s so stupid that’s it so much full of attitude. Complete spaghetti with sand!

side nahi bola!

I see this cricket pitch marked out on the ground near office. I really really miss playing cricket. Cricket was an important part of life. It mattered to me. Playing cricket mattered. It taught me so much about life and about leadership and about the qualities of men! It taught me about playing to your strengths, field and to the strength of you team. Right now I am playing badminton. It’s an interesting sport as well. But it’s nowhere near a team sport like cricket. Here you play to your partner’s strength. The big learning is that you have no option but to trust your partner and pray they play to their strengths. You keep encouraging them and keep giving them tips and hopefully your partner encourages you and keep giving you tips. Cricket on the other hand has a complete huge team that you are playing in. as fielder you are on the move at all times. You are reading the game, the bowling, the batsman and you are trying to predict what is going to happen. When you bat you have to bat for yourself, your team, the score, the batsmen left, the bowlers bowling, who all are left… the complexities are enormous. That’s the reason that a captain is so important in cricket than any other sport. He takes decisions that can impact the game at every minute. Not taking a decision is also a decision. Letting the play drift a bit or speeding things up or sending the right person etc… A captain is almost the game! That’s why it’s a bug thing to be a captain in the Indian cricket team. He gets the best sponsorships and the big deals.

Of course galli cricket is never as complicated. You just go with the flow. In fact the captain’s job is only to win the toss and take batting first. People’s roles and positions are well marked out. Every guy has his pecking order in his brain. Everyone knows who is the best batsman and what is your rank relative to him. So you know before hand whether you will get to open or go one down or where you are going to field or if you are going to be given a bowl. Over time holy cows get established and no captain dare change the holy cow. At best sometimes a little shuffle happens and a little innovation happens but largely everything is set in stone. If the big opener is asked to sit in and go one down, it could cause a huge uproar… but only from that guy. The rest will only be happy to oblige and get first batting. The toss also has a strategic significance. It is extremely crucial to win this toss. This determines the entire game in galli cricket. It is a very simple rule at the core of it. You try your best to win the toss. Because if you win the toss - you bat. Simple. Any captain who wins the toss and fields will get removed from the captaincy. Of course – the team decides the captain. Hence the poor captain in this case is answerable to the team itself. Now the strategic answer to the reason why we bat first – always… its simple you only field for how much you have batted. You bat first, score as much as you want and then you field only that much. Everyone in galli cricket wants to bat. Bowling is a chore and fielding – the greatest boredom known to man. It is quite often that the entire team will get out for a paltry score in single digits. Then the batting team is even more ecstatic. This mean they got their batting, got out and now you don’t even have to field for long. Such are the travails of galli cricket.

In Mumbai galli cricket as the name suggests is played in the gallis – streets. The pole or the wall or a cardboard would be the stumps and one the other side is typically a stone. The topography of Mumbai dictates the rules of the game. The aunty who is ready to stop the game will have her wall  direct shot being given out. So the rules are complex – if you hit the wall one bounce or more – it’s a boundary. If you hit the ball full toss on the wall – it’s a six. But if by chance you hit the ball full toss outside the wall – oops – you are out. In fact most of the time the batsman wil drop everything and start running if he hit a shot too good for anyone else. He better run fast and search for the ball or else the game will simply stop. Other weird rule start coming into action depending on the game. Certain places you get declared runs, certain times LBW is not out, some times there is no stumping, wide has one run or simply a reball and so on. The wide and LBW are the most contentious ones, as they depend completely on judgment and there is no real metric to this. Since the umpire is almost always that of the batting team, the scales are always loaded in favour of the batsman. Hence it makes sense to nullify this for all. No LBW and a wide is simply a chance to ball again without the run penalty. The other fights happen over run outs and catch behind – those are the worst. They result in huge fights as it gets tight.

But the best is when your own batsman is struggling to score at the crease. Here your own team will boo you and in extreme cases the captain, keeping the team spirit as the primary motivation, declares the batsman out. He gets his own batsman back. You can get out, you can hit a bad shot, you can do anything but you do not ever waste balls and make the game boring. Everyone wants excitement. Running between the wickets is also a fun thing. if the two guys have a great chemistry then you can keep running or else, more often than not, you get to witness the most comical of run outs. The most amount of run outs will happen when you will see both batsman stuck on the same crease. One guy will run, the other guy will respond and then realize that it’s not working and then he rushes to beat his own partner to the crease so that the other guys run out. It crazy – because then the both team members will start fighting on the pitch itself, bats will be thrown and the choicest abuse will be hurled while the fielding team will be laughing their guts out. You get the best laughs in these comical situations. The only worry here is that if the fight snowballs and the batsman walks out and goes home – the game could end. Especially if he is the one owning the bat. You never piss off the owner of the bat or ball. NEVER.

I remember one other weird one during the summers. When the game went on in the morning or evening and you were thirsty – you go anywhere but your home to drink water. If you went home then invariably your mom would ask you come back home and then you are doomed. So you never go home to drink water. You always ask a friend.

The funnies of cricket:

Many times you play full catch both hands allowed and one bounce only one hand allowed

Run out on the bowler end is by touching the stone with your leg and catching the ball or by hitting the stone directly.

A half line is drawn across the pitch for knowing which end to throw to get the last man run out if you bat without runner. Otherwise a runner is used on the other end who cant bat.

Sometimes a joker is used if there is an odd number of players. He plays for both the teams but he can’t go in to bat till all the batsman are out and most of the time he cant bowl. He is largely the wicket keeper.

 And the most irritating rule that umpires of the batting team love – if you bowled with out specifying the side you bowled, then it’s a no ball. So basically before bowling you will walk up and tell the umpire – right arm over the wicket – and bowl – otherwise it’s a no ball – side nahi bola!

world war in a bottle!

I am sitting outside in office these days and I have a new best friend. The youngest member of the team is a guy born in 1992. Wow. That is young. To put things in perspective – he was born after Manmohan Singh started liberalizing the country and born a good one year after I started college. That also makes him born after I met Jasmine. Age - after a  point of time is very funny. We are old. I am Uncle. When some entrepreneur friend talks to me – I think it’s my experience that he is after.

So this boy here is right now soaking everything I say like a sponge. I explain stuff to him and he tries to understand it. He googles stuff, learns and then thinks. He tries to ask questions and I am more than happy to teach. I can teach forever. Just yesterday I had gone to the supermarket near my house and bought a lovely French jam (the pack says preserve). Whatever. When Jispa was much younger we tried buying the normal Indian main stream jam that was available. Soon Jispa stopped eating it and we had to finally throw or give it all away. This kid hated jam. But I then later realized that it wasn’t her fault. Our jam is crap. There is no fruit in it. It basically sugar, pectin, color and flavor. Just to call it fruit jam they put some fruit pulp in it. It is crap. So we now buy these jams which have at least 50 percent fruit content in it. It tasty and nice and flavorful.

So when I bought this bottle yesterday, my young neighbor asked me what it is that I have bought. I explained to him that this is World War 2 in a bottle. The second world war was fought outside of eth Americas. I think only one Japanese bomber managed to bomb the mainland (Nobuo Fujita). Fujita later made several goodwill visits to the place of his bombings and was later declared an honorary citizen of the area in US. Really a lovely story. http://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/03/world/nobuo-fujita-85-is-dead-only-foe-to-bomb-america.html Though it seems there have been a total of five attacks on US in WW2 read this interesting link, http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/5-attacks-on-u-s-soil-during-world-war-ii . The most curious of them all is the fire balloons. Ww2 is full of interesting history and the limit (or lack of thereof) of the human mind in the face of crisis. The fire balloons were thought of by the Japanese. The idea being simple. The Japanese realized while flying that there was a current of air flowing towards American mainland at high altitude from Japan known as the jet stream. So someone thought of putting bombs on balloons that would be carried away by the current and drop on the mainland. It required some clever science and engineering as the day temperature and the night temperature would be different and the hydrogen balloon would need to be at a constant altitude to reach across the ocean. So they put in place altitude meters that would drop the sand bags to gain altitude and a valve to release hydrogen to loose altitude, and finally a mechanism to release the bomb in roughly three days by which time it should have been roughly over the mainland. Very very cute and clever. They released 900 of them with the expectation that 900 of them will reach America.  Around 300 of them were spotted and the rest seemed to have landed in the vast open areas causing no damage. Only one incident has been reported where 6 people were killed thanks to the balloon. They were largely ineffective. The funniest part was that the Japanese made the balloons from a paper made from mulberry bushes and they had to be glued together using edible glue called konnyaku. The poor and hungry Japanese workers used to eat the paste while making the balloons. Hehehe. This is the reason I love WW2. It’s full of interesting anecdotes and insights into the craziness of human mind in the face of severe hardship and stress.

So largely the mainland America was unaffected by the war. The war for them was fought on a different front altogether. They had to cross the seas, thousands of miles away and fight. Their supply chains extended across continents. Unlike the Europeans. These guys fought the war in and around the home land. They fought the war in their backyards and in their cities. They fought in in their farms. So the US industry grew around making canned products which essentially were soft and reduced to a calorie and taste devoid of all texture. The Europeans retained the texture in their food as they did not have an industry set to mass produce canned products.

As Indian poor grew a little richer they began to have demand. This demand was essentially fulfilled by big firms trying to give a ton of calories at the lowest possible cost. They turn to the American model. Reduce anything to the lowest common denominator, remove all semblance of texture and make it easy to swallow. I have written about this – the favorite foods are Maggie noodles, pasta, margarita thin crust pizzas and cream biscuits. Nothing with texture.

So when I was asked about this preserve bottle, I was actually explaining about WW2. After such an explanation there was no way I was going to get home without opening the bottle and sharing with everybody. So I ordered for bread  from the pantry (sadly it was the simple white sliced soft loaf) and gave jam sandwich to all. I asked them to feel the texture. The berries, the seeds, the rough edges to the jam. They all loved it. I was amazed that all of them very so surprised to taste it and they did not realize what crap they were eating all this while. I then got the normal kissan jam bottle from the pantry and opened it and asked them to smell that. Yuckkk… I think I permanently spoiled normal jam for them. Good for them. I am introducing the play of texture for them in their mind even for while eating a humble jam.

Here – who would have known that between these two bottles lies the history of war conflict and countless suffering. Just dig in and enjoy the smell, the texture and the taste.

travel woes

Off days and on days. Today morning was an off day. Yesterday I did a morning evening Delhi trip. Obviously I was off color at the badminton court today. I hate flights and I hate travelling. I find travelling in flights very very depressing. I can’t think of a worse thing than a lonely flight. And to add to all this – the cumbersome checking in process and the entire experience. First thing is that you have to reach one hour in advance. Then you have to get your security check done. Why is that there is always a line for the security check. Why can’t airports build for scale  and capacity? I think boarding a flight must be done as painlessless as possible. I book online and then I get my seat online and then I just simply walk in to get zero lines. All check-ins must be open across airlines. Why do you need dedicated counters. This is an absolute waste of space and resources. Just let the airport authorities check you in on their systems. No line and a 30 second check in. Then you proceed to security which is another 30 second check in and then board the plane. The plan has strict door open and door close timings. Suppose I have RFID tags for my luggage and on me, then I don’t even need tickets or check in information. These tags will allow me everything. Entry / exit everything. Simple. Then you just reach the airport and, boom you board in 10 minutes max.

Of course the airports have really improved over the years. Now you have nothing short of a five star experience in most airports. The loos are those you can go in, even for the big stuff. I remember five years ago, I was coming from Delhi and suddenly I had a really bad bout of diarrhea and vomiting. Really really bad. I went to the airport loo at least 4 to 5 times. Extremely tough. I remember thinking only one thing – wow – at least these loos are really clean. It was so bad that I puked just before boarding and then once on the flight. Thank god for air sickness bags and then once just as I landed, I ran into the loo for one final time. Crazy crazy time. Also the number of loos have gone up. Otherwise  there was invariably a line whenever you get off the plane. Now most airports are large and lovely. At the Mumbai Airport I even noticed a family bathroom. A larger room with enough space for a small family. Perfect if you have babies and you need help with both parents doing their bit. Also the airports have enough seating, wifi, shops and eating places. Some airports have a better array of shopping than others. I think shopping and eating are important entertaining points for travelers. Of course along with TVs. With sports and news being broadcast 24x7 there is never a shortage of entertainment. I think now they should install large screens beaming sports. That would be one huge plus for travelers. The other point where the travelers would rate you highly -  keep a large section for discounted brand outlets. People will go crazy. For some reason people think that airline travelers have tons of money and therefore everything is highly priced. You only get expensive brands. My view is the opposite. These travelers are completely bored and need some entertainment. Cheap prices will induce them to binge beyond what they would have normally wanted to and boom – you will have people coming in and carrying off cartloads of stuff. Pile them high and sell them cheap. The first guy who gets this will make tons of money. And brands can always have a sale at airports as people don’t travel so often to airports. It’s not on a call for most people, except idiotic business travelers who do a morning evening to a city.

But still nothing can be done about the stupid airline seats. We want them cheap and the only way seems to be packing us like cattle into the aircraft. What a pain. And when you take flights from Delhi and you have an idiot who just likes to take more arm space than is legitimately his. Why does that always happen on Delhi flights? I hate the hand sticking and hence when I travel by flight I ensure I am wearing a full sleeves shirt. At least you don’t feel iky pushing the a-holes hand back into his seat. I pity the women travelers here.

If I am ever rich or in a position to dictate, one thing is for sure – I will strive for business class for travel. It makes the travel much more bearable. Good seats on flights are a huge thing. Vistara has just started for the first time in India the concept of premium economy. I have to get around to checking out how this works. They seem promising at least in the leg space provided. I think it costs around 30% more. I genuinely believe that if an employee comes back same day then its only humane to offer that choice to the employee. But then… I think moment I become a position of authority I think I will get all completely corrupt in the head and see only cost. Benefits be dammed. I don’t know why this happens. I think the best of intentions go crazy when one is in power. I struggle every day to remain reasonably stable in dealing with my band. To keep saying that these kids are good and you have to trust them. People will behave funnily and in ways you don’t want them to. I have noticed that when I am in office till late, invariably the band is in office till late. When I am gone early, the band has left early. Is it that I keep them late, is it my doing, or is it a psychological response. I don’t know. We corporate types are designed to be complete jerks.

But nevertheless – travelling is a pain. Especially alone. If there is someone alongside it makes for much better journeys. I realized it especially when I was travelling to London. With my family next to me even the arduous 8 hour flight was completely bearable. Alone is impossible. That’s why Kolkata is never on the radar! And with airports being so far away from the city it is another one hour of travel to be added at the bear minimum. So catching a morning Kolkata flight is the greatest torture known to travelkind. And if by mistake you are travelling to Bangalore then you better budget for traffic jams at peak hours. Oh dear oh dear… I so hate travelling alone. I abhor it. I hate it, I don’t like it, I don’t want to do it. But….