lessons from the Mahatma

Gandhi did two things. He made the British people aware that they were cruelly subjugating India, and he gave Indians the conviction that they could, by lifting their heads and straightening their spines, lift the yoke from their shoulders. After that, it was inevitable that Britain should someday refuse to rule India and that India should some day refuse to be ruled.
The British beat the Indians with batons and rifles butts. The Indians neither cringed nor complained nor retreated. That made England powerless and India invincible.

I have lifted the lines from the book “the life of Mahatma Gandhi’ by Louis fisher. The autobiography is a n amazing account of an even more amazing life. What a book. The book ranks high amongst the books that could change your life! Better than the screwball/ cornball philosophy that Paoulo or his ilk dish out. This book must be read as a part of a four part series, I think. The four being ‘freedom at midnight’, this one, ‘Satyagraha in South Africa’ and ‘My experiments with truth’. The last two being Gandhiji’s own.
Its amazing how we learnt the history of independence and about Gandhi’s life without really understanding it. No history teacher could teach us his life, history, passion and ideals. We learnt little, understood nothing. Another line I read somewhere - Those who don’t learn from history are condemmed to repeat it.
While reading the books I think of two movies. One of course is Gandhi by Richard Attenbourogh, and the other funnily enough is lage raho Munnabhai. The first brilliantly portrays his life and second one is exactly what one goes through after reading a lot of his works and understanding his life. It cannot but move, it cannot but plant a seed of change in you and it cannot but force you to think.
I have always believed that every book gives you one key message. That’s all. One key message. One cannot hope to understand more than that. The key message from this book is- ‘supreme clarity of thought’. It is amazing how one man with supreme clarity of thought can accomplish so much. Wow.
I remember in school days I had a big debate on non violence v/s violence with dad. He got me convinced on non violence. This was in 9th standard. I used the argument to write a much appreciated debate speech on the same topic. There is a big reason why I never got to make the speech in public, but then that’s another blog. If Jispa ever has the debate topic, she definitely knows the books to refer to!

Doodler's delight

I have been doodling rather than writing these days. I suddenly realized that my doodling is pretty decent. Now I remember that I was always pretty decent at this stuff but was really bad at the realistic kind of drawing.
So here you are – the adventures of chakram – http://funnychakram.blogspot.com . The product of my doodling. I love these a lot, and I want to do 30 of them, print a book and give to Jispa. As of now, I have done 18. Will have to manage many more.

Bingo was her name - o

While going to the bus stop every morning we have befriended a dog that Jispa has christened ‘cute cute bingo’. This is the one that she plays with everyday and we get glucose biscuits for.
She likes cute cute bingo as she lets Jispa play with her, hug he, massage her ears etc. also she is very stable and does not lick around. She merely comes close and smells. Jispa likes that a lot.
Here they are – two peas in a pod

Here she is playing in the morning at the public bus stop next her bus stop.

logical conversations

Today morning Jispa and me were off to her bus stop in a taxi. Suddenly Jispa tells me that the taxi’s ears are near the steering wheel. ‘taxi ears?’ I ask. ‘Ya, they are near the steering wheel, see’. ‘Huh? Where are the ears?’ ‘not ears, GEARS’. ‘oh those, yup. They are near the steering wheel.’ Me continuing with bewildered expression. ‘Who told you that’? ‘I was seeing that the taxi has no gears down. But how can a car be without gears, it must have gears. But I cannot see them. Then I saw him moving that up and down so those are the gears’. Ok now I am impressed. She figured out the hand gears. Hmmm. She is quite the analytical types. I think I have said this before, I like her train of thought. She has a clear logical thought processing centre. Most of the times I like ot ask her how she knows and from where she learnt. It’s quite funny. She knows from where she picked what up. It’s either a show of her memory or a show of her logical skills. It is my most favorite time pass. She is a delight to talk to. Every morning it’s absolutely amazing to have conversations with her.

bumbai ki taxi

Taxi's in Mumbai are quite wierd. Here is one taxi. I have photograhed the interiors.
The switch on his steering is the horn!
Taxi's used to hang CD's as a fad; this guy - well take a close look - has a cut out of a - aaaa... a motherboard?!!??
the ceiling of his taxi has an interesting saying - wife is knife, will cut your life
this is the image right above the passenger seat. hmmm.. kinda goes well with the earlier saying.
this is not the same taxi but another one. he has obviously kept a photo of his 'wife' in his wallet.

Happy Sad, Sad Happy

There are happy people and there are sad people. happy people remain happy and sad people remain sad. Happy people find happiness in all that they do, sad people find sadness in their work. Happy people can’t be sad and sad people can’t be happy. You cannot make happy people come out of happiness for long and you can’t make a sad person come out of sadness for long. They go back to their destined status of happiness or sadness. You cannot change their nature. Try to make happy people sad and sad people happy is guaranteed to make you sad. So if you are a sad person go ahead do it. If you are a happy person – avoid it. But if you are a happy person you can’t see a person sad so you will try to do it and if you are a sad person then you will automatically spread sadness but then happy people will soon avoid you. Everyone reaches true nature fast. Of course true nature is not always extremes but yes you care broadly on the right or on the left and typically the polarities exist pretty predominantly. So there, the secret to happiness or sadness (whatever you are is no relation to what you desire) is there within you. So do not seek happiness. If you are happy, you will be happy; if you are the sad types then you will be sad. Recognizing your true self will give you less conflict. The problem is when you try to be something else or when you try to make someone something else. People will feel uncomfortable with their fake self and reach their equilibrium fast. Understand that, understand yours. Live your life!

like father like daughter - speed

This blog is going to become more about me than my daughter. Heheheh.. (evil snigger).
On Saturday was Jispa’s school sports day. She was quite excited about it. Everybody expected her to win; she kept winning in all the trials leading to the day. I am firm that I do not want any burden of expectation on her while sets off for her race. The last thing she wants is for us to say – win win win… so I did not even give her a ‘best of luck’ wish. Go perform and leave the rest to… well…. to rest. To cut short – she won, by a mile. What I liked that when I saw her run, is her technique. Lots of kids were running but she ran well balanced and in control. She is fast. You realize only when you see her next to her age group. Post that race was the parent’s race. I so wanted to win this one. The burden of expectations I wittingly put on myself. But I wanted to test my speed against the others there are. The race started and I started running. It was a 70 meter race and soon I realized that it does require too much effort. I was winning by a mile as well. I slowed up and completed without so much as breathing hard. I guess it’s not so much my fitness but the others lack of. I saw the other fathers with all well toned gym bodies but it seems no speed. I guess the burst of speed required for a short run is different from the muscle mass built. But I sure loved the win. The buzz (in my head of course) did not subside till Sunday.

I liked it when the other parents were saying – now we know where Jispa gets her speed from.

I am more excited about winning my self than about Jispa winning. That’s because of the quiet confidence that I had in Jispa winning. I was pretty sure she would win. It was like an expected result. But me winning was not expected by me. So I guess it’s not megalomania but more of faith in Jispa. It seems that I have nicely put it and deflected the accusation. But I am quite convinced about it! :)

We saw Taare Zammen par a second time. Jispa continues to amaze us with her razor sharp memory. She remembered a few scenes and quickly predicted what next. Very very quickly.

here is jispa sleeping with chocolate brownie and pooh bear

PTM's a breeze with a star

Friday was parents teachers meeting at Jippy’s school. Jispa is quite a good girl and obedient. She is also fairly ahead of the class in most activities. We listen to stories of her being the star of the class etc. well I guess it’s a good thing. Let’s see how she grows up. Kids have a habit of short circuiting by the time they graduate.
They have a board on which the parents have to write some notes for their kid and last time around we wrote something funny. this time around I decided to get even more funnier. I wrote some rhyming stuff about silly billy rumpa killy. Jispa told me that the teacher read out all the notes in class and then at the last she read her note again. I have this knack of writing utter nonsense and getting away with it in the name of irreverence. But I like the fact that Jispa is getting exposed to different sorts of humour. Her entire class enjoyed it, it seems. Way to go. Now I feel proud. I am a self conceited arrogant ass. All that star kid thing is nothing compared to this!

Jispa has been eating carrots everyday – reason – her teacher told her that eating carrots gives you sparkling eyes. She didn’t like them before. Now also she cant finish them all but that does not stop her from attacking a carrot every morning and then feeding the last half to us.

Check it out…


We told her teachers about chakram. Now I draw her, a chakram on her hand before she goes to school. She loves it! This is the same chakram whose adventures are drawn on our walls.

random random

This shit is becoming a routine. Every day I come in to office early and the take an interview. I need people and since I come in early I get them in early as well. This leaves me little time for my blog. This blog is something that I cherish so much. Hopefully it becomes a body of work over a large period of time. I guess the trick is to dedicatedly write something or the other. Jispa is of course the most important part of the blog. I doubt if I could have written if not for Jispa.
One other interview was happening and the dame casually mentioned that she blogged. Now we wanted her to show some of the work that she wrote. I just googled her and got to her blog site and submitted that to the boss to evaluate. She passed! Great. But then she got engaged to be married in Delhi so she could not get the job. But goes to show how far a blog can go. There are tons of privacy issues as well. God knows how all read my blog. Who knows who will read and psychoanalyze my blog to figure out what an ass I am? Well as of now I don’t care. I can always turn it off from the Google crawlers and there you are - privacy resumed.
This piece is also written over a couple of sittings. Obviously between interviews. The balance of power has shifted from the interviewer to the interviewee. They don’t even get their CV’s printed these days. But I don’t blame them. I don’t remember the last time I printed my CV. I hardly made my CV since a long time. That’s what you get for being happy and content. Shit will hit you and you won’t expect it!

I redecorated the desk. Jispa was my interior decorator.

47 at 32

47 runs off 37 balls including 1 six and five fours. Not bad after being sent one down since no body else wanted to go up. I reached the crease in the first over itself with the ball swinging around off. I was struggling to even connect the ball leave alone get off the mark. It took me a tedious 6 balls. This is almost an eon in a twenty over match. But I hung in. I realized that I as I play more, I think more and that has actually helped improve my game. Now days my mantra is simple if it comes in play straight and if any ball is wide, hit hard. That works well in the start when you are not sighting the ball too much and the ball is swinging around a bit. I hung in there, a couple of fours and a few singles and twos and I was well on course. After I played my self in the runs began to come in much better. Keep the head down and concentrate on the ball. Then I realized another thing that guruji Arun spoke about – bat speed. I concentrated bit on that as we need to accelerate the scoring and well the shots began flowing. Every season I learn something new. The must be learning good as the scores as definitely improving!

How the hell did humans invent this game with such a hard ball? One shot took an inside edge and whacked into my inner thigh. Wow. That hurt. Right now it’s a red blue, purple patch that is so bloody scary to look at. I have also learnt not to show too much pain on the field. Take that in your stride and face the next ball. I was also lucky to get a run off that ball so that I could relax a bit before I took strike again. I remember Arun telling me not to show pain. I also remember Sachin getting hit by Brett Lee and not even flinching. So that’s that. I can only tell you that the ball is really hard and it hurts like hell.

I am filing this from Indian School of Business campus, where I am here for a training program. Leading teams for high performance. I am generally a cynic of this but I guess like any good book, if I can learn one good thing, just one, then it’s well worth the effort. This is the first three day training that I am attending. The one day ones have been quite boring so far, quite useless as well. Will let you guys know if it was worth it!

Wilderness in the city

My daughter is going to be demented and I am sure it’s my fault. We have a lot of fun everyday in the morning while dropping her off to work. We have made friends with two dogs already. One is called two biscuits but does not eat any biscuits; the other one is called bingo. Bingo is the name of any dog that we see. We keep saying ‘hi bingo’ to every dog we see and ‘hi jojo’ for every bovine creature. This started in Jaisalmer where there were tons of them around, lots and lots of all kinds of cows. Now also on the way to the bus stop we take a short cut through a not so happening area. On one corner there is a garbage dump. So we can see tons of jojos, bingos and absolutely fantastic kites. In fact just yesterday I saw a kite swoop down and pick up what looked like a rat in its claws and fly away. Really brilliant. Garbage in the city is the only way we can see wild life I guess. We also enjoyed seeing these kite fly around in Jaisalmer from the roof tops. Such magnificent birds.

Well in any case here is she imitating me in the morning. I first put it on my head since she was reluctant to wear it, then she decided to do it herself. I tell you Jispa, if you someday wonder where you get your irreverence from – the answer is definitely not your mom.

It was nice playing the intra dividision tournament on Sunday at Matunga Gym. Man I feel like a demi-god in fitness. I run faster than any one else and I definitely play better than most others. And thanks to the boss Arun Solanki, I understand the game better than any one else. One idiot tried to sledge me and said stuff after I got out. I mean what’s the point of sledging after someone is out. You sledge to get me out and after mission is accomplished its end of the story. You shut up. So this idiot was fielding after wards and he misfielded and let a few go. I let him hear a few comments. It made him look such an idiot. Sledge smart you idiot. Never lose sight of your brains. NEVER.

Its the love of the game

It’s getting a little difficult to get inspiration to update the blog. I really don’t want to write crap though arguably my entire blog could one big pile of junk. I just picked up ‘the motorcycle diaries’ written by Che Guevara before he was CHE Guevara. His achievements in his life post the motorcycle diaries make the motorcycle diaries what it is today. I have no such delusions about my blog but I still like to think of it a little like that. A little romanticism never hurt anybody.
I try and play Squash regularly and realize what age does to instincts. It’s quite tough to play that hard and fast. Playing the coach is sure fun. He does play a power game and tries to ensure that the game is good fun for both. I am sure he can finish the game in 20 seconds. But three games with him last half an hour at the minimum. The third game is sheer murder for me. He does play a single power shot but just keeps the ball in play and places it across the court. Woa! Its complete murder running cross court.
Yesterday he was not in and I tried playing and practicing on my own for some time till two gentlemen came in. One fat guy and the other an old man. I find it extremely annoying to see in that matunga gym has very few patrons who actually smile. I mean the guys there are playing sports for god sake. Smile, acknowledge the people, the competitor, have fun. I think they see any one as one more guy trying to use up the limited resources. It’s such a fucking pain. But hell, I think that’s the psychographic profile of the guys who go to gymkhanas. I have become big, I am a rich and I have a club membership. This Sunday there is the inter department cricket tournament and I am playing cricket for the squash team. Lets see how people compete and how they make friends.
But coming back to the point, the fat man and the other man wait outside. I call them in for the game. They obviously want to play only with each other, but since I am in they have to play two matches with me before they shoo me off. They cant move for shit, but hit the ball very hard and very fast. Only fore hand no back hand. The serves are so fast I can’t see them. I now realize that I have a long way to go. A really looooong way to go before I see the ball. The coach has been feeding me soft balls. Hehehehehhehe. He is just giving me a workout I guess. But I am much better than I was before and I am definitely going to get there. God and knee willing! Amen.

vacations

Just back from a fantastical vacation of Jodhpur and Jaislamer. A lovely magical place and truly the best part of Rajasthan. The lonely planet has been a valuable guide for us wherever we go. It has helped me in every country and city that I have been as a tourist. Even here it told of the bets place to visit and eat. I fell that the lonely planet must be given the Nobel peace prize for ensuring peace and sanity for tourists while traveling. I wonder why Indians don’t read so much and carry enough material while traveling. I think we just bloody want to leave the trip to the holiday tour organizers whose headache it is to figure the entire thing. And of course ensure that you get good gujju fried food everywhere.
Jaisalmer is one place where I got to eat the most amazing authentic pizzas and some delicious soup. I will remember Jaisalmer and Leh as the two places to go and eat pizzas!

Vacationing with Jispa is quite fun. She is quite a decent traveler and is a generally happy kid. She plays on her own a lot is quite content to be fooling around with her activity books, colors and a white piece of paper. But she also gets to you when she wants you to play. We put her to sleep in the middle bunker and I sleep on the top one. Early morning she woke up and climbed onto my bunker and whacked me on my bum. ‘Wake Up Papa’. Huh!. ‘I got up and I saw its morning so I got up’ ya, its morning alright. Go to sleep. ‘nooooo’. Bloody hell. No one wakes up at 7 in the morning in a train, man. But all said and done train journeys are brilliant with family. Though I sometimes miss the travel in normal sleeper that we did as kids. Now it’s a minimum of three tier A/C. it’s easier to travel without carrying all the bedding. Also the normal sleepers have become really really dirty dusty and ugly. I guess in a trade up mode economy, the people have to seemed to have all moved up but the sanitation seems to have remained bad. I don’t mind traveling with friends in a rag tag sleeper but with family it’s a nice stress free environment that one prefers. Also as one travels northward the trains get dirtier and the crowd quite sad. Lets see how the train journeys to down south might be?

When one goes visiting historical places one realizes the value of reading the Amar Chitra Katha’s when pone was young. Thanks to those I still remember and recollect a lot of the stories that I read. It’s an invaluable learning experience. I have to go and get all the possible ACK’s that were ever printed. Let me try and see how I get my hinds on the entire collection. I have already bought the entire ACK’s Mahabharata. Forget Jispa, I will enjoy reading them all over again.

your momma always told you to cover your books with brown paper - now you know why

Reading a book is not so easy anymore. I just finished reading ‘The Islamist’ by Ed Hussein. While going to play squash I get off at Matunga station. The only way to get off that train is to stand by the doorway from the first itself. I read till Parel and then it’s impossible to read thanks to the crowd. I just stuff the book into my waist and wait two stops till Matunga.
One day a guy saw the cover and asked me about Ed Hussein. I told him it’s the author of the book. He then asked me my name. Now any one in Mumbai knows that some one asking you your name in a conversation is mostly trying to get your religion. He then asked if I was Hindu. How do I tell him that I am a Pantheist, but whatever, ok. so, carry on… I ask him his name. ‘Mohammad’. He then asks what the book is about – he reads the words ‘The Islamist’. He can read English but I am not sure if he can understand the spoken word. So I try to explain the premise of the book. I explain in Hindi that author is a religious person in England who was an Islamist but then went back to practicing Islam without being an Islamist. Or whatever. It was difficult to explain in Hindi. He then asked me if the name of the prophet is in the book. I am like ‘ya, I think so’. This getting potentially dangerous. He then tells me that, if so, I must not carry the book like that. Oops. I take it out. Hold it respectfully. I tell him thank you. It’s good that you tell me. We do not understand. We are only trying to understand. He gives me advice like – nothing will come off by standing in front of a stone and praying. I say yup, thank you thank you. We learn by listening to others. Reading is not enough. Thank you. Station arrives, I get off. Bye. Whew. That was close.
Ed if you are reading this – what on earth was that?
On the book. I loved it. It began ok, I lost it in the middle, but it ended powerful. Left an impact in my mind. I understood much more, I know much more now. Good, recommended read. Read it, but be careful in the local trains.

pain and the great escape

I never imagined that I would be typing so much in my life. I thought I would be doomed to live my life with my ugly handwriting and would have difficulty progressing in life. Well life sure has changed. I write a lot but I hardly life a pen! Qwerty is so much a part of my life! My thumb is injured. I have no clue how or when but the nail seems to be affected and its quite painful. I can barely hold the pen and write well but it has not affected my work majorly. Just an odd angle in which the thumb presses the space bar.

Yesterday I missed getting caught by the skin of my teeth. These days I have been going to play squash. For that I have to get to Matunga station. That’s not on my normal line and therefore I require tickets. I have bought the tickets before hand and I have to punch in the valid fares before getting on. For some reason I though the amount was 4 bucks and I have been punching the same for a few days. Yesterday the TC caught me and pointed out that the fare is 6 bucks. It 4 bucks to Dadar and Matunga is one station further. Ok. “You have to pay the fine”; oh come on “an honest mistake by and honest citizen” its not as if I am trying to dodge fare. Nothing doing, he marches me to the office to get me to pay the differential. Then suddenly lightning strikes, “what’s the fare from Masjid” Four, he says. Great. Then here is my pass that goes from VT to Vadala. This includes the common journey from VT to Masjid. So the ticket I punched becomes a journey extension ticket from Masjid to Matunga, which is 4 bucks so I am home and dry. Wah wah.. I was impressed by myself. He took a little while to digest it. He didn’t like but, the law is on my side. “be careful next time’ he says. ‘Thank you Bye Bye’, you dickhead I think in my mind.

Adventures of Chakram

While Jispa was getting to draw on the wall I was feeling left out I think. So I started painting the adventures of Chakram. Have a look:-

Jispa really found this one funny:-


The wordings go something like this:-

Chakram:-
I am never afraid
I run fast
I jump high
I am strong
I fight hard

Big bully:- FIGHT

Chakram:- Good that I run fast

The second one has the wordings quite legible in the photograph. This one was insipred by Jispa talking about her school students.

enriched by talking

How does a multi billionaire get to his hotel after exiting Heathrow airport? Well, like all of us he stands in a line and takes a black cab.

I have been intending to write this piece for quite some time now. I have been a big fan of our vice chairman and promoter. I think he is a very level headed sweet guy. The reason I don’t write his name is thanks to the billion guys in office who must be putting blog alerts on his name. But it’s a simple one – he owns the place I work. So here’s the piece.

I am getting off at Heathrow and am standing in the immigration line. He walks up behind. A couple of guys between us. I say hi and walk up to him. We know each other well. We generally start off talking. We both are having a relaxed conversation. Its obviously not a formal ‘in office’ conversation but a relaxed, waiting in the queue conversation. Always better this way. We generally chat up about work. My thing is that I can’t just give out blatant lies. He asks me how am I doing and am I enjoying and so on. I told him, that our company sucks at marketing and its quite a pain to be in marketing while we fight for our understanding and respectability all the time. But the reason I am working with him is that I love the company. I love the way we work. No stress, zero politics, cool happy working environment and a lot of freedom to do what you want to. He asked about my back ground. I told him about the zillion jobs that I have changed. We were talking about how my kids fight out with sales all the time and the frustration that they encounter. That time he said “Jaimit, tane khabhar che. Te ghat ghat nu pani pidhu che ekle”. That felt nice. All that job hopping viewed in a positive light. But it truly is a positive thingie. Not that I advise it too much for others though.
While we were talking I generally asked him where he was staying and how far was it from my hotel. He said “should be around 5 minutes, why?” Now this thing had been on my mind for some time now. I was told that a cab would cost 60 pounds from the airport that 4800 rupees. That’s way too much to pay even if it was company expense. So I told him as much and told him I was hoping for a ride with him and it could save us some money. In hindsight I some times think that I actually spoke about saving 60 pounds to a guy worth 5 billion dollars at last count. Well… he kinda liked the idea and gave me a lift. We wondered if it made sense to get dropped off at his hotel and take a cab, when I figured that it was best (economically) for me to drop him off and take the cab further to my hotel. We hailed a cab accordingly.

It’s around less than an hour to the city centre. It was one of the best conversations I have ever had, we spoke about work, vision, marketing (we both abhor mass media). When he realized that I was in London for the first time, he took on the role of a guide talking me about the various places on the way and the fun that I should have on the weekend that I was there. He asked me if I had enough money, I kind of vaguely said ‘just enough’. I normally carry less exchange but use the debit / credit cards often enough. He removed his wallet and handed me all the pounds he had in there. There were only about 20. Rest he was carrying euros. “rakh, kaam aavse” I did not know what to tell him. what do you do when your uncle gives you cash? Meekly take it. Mid way into another conversation in the cab he suddenly remembers something and opens his briefcase. He removes a cover and there sure enough – more pounds. He gives me 40 more and says “well, that takes care of you cab at least”. I was like ya, but I have some….. “rakh rakh, kaam aavse”. He insisted that I take something from London for my wife since it’s my first time there. There were so many things we spoke about (kids, parents, growing up, politics etc) but the undercurrent was clear – I was having a conversation with my uncle not my boss. An uncle who is not your dad’s age but more like the uncles that are the youngest in the family and therefore much more clued onto your lives. Dam cool. This will stay with me for a long long time.

I always admired the guy, but now I love him. I hope it remains that way. Amen.

Here is a photo I once took of him. I like it. It’s not your standard boring portrait.

Give me logic, take away the rest

You normally don’t pangas with Jispa. She has a memory of an elephant. She remembers stuff from two years back. Well she is growing, and with my patience to keep arguing till logic prevails and memory to back it, she is quite the potent combination that can drive the non logic fighters away.
While I was in Igatpuri with my sister, my sis was talking about my legendary ability to argue with parents. Actually I remember it very clearly. I would only argue if I did not see logic for doing something or being told about something. If I knew I was wrong, my arguments would not be long (nor not even argue), but you can’t give me bullshit explanations and get away with it. Give me logic and I will listen. Also be consistent with logic. The logic can’t keep changing with the tasks and at your whims and fancies. So it was not like I was arguing, it was simply your logic which went awry.
Jispa is like that. Give her proper logical answers. Keep logic consistent and for heaven sake don’t patronize. She has a mind, respect it. That’s what I try to do most of the time. She absorbs much better than we expect her to.
Today morning, she generally asked what the date was. My watch said 3rd, and jasmine also thought it was the 3rd. Jispa disagreed and said 4th. I said ‘no it’s the 3rd’ she stuck to her 4th. Jasmine said “we believe it’s the 3rd, if you want you belive it’s the 4th”. I have over the last 5 years learnt not to take a conversation with Jispa lightly, especially when she sticks to her point of view. So I said “hang on. Let me check my cell phone.” Sure enough. It was the 4th. “Yup Jispa, you are right. It is the 4th”
The other day we got a letter from her school inviting us for school annual function. I was teasing her that the letter said ‘don’t come, Jispa has been a naughty girl’. She came back from school and told me that she asked her teacher about the letter and her teacher said that “ the letter said that Jispa is a star kid so come to see the concert”. Hmmm. She remembers, clarifies and then confronts. Hehehehehe. It was quite funny.
I lose and this is not the going to be the last time.

zen in squash and conversation

Well the first day of squash was fun. I love the way different games have wildly different techniques. I kept slicing the racket on top of the ball and ball kept hitting low. It was fun. I think after my first bits of knocking the ball around, I got a sense of how the ball moves. It was also a little funny trying not to be too wristy which is a fantastic thing in cricket and I love using it there. Backhand was even tougher. I can’t believe I missed the ball completely at times. Just an air swing. Oh god that was bad. Was someone watching? Well there was a pro sitting behind me. I just looked and smiled at him and he smiled back. Then I realized that one has to time the ball. I remembered my cricket and also the one time I learnt golf. Its timing the ball. So I just waited as the ball bounced and that split second where I could see it stationery and thapack…. Now that’s nice. Good shot. At least it went forward. Now as I write I remember the amazing book (May all time favorite), Zen in the art of Archery. I remember portions of it and it has helped me in cricket. I was applying similar principals yesterday as well without realizing. Hmm interesting how it has become a part of my consciousness. Now to reread the same after a bit of practice. But I just love that book. It is absolutely amazing.

Another thing I realized yesterday. I was meeting an old friend of mine. She used to work for me long time back but now she is working elsewhere. She has a very high EQ and is a sharp chick (now lady). We talk les often but when we do, it rarely small talk. Its about life, about other stuff. I realized one thing is that I am supremely bored by small talk. Ya, I seem to be having fun at parties cracking really stupid PJ’s but I hate getting into small, random talk which leads nowhere. I hate getting drawn into those conversations. Man now I know why I hate parties, marriages and the types. They are soo bloody boring. I hate it. If we must talk it should either be complete fun or oscillate to the other side. These in betweens are so fucking boring.

Eeeps. I have to control abuse in office. I don’t like it. Will try to get it off my vocab. Am trying!

Random:- picture of breakfast at my hotel in Geneva. Full style! Muesli, berries and bread with 'designer butter'

all fun zone - sports, pets and books

Sometimes I wonder how my blogs have lost a bit of their ‘zing’. Work pressure is so much at times. I had promised that I would start some activity. Well I started. I bought squash court shoes. Hope to start playing today evening. I kinda look forward to the game. This was something I wanted to do since childhood. Good exciting stuff. Hope my knee holds on and does not give way. I will be soo devastated not to play. I have spoken to the coach and he has asked to me to come in the evening, when there is some free time on the court. I have always believed that one has to play some game or the other. One can always learn from multiple games. Learning a game is important and learning it well is even more so. I hope the coach is a decent good guy who might be able to correct techniques before they get bad, unlike my cricket, which I think is impossible to really correct. This also reminds me that I must try and see if there are cricket nets in the morning on Saturday / Sundays. That should be good fun as well. What can a coach do to a 32 year old trying to learn to play better? Lets see. I am on a fitness spree… atleats thought wise. The actions should follow through boss.


My brother and his wife adopted a pup – Angel. She is dam sweet. I spent all evening playing with her yesterday. She is so amazing, so full of play. She is like a new kid in the family. My brother is acting like a dad. It’s fun to look at him. I am waiting for Angel to grow up and take her running in the park. As for yesterday, I think she played so much with me that she fell asleep while we were there it self. Thak gayi bechari khel khel ke. Pets are fun, especially if they are someone else’s. Just like kids!

For the record the book ‘understanding comics’ is easily amongst the top 10 books in my collection. Scott – you are good. Thank you. I am supremely enriched.
Now onto more such ‘serious’ comics. I am reading The Persepolis 1 and 2 by Marjane Satrapi. This kinda completes the triology. The first was the eight part series Buddha by Osamu Tezuka, the second was the two part Maus by Art Spiegleman. Understanding Comics then becomes a prequel kind of book to this trilogy consisting of 12 books.