many idoits

I had seen 3 Idiots over the weekend. It’s quite a cute funny movie but quite frankly I cant quite agree with eth gush of compliments that its been receiving. I for one found it a bit too preachy. Surely the actors have done a great job but the script was not as great as I thought it would be. They even incorporated a huge bunch of internet jokes doing the rounds. But this is not a blog about movies. I leave that for the experts.
Watching 3 idiots one big growing up grouse came to my mind. Letters to family and remarks for the parents to sign off. This was the single biggest stress tool that the school used to get the child to be disciplined. I so freaking hated it. The shame associated with it was so large and the scare that one would have trying to anticipate the parents reaction. It is so freaking silly. Talking in class – bad remark, not in line – bad remark, did not do homework – bad remark, your partner broke the lab equipment – bad remark, eating in class – bad remark… and this one was my favourite.. I got a rap for being too enthusiastic in class. The teachers got some real pleasure in calling parents to class and in the principal’s office and making them cry and plead. It was a ego boosting ceremony. If the child smashed your ego, get the parents to set it right. Can’t you solve the freaking problem yourself? Aren’t you like paid and qualified to deal with children, without getting their parents involved.
My dad was once called into school. The reason was that I was arguing with the teacher. I was right (at least I thought so) and that the teacher was needlessly picking on me. This was in ninth standard. I had a higher sense of right and wrong versus some other students and I was a rebel to start with. Always inspired by Gandhi and other Amar Chitra Katha characters, I would not stand for something that I did not believe in, which I knew to be wrong. So I stood ground and entered into a verbal duel. The teacher did the next thing, call you father. I want to speak to him. This time I was not scared. I was right. I chatted with my dad. He heard me and did the best thing he should have. He explained to me while I might have been right it is improper to argue like that with the teacher. He came in and had a nice conversation with the teacher and closed the issue.
I don’t expect Jispa to be scared of me while doing some kidas in school and college. That cannot be her stick for discipline. Missing a homework assignment can’t be a reason for a scolding. Talking in class? Go ahead… arguing with authority – be smart about it. I would like her to do what she wants to. This is obviously not a blanket approval for her to do anything but it is an assertion that I am surely not scolding her for minor deemed transgressions. Especially when it comes to basic schooling and studies. Fiddling with substances – no that a serious issue. Holding hand with boyfriend? – come sit down, let me tell you what all I did.
These sound simplistic, especially when you have a relatively milder kid in the form of Jisa. She typically has no issue with authority (so far) and does not really test parenting. Who knows what happens when the tide changes. Sometimes parents would need to assert themselves more strongly. I only hope that I think through before I do that. I only hope I am aware of the environment when I take these calls. I hope I first see what was my fault in all this, what was the teachers fault and how we can first correct ourselves. I have seen enough of parents and teachers punishing children what I essentially see as their fault. Most of the time it’s a tripartite responsibility.
But of course, life in educational institutes seem to have moved on in some places and have retained their ‘culture’ in others. Her schooling has been a lot more evolved that what I had. And I hope her college had evolved as well. Even in my management college one of the profs wanted to scare us telling he will write letters to parents. To such characters, and those that will come in my daughter’s life, I have only one message for you – up yours.

santa who

I think I have spoken about this before. Jispa is at an age where she does not really know whether to believe in santa or no. As I had explained to her once. What does it matter if he is real or not. If you believe it, it’s real, if you don’t, don’t bother. While I really did not expect her to get it, she actually understood what I meant. So she is largely indifferent to a lot of this ‘is Santa for real theory’. Ditto for the tooth fairy. This year Santa did not come visiting her. Not because she was not a good girl, nor was is it that she did not believe, but for eth simple fact that she was a satisfied kid. When we asked in advance for what she wanted from Santa, ‘nothing’ came the reply. Was she sure. Yup she was. She did not want anything for Christmas. So that’s what she ended up getting from Santa.
This year we were not in town as well. Suddenly she remembered that she normally left some cookies and muesli and milk for Santa and his reindeer. So she asked me ‘we did not leave anything for him this time, but he will open the fridge and have it himself, right?’ again it is difficult to tell you if she was just playing along or she actually believed this stuff. I think it’s a case of happily ignoring possibilities and focussing on the fun. I replied saying, since you haven’t asked for anything, he isn’t coming. ‘oh ok’ and that closed the chapter on Santa I assume.
While I suspect Jispa is largely a satisfied character, not wanting too much, I nevertheless asked Jasmine ‘is she really that satisfied or we thoroughly spoilt her by giving her a lot, so that she does not want anything’. ‘she is generally the satisfied types’ replied Jasmine, reaffirming my belief in Jispa’s core trait. She s the understanding types as opposed to the ‘I want’ types.
On the subject of gifting, Jispa and I were playing the ‘I spy’ game in her new and extremely cute book ‘where’s hanuman’. Here you need to spot hanuman along with a bunch of other characters in different scenes from the Ramayana, drawn on a double page. The artists seem to be suffering from a hangover of Astrix comics going by the type of fun the characters seem to be having on the pages. So after I played a while, I was helping jasmine with some work. Jispa wanted to play on, but I told her to solve the I spy clues by herself. On a lark I promised her a gift if she did one full page. It was a lot of obscure spotting stuff: ring, discuss, man flat on ground, man in water etc etc. She completed the task, so before a movie I took her to crosswords and asked her to choose any book she could under 100 bucks. She picked on the adventures of suppandi. A comic book compilation from the tinkle comics series. 80 bucks. Suppandi is big hit with her friends as well. It seems they share Supandi jokes in the bus. As a kid, I loved him as well.
But a simple book, here again she was mighty satisfied.

Thanks Jispa for making parenting that much easier.

Two assorted santa links for further reading:-
http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/parenting/archive/2009/12/14/santa-claus-myth-children-harmful.aspx
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091209/ap_on_re_us/us_fea_lifestyles_letters_to_santa

my insensitive avatar

I saw the movie avatar yesterday. At the IMAX flat screen in 3D. I suspect these movies need not be seen in 3D. It seems to be the latest Hollywood scam. For some reason I don’t particularly enjoy the 3D googles. First I hate the fact that I have to really clean the grubby sticky pop corn fingerprints from the lens. Then they seem give me a mild headache. So thanks to that many times in between I keep removing them, and voila… the scene is as pretty. Any who has seen the floating mountains scene without the 3D will also love the visual spectacular. Avatar and others seem to be movies that were converted to 3D as a last minute decision. So while you see the depth but there is no real need to see it in 3D. I guess there is no point in 3D unless you have things flying at you and keeping the third dimension well utilised. Almost all who saw India first 3D movie – Chota chetan, will invarialbly remember the scene in which the protagonist offers the melting ice cream cones that come right at you. Wow… even the alice in wonderland trailers show the magic of 3D where they keep throwing stuff at you. One movie I liked in 3D was monsters versus aliens.
But why am I making such a hullabaloo over this? Real reason: The price of the ticket was 350 bucks a head. Luckily Jispa wasn’t interested so we went while she was at garnny’s house. I weigh the movie by the price tag. 700 bucks for jasmine and me, plus a 220 for the soup and ginger rice. Was it worth a grand? … hold on…220 for what? Well at imax, we always go to Zenzibu and order some soup and rice. The special part begins here, we ask or it to be served to our seats around 30 minutes into the movie. So right in the middle of the movie the guy sends us hot food, while treading on everyone else’s toes, while the movie is on. Hopefully (for the others) it’s not a delicate time of the movie’s narrative. So in the cold theatre we get our warm lovely tasty soup.
But did I tell you the best part? Zenzibu is a south east asian joint. So yes the aromas are packed inside the food waiting to be released in the cinema hall as soon we get the lid off. I am sure that disturbs everyone else. But what the hell, at a net cost of a grand I am having my soup and eating it too.

the jungle

Hiya…. Back after a one week break. Had been to kanha national park. The best place in India to see the tiger. The tiger is a magnificent animal. He walks with a grace that is unseen and a disdain for the tourists in the open jeeps. The fear and the excitement is palpable when a bunch of jeeps come face to face with the tiger. The tiger cares two hoots about your presence as he goes about lazing in eth sun or scratching his claws, peeing in the sand or even as we saw him licking sand.

But going to a national park to see the tiger is missing the point. I hate the safaris that run in search of the tiger. The only aim is to take you from point A to point B as fast as possible so as to get you to see the tiger. The jungle has many splendours to show the willing senses. There is so much to hear, see, smell and feel. A simple case in point – seeing a tiger is one thing but we had the opportunity to hear the calss before we could spot it. We heard calls and then saw the spotted deers with their tails up, erect, looking in a particular direction. This gave us the direction of the tiger. But is still only half the point, or a smaller fraction thereof. Kanha is such a lovely jungle. Going into the jungle in your open jeeps early in the morning with mist all around was unforgettable. I am pretty weird, of all that I saw I will remember the mist and the sunlight falling through the trees, leaves and the tall bamboo grass. The mist was doing the job of the haze machines, which spread smoke in concerts so that you see the light effects.

Jasmine and I have over time learnt the perils of mammal spotting. Contract that with the beautiful abundance of bird life in all their form, colour and crests. Rarely do we return unhappy from a jungle. We love seeing the jungle for all that it is. We love seeing the spider webs, the gigantic ones that spread from one tree to another and the tiny ones that are on the floor and catch trap the morning mist in the form of dew in its web. We loved spotting the red headed vulture gliding above in the sky with its huge wings outstretched. We love the interpretation zone where a lot of the jungle is explained with exhibits and details.

One thing that pleases me no end is the fact that Jispa has developed a love for museums. So she wanted to go through the interpretation zone the second time as well and see and absorb the exhibits. You can’t hurry her through this. She like to wait, see, understand before moving on.

Jasmine and I can see the birds for hours on end. Stopping to soak in the scenery and jungle. This experience was in marked contrast to the one we had at Ranthambore where the bloody canter drove like a maniac for the entire trip across the jungle in an attempt to catch the elusive tiger. We learnt nothing about the jungle, nothing about the trees, birds and felt nothing for the environment. the guide was also quite pathetic and knew nothing. The best naturalists / guides we had so far encountered were in Bharatpur bird park. Kanha also had their fair share of trained naturalists. Guys who could reel of bird names, tree names, their latin names, and most important… they would enthral us with stories about the wildlife behaviour, the plant characteristics and even jungle life (including Jim Corbet stories). When you are in a safari the excitement is not linear, there are spurts followed by lulls. It here that a good guide with his stories makes an impact. After enough of India bashing, these experiences come as fresh air. These guys are trained by the forest officials and the tourism department. They are eager minds who learn from their tourists as well.

As most good guides tell you that a lot is learnt purely interacting with tourists as some come with books, some with some knowledge and some are clear experts who teach them while looking around. A mutually benefiting interaction in the jungle. What more can I ask for?

For the record we saw the tiger in three of our five safaris. A fantastic stroke of luck aided by good tiger density and lovely expanse of grasslands. Also for the record we saw a bird that eluded jasmine and me for some time – the greater racquet tail Drongo. Supposedly fairly available even in borivili national park but this one has eluded us for long. The bird becomes even more special as we see its quite boring cousin the black drongo on almost every wire stretching alongside the length of India.

And one more amongst my favourite is the yellow footed green pigeon. Invariably found as groups on dead barren trees basking in the morning and evening sun. They make a pretty sight in the lovely yellow light, contrasting against a clear blue sky. I remember taking some nice photos of them in Gir. They might there in the one TB of storage that we have at home.

Another big experience was not having the camera with me. I have learnt that the best thing to do on trips is not to carry any sort of camera. It takes away from the trip. What is the point of seeing a beautiful sunset through the viewfinder or the tiger through a LCD screen. Why should I fiddle with the moment. I happily stopped taking photos. I had carried my camera because Jispa wanted to but then I gave it to some another person who wanted the thrill of clicking away. The first day I clicked a few really bad shots of the tiger. The next day after I gave it away, I saw the tiger entirely with my own eyes. NO VIEWFINDER. I might remember that moment better. Ok I might not. But I lived it better for sure.

Last note – I now understand what inspired Rudyard to write the jungle book. It seems it is set in Kanha.

the pivot

In the movie Rocket Singh don’t miss the receptionist. And don’t miss the power she wields. After a decade in the corporate life I have come to acknowledge the power wielded by the receptionists and the secretary. Typically offices like to hire pretty things as secretaries. Sometimes you get dud heads with little brains and sometimes you get some real smart chicks stuck there. The smart ones slowly control the entire office.
As in the movies the lady is typically a housewife with unfulfilled ambitions. She knows she is capable of much more but circumstances ensured she became a receptionist. I know many such ladies. But they work hard and become power centres in their own right. Very rightly in small offices they double up as secretaries, receptionists, tele-callers and customer care officials. More likely than not they like to dress up and look like barbie dolls. Don’t miss the multi color highlights and the over done make up. Its bang on.
As it happens in the movie, you enter the reception to see the lady constantly busy and ignoring you and then putting you onto the right person. She has an aura around her that says, look but do not come in too close or I will bite. The faces they make to show their frustration while their make remains perfect all through the day. I suspect their compact is always handy. The lipstick is never smudged and the nails… don’t miss the well done manicured nails. I have seen all sorts of colors on their nails.
And while you get shunted to some corner she doesn’t seem to care a bit even if shit happen to you. She is ignorant of you. She sees you as the next young thing trying to hit on her.
But don’t mistake the exterior for the inner core. When I was all alone in Balsara, I only had the receptionist for company. She was the only one who spoke to me, smiled at me, almost empathising with eth situation. It happened at many other places. Whenever you are alone its her who gives you company and understands the shit you are going through. Her vantage position gives her an unparallel power and insight into office politics. She can quietly give you tips and some insights in getting you back on your feet. Never ever mess with the receptionist or the secretary. NEVER.
Another scene, you have the sales manager flirting with the secretary and getting an appointment. First the cold look, then the gradual wear down, smile… bang... work done, then the sales guy leaves and the secretary utters a ‘stupid’ or something to the effect. She knows you are flirting with her just to get the work done. She shows he knows the game then acknowledges that she doesn’t mind the attention. Then again after she helps you she gets back by calling you a name. Oh man… I have seen this so many times in my sales life. I always try and talk properly to the receptionist and say thank you when we get to go in, then again when I leave. Always smiling. It helps the second time around you are there. And in sales, you almost invariably are always there again.
The game changes as you get older. From an upstart winning her over, you are now a senior person giving her rightful importance. But the flirting remains.
One incident comes to mind. We were trying to get speakers for a conference in Geneva. One guy we wanted was the India head of the one of the world’s largest PE players. Due to company interconnectivity issues, he couldn’t say no directly, but he did not want to come. Try as we might we couldn’t get him online to talk to him. My colleague got tired as she could only get the secretary. I took the job on myself. I got through the secretary, introduced myself as the vice president (my design is useful for such things) and used the deep baritone (my natural baritone is useful as well). And then if you speak slowly and purposefully you sound like some real big guy. Then I did the next thing… I did not ask for the boss, I just simply chatted up with her. I explained why her boss is required for the speaker, why her company and mine are so connected, I explained to her the politics involved and why her boss wouldn’t say no if I involve my biggest boss in the game etc. Then I forwarded my mail to her. She spoke to her boss and a confirmation came through. Then my colleague took it on correspondence with her boss. This is not the end. Closer to the event, the boss wrote a mail to my colleague saying he might not coming as he has some conflicting appointments. MAYDAY MAYDAY. The SOS came to me. I quickly got onto the call and spoke to my secretary. We spoke and the she got back and said that the boss was wondering if he could cancel (from NO to wondering – big start). Some quick thinking and I replied… well, he can always say no but we have already mailed the invites and we would then need to go back saying that the speaker has changed. That would be a bad thing nah? (The invites had truly gone). She understood and got back the next day. The boss will come. Yahoo…
The first time I spoke to her boss was in Geneva 10 minutes before the conference.
I got crowned the king of secretaries in my office. The colleague says it was a case of male female dynamics. I disagree… it’s a case of giving people their due importance. We just consider them as people who transfer calls and book tickets. We don’t recognise the implicit power they wield and the potential they have in them. It works in spite of your sex. But too many women don’t give other women their due. It might come easy for the men to flirt with the women, but that is too simplistic an assumption. Giving people importance in their filed no matter how trivial it looks is a thing you must not ignore. Everyone has pride in what they do. In the movie Rocket gives people their importance. He calls the peon by his full name, which is a big thing. He gets you tea, but he gets it to you fast and does not spit in it. Appreciate that. but peons is another blog by itself.
Coming to the secretary/ receptions it she knows exactly what is going on in the office and also can help you with the loopholes. The movie is right. Some of that stuff is not so far fetched as it might seem. If the boss hates you are screwed but she can help you, but if she hates you, you are screwed and you have no recourse. It was nice knowing you.
In the movies Gauhar Khan as the recpetionist has done a better job than I suspect she knows. And I suspect no critic will give her due credit for this. It was perfectly cast with the perfect look. Sure there are a million receptionist that don’t look anywhere near her, but as far as typecasts goes, she was awesome. Try as I might I couldn’t get one still of her in the movie. If her publicist is reading this – can you please send me a pic of her from the movie? Preferably a pic with her on her office table, talking on the phone?
In the movies they also show the receptionist threatening the boss that she will set the credit card guy on him… but it’s true that they really help you duck calls, lie for you, get good meeting rooms for you, set up protectors and generally help you in many ways you can’t even begin to imagine.
If you are visiting another office a sweet receptionist can also ensure a note gets sent or a reminder call is made if you are waiting too long for your meeting. They can get the senior most guy to meet you in good time.
In many ways willy nilly, they are the pivot around which the entire office revolves. Don’t get the pivot on your wrong side.

a tea tale

Great I forgot the honey. No I didn’t forget my honey. I forgot the honey. Which honey? The honey in the honey lemon ginger mint tea. Is it tea? well no actually as I don’t put tea in it as well. Oh ok.. and today I didn’t get the mint as well. We ran out of mint. And I forgot the lemon as well.

I like to carry a flask of hot honey ginger lemon water and a few mint leaves on the side to office and quietly sip as the mere pelebs have their over boiled over flavoured tannin disguised as tea fix. I am not normally a tea or coffee drinker in office. Not that I mind any of the above. I kind of love the coffee at the kings circle south Indian restaurants and at the coffee shops, and I don’t mind the hot tea at the roadstall, especially during a rainy day and with a few pakodas. Samosas are good as well. So ya coffee is best had expensive and the tea best had cheap in my book, with filter coffee being the happy exception. I can’t figure whats so hot about earl grey or even chamomile tea. The latter tastes like sweet chameli hair oil poured in your cup. The most interesting tea I have had is at Bhavnagar wholesale market. Here the gujjus add Boost to their tea. DO NOT repel in disgust. My gujju genes ensure I love it. They actually add Boost or Bournvita to their tea to give you a rounded sweet chocolaty flavour. I sure it gives your percentage of recommended daily dose as well.

The coffees in office are absolutely disgusting as is the tea. When you have the machine ready mix teas, they are completely devoid of any aroma. Its better to walk to a nearby tapri to get your cuppa.

So here I am. Sipping my ginger honey lemon mint tea, without honey lemon and mint. Actually I was lucky with the lemon. I walked into the pantry and asked for a lemon. He pulled one from the fridge and looked at me “do you want me to cut it?” “what else” I replied. “Do you think I want a lemon to hang on my car?” That had the rest of the staff there in splits. (it does sound funnier in hindi)

For the record the concoction tastes yuck. A strong ginger brew with a hint of lemon. What good is that… wait a minute... I know… I normally roam around with this stuff and a few kids like to sip from my tea, so let them taste this one. Might be nice to catch that expression. I know what an expression on unexpected hot, cold, spicy, sour taste feels like. Let me see what an unexpectedly strong ginger feels like.

rocket - Reminisces II

Rocket Singh is a sweet story that starts with a young man, wet behind the ears, trying to make his mark in a cut throat sales environment. Cute movie, but what I really resonated with, is the way a new comer is treated in a hostile sales organisation. Hard core sales led structures are quite hostile to new comers, especially simple honest blokes who have no clue what to say to whom and when. Early steps can make or break your career within these structures. I know of this as I went through very similar circumstances.
Like the protagonist in the movie I too started my career in sales. On campus, the hot companies were the FMCGs. These are the one who make and sell soaps, shampoos, detergents, toothpastes etc. one such company that came in was Balsara Hygiene. Initially started by a generally affable chap, it grew to be at that time (11 years back) a 100 crore company selling Promise, Babool, Odomos, Miswak, Odopic etc. the company was sold to the Dabur some time back. The brands were decent but there was a rot in the system that was, to my assumption, endemic to the company.
Like Rocket Singh I joined as an enthusiastic boy, unsure about himself, with the glamour of sales in my eyes. I saw action happening everywhere and I learnt that lies are the most important thing needed to sell anything. I was agasht at the level of lies that were thrown about. People were playing politics with each other, getting the team to fight internally, selling crap to distributors, forgetting.. no denying.. promises and conversations and the lot.
I lasted (barely) for about 9 to 10 months there. Everyone from top to bottom in the branch was there to look at their self interest. Everyone wanted to play their game. It was so unsettling. The branch manager couldn’t care less as long as sales were done. The territory manager didn’t care what happened as long he kept put in his office dreaming of shitty sales strategies. The territory manager and the area sales managers were pathological liars and the sales managers were constantly scheming. They were eating money from the schemes and corruption and nepotism were rampant. Over reporting numbers was common. Of course the sales figures from depot to distributor are truth but the secondary sales figures (distributor to shop) and tertiary (shop to consumer) were sham and figment of imagination. People reported whatever suited them. Reach in terms of number of outlets was a random number that you wanted to show. When I had to fill in a form that reported reach, I went to the branch guys explaining that we don’t go to so many outlets. Should I show the actual much reduced number. The guys were aghast. You cant show degrowth you idiot. Huh? But we don’t go to so many. Arrey… just take last years number and grow that figure near about the sales growth and you have the number. Tera target dekh na… you will have a clue to the answer. WHAT?
Then the schemes. Instead of reaching the retailer, they ended up reaching the distributor. Why? The obstinate reason that these routes are unprofitable at current margins. Who supposed to do the billing and passing of these vouchers? Me?
The pressures to comply with the unethical stuff is just amazing. The stuff bandied about and browbeaten in my head was this is way it’s done. This is the only way. Much like the movie… the pressure to conform to the behaviour is immense. Very soon, much like the movie again, I was isolated. Some of it was because I did not mollycoddle them and a lot was because I did not get the game. Rather I refused to play it.
At the last I even tried pushing the authorities higher up but I got no where. Add to it the rubbish advice, designed to pull me further into the sand pit. Some how Rocket Singh was not so funny anymore.
I identify with his angst, I identify with his predicament and his purpose. Today I can say for sure that the guys at Balsara was wrong. That is not the way to do business. The movie does get preachy but what it tells is right. It’s a pity that business schools will never analyse this movie and the moral it seek to spread. We will overanalyse ever other thing, even far fetched stuff like Lagaan (nice movie, but that’s that). but real issues of ethics, group dynamics, irritating bosses etc are never taught and explained. Good honest blokes will get screwed.
My advice to many young kids has been this, the only way to learn from life is to get slapped by it. Hope you get slapped often enough when you are younger and the cost of your mistake is smaller. I am proud of my Balsara experience. Far away from home, all alone, a thirty day a month tour plan, hostile people, cunning scheming peer and an organisation rotten to the core. Thank you for teaching me what not to do, what not to be. Some of the guys from that branch in Ahmedabad, have gone onto many more things in their life. I felt like naming them here, but hell, I assume… or I hope they have changed. It might not be right to expose them such. Especially after they gave me the biggest learning in corporate life. I might have not understood as much if not for them. It was the most lonely phase in my life. I cried alone, I fought alone, I managed alone. Jasmine was far away in Mumbai. My dad just passed away and I felt like a baby in the midst of a wolf pack. It’s a wonder I got out of that sinking sand. Thank god the economy was offering many more alternatives. I don’t know how much I could have taken.
I also understood the importance and meaning of the word – resilience.
I always wanted to write about it but somehow I didn’t. Thanks to Rocket Singh I did. For anyone to know what it means to be alone, ethical and kicked around, see the movie. It happens exactly like that. Rocket went and set up something else. Most of the time we do what I did – find another job. And ya he is right, most firms are the same. You have to find the one that helps you live with yourself the best.

celbration zenith

Taking in from yesterday’s post. Toda was the birthday of the guy who applies cake on every one. So today he was going to be an obvious target for those wanting to remove all their frustration. I suspect office frustration will also find an outlet through this. So yes, he got plastered all over along with some 18 others. How did that happen? Well, while everyone was enjoying I randomly started picking on a few next to me. Everyone got the hint and we had people running about trying to get the next victim. Some poor buggas went to the wash room, washed and came out to be plastered all over again; some got plastered thrice.
The women’s loos got jammed with women inside washing their face and some more coming in and some inside refusing to come out till the whole episode dies. The gent’s loo can take as many as we could send in to it ;)
I even instigated the emptying of the paper shredder on the birthday boy. They took a few bunches till I came with the entire thing and emptied it all together. To put matters in perspective we have an industrial level shredder as we process a lot of paper and we have lots of clients sensitive data. So that is a lot of shredded paper.
We had people screaming, laughing, some pleading, some fighting. Som estarted crying with the amount of laughing going about. One or two guys from elsewhere tried to enter the floor, saw the hullabaloo and wisely beat a hasty retreat.
It was easily one of the best birthday cake cuttings that I have had in an office. I remember the old birthday celebrations where we used to simply cut the cake and eat it. if I am not mistaken I was responsible for starting this culture of cake smashing. Today was its zenith.

celebrate

Another cake cutting in office. This time some four odd people were left with cake on their face. No no… only one person celebrated the birthday but four got the facial. This seems to be the primary source of entertainment these days in office. Tomorrow is the birthday of the ring leader. The guy who is primarily responsible every time for smashing cake on every one, celebrates his tomorrow. I am only the instigator but he is the real doer. I only nudge people in the right direction.

So tomorrow everyone is ready but really, no one know what to expect. This could turn out to be a cake fight. The ring leader is not likely to be happily stationary while getting smashed by half the office. Some will stay away, better not to antagonise, some will smash and some will not know what to do. The question is who all will get on their face tomorrow. I will keep you posted on the tally tomorrow for sure.

It does get a bit rowdy during the smashfest, but it does lighten up things a bit. We have people running around trying to get away and then we have people try to get on. In the earlier office at least we had a separate cafeteria. This place is a free for all right in the middle of work. So you have the carpet which is smelly of cake even a few hours after the festival. Nauseatingly sweet and creamy smell. What to do of it? I now feel like eating sev puri. What/ sev puri just because of the cake smell. Well I am a gujju ain’t I? any reason is good reason to eat sev puri.

On saturday after the cricket match in the evening I was a bit drained out. I batted for a long time. So I was feeling hungry and thirsty at the same time. Voila the gujju in me eats… try guessing, see if you have gujju genes in you… two plates of pani puri. That surely worked. All this talk is making me hungry. I am off. From my window I confirm the presence of the vendor across the road.

the big Q meets the big A

I really need some creative release. While one of my collegues for searching for a job, she came across this start up company on a job portal trying to be really cool. They posted this job posting which got me interested. I might be just the right guy for the job. The job description fits well. Marketing sales distribution financial services are the correct key words. She applied online only to get an email from them, asking for answers to longwinded questions. What does a man need in life except a challenge? So I decided to answer these friendly blokes myself. It’s nice to do interviews when you are not really looking for a job isn’t it?

So here is the mail I sent them. The Q are the questions they asked and the JD: precedes the answers I wrote. I myself was surprised by the wisdom I exhibited in some answers. Some of them were so deep. They also helped me clarify my own thoughts on some topics. The best part about this is that it is all true, or what I believe to be true
Don’t get me wrong. This is not one upmanship and I really think the guys are genuinely trying to do something different. It’s good for them. Boring stuff gets you boring results. I hope they get some good guys frustrated by trying to beat the systym that is tacked against them.
So if the interview guys actually read my mail and looked me up on google… here is a big thank you and kudos from me.
----------------
The answers:-
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I am tired of inane disclaimers that financial service companies throw at customers at the last; that to in illegible fonts and if you are on the radio, at incomprehensible speed. May God make you big enough one day to inflict the same on others. In other words (duh) may you grow to spend money on above the line marketing.
Disclaimer: a cocky tone with the backing of seed investors (other people’s money) probably appreciates or expects one back…

QUESTIONSQ1 Have you been in a financial products distribution role before? Yes/No

JD:
Oh you betchya…

Q1Y If you answered “Yes” to Q1, then please tell us more. Anillustrative list is -- the kind of product, the distribution channeldetails, the turnover (+ the growth attributable to you), theincentive structure (for you as well as your distribution channel),any extraordinary achievements/contributions (e.g. record breakinggrowth, convinced a particularly difficult but important customer(s),new/innovative ideas you contributed) + any other detail you thinkrelevant.

JD:
I was in looking at Mumbai and Pune as a territory for selling online trading accounts years ago. October 00 to November 01 to be precise. Those numbers were gobsmacking awesome. Oops, did I use a hyperbole. Retract – rephrase – Compared to today’s day of lakhs of account I could only manage a couple of thousand. We weren’t a startup driven by racking numbers to please a seed community. We were owned by a shrewd seasoned business man who only threw money after you got money in. So with a limited sales force and a deeply immature market, that was industry shaking. To give you a perspective, google was just about more than a Stanford project at the time.
Selling internet broking was tough – Sensex was at 2k and internet was the haven of fraud (at least in the customers mind) and to add to that, our dear Mr. Ketan Parikh, decided to play party pooper. You know the guy?
Let’s get back to numbers – our trading volume around the time was 5 cr a day and I was directly attributable to around 3 cr. Not bad considering we had an ‘all India’ presence. But then, was that my over performance or the other idiots at the branches just decided to sleep on their jobs. The Bangalore guy was called Mr. NASDAQ as he always ambled to office at around 12 noon.
Difficult customers were part of the party. If you think difficult customers who were on the threshold of joining are painful in financial services, you aint seen nothing yet. Wait till they join and make a few losses, having their margins cut in a fall and now try recovering money from a dude in bhayendar, who happened to be the local NCP rep. Oh, does that mean I did that. You bet I did. All of the above to multiple people and yes, the bhayander story is true. Now that you reminded me let me dig up that card. I’ll probably frame the dam thing. An, numbers again – the recovery from the NCP guy was around a frightfully low five grand.
Innovative ideas bit – lotsa – we wanted direct sales agents. One poor guy walked in from Pune to start a broking coaching institute. I made him the largest sales agent in India. He is still a large guy there. Now I can happily give you his reference. A year into the job then, he might not have been a happy reference.
Then my company did the silliest thing they could. Took me out of sales (a promotion they told me) and put me in centre. Wow. Now I looked at broad sales strategy (fart), marketing (more fart), product (loud fart), customer service (fart of the highest order) and corporate strategy (beyond just fart). Hung around for a couple of years and left. Did some nice things. Conned a few websites into paying per lead generated. Those were the days of cost per thousand impressions. Google was in its nappies remember, and they hadn’t yet plagiarized the adword model yet.
Got customer service up to mark. Did simple things like design and implement software to track and manage queries as well as – wow – classify customers into buckets based on trading volume. I practically ran out of the cabin naked, shouting Eureka, eureka…. Good thing they don’t have bathing communes in fashion these days. But what’s so hot about implementing a software? Loading a CD can’t be that much tough. Errr… this is the embarrassing part. We decided to build this stuff in house. Ya… I know… my sympathies with me as well.
Incentive structures in those days for the core team was not directly variable a math model. The company made money and hopefully end of the year, they like you enough to give you a bonus. For the direct sales guy, it just was a cash incentive. Innovative stuff was done there in the form of mid month 3 day schemes to get rid of month end bottle necks and stuff like that. Nothing rocket science but a staid financial service firm like ours… boy was that tough getting through.
Record breaking growth – you tried a nice one on the percentage versus multiple growth bit “fairly frightening habit of looking at targets as “Multiples” rather than “Percentages””. Very cool line but would fail to impress anyone who was worked in a fresh company in a fresh industry. Of course you grow in multiples, that too monthly. You have a ridiculously low base. Are any of you the hallowed IIT IIM combos?

Q1N If you answered “No” to Q1, doesn’t matter (well, it might perhapsmatter, but not very much). Please tell us your approach on creating,nurturing and growing a financial product distribution channel. Pleaseremember that on a “Ceteris Paribus” basis, good ideas can be worth asmuch as (if not more than) good experience.
Two hints for you in this connection. The first hint -- our ad clearlymentions that like most startups we too (though we have a Seedinvestor in place) are resources-poor; meaning no advertisement based(or other expensive) strategies or other expensive strategies please.Whatever money we have, we would prefer to spend it on your salary,the office overheads, and most importantly, our villa in Switzerland(just joking). The first hint – Though we are achievement-hungry, wedo generally tend to ignore strategies of the type “give me ‘n”people, each will handle ‘m’ customers, each of these customers doingon an average ‘l’ amount of business annually, so I will give you‘nml’ amount of business in all”! Mathematically impeccable but then…..

JD:Well all other things being equal, while pardoning the latin or is it greek translation, your question here indicates an answer that the earlier question fails to address. So here goes nothing –
Why financial distribution, all channels follow the same logic. Plenty of hard work and sweet common sense. You keep the relationships equitable and work with the partner, you got it going. The amount of consideration that is typically the bone of consideration (eeks, bad English), roots from an imbalance created from an understanding of power. To make things simple –if the distribution owns the customer, you pay high; if you own and hence pull customer – you pay low. To validate the hypothesis, speak to your nearby kirana.
And as far as hiring people goes, it works directly in proportion to the investment you think your firm can afford. People always work well in sales. Feet on street is well – feet on street – forgive an other rubbish aphorism. But if you are like my super boss who believes that, spend money only after you see money, good for you. I have seen enough to see that both strategies are great. Though for a start up that promises growth, stock, valuations and other scary words, conservation might not be the chosen path. After all the swiss villa is calling. And it’s never been cheaper. Thank you subprime.

Q2A As you know, the distribution of financial products is a fairlyfragmented business. There are the national level distributors andthen there are many smaller (but important in their regionnevertheless) players as well. Personal equations are important. Sohow would you assess your existing senior level (decision takinglevel) contacts among the financial products distributors to sourcethem for us? If you do not have any contacts (e.g. you are from adifferent line), then how do you propose to (i) create the databaseand (ii) also acquire the relevant senior level contacts

JD:Having databases is one the surest and smartest way to short circuit the growth process in this industry; but given the wonderfully inadequate innovation in this industry I an assuring you that these databases come with a heavy cost. The cost is invisible… the cost is the mindset of the guy who comes along with it. He comes with existing preset ideas (if you call them that) and the baggage of his current employment (promises made, big talk given).
In my experience if you have a kick arse idea and service, you need a fresh guy with eager brains. If yours is a me-too product, then hire the database.
A small part of my current work does work with people who have names of distributors, and they can be leveraged. But I still can’t fathom the need for this. This industry is small and fairly friendly. A few calls here and there will get you the list.

Q2B A linked question. Once you have the database + the contacts(either because you already have these or you acquire them somehow),how would you then go about keeping it updated?

JD:uhh. That’s a tough one. Will an excel sheet help?I also assume you have budgets for people to travel (not Mallya style of course) and for people to make calls. Is STD enabled on the cell phone? That would help for sure. A greeting card sent by courier might also tell you if the addressee has moved. See. Greetings cards always come with an ulterior motive.
(Is mallya one of the seed guys… then that line just got me screwed, metaphorically of course)
Ohhh now I get it. You were talking about getting more people on it. I must be so thick. .. But if that’s your core job, you kinda just do it. Right? You keep looking, you keep talking and you keep buying them off. The last is the worst thing and must not be done, but so is infidelity. Go on – remember ‘the tiger’. As in woods? Ahhh, my sense of humor must be sickening. Imagine having someone like me around your start up.

Hint:- Please keep the “resource-poor start-up” point in mind whileanswering either of these questions (Question 2A or Question 2B).
JD:Got that loud and clear. What you hiring morons that you need to repeat this stuff?

Q3 An easy question. Please tell us something about your sellingtechniques. The answer length is at your discretion. It can be onesentence or multiple pages (coherently written, of course). And by theway, no “cut/copy + paste” jobs from Phillip Kotler etc please.

JD:PERSISTENCE

I wanted to cut that at one word, but since I seem to be suffering from typititis, here is one cut copy paste from the dictionary. By the way, who’s that kotler chick. Haven’t met her? Does she do handstands? You sure, you not from some IIM?

Main Entry: persistence Part of Speech: noun Definition: steadfastness
Synonyms:
constancy, doggedness, endurance, grit, indefatigability, perseverance, pluck, resolution, stamina, tenacity
Antonyms:
idleness, indifference, indolence

Q4 You would no doubt recall from the advertisement that we arethinking of keeping a part (maybe a large part) of your pay asvariable (incentives disbursed on a monthly/quarterly basis as well ashalf yearly and annually). And that even bigger rewards can hopefullycome your way through stock in our company (amount of stock given isof course performance linked).So what are your salary breakup expectations with us? On one extremeyou could say 0% fixed and 100% variable. Shows a lot of confidence,doesn’t it? On the other hand, you could say 100% fixed and 0%Variable. Without getting into a judgmental mode, don’t you think thisshows a lack of confidence?

JD:Try and answer this
If there was a $100 bill lying on the ground and there were (A) Santa Claus, (B) A dumb blond, (C) The Easter Bunny, and (D) A confident bloke who agreed for fully variable pay standing there, who would pick up the $100 bill?

(B) The dumb blonde. The rest are all fictional characters!

Just pay a guy his true worth and let him overachieve for bonus. Bonus does not run the house. It helps you buy the second car, the club membership and if your company is really cheap – a pair of ray bans. Variable pay to fulfil basic needs is like keeping a dog hungry so that he does tricks with food as the motive when your friends come home. Zoo zoo. As another bad maxim goes – when you pay peanuts you get … yaa.. you know that… some one…duh… Monkeys!

-- Now that the two extreme points have been discussed above, pleasego ahead and let us know your preferred breakup in percentage terms(Fixed component vs Variable component).

JD:Go figure…
Good try on the mental marking though. Dan Ariely would have been so proud of you.--

Within the Variable component, what proportion would you prefer toreceive in stock basis and what proportion as incentives(monthly/quarterly basis as well as half yearly and annually). Theincentives are in concrete/hard money so that is the obviousadvantage. But on the other hand, the stock incentives can potentiallybecome “x” times (“x” being hopefully > 10K, we pray to God), so youcan retire as a Crorepati or as a Multiple-Crorepati. What would beyour preference?

JD:The more you break incentives into multiple months of shorter duration, the more you encourage short term behavior. People will sell the dream to get the best sales for now leaving your company with empty promises and bad reputation. So go, keep a plan in place to reward employees who stuck around irrespective of performance. If you are a start up, everyone there who trusted you must get their fair share. That’s the fun of being a family. Asking people to bet on something they don’t know is such a mean trick. Give them their due. Give them bonus for great work. And give them stock for being with you. So that they too care. If you keep giving stock that requires them to stick around in the future you might just get a whole bunch of people staying around not because they love the place but because they want the stock. I always get on board people who work because they want to not because they have to. And then reward them for working for you. Stock must not be used as a carrot but used as a means for showing you care. You care for your granny not because she has to make her will, but because you care. And if she puts you on the will along with another brother who visited her less than you, you don’t crib.

-- Please also let us know your earlier (existing job or last job, ifcurrently between jobs or unemployed) breakup in terms of Variable vs.Fixed.
JD:well if you do want to know – we have fixed pay and variable in a good year can be as high as x or as low as zilch like last year. Stock – this is a complicated thing, designed to confuse. We are the financial engineers you see.

Q5 How comfortable would you be as an one-man (or one-woman) armywhich is what you would be initially?While answering the above, please do remember that you are an integral(in fact, probably the most important) part of boot strapping thecompany’s growth so initially you may have to really go out (even alone) and get us the business (see Q2A and Q2B above). This is thefirst (and likely to be the most important) phase of your career with us. Once you have done this successfully, then comes the easier andmore fun part -- setting up the marketing department, having multiplelayers below you, multiple number of subordinates reporting to you,putting your feet up on the table while others go out and get thenumbers and generally basking in the gentle glow of your achievement(+ in the context of the incentives + stock options discussed earlier,watching your bank balance grow).

JD:Is this a trick question? Is this a Miss Universe contest? And what’s with the disclaimer after the question?

Q6A What excites you the most about this job opportunity?
JD:Another trick question… you guys are good. You hire a psychologist for this stuff? This time ask Miss congeniality. No, not Sandra Bullock, but then… you sure want a lot of bullock in any case… eeeeks another horrible use of the pun. Yeh bolne ke pehle main mar kyun hani gaya.

Q6B Conversely, what are your biggest apprehensions about this jobopportunity? Please do not write “none” or “nil’ or any suchequivalent word, phrase or sentence here. Please let us know at leastone apprehension -- unless of course you are a real-life edition ofthe emotionless “Terminator” robot in which case we will certainlykeep your CV on file for the future (in case we ever need your unique“Termination of Humans” services).

JD:Now that’s a good question. Give your psychologist a bonus for this one and your copywriter a kick for the ugly ‘terminator’ idea. It is so passé. You might as well have said ‘aasta la vista, baby’. Getting the monotone though aka arnie, might take some doing.So answering the apprehensions:-
Any guy writing the job requirement in this way either is too cocky or too egoistic or too fresh or a really cool bunch. One on four might not be a great odd. But the fear here comes in terms of large ego clashes which are typically responsible for the shit we see. Especially in start ups. I have worked in a few to see it coming. If you guys are good, which I assume you are, your biggest problem is ego. If it is a one man show, then even more so.
Other apprehensions
– Will my pay come on time?
– How big is my cabin?
– How come it’s smaller than his?
– How long before I get my secretary and my big fat company sponsored credit card?
– Where’s my car?

Q7 Any other points you deem relevant.JD:errr… melody itni choclatey kaise bani?In conclusion:-We are really looking forward to hearing from you.
JD:So bless me lord

way to a man's arse...

I don’t feel like writing anything today. The office atmosphere got my brains to get the freeze. What a silly place in the world this is. People ducking, chucking responsibility. Not working but pretending that they are highly busy. Sitting on their stuff for eons and then expecting others to finish on time. Add to that tomorrow we have a divisional man com meeting. When you get sufficiently high in the system (yeah, I heard the shit floats story as well), these are perks you get to waste your time. Mancom meeting. Wow. Imagine getting a bunch of us together to discuss nothing in particular but all issues in general. This is done with a need to gets ‘everybody on the same page’. Ok.. we are on the same page now. Now what? Where the action plan to do what is is decided. The clear date and deliverables required out of members. Follow up on commitments and hold people responsible for them. With out the latter the whole point of the meetings is lost on me.
So I get the freeze. I stopped getting affected by it. I just learnt to live through it. numb. God give me change what can be, patience to deal with what cant and the wisdom to distinguish the two. Solution – brain freeze. Go numb unless you really can change stuff. Look around you. You will see zombies enter meetings, trying to look important. The give away is the eyes. The insecure ones always have shifty eye. Looking around them. The dumb ones and unread ones will be the loudest. And yes you will get mr weasel, mr oily, mr dick, mr ego, mr devil’s advocate, mr navel, mr territorial and so on. And not to mention the most important Mr Switched off. That’s me. Off most of the time till its time. Time for decisions to be taken? No, time to order the snacks and time to grab that one jam biscuit in the tray full of peleb butter cookies. The meeting is all about trying to corner the max tasty food. Only seasoned professionals like me know the difference between quality and quantity. The rest can be happy with the 6 glucose biscuits they got. I have my cream centred ones.
And the secret to popularity is not the one who does most of the work. That is one way, but that’s the tough way. The secret is to be the one that orders the treats at the meeting. Everyone else might feel a little shy to openly bare their dark inner love for mysore masala dosas or the eternal favourite – cheese vegetable grilled sandwich; you have to take the orders and openly ask them about it. Then you are the popular one. You must play the role of the pimp, who is corporatese is always the most popular guy around.
Also you know why the cheese veg grill is eternal favourite. Not because it’s sinful but because it’s the most expensive item on the menu. The pleasure derived is directly proportioned to the expense. Who is talking taste, health and other such triflities. Ditto the diet coke. You always order what people don’t want to consume with their own money.
There…I can already picture you as Mr Popular. Aren’t you the pimp?

dho dala

My wife will not enjoy this one, but this graph accurately represents her. (Source here). Though I think the word ‘sad’ need to be replaced by something more apt. How about ‘proud’?


She keeps doing the laundry all the time. Getting the clothes to the washing machine and then drying them. Many times when we are out the whole day, we come in the evening to start the washing machine. Then she does some other work, or reads for about an hour and then comes the chore of drying them. In spite of the fact that we have enough underwear to go on for a week. This is a genetic disorder. My mom in law is forever using the washing machine. Whenever we stay at her place, the clothes I throw in the morning for wash are ready by the evening, the ones I throw in the afternoon are ready by night and the ones I throw at night are ready by… you guess it…. morning. Then the curtains go in, then the towels go in and then what not goes in. If the machine was a leftist it would have struck work by now. And to add to the proof that it is a genetic mutation – her mom’s younger brother (along with his son) run a large industrial laundry. They shifted from their family business to start this. I rest my case.

On the elocution…
Jispa did not make it through to the final rounds of the interschool elocution. A second standard student from her school had made it. Wow. Am I relieved? This was too stressful for me. Everyday, making her revise, changing some nuances but the worst was seeing her caught between me and the teacher. At the event she was quite subdued in her recital and that probably cost her. I kept teaching her to be over the top but I guess she was told otherwise, or got mixed signals. But I am happier doing this without any stress. Next year we will again try and do the internal one and max it with all the fun that comes with it. With the liberty to do whatever Jispa and I deem fit. Seeing the others in action also gave me a sense of the competition and how boring the others are. It just strengthened my resolve to have a blast during the elocutions. I will scour for the most ridiculously loud and funny poem to recite. When I asked Jispa about it and she was also quite keen to do something funny. With that, my resolve has more meaning.

my froggy teaddy bear

Sometimes Jispa needs someone to sit beside her to sleep. She needs a security blanket of sorts. Yesterday was one such day. She kept making all sorts of excuses for not getting sleep. After a long time she got back into our room. ‘I am not getting sleep’. Since jasmine and me were too sleepy to say anything and it was getting late for her, we just took her in. She was knocked out in two minutes flat.
Jasmine and I looked at each other; ‘no I am not lifting her’, we said to each other. So as was predictable, Jasmine got up did the weasel thing. She slept in Jispa’s bed. It was a good thing that in some amazing stroke of wisdom we had made a full size bed for Jispa.
I am not complaining, I got my tiny warm teddy bear to sleep with last night. In morning I was searching for my teddy bear. Where was it? Ah, there it is, all curled up in the froggy pose at the edge of the bed. I picked it up and lay it correctly on the pillow and put my blanket over it. Hmmmmm…nice warm fuzzy froggy teddy bear to wake up to.
Every one needs a security teddy. I’ve got mine.

mom proposes...

Yesterday Jispa stayed over at my mom’s place so today morning I had to go and pick her. So instead of giving the snack tiffin, my wife decided to give her food coupons for the school canteen. Normally Jispa likes to have some snack and a juice so this time Jasmine decided to give her extra coupons. Typically the juice costs 15 and the food around that as well. So, almost like a treat Jasmine put a full 35 rupees in the wallet. More than she ever has put at one time. It’s normally only 20 or 25. Full treat was on for Jispa.
This is what transpired. At the counter Jispa first saw a cake, so she took one for 12 bucks and then she saw the juice which she took for 15. So now she couldn’t really have anything else as there isn’t anything available for remaining 8 bucks in her wallet. Hahaha.
Jasmine’s attempt at a wholesome snack was effectively thwarted and foiled by Jispa.
I would assume most mothers would find this story exasperating; most fathers would find this highly amusing, most childless couples might find this sweet and bachelors would ask – So?

random thoughts are not philosophy... ok they are... or atleast at least could be...some day... perhaps

Hey what an innings I played… I hit 30 runs in one over.. uhh… ok, it was a tennis ball match, but it was in a proper cricket ground… uhh, ok the boundary was brought a bit inside.. but it was a proper match… ok it was a 8 a side match… but it was a proper match… uhh it was a internal tournament… but it was their opening bowler.. ok ok… he was a bowler who might have bowled after 10 years. But I still whacked it out of the park. Didn’t I? I said this some blogs ago… if you set your standards reasonably low you will always be happy. It works well for cricket for sure. Hehe. But it was good highlight for a Saturday.

On Sunday Jasmine, Dinesh and me went for a coffee at café coffe day. There we had this petit girl serving us. Quite a small thing but cheerful and fun. I quite like her attitude. And I do like seeing young people work. And as a contrast, I saw a bunch of girls descending the steps. The typical college going girls with a ‘I am so bored’ look on their face. Forgive my typecasts, but they did look like bimbettes, ok there is no word like bimbette but you get the drift. I couldn’t help but think that while it’s likely that my daughter will grow up to be the customer at the coffee shop but I would consider it tragic if she did not even once in her life play the role of the waiter. Too much mumble jumble? Here is the short of it – Get a summer job and grow up

getting back to basics

I quote William Dalrymple from ‘the age of kali’. Here Benezir Bhutto was talking to him about the book – Freedom at Midnight.
“Was she being serious? Freedom at Midnight is terrible schlock pop/history – the Indian independence movement for imbeciles – hardly the sort of book you would expect to find a senior south Asian statesman admitting to read. Moreover, its account of the events of 1947 is deeply biased against Pakistan, and presents Jinha as a little more than a crazed megalomaniac. Assuming she was joking and now regarded the purchase as an embarrassing mistake, I laughed – only for it to become immediately clear that she was in fact entirely serious.”

I had read Freedom at Midnight and I though it’s an awesome book. My interest and regard for Gandhi started off from that book. My interest in partition started off from that book. Both of these topics amongst others in the book set me off to many more books that I subsequently read. I recommend that book to all those with a vague interest in history. But in my zeal I forgot my basic lesson. Every book is just that ‘a point of view’. No that I look back I think I was blind to this. This is a lot of weight in what William says. Louis Fisher’s Gandhi too does not really describe Gandhi in Kolkata at the time of partition in the way FaM does. But then the way Louis closes the chapter on the salt satyagraha will remain permanently etched in my memory. To jog back to the book, it was terribly poetic to be history.

So where does leave me. Hehehe. Well, it’s left me with a hard knock on my head. I have spoken about this in the past. Reading books gives you and advantage over mortal non readers. But it also gives you an inflated ego. I try and battle this ego daily. Reading books also gives me an attitude that helps me tide over the ego. The notion that truth is so subjective. Two individuals watching the same incident may such conflicting versions of the truth. There is no absolute truth. It is only a point of view. Such a vicious attack on my favourite book has left me scurrying for cover. While I hold it high esteem (I still do, albeit a bit lower), I am suddenly more open and circumspect while thinking about it, talking about it and recommending it.

This clearing of hubris is not limited to books. Over time I have realised that hubris gets entrenched in your head all the time. Anything that you do well has a potential to create it. The confidence that you get is by doing things well is the positive aspect and the ego is the negative aspect. Both come in together. In cricket after you just hit the bowler for a six, you have to clear your head and your thoughts else you will perish the next ball. You have to forget that you have just hit a six and treat the next ball again on its own merit. Even after doing an action again and again, repeatedly and brilliantly, the follow up action cannot have any of the hangovers of the first. If you let hubris get to you, read this link on hubris by Devdutt to understand the consequences.

I battle this everyday. This passage was a good tight slap to my hubris. Schlock? Imbecile? Wow. Bahut maara re… I will remember this slap for a long time to come. You have no idea what it means when someone destroys your favourite book thus.

Sometimes I too forget the title of my blog. Things seem opposite in nature and they cannot come together. But somehow in life opposites reconcile. In fact in my title I have put an additional word ‘must’. ‘Must’ gives an idea of action, which is a bit misleading. Many times they remain without doing anything. That itself is an act of reconciliation. Hence in your mind they ‘must’ reconcile. Sorry for the ‘schlock’ philosophy for imbeciles. But I have just been proved one so it does work for me :)
Thank you William. But I still do love the book. It has given me a lot.

so lonely

This is so right…
I quote “Loneliness is like a disease -- and what's worse, it's contagious. Although it may sound counter-intuitive, loneliness can spread from one person to another, according to research being released Tuesday that underscores the power of one person's emotions to affect friends, family and neighbours.” (link to full article)
Lonely people spread loneliness the same way that depressed people spread depression. While in an altruistic world, one would not shun such people but try actively to bring them out to the normal world and make them the see the ‘beauty of life’. But this shit works only if the feeling is not in tune with their essential character. If you recognise this as an essential character of the person in question – my advice to you would be – RUN. FAST.
There are so many negative characters you meet, characters who are cynical, depressed, forever getting bugged and irritated. If you stay with them you will slowly mimic them. Any mood is contagious. You can try passing on your ‘positivity’ (whatever) to them but the risk is just not worth it.
In office there are constant naysayers, constant argumentative nuts, constant idiots who just don’t see the point and according to Devdutt, the bums who fight on both sides (link here) – the proverbial ‘devil’s advocate’.
Whenever someone really gets to me by constant bitching, complaining, arguing, I just refuse to fight. Either I run or I stop the argument. One interesting way to make a bitcher run away from you is to praise exactly what they are bitching. If that’s too difficult this trick never fails – take a reverse perspective of the same and ask him to consider the other side. See him run like a black buck with Salman Khan on his tail. (wasn’t that a sad metaphor. But I couldn’t help it)


a few videos...


a political one...



and finally the one I wanted to show...

getting it right

What happens when you have two trainers? Hehehe. First we train her at home for the elocution competition and then yesterday her elocution teacher at school trained her. While she did not change the narration too much, basic differences were there in the approach. I teach to be a little over the top in emotion. A little over emotion is ok. With all the kids going for one or two tones, I like to teach at least five six tones if not more. So not everything is loud. Some words are soft, some loud, some with a chuckle, a sad one, a surprise etc… This ensures she stands out in the crowd. With kids coming and going in a procession, elocutions can get boring for the judges as well. My belief is that only if you first entertain, then will you have a chance to win. The teacher has an obvious emphasis on the clarity. She sacrifices emotion for clarity while I do the reverse. Clarity aa jaaye ga if the emotion is right.
But I guess it is wrong to undermine the teachers experience. So as I was training her today (95% of training is in the car while I drop her to the bus stop), she kept telling me that her teacher taught her otherwise. Like good parents I conceded. I allowed her to keep what the teacher said but I still tried to push for subtle emotions within the words. So that there is still enough variation in the poem. I have to teach something that takes the clarity that the teacher teaches while allowing for the emotion that makes the poem come alive.
What I am also happy is that her teacher does not simply teach the emotion. She explains why the emotion fits into the story. Like one line (“which added up to 46, or its it 52?) Where she says that you can’t be loud because you are thinking and calculating. Fair. I had told her to be loud in – ‘added upto 46’, as she is jumping to a number and then think for ‘or is it 52’ as now you sheepishly think you have made a error.
Aaaaaa. I don’t really bother. It’s right as long as there is a justification. And as long as Jispa understands it, she will be getting it right either way.
The greatest thing in parenting is that I remember my childhood. I remember a lot of incidents even from as long back as 2nd standard. So at least I know which mistakes to avoid. At least I am making fresh mistakes. I clearly remember having conflict when mom taught differently from what the teacher taught. I used to argue with mom, when she insisted otherwise. Some times I was right while I assume that most of the time mom would have been right, but the stress of POSSIBLY getting it wrong was greater the stress ACTUALLY getting it wrong. As the latter is a small thing when you just get corrected, while the former shimmers all through, from when you do home work till you hit school. So with Jispa I never argue with her if she tells me that the teacher taught her otherwise. I merely explain my point and let her do it her way. The stress is just not worth it. She will soon figure. Making mistakes is a better way to learn than to get it right all the time.
One incident jumps to memory. While I was an average to above average kid in class (rank 8 to15 out of 60 kids), in tenth standard I really started doing well in maths. I was always good but in tenth, focussed studies and better practice helped me shine in my favourite subject. Also my teachers were pretty cool. I even figured a different way of solving a sum which I thought was right. My school teacher Mr Thomas, allowed me to keep that way while just telling me to write down the calculation in steps and not jump to the answer. That was great motivation I guess. So in tenth in one of the unit tests I scored 49 on 50. Mr. Thomas looked at the final score and asked if I knew where I went wrong. I showed him and he got pissed. He said he should have cut more marks for that mistake. I had done everything right everywhere but in one sum in the end I had totalled 7+5 as 11. That was my only chance of scoring a perfect score ever in my life. I had blown it up. I knew in the finals the boards wouldn’t let me score a perfect score. Sure enough, I got 74 on 75 in algebra and 73 on 75 in geometry. There was only a one mark error in algebra where there was a fill in the blank on a technical math issue. So yes, I missed my perfect score as 7+5 is 12 and not eleven. Till today whenever I see 7+5, I will first think 11 and then see that problem in front of me and I know the answer is 12, and I regret missing the perfect score. I remember solving the sum in the exam, I remember checking it, I remember saying to myself – 7 +5 = 11. Then I remember the paper duly corrected and I remember Mr. Thomas’s words. This was all in 1990. I just won’t forget it.
Look at the trade off, if I had got it right, this would have not been a part of my memory. At best I might have remembered the perfect score, that’s all. My memories would have been worse off. Aarrggghhh. I want the score and I want the memory.

role model? look around

Once a friend came out from an interview and was talking about it. He said that he was asked a question on his role model. His answer ‘my father’ was dismissed as being boring. He then proceeded to narrate how he explained that actually, there are many role models, in all walks of life. If one person bats better, then he is role model for batting, if another presents well, then he would be my role model for presentation.
This was in college during my management when Shoppers Stop had come for summer interns. And the friend in question was the affable Cherian Varghese. God bless you Cherian. I don’t know weather he meant it or he was being sharp in an interview, but he gave me the wisdom that I have held for a long time.
Every one, everything can teach you a thing or two. No matter how bad they are, they still can teach you.
I have learnt to learn from everything and everyone. Everyone is good and look at the good side of it. It’s easy to be critical and find fault with probably anything. I have learnt that fault is a way of life and most of the time it is important for the fault to be there else the good will not be there as well. A simplistic example – a great painters vanity may be his driving force, another aggression might lead him to do great work but also is responsible for burning his team. Etc etc..

This is a video of Orhan Pamuk, 2006 Nobel winner in literature. A lot of us fail or have many failures. What do you look at? What do you look for?

but daaaaad

Yesterday I caught Jispa reading ‘the wimpy kid’ again. I told her to read it only on the condition that she asks us what she does not understand. Else no more reading for her. Later into the evening as she was reading I caught her again and asked her to read aloud some line. As we thought – she was skimming through. One word she knew the meaning but couldn’t read it was ‘definitely’. That’s when I looked at her and said… ‘no more reading’. She looked at me and a tear swelled in her eye. ‘no more Wimpy kid’ she said ‘not no more reading’. I just kept quiet and looked at her ‘nooo… you cant stop my reading’ she cried.
Did I feel like a third grade villain? I did not know what to do. I did not want to give in easily. Just giving up the wimpy kid would not have been strict enough and anything more would have been too strict.
I did the dad thing. ‘Now get and go for bath, brush your teeth and get ready for bed’. I just side stepped the punishment. What to do. I was not going to punish someone for reading but I sure want her to read and not skip words.
And then before bed another test of parenting. Teaching and preparing Jispa for the interschool elocution. I don’t want to push but if I don’t she does not improve. She wants to improve but that would mean making her rehearse again and again… these are not so easy calls. I would like her to do her best, win and compete. But I don’t want her to pay a price for it. So I try to tell sweetly. Keep telling her that I don’t mind if she does not practice, use emotional to make her practice. I even let her put her own emotions even if they aren’t 100% right, so that she has some ownership. And after all I also don’t know what the judges will be looking for. Her guess is as good as mine. I am happy she is processing and trying to use her brain. That’s the real battle. She competes this Friday. I hope to polish some rough edges by then. Without pushing her too hard. I really want her to enjoy it as opposed to having pressure.
I am not sure if I should go to the finals though Jasmine is keen to be there.
I would love to see her perform but I don’t want any burden of expectation. Go ahead and spit out on stage… it’s the fun that counts. If you had fun and did your best, then only will you want to do it again. What’s the point of a flash in the pan? Doing regularly what you like doing is the ultimate elixir.