Things we keep discovering

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

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

theory of scarcity and abundance

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

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

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

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

remove them

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

book book ki baat hai

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

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

ceaseless whispers

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

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

mind map

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


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

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

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

eat a lot

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

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

Wheel-chair anthropology

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

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

tie me up

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

Murals

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

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

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

the following one is a butter fly with antennas

Papa, mama joined in to leave their mark as well

The Rainbow lollipop, done with a brush

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

crutches

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

soul

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

Jispa at a movie….

tararumpum

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

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

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

drop me

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

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

long live buddha, kill him on the road

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

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

bananarama

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bananas normally get squashed quite easily.

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

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

Bananas are often sold as a pair. 5 for 2

People normally read books in trains to pass time.

Now to connect the threads...

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

I am that man.

cut throat spirituality

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

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

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

weekends are best for thinking

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

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

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

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

Can god die?

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

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

work hard then fry bheja

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

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

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