long good bye

On the 31st of last month, I closed a huge innings of my life. I resigned finally from the Kotak Group and searched for my passions elsewhere. This was a really difficult decision to make. I knew I had to do what I had to do. The digital industry was booming and I couldn’t stay out of this for a long time. I had to experience and understand digital in its entirety and had to take the plunge.

The difficult thing was the team and the fact that I had to leave a team, which I had so painstakingly built. Everyone barring two, were people that I had hired and trained. The two were from before but I had trained and groomed them as well. It was an emotional thing more than anything else.

There was a three-month notice which I had to serve. This was a really weird period with me not knowing what was really expected of me. It was a tough phase emotionally and mentally. At the end of which my team got really emotional. Towards the end – I was dreading the last day. I think others were as well. Everyone knew it was going to become tough and emotional and people would cry. No one really wanted to cry openly and neither did I want to nor did I want anyone else to. Normally when people leave, we do a speech session where each one gives a short talk on the person leaving and the person leaving gives one talk on every individual. That is the surest way to kill you emotionally. So tactically I think everyone agreed that this was something we were not going to do. So we assembled and had some coffee and then I gave a speech to all. I gave my last words of advice and a brief about what I thought I faced at the firm and the obstacles and the high points. I gave advice that I thought was relevant for them. And I left it at that. And then I let it go. Some were teary eyed and some went to the loo and cried and some just hugged.

Also I tried to write something that they would read at rest and get a sense of what I thought and what my philosophy was. It was my feeble attempt at a legacy!

Here it is

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Hi Guys

I have spent the last 5 years trying to build the marketing function in the middle of the digital landscape. The truth as I saw it was very apparent. Mass media as we understood it as marketers is dying. The new digital landscape is allowing for a large range of options that we were not available for the marketer. The times have changed. While it is easy to deride the old ad ring in the new, not everything we learnt in the past is to thrown out. The fundamental principals of marketing remain steadfast.

Understanding customers, gaining insight and solving unfulfilled needs uniquely is still very much in fashion and I think it will remain in fashion for a long time to come. Yes Kotler and all the gurus will be even more relevant. The digital landscape allows the marketer to micro target and follow a customer through many of his life stages and the brand can stay relevant and push for an appropriate call to action at each of the stages. Brands with deep understanding and intellect will be able to build even stronger bridges with their customers. Digital allows for this – it encourages it. the success you see around you is from those companies who have managed to keep this connect very sharp and alive across the life cycle.

More math and more tech will surely come in. Does that mean that creative will die?  On the contrary creative will see a reinissance like never before. With a spectrum of moods and million ways to reach, what will break the clutter? Mere relevance is not going to be enough. Creative will come in. And the best part – creative will get instant validation of whether it works or not.

The good old days of planning your year with one big campaign will go. If tech development can get Agile, marketing will as well. Marketing will release in versions. There will be wave of marketing campaigns. These will run parallel and sequential to each other.  There will be chaos – organized and unorganized. The marketing manager will have to live with ambiguity. In fact the fuzziness of campaigns will have to be built in and accounted for.

It’s not that wastage will stop. Waste will always be there but this will be in the form of exhaust that can be analysed. This will lead to further efficiencies to be built in. Campaigns will be designed for testing and collection of feedback and data will decide which one will run its course.

These are what I see playing out in marketing. These are forces that I have learnt will shape marketing for time to come. But the greatest mystery I have tried my best to solve is the mystery of motivation of man! This has taken me most of my adult years and I don’t think have come too close to cracking it. Many different incidents and experiences have shaped my thinking. When I first started my work life my limited interaction with leading people was the stuff I did in college – I was the secretary of a few societies. But clearly I wasn’t that good at it. Later on when I started work, I was a disaster as I took a lot of time to understand that people have various different motivations and many different things that make them tick or not… Understanding this has taken up most of my time.

The challenge here is also not the people per se. The challenge I felt at start was simple – where does the person end and where does the firm start. Who is more important? The firm or the person. What if they are at cross purposes to each other? Whom should I develop first? Whose interest is paramount in daily interactions or even at a strategic view point?

It then dawned upon me that the answer was simple – it’s the people. I got upon this in a simple way – people were in front of me all the time. The firm was still two steps away. Firms are more complex and very weird. They designed for profit maximization. People aren’t generally built that way. They respond to stimuli and they tend to reciprocate. You get feedback over a period of time.

People are what make an organization and people are what take it forward. People are capable of going beyond what you thought was possible. People are ones executing things for you. And people need to be trained or pushed at best. They need to go beyond what they think is possible by them. All they need is someone to trust them and believe in them. Surely some funny characters come along. These don’t believe you or are skeptical of everything they see or hear that doesn’t fit their world view. My aim was to simply take people who were positive, wanted to do good and helped them do good. And people grow, invariably they grow by doing good things for the firm and then the organization grows along. The organisation growth is the byproduct of people pushing the paradigms of growth and not the other way around.

Hence this philosophy shaped my work life. Bet on people, train people, push people. This is reality as I see it. Push them hard. Those who don’t want to be pushed will move aside. Those want to be pushed will do good things for themselves and others. They take the team forward as well because at the end… everyone wants to do well.

This has been deeply enriching and rewarding for me – and of course deeply frustrating as well. But in the end as you stack up all the pros and cons – I realized this is the way I like to lead my life. By putting faith in people. Always having time for them and always being there to guide them. It works weirdly within the organization as the rest find the camaraderie developed uneasy. They throw stones, call names and express disbelief. They laugh at the times it fails – which invariably it will in isolated instances. But on the whole, it creates something that many aspire to but few actually do.

These are my big take aways or leave behinds.

Things around you will change – at a pace slower than what you predict but will come and hit you faster than you realize it. So keep learning all the time.

You are nothing without people around you. Keep them as your priority all the time. Push them forward, propel them but don’t hang on to them. So keep teaching all the time.

This is my distillation of my life. All of you have contributed in many ways to this. Some by your mistakes and some by your advice and some by your behavior or attitude. But the one I treasure the most is what you taught me by your love. You show it different ways and I treasure it so much. this is what I carry on as confidence when I move on. That  - I may piss off people, some may hate me, but some – some I think genuinely love me.

All I hope is not that we keep in touch. Life is fast and busy and many forces push us away. If we are in touch then great and if not then great. But if you catch me at a mall, or at a movie or anywhere just loitering about – I hope you will shout out to me or at the very least look at your friend or kid or anyone with you and point out to me and say – you know that guy – he is Jaimit – I worked with him and I learnt a lot.

Because honestly with all of you – I learnt a lot!

keep renning

Teaching Jispa is to go on a journey yourself. Now more and more I am the guy in charge of the studies. In many ways I am the fall guy if anything happens to Jispa academic pursuits. Haha! I think this has come about thanks to two things – first Jasmine just doesn’t seem to have the patience to deal with the all the extra science and history and everything else. She would really need to up the ante and keep researching if she needs to be relevant. And second – more importantly – Jispa drives her up the wall. I think these two aren’t really designed to coexist and learn from each other. They are designed to be happy if they decide to let each other be.

So I am the guy. Buts interesting and its helping me in more ways than I can imagine. It’s a enriching experience. What Jispa learns in school is completely different from what I have been taught or in the way that I have been taught.  Her geography text book is with every penny and her history teacher forces her to think and research. They push the child into thinking and having an opinion beyond the syllabus or what’s written. While I was growing up, the rules were simple – textbook wrote – you memorized and you puked on the exam whatever you retained. Independent thought and inquiry was not really encouraged except for the personal beliefs of certain professors who naturally brought it into their teaching styles.

So I like it when we do geography its important to understand the history of the place and some other associated facts. Like right now we are doing China in Geography. If I have to teach her I better learn a lot more than what I know, as it helps in the discussions. Here of course learning channels like youtube have helped a lot, where some seriously talented people are putting their talent to good use. The Crash Course channel on youtube is especially useful for understanding history. So while learning about China I heard a few terms on Confucianism which I then further researched and its quite interesting that these principals are pretty universal in nature and that at the core of it, they can be applied to various situations that we face today.

Here in Confucianism, the Sage archetype is the ideal but it hard to achieve and hence there is another one for us mortals to get –  Junzi. I like this guy. ‘A superior person’. This man can stay in poverty, does more, speaks less, loyal obedient and knowledgeable. He disciplines himself. This man stands in contrast to the Xiaoren. The xiaoren is the ‘petty person’, someone who doesn’t grasp the values of virtue and goes only for immediate gains. These two archetypes are the types you get in offices. The text says that a ruler must be surrounded by junzi and not xiaoren. Which is true. I have seen it many times that good nice leaders quickly get surrounded by xiaoren and this starts clouding their judgment and affects how they behave. I have seen them in all orders and magnitude. The typical xiaoren is the insecure idiot who butters up his boss, surrounds himself by stooges, keeps his stooges insecure all the time and pumps bad blood in the system. These xiaoren have to be exterminated if the organization has to function. You have to keep these away from you, as far away as possible if you don’t want to turn into one yourself. I have seen it here where a leader whom I trusted and respected was clouded by the xiaoren in his coterie. He ate up the system form inside and left a lasting legacy of distrust and infighting. The leader, who is a good guy, had only one fault – he let the Xiaoren in. When you let one come in – you not only allow him to come in but in effect you also keep the junzi out. The two cannot co exist. The Junzi slowly stayed out of the leadership and were marginalized.

As a marketing head – I have had the experience of leading teams. I see the insecure people everywhere. Some of them in the team try and become my friends – close friends. Sure – I am all for friendship but then they quickly realize that just by being close to me doesn’t really mean that they get any preferential treatment as regards special coaching or perks or salary. They get equally jammed when make mistakes or have issues. Typically I have learnt that they like to hog time like pac man and let anyone else come in. The more time the xiaoren spend the less time the junzi have. By definition the junzi is a superior man – he doesn’t stoop so low as to fight. So you have to allow the junzi in. call him or her inside the circle, take an effort to listen to him and to understand his point of view. Often it’s not the junzi who is eating away your time – it’s the xiaoren.

So the leader must fight and fight hard to push these characters into their respective places. Bring the good guy in and push the bad guy out. Slowly of course as you do this – I have seen the insecure form a clique of their own and then branch out to other trees where they can fertilize seeds from their own toxic poop. Hehehe… I like that metaphor. It seems so apt. so these negative guys will slowly go away and you will be better off. Ofcourse you will miss the attention that these jokers gave you, but will live to be a stronger and wiser person. To become the Sage, you will have to wean yourself off from the licking that the xiaoren will give you.

So what’s the hope for people to more to the junzi archetype? Here also Confucius has given us an answer. To become the Junzi the core is Ren. So WTF is Ren? “Ren is the  virtue denoting the good feeling a virtuous human experiences when being altruistic.”  If that sounds impossible to achieve – our friend has given us simpler solutions as well - "Ren is not far off; he who seeks it has already found it." Ren is close to man and never leaves him.

 Also –

Ren relies heavily on the relationships between two people, but at the same time encompasses much more than that. It represents an inner development towards an altruistic goal, while simultaneously realizing that one is never alone, and that everyone has these relationships to fall back on, being a member of a family, the state, and the world.

Ren is not a concept that is learned; it is innate, that is to say, everyone is born with the sense of ren. Confucius believed that the key to long-lasting integrity was to constantly think, since the world is continually changing at a rapid pace.

The more I read about all this , the more I realize that all of this is open to interpretation and the answer is in many ways for each one of us to seek for ourselves. I think the essence of both Indian and Chinese thought is to look inside and seek for truth. This truth I think, is different for each one of us. The truth that lets humanity survive and thrive and progress is the truth that takes into consideration the truth of others. The duality of truth or the acceptance that various different truths can co-exist at the same time is the essence to being Humane, or experiencing ren. That’s why I think he says that Ren means to constantly think. I think it means to constantly evaluate our ideals and beliefs in relation to various different things. What the society now is thinking and what it means today to live or the force of technology or cultural change or whatever. Constantly think and relook at your self and see if you are indeed humane. Thast why he says – anyone can ren. Its inbuilt, one only has to search. The act of searching itself is to find ren. That itself is ren.

From here on there are two other interesting words – li and yi. “Li is the action which has been deemed appropriate by society, yi is the action that is indeed correct”. This is also very deep. Many times we do ‘li’ because that’s the path of least resistance. Change in society happens when ‘yi’ is done by the unreasonable man, even when it contradicts ‘li’. Many times we see ‘yi’ in action and we condemn it. Only when you have ren, will you reflect and figure if there is li in the action and then think twice when you pronounce judgment.

 These are such amazing references from philosophy or history. I loved reading about it and thinking about it. The internet is a lovely thing of course but it also requires you to have some ren on your own. It can give you a lot of information, but what you make out of it and refer back to your life is yours alone. I am glad that I had a daughter as early as I did. Thanks to Jispa, I am physically fitter than what I would have been and my diet is much better, as I am forced to follow her swimming life style. But also thanks to her questions and her education, I dare say, I am smarter than what I would have been. It is finally what you make out of it. There are sponges filled with water everywhere you look, how much you squeeze out of it is your problem.

Some days I aimless surf the net and see videos, but here, one led to another and the reason to surf was pointed. It was a geography class topic. China. Who knew how it would pan out? and definitely philosophy was not I was aiming for… but the mind – it’s such a lovely thing, isn’t it? keep ‘renning’

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Here is a video on our hero. I don’t necessarily agree blindly with all his ideas but – its an interesting point on the never ending , ever expansive map of philosophy.

keep trying!

When I first came to this job 5 years ago, this was an established broking outfit. It had a marketing team and it believed that things worked. They did not believe that they really needed anyone like me. They would be fine doing their job and that what could one other guy who came in really help. On the other hand as I saw it, it was a boring place with no real marketing activity happening and anyone who would come in would be able to add substantial value to the beast and thereby improve the lot. So when I came here as a transfer from the wealth management business to the retail broking business, I saw no big challenge. Of course I could add value here. How difficult would it be? The marketing function over the last couple of years was run by sales guys who generally lacked marketing direction and had taken marketing to a place where the senior most guy felt that he was the most highly paid courier boy in the country. All they did was emailers and posters. A few brochures and leaflets thrown in for good measure. Anything else was a question.

I came in not really knowing what to do. I tried to destroy some stuff, invent some stuff and I came in from my wealth hangover where we would spend inordinately large amount of time for trivial stuff. Beinga marketing manager in the wealth management business is a complete waste of time and resources. You do very little through the year, so people like me who would like to be busy would spend a large amount of time and effort for the little that we did. So we would spend so much time planning and organizing an event that the kids under me would go crazy trying to make sense of it all. They called me Raavan, with ten heads. I would come and think of what could go wrong and then try and mitigate it. It was a really pain in the ass. But that was me. Try and do the best of what was possible. So I came with a  similar mindset to run eth marketing function for a much larger base of customers that securities business seeks to provide. I think I was a disaster to start with. I did not think that giving leads through digital marketing was anything that cool to do. I generally ignored the lead side of the business. The leads was a black hole. We take leads and put it into the system and then wonder what happened. Whenever the top management woke up, hastily one presentation would be arranged in which some statistics would be twisted to show the efficacy of the system. It made no sense.

One of the first things I worked on, I remember was to design a brochure; I took team meetings and what not to try to design the perfect brochure. That was complete rubbish as well. This was retail business. No one really looked at the brochure and most of our customers did not care too bit for the English we put in to it. I spend a long time trying to design a few thank you emailer. I over designed them and then no one really used them. Simple shit was complicated. In all this there was only one thing going for me. No one really expected anything of me. I had to just keep doing what was happening and not ruffle feathers and all would be well. The sales head was an ass who only played political games and tried to keep all the key things to himself. So while I was promised the product role by the MD, he played games to ensure that product stayed within his control. But one thing he did not understand – was the power if digital. That was one thing I did not understand as well, but atleast I was well placed to understand that one thing.

Anything new requires a strong sense of curiosity and ability to tinker, experiment and trust. And of course measure what you are seeking to achieve. Digital is tough business. Stuff changes every day. Google will change its algorithm and Facebook will introduce a new set of measures. What will you do then? You have to learn every day. I was no stranger to digital. I was part of the first dotcom boom, but that was completely different. In the year 2000, there was a boom but there was no Google to consider. Now Google was a behemoth and Facebook was taking root into the minds of people. What was happening? I knew one thing from my earlier job. I had read a book called “the Search” by John Battelle. It opened my mind to the potential of Google as a medium to get free leads. If you optimize your pages correctly and put the relevant content traffic would come and if you put your lead form or a way for someone to contact you on every page then invariably people would contact you. You would have lead flow. As a gujju guy, this was free money coming in.

SO while I was a part of the wealth business, I was also made responsible for the marketing of the international business. That time I pushed the idea of search engine optimization (fresh from eth book) and got it done. This was in around 2005/6. It was pioneering in India around the time and I think I was the first in my company to implement these ‘radical’ ideas. I did not think they were radical, I only thought of it as things to do with little money. I think if I was a marketing manager with tons of money to spend then I too would have gotten busy trying to spend that money. The best argument for this is simple – I did that for the international business and did no such thing for the wealth business as in the wealth business there was enough stuff to do. So it’s not like I saw it early. It’s just that I had the energy and drive to do new things and a strong curiosity to back it.

So here in the broking business, I implemented the search optimization thing (SEO). Actually its not that I implemented it; it was there, I gave it a lot of focus and teeth. I pushed it hard. We did simple things like increase the content, rearrange the content and then put the lead form on every page on the site. Every page. I did not want to see a page without the lead form. What’s the point of a page without a lead form upfront staring at you. The result is that the leads went up 10 times from eth time I joined the place to now.

I then started other digital marketing stuff – like buying clicks from search terms. Here I think the genius lie in a simple thing – measurement. The way we measured the efficacy from the start was clear to me – how much brokerage did all this result in? I fought as hard as ever to get eth MIS and reporting right. The simple thing was that there is enough metrics available – the simplest would be the metric that we would like to intuitively think. I put x money in month 1. How many months would it take me to get this money back in terms of brokerage. This figure was the holy grail. The term we coined was cost per rupee of brokerage. The aim of a presentation would be to show how long it takes to get a figure of 1. 1 Is the breakeven point. This was the corner stone of all we did. Of course we then did a lot of work in a lot of areas but this was the greatest achievement ever. No one was tracking digital spends but we were. No one was going into the granularity of the stuff like we were in the banking and especially the broking space. We pushed hard and we were buoyed by the success we got. It made me what I am today. I plunged myself head long into this space. It excited me like no other. We put in a culture of trying everything. I could try everything as I could measure the efficacy of all my investments. Everyuthing was possible as long as it could be measured.

 Itw as one hell of a ride. Until it was small and no one really bothered about it, I could do everything I wanted. Now it was a big beast and everyone has gotten involved. Everyone wants to regulate the thing and wants a pie of it. Further improvements in digital to incorporate every small portion of the pie require a larger investment and more so require people to get out of the way. This was getting too tough to do. Everyone started having valuable input to put it and generally mess things up. Too many people were involved in it and believed that it was in their career interest to be a part of this. It was designed to stop.

And hence the change – now I as am gearing up for my new innings in my new firm, I am a little scared. Here there are expectations. People expect me to do stuff. I know that I know stuff, but is it adequate. I came here and I was burned a bit by the politics, but in the new firm would I survive. There would be a different level of politics, insecurity and willingness to change (or not). I am confident. I would be able to solve most of it, but I have to put systems in place, I have to put processes in place and all this will have to be done at warp speed. Agile development as they call it. The fundamental thing here in agile processes is that you keep releasing features into the market by means of ‘releases’. You can’t have a perfect product but you test as you go and keep building on what you have. Marketing, my suspicion will need to follow this agile development. You keep putting things out and you manage as you go along. the internet throws up this definition “Agile programming is an approach to project management, typically used in software development. It helps teams react to the instability of building software through incremental, iterative work cycles, known as sprints”. This is new and interesting. Its exciting.

As Rehan who coached my kid for swimming for a brief period (a former Olympian from India), there is good nervous and bad nervous. You like good nervous, it gives you that tingling feeling when you move out to conquer the world, and there is bad nervous that stops you, puts self-doubt and seeks to paralyze. This is good nervous. I am thinking, I am all senses open, I am keen not to take anything for granted, I am ready to work hard. I am on! Completely ON! I cant make the same mistakes, I have to build support and build rapports with all. I have to take on board suggestions and opinions. I have to inspire and to trust. And I have to trust myself as well. I know my stuff. I have been trained to think, I have trained myself to think. It has to work. The place I am joining is start up. The pressure is larger. If I get things right, I can change the face and the orbit of the startup. 100 of millions of dollars are potentially at stake with my success in marketing the product and making it work. As one of my bisses explained to me once – you have to be able to constantly move between two three things and give adequate focus to all that you have at the moment. Can you focus on multiple things one after the other. That is going to determine your success. Prakash Dalal – your words ring true. That is going to be the key to success as one moves up the corporate ladder.

Focus, refocus, repeat!

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end note

Here is another entry on agile

Agile software development is a group of software development methods in which solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams. It promotes adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, continuous improvement, and encourages rapid and flexible response to change

I see no reason why marketing can’t be like this. You have to keep the focus of the customer and hold a few things like core insights dear. But the rest has to be evolutionary. If your market is not static and is evolving, your targeting methods are evolving, your product is evolving – how can marketing be static. It has to be agile!

free bonus inspirational video!

priceless? better than priceless

Kids these days. They like to listen to their iPods or cell phones with music in them and shut them selves to the world. I once won an iPad mini in a contest. The moment they announced a contest in one of the jaunts, I knew that iPad was mine. I went home and Jasmine did not want the mini and Jispa preferred a portable iPod. So we went to our neighborhood shop and exchanged the same for an iPod.

Jispa hardly ever gets her iPod to play with. We don’t let her play too much on it and we don’t let her listen too much music on it. We are really bad ass parents. Seriously I think we are irritating but I think with only one kid we want all the time we get with the kid to be great and hence we are scared of losing her to the device. But still I think she gets some time with it. Especially vacations. Plus we have another issue. We don’t have too much music. At least not the music that a teenager would want to listen to, to load onto the iPod. So after a point of time, there was not much use for the iPod as such.

Jispa kept wondering how to get her music. I told her to get it loaded in by her cousin brother. That’s where you get all your vice in life from – cousins. Also Jispa said she wanted new headphones. I for one, couldn’t understand why would she want headphones. She has the great ones that come with the iPod from Apple. These are phenomenal in ear ones with superior design and engineering. She gave some answer which I refused to even listen – but yes I understood – the kid wants new headphones – the ones that all kids end up wearing. I think it’s fashionable to have these big ones on your head. You see them at all the swim meets. That’s the new cool. Of course Jispa believes that she wants them as the in-ear ones hurt her ears and that fashion has nothing to do with it. Who was I to judge.

So I promised her that once she gets her songs, I will buy her a head set. After she got her songs loaded, I started scouting around for decent headsets. I had weird problems to content with. These headsets can get really expensive. I don’t mind getting her one but then managing them and ensuring you don’t forget them anywhere and then taking care of them etc would have been a huge issue.  So expensive ones area  problem, especially if you have anal parents. I prefer giving her something that I don’t mind her losing so that I don’t lose my mind. Second – the big bulky ones with cover her ear completely and will block out all noise. That’s another problem. Remember what I said – we don’t want to lose her completely. So if we give her something that will block out all noise, it would create another set of issues from a parents point of view. Now for Jispa’s point of view – I can’t give her something that’s not cool. No shitty brands would help. Kids look at each other and are hugely influenced by the brands. I am quite sure that a 13 year old can make out the differences between different headsets if not for the brands. Also the headsets with the right brands look cool on the head! So now we have the variables – over the head earphones, nice brand, cool design, relatively cheap, not completely covering the ear. And voila – here you are the amazing JBL headphones costing two thousand bucks available at flipkart for 700 bucks. Light weight, decent brand and not too big. They look cool as well.

When I gave Jispa the surprise…. When she saw the ear phones – she smiled. Wow getting your teenage to smile after you get her stuff – that was priceless. Feeling happy and not broke after your teenage daughter smiles – better than priceless! 

I cant tell you what to do

Jispa is turning 13 and with that she is also turning into a monster that I have no clue on how to control. But the hell… why should a parent even be controlling anything about a child. It’s just not right. I don’t think as parents we really know what is in the best interest of the child. Of course we know some stuff from experience that we know is dangerous – like smoking kills or that liquor is something that’s not really advisable or weed is bad. But most of the other stuff – we have no clue. We think we do… we believe we do but really – we don’t. Hell we don’t even know what the hell we want from our lives – yet we try and control a lot for our children – I don’t understand why we do it. Today I fight…. Almost every day I fight myself. There are certain dos and don’ts that I would try and implement. Besides that I try and fight the need to bear over her and try my best to let her be. Of course mommy is right. The more you let her be the more she will get into trouble that she herself doesn’t want to. But then isn’t the role of parents to stop her from getting into trouble versus the role of growing up is to get into trouble all the time and then figuring out two things. How not to get into trouble in the first place then figuring out how to get out of it, once you have gotten into it. This is the weird dichotomy of parenting. We don’t know. I think we naturally think we are good at stopping trouble and we don’t realize that stopping trouble now is inviting trouble later on. So what’s the right answer? In parenting there is possibly no right answer. You invent things as you get along. Especially if you have one child…. There are no mistakes to learn from.  Just simple stuff that you think you would have loved to have as a child and the stuff you don’t want or want to have for your children. In many ways that is simple parenting.

I want Jispa to be free… I want her to say that in someday that she is what is … thanks to herself and not thanks to anyone – not her dad, not her mom not anyone else…and definitely not God. She has to be like the apocryphal story of Napolean who on coronation – lifted the crown from the hand of the Pope and crowned himself – saying that none me is fit to crown myself. In many showing that he owed his entire rise to himself and to no one else. I have had many mentors in my life. I have a learnt a lot from so many people. Not all tried to teach me, but the simple act of observation has helped me more than anything else. I am so happy that my dad never could pick up the phone and get me going on anything. He also passed away way before I could really use his help. My college my girlfriend (now wife) my job and I dug my own mentors from those around me.

So all that I have or don’t - is thanks to me. At my death bed I have myself to blame or thank. Of course Jasmine has helped me achieve whatever I could have or couldn’t have (you have to take both). But at the end – I have realized – you are alone. You stand alone – you die alone. The faster you realize that the better you are. It’s like the story of Valmiki who wrote the Ramayana – he takes to being a ascetic when he realizes that his family refuses to take his share of sins as your sins are yours and you have to bear the consequences of them. In many ways sins are the metaphors for your decisions. You have to bear them yourself. Others have their own to bear.

In the years that I have worked or taught – I see that many times – in fact I feel most of the time – parents are wrong. After a point of time they can’t really tell you what to do in life. I think all advice is stupid. People have to decide what they want to do for their own. Your children, my child has to decide for herself on what to do. What can I do? I can advise, I can guide, I can push, I can convince – but do I really know what’s right… no I don’t. Experience will tell me something – something that tells me that the process of decision making may not be right – but it doesn’t tell me if the decision is right or wrong. To add to this – we don’t believe that quitting is the right option.

Right now Jispa is swimming. Realistically – she is not a great swimmer. She is a good swimmer, but I don’t think she would be counted as amongst the great swimmers. She finds it tough to break in to the state team. She does well to represent Mumbai. Now what’s the right thing for her? One of her seniors from another club was applying to American Universities. The university looked at all the certificates of the national champion and kept them aside and asked for her timings. Her timings were nowhere the ones desired by the University… so now what? Apply of academic merit. That’s all. Jasmine and I were thinking about this since some time. What the hell should Jispa be doing? He swimming regime is tough and her school regime is now going to get really tough. Academic excellence is something that will give her choice on what to follow in her years to come – not swimming. Indian Swimmers are nowhere on any stage. They have no careers and they can barely earn enough to make ends meet from swimming. It’s not an independent profession. In any case that’s hardly a choice to be made for now. Sure she can always be a sports led profession here she can use her swimming knowledge to great advantage but it still require s a decent academic grounding. So we thought that we let her swim this year and then the next year she focusses on studies while swimming just enough to enjoy and not really to break through. In any case she has to now trust her coach and really improve in this year.

Jasmine and I are tired parents. It has been really tough. Thanks to Jispa’s swimming we have made some crazy number of sacrifices. Waking up is the least of them. The Sundays spent at swim meet, the nutrition, the holidays foregone etc. we have had some great returns but physically / mentally we are done. Right now I am concentrating on something simpler – what does Jispa do next year, in three years and then in five years from now. I am glad that Jispa has no clue what she wants to do. Right now she says that she doesn’t want to be a doctor or an engineer. Her subject she likes are Geography and History. I love that. I would imagine having a child who wants to be an engineer… yuck! So we have to figure a lot of things for her. Actually see – that’s exactly what a dad says but shouldn’t. Why “we” figure what to do. She has to figure what to do. I should be only a sounding board… an absorbent as well as a reflective material at the same time. Hopefully she will figure.

On this here are two videos that I came across – very interesting ones. Believe me – they are right. see them!

Both are amazing characters who do really well on youtube

End game - One of our friends is an amazing gentleman form Denmark. He was telling me that his son was a really good tennis player and he took him to London to train at the Wimbledon. His son played a few matches there and just wanted to give up Tennis and then just did not want to play anymore and wanted to come back home. His mom said – fine – come over and you need to study there or train there if you don’t want to. Today after many years – his son says – you should have pushed me then.

learn all the time

I was explaining to some guys from my team that as a child my unhappiest memories are when we shifted from Dubai to Mumbai when I was in the fourth grade. We went from a land of everything to a land of nothing. It was just so trying on us kids.

It was made even worse as we as kids saw a side of our cousins which was different. In any case we weren’t so dam close. We stayed far away and came to India once a year for two months. At the time, coming to India from Dubai, you were royalty. You were the guys with all the foreign stuff that you gifted or stuff you brought on request. The bags would open and that would be a lovely thing as everyone would crowd around. When I grew up I made it a point not be around when bags open. When Jasmine’s brother or aunt would come in from US, I would be doubly sure not to be in the same room. I don’t want to be that person wanting something from abroad. Of course, India too has changed a lot. We have a lot here that we can get and we too got a bit richer than what we were and hence can afford it without being gifted – but still – no hanging around in anticipation. I don’t like it.

To add to that I think a little bit of political play happened. We would come and stay at our grand mom place – my Mom’s mom. She was extremely rich and my grand dad was a self-made millionaire with two buildings and a factory that printed labels. My granddad passed away many years before I was born. In fact he passed away before my mom and dad were married. The family steadily went into decline from then on. We were still rich, the factory was managed but the brothers couldn’t get along and slowly – nothing was really happening. So by then it was a household that was rich – but the fighting was slowly being brought to center stage. Then my grand mom contracted cancer. That was a bloody blow. That was the final hinge in the family door coming loose.

I think a wave on insecurity passed around the cousins. I was too small but in hindsight and from some of the conversations that I heard later, I realized that it just dint do too good for the family. In that atmosphere, I came in to Mumbai to settle down. Dad took another year and mom shuttled a bit.

Suddenly as I was telling them this story it struck me that in my office and in my own team the same is true. Around a month back I announced to the team that I was leaving. At first it was shock followed a little sadness and soon enough - given time – cracks started surfacing. Insecurity is such a big thing in our heads. People started bitching, back biting, started wondering about their roles, their future – power struggles started and funny things started happening. I am so upset with all this.

In many ways this is no different than the death of my grand mom. Here too a person is going with notice period. Here I can’t even settle the affairs completely as I would have wanted to. I don’t know whom I am handing over the stuff to. This uncertainty is what driving my office kids nuts. I hate how some of them have behaved and how they have easily declared war and how they decided to make space for themselves. The spoils are there for eating and to wait is to end up being late. So make your move.

All insecure people have a standard ploy – they build allies with others. Typically other insecure or weak people. They create trouble by building teams of us versus them.  They feed off each others insecurities or rather feed into each other’s insecurities. They waste their time and effort in trying to plot, plan and gather as much as they can for their own clan. This is a self- killing spiral. Of course it works well in many cases. Especially when the person on top is also insecure. Then he likes all these jokers. In fact many bosses I know like their kids to be insecure. They like it if they fight off each other. In secure people never ever build long term allies. They are busy plotting and scheming all the time that they don’t see anyone as full time allies. Their enemies are other insecure people and funnily – other extremely secure people. They can’t understand why anyone can be really secure. They think these secure people are put on and are not genuine. That makes them even more prone to plotting against them.

It’s a vicious circle. I see this everywhere… even amongst kids and adults alike. Cliques and gangs are built. The only real remedy is to stay away from these. There is no hope for them and there is no hope for you with them. As I have said before – even listening to them is damaging for yourself.

At 40 I learn new lessons. People are like this all the time. I give out a lot of love with my kids at office. But some of them love you back and some of them just create more issues for you. some have not really loved you but have only used your love to get themselves more secure. And as you leave they search for security elsewhere. Bah!

You learn… all the time!

Black hole bus

“Over the years, ridership on the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) buses has decreased, and slipped further down in February, possibly due to the fare hike. With yet another round of increase in fares slated to come into force from Wednesday, the clientele can only get thinner, say experts.How many passengers has BEST lost over past 2 months? As per transport figures for the months of January and February, around 3 lakh passengers stopped using the public transport to their destinations. The data show that in January this year, a total of 35.77 lakh passengers were ferried by BEST buses daily to various corners of Mumbai and even outside city limits.”

http://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai/mumbai-all-best-bus-routes-stopped-making-profits-last-year/article1-1310037.aspx

http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-fare-hike-today-loss-making-best-continues-to-lose-commuters-2073603

Mumbai has a bus service that was once its pride. The BEST service. It was a funny amalgamation of an electric supply company and a Bus service. The name is actually – Bombay Electric Supply and Transport – hence BEST. To start with I have no clue why an electric utility company and the bus transport company must be merged into one. They have no obvious synergies in management or in supply of raw materials. It’s not like the bus service run electric busses. I think this was a legacy of the Trams which ran on electricity as I could understand from this pargraphs.

“The Bombay Tramway Company Limited was formally set up in 1873. The Mumbai Municipality was given the right to buy up the concern after the first 25 years or after every period of 7 years thereafter. After this contract was entered into between the Bombay Tramway Company and the Municipality, the Government of Mumbai enacted the Bombay Tramways Act, 1874, under which the Company was licenced to run a tramway service in the city. The tram-cars were of two kinds-those drawn by one horse and those drawn by two. In 1905, a newly formed concern, “The Bombay Electric Supply & Tramways Company Limited?bought the Bombay Tramway Company and the first electrically operated tram-car appeared on Mumbai’s roads in 1907. The passing years aggravated the problem of rush-hour traffic and to ease the situation, double decker trams were introduced in September, 1920.

Mumbai saw its first bus run on 15th July, 1926. The people of Mumbai received the bus with enthusiasm, but it took quite sometime before this means of conveyance really established itself. For several years, it was looked upon as transport for the upper middle classes. Those were the days when the tram was the poor man’s transport, carried one all the way from Sassoon Dock to Dadar for a mere anna and a half, that was nine paise. The bus fare for the same journey was four annas, that is 25 paise.

…..

As regards BEST’s electric supply side, in the year 1905, the B.E.S.& T Co.Ltd., commenced the supply of electrical energy by erecting its own generating station with a total capacity of 4,300 KW. This was later abandoned in favour of a station of larger capacity constructed in 1912 at Kussara Basin. This station was closed down in 1925, after which all the Company’s requirements were obtained in bulk from M/s. Tata Hydro Electric Power Supply Co.Ltd, With the growth of the electrical distribution system, difficulties were experienced in the maintenance of the electrical pressure within the prescribed statutory limits. The Company than decided to establish two High Voltage Receiving Stations at Grant Road, and Apollo where large bulk supply transformers provided with on-load tap changing equipment had to be installed for maintaining regulated voltage at the consumer’s premises. These two new stations were, however, actually commissioned in 1949, i.e. after the B.E.S. & T Co.Ltd., was acquired by the Municipal Corporation.”

So fundamentally a transport company and an electric supply company being one is an anachronism that has no relevance in the present – but who knows – twenty or thirty years hence when electric vehicles become a reality – this may well be back in fashion. The proponents of the electric car often cite that the gasoline fueled car simply lost a temporary race in the early 1900’s and this century will only see its rise.

But still – I grew up wondering what BEST meant I remember still finding it very odd that the two were in one company. But hell. The BEST services haven’t improved one bit ever since I was a kid. It’s the same buses and the same conductors. Only the tickets changed. Now the conductor gives you a thermal paper ticket as opposed to the paper tickets of the era gone by. The crowd is crazy, the services are erratic – the bus routes are not clear and nothing really works well. Obviously the service is making losses. They introduced AC services at the start but only on certain routes. At first they had these stupid buses which looked like outstation travel buses. Then they moved on to nicer buses but these very severely limited. The majority of the buses in operation seem the same from when I wa s achild. To my mind they haven’t moved anywhere in the last 35 years. The iconic double decker made its exit but nothing else.

A transport company must understand its relevance every few years or so and must make adjustments accordingly. There is no point having large buses running through the day when you clearly have peak and off peak hours. The city earlier was very clearly structured on the north south axis. The buses simply had to go up and down. The business district was in the south and the suburbs were in the north with a large middle class working in the mills and staying in its vicinity in the centre. The bus routes were infinitely less complex. Now the complexity of the city has ensured that the conventional routes won’t work. I remember when Bhakti Park where I stay was coming up. It is in the middle of nowhere with almost no civilization three kms in either direction. Why would anyone live there?  But slowly the infrastructure came up. I remember my friends who were early adopters of the area making representations to the transport undertaking to start services. The service assured them that service would start if a certain threshold level of population comes in. That is a classical chicken and egg. But the BEST played dumb. They should have had smaller buses in operation with higher frequencies in the morning and evening. These need to be the simple feeder routes that simply took people and pushed them to the big bus stops or stations where people could hop off and hop on to their bigger buses which took them to their offices. The city was expanding on the east west axis and the bus services were not keeping pace. Why should the service not have efficient bus services with 20 seaters or even lower. The taxi guys started the share a cab services but they too are notoriously bad and are available only in certain places. The transport authority was best placed to handle this.

Also they don’t need to look too further to improve their services. They simply need to follow the UBER model and fit their buses with a smart phone. Now people will know exactly where their bus is and figure the best time to leave home to reach the bus stop to reach their destination. It can also give expected delays and journey times. There is an inordinately long time that people wait for their bus – that can simply be cut off.

A simple mapping of people’s journeys and traffic patterns can render a lot of data on making these routes efficient. But the EBST is working with its head in the sand. Right now they have resorted to really stupid measures like putting up posters and urging people to use their services. What a bum head. People will use services that people value. Period. Increase value.

Uptill now all it did was believe it was a monopoly and then it behaved like one. Bad service, bad route planning, bad conductors, bad buses and a complete mismanagement of crowd. Nobody likes a BEST bus on the road. They behave like bullies and I have been on the receiving end quite a few times.

My other favorite solution was that instead of putting so much money on bridges, we should have simply put money on making the bus service air-conditioned and subsidized that and slowly removed that subsidy. As of now the bridges are so ill designed and one after the other that that most buses don’t ply on them. And the road under the bridges are really narrow especially to make space for the landing and take off that you often find jams near there. This just compounds matters.

Simply put – the BEST must change itself if it has to stay relevant. Mumbai took great pride in having an efficient bus and train service. But this is now not the case. We have not kept pace with the changing needs, trends and technologies and now risk being irrelevant. The city, I see is dying. It is imploding under its own weight and gravity – like a fading star. It will suck inside all – into its black nothingness. This is the death, unless we see some serious innovations.

Here – complete unrelated music…  but I love the song… Jispa loves the movies and the books.

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!