Yesterday was a typical Sunday night. I was in bed reading a book by 930pm. and I was asleep by 10. We like to get to sleep early on Sunday night in preparation of the huge week ahead. While I was half asleep, I thought I heard a doorbell. I argued about the rality of it in my sleep before deciding that it was a real doorbell and I hastened to answer it. I opened it to find a kid near the opposite neighbour door. A real tiny kid with a satchel in across his shoulder, with specs and a Sunday best attire. He must have been all of three feet tall. I later wondered who must have helped him ring the doorbell. He hardly might have reached there. Nevertheless, seeing me open the door, he came to me and I could see he had a board in his hand with a paper clipped on. He came to me and said “uncle, you have to write your name here, address here and phone number here” pointing to the place in his place. It was an excel sheet with something written at the top and a list where everyone could write their details. A ha. This sweet kid was on a money collection mission sent by his school. He then added the line he crucially forgot. “You also have to give ten rupees or more if you want to.”I figured that bit looking at the form.
I studied in a convent school. The whole point of schooling seemed to me to collect money for charity. Every occasion we would get a form and a purpose. Someone is ill or some building needs repair or like half the time, we did not even bother what the purpose was. My brother used to absolutely hating begging and I probably took cues from him. I did not particularly like it. I grew up to kind of hate it. When I speak about this to a few colleagues, the standard response was that they hated it as well as kids. I know a lot of tough things build character. Buts what the theory of begging... does ringing bells and asking for money might help overcome initial shyness and awkwardness? What a pain.
Luckily I had a tenner in my wallet. He did not have any change. I asked him where he kept the money. A ha, the satchel served that purpose. I put it in the satchel, and asked him where he stayed. My larger worry was that a kid (he was in the first standard) was roaming out alone at ten pm ringing bells and asking for money on a Sunday night. He happened to stay in my building on another floor.
Luckily I think things have improved over the years. I think people are more in tune with donating, knowing that schools keep sending these kids all the time. I have a policy of always playing up when a kid comes in. I know what shit I went through. I don’t ask stupid questions; don’t bother about, school or purpose. I just see if the kid is a genuine bloke and pay up. Put him out of his misery fast enough. Typically to overcome shyness the kids also hunt in pairs. Two of the same school run around the building together and fill their forms in a pre agreed algorithm.
Luckily for this kid I was the last one. And at 10pm it was about time. I question the logic of the school to send a kid from the first standard begging. I don’t really blame the parents. He would about 6 to 7 years old. I later glanced over the form and saw the purpose and school. Oops. Why was I surprised? It was my alma mater, my school, Don Bosco at Matunga. Oh god. They were renovating the boarding quarters and I was even eligible thanks to my donation for an entry into a raffle that gave me the chance to win ‘exciting’ prizes. 20 years and things have not moved a bit.
Come one guys. Stop it. There are many interesting and better ways to raise money than begging. Nobody paid to get a chance to enter a raffle. They paid because they saw this poor kid being sent on a mission from his school. I remember how the teachers used to publicly praise the kids who managed to get more money and the ones that got in less. The vice principal once went from class to class to show the form of an outstanding student who got a lot of money from his relatives and friends for a cause.
Sometimes the cause is genuine. Some kid in school who got cancer and needed money for treatment. Sure it’s important to lend a hand, but I do feel that the schools overdid it. Not just my school but I remember all the kids in all the schools doing it. I did also feel that the convent schools were more in tune with this than others.
So now. It is a charitable foundation that surely runs a pretty decent school. I did learn and owe quite a bit to my school and I also realise that they need funds. The school is today also kept in a great shape for the kind of fees it charges and I do assume that not a large portion of it might be lost in transit. The facilities and the ground and the buildings look in good shape. So how else should they raise money?
Well the great old way – ex students. Students who have made it big and still feel a bit for the school and its mission. They have an ex students association. They meet on some predetermined Saturday, but when I went there I only found old political basterds and a coterie that did not want to change things. There is a thriving community on the social networking sites and sadly our idiots aren’t there. Or least haven’t yet managed to reach us there. If there is a simple engagement program that is open and transparent, I guess, raising money won’t be that difficult. There are many people who want to engage and give something back. You just have to give them a reason. You might get stuff in kind or cash or endowments. It can’t be that difficult. There is surely enough money around. Also the fact is that schooling is highly localised and at least 50% of the community probably still stays around the same area. But that is still a shitty argument when the web breaks all geographical barriers.
My college principal made it a great art of keeping in touch with some celebrity students who passed out. I mean the industrial house type guys. He regularly gets the community to put money on the table. But contribution can also be in simple ways. I teach at my college because my teacher once called me and asked if I could come in. She understood that I wanted freedom to teach and money was not my motivation. For 200 bucks an hour there was never enough meat in teaching money. But I have time to give and students got a decent prof from the industry. Better than the other older ‘professional’ teachers. And at that rate how could the professionals give in their best. Thje ex students came up whenever she called and contributed however she wanted them to. Money was the last thing on anyone’s agenda.
If suitably engaged would most of the ex students say no. I don’t think so. Do we know enough of ex students to cough up around300 bucks each? That was the amount that young kid raised. 30 homes into 10 each. Surely. I guess most would even give a predetermined amount just to stop the kids from going out. I am game for a couple of thousand bucks a year... easy. No questions asked, only stop current students from going around with a bowl.
Monday, December 06, 2010
Thursday, December 02, 2010
thinking
Haha. I liked listening to Salman Rushdie. He says Inspiration is nonsense. It’s more to do with concentration. I resonated with he said. If you sit in one corner and think about your work then you are bound to do a decent job of it. I think a lot of time is normally wasted by the creative in search for inspiration. Sure, some places or incidents inspire you to do something but that is the case when you are not a creative type of person. There is inspiration everywhere, what is required more often is a frame of mind.
My office is pretty boring with a bunch of staid bankers. Yack. They do their dull boring jobs with reasonable efficiency. People like me stick out like sore thumbs. We write on whiteboards with a certain flourish. I even wrote on the glass walls of the cabin. (yes, I have a cabin here. I have finally arrived. Bah!). Seeing my whiteboard itself the guys break into some kind of ‘I am not you’ exotic dance. Now they see the glass walls with stuff written all over them and wonder which planet we creative guys come from.
It’s my standard grouse with them. Just because you can’t think with your right brain doesn’t mean I can think with my left. I use both sides and you have decided to use only one. I understand your accounts, your maths and all your stupid equations. You just decided that to be creative one has to think creative. To me it’s just a question of losing a bit of inhibition and asking ‘so what’. I ask it and you accept it. That’s the only difference. Once when we were presenting something in the conference room, the super boss wanted to ask us ‘right brainers’ for an opinion. That irked me and I sharply told him, what right brain? I am not right brain. You believe I am, but I use both. In hindsight it might have been a CLM (career limiting move) but I can’t stand this – ‘you are creative, a different being’ typecast.
Some think more creatively than others but that does not make one less creative. I agree with Rushdie. One has to sit in one corner, follow a process, concentrate and perform. It’s not like a magician who plucks stuff from a hat. But possible to someone else sitting on the outside, it is that. That’s how I would possibly think of painters, architects, designers etc. In the same way that the bankers think of me.
Hmm. I think I am getting a bit confused here. Are creatives inherently different from those who are not. Can any one learn to be one by sheer ‘hardwork’. What is this beast? I don’t know, but all that I know is that ideas come to me like a torrent. It can’t be that difficult. But those outside of the circle don’t believe so. Possibly right brain and left is different. But one thing is sure ... Rushdie is right. It is a lot of ‘work’ and concentration.
He also says “that when you write you in a way write out of what you think of as your best self, the part of you that is lacking in foibles and weaknesses and egotism and vanities and so on. You’re just trying to really say something as truthful as you can out of the best that you have in you. And so somehow the physical act of doing it is the only way you have of having access to that self. I mean when you’re not physically writing you don’t have the key to that door and but when you get into—and certainly speaking for me—when I get into a state of properly concentrated attention then I do think that that is... I think of that as my best self, the self that does that.”
I don’t write anywhere near as much but when I am blogging and I start writing I don’t know where I am going to end. When I sit down and start writing and I concentrate words flow and I type. I cant think the way I think while writing if I am not writing. Somehow the physical act of writing is required. One of things why I love blogging is that it has in many ways helped me clear my own mind. There were things inside of me that I did not know till I wrote them. writing them helped me get the argument clear, reinforced what I believed in and gave me a ‘pause’ to think. One does not otherwise structure an argument in ones head. It’s the same thing as talking to someone. Most of my thoughts have only been ‘discovered’ by myself while talking o other people. Especially erious conversations. Many times while giving advice or playing agony aunt.
Talking to people, writing a blog. They have helped me trwemendously. While I started this blog and largely continue it as a legacy for my daughter, the fact is that I get great joy in writing and that it hashelped me be a better boss, captain, worker, parent and a better person overall. I also think it has helped me reinforce my ethics.
For such humble beginnings the blog has achieved quite a bit. Thank you for those reading it. When my google analytics shows visitors from across the world, somewhere it’s heartening. Someone is sharing my story now while I try and pour some of me into this. It is a different kind of feeling. Sigh…
Question: You’ve said that the act of writing transforms you into the best version of yourself; is it inspiration?Salman Rushdie: It’s not inspiration. It’s concentration more and it is to do with developing skills of concentration and I think that is something which, well a few things I think about being a writer that you get better at with time. There are things that you perhaps don’t get better at. Energy is something which maybe declines, but I think concentration, focus, the ability to shut out the extraneous and focus on what you’re doing. I think the more you do it the better you get at it. I think that is true and I think it’s also true that… and I think I've heard other writers say it too, that when you write you in a way write out of what you think of as your best self, the part of you that is lacking in foibles and weaknesses and egotism and vanities and so on. You’re just trying to really say something as truthful as you can out of the best that you have in you. And so somehow the physical act of doing it is the only way you have of having access to that self. I mean when you’re not physically writing you don’t have the key to that door and but when you get into—and certainly speaking for me—when I get into a state of properly concentrated attention then I do think that that is... I think of that as my best self, the self that does that. And I wish I had access to it the rest of time, but at least I can find my way to it through that. It’s not inspiration. I think inspiration is nonsense, actually. Every so often I mean like one day in 20 or something, you will have a day when the work seems to just flow out of you and you feel lucky. I mean you feel and often surprised and you don’t quite know why it is working like that. And on days like that it’s easy to believe in a kind of inspiration, but most of the time it’s not like that. Most of the time it’s... I mean I wish there were more of those days, but most of the time it’s a lot slower and more exploratory and it’s more a process of discovering what you have to do than just simply have it arrive like a flame over your head. So I do think it’s to do with concentration, not inspiration. It’s to do with paying attention and I think the business of writing a great deal of it is the business of paying attention to your characters, to the world they live in, to the story you have to tell, but just a kind of deep attention and out of that if you pay attention properly the story will tell you what it needs.
My office is pretty boring with a bunch of staid bankers. Yack. They do their dull boring jobs with reasonable efficiency. People like me stick out like sore thumbs. We write on whiteboards with a certain flourish. I even wrote on the glass walls of the cabin. (yes, I have a cabin here. I have finally arrived. Bah!). Seeing my whiteboard itself the guys break into some kind of ‘I am not you’ exotic dance. Now they see the glass walls with stuff written all over them and wonder which planet we creative guys come from.
It’s my standard grouse with them. Just because you can’t think with your right brain doesn’t mean I can think with my left. I use both sides and you have decided to use only one. I understand your accounts, your maths and all your stupid equations. You just decided that to be creative one has to think creative. To me it’s just a question of losing a bit of inhibition and asking ‘so what’. I ask it and you accept it. That’s the only difference. Once when we were presenting something in the conference room, the super boss wanted to ask us ‘right brainers’ for an opinion. That irked me and I sharply told him, what right brain? I am not right brain. You believe I am, but I use both. In hindsight it might have been a CLM (career limiting move) but I can’t stand this – ‘you are creative, a different being’ typecast.
Some think more creatively than others but that does not make one less creative. I agree with Rushdie. One has to sit in one corner, follow a process, concentrate and perform. It’s not like a magician who plucks stuff from a hat. But possible to someone else sitting on the outside, it is that. That’s how I would possibly think of painters, architects, designers etc. In the same way that the bankers think of me.
Hmm. I think I am getting a bit confused here. Are creatives inherently different from those who are not. Can any one learn to be one by sheer ‘hardwork’. What is this beast? I don’t know, but all that I know is that ideas come to me like a torrent. It can’t be that difficult. But those outside of the circle don’t believe so. Possibly right brain and left is different. But one thing is sure ... Rushdie is right. It is a lot of ‘work’ and concentration.
He also says “that when you write you in a way write out of what you think of as your best self, the part of you that is lacking in foibles and weaknesses and egotism and vanities and so on. You’re just trying to really say something as truthful as you can out of the best that you have in you. And so somehow the physical act of doing it is the only way you have of having access to that self. I mean when you’re not physically writing you don’t have the key to that door and but when you get into—and certainly speaking for me—when I get into a state of properly concentrated attention then I do think that that is... I think of that as my best self, the self that does that.”
I don’t write anywhere near as much but when I am blogging and I start writing I don’t know where I am going to end. When I sit down and start writing and I concentrate words flow and I type. I cant think the way I think while writing if I am not writing. Somehow the physical act of writing is required. One of things why I love blogging is that it has in many ways helped me clear my own mind. There were things inside of me that I did not know till I wrote them. writing them helped me get the argument clear, reinforced what I believed in and gave me a ‘pause’ to think. One does not otherwise structure an argument in ones head. It’s the same thing as talking to someone. Most of my thoughts have only been ‘discovered’ by myself while talking o other people. Especially erious conversations. Many times while giving advice or playing agony aunt.
Talking to people, writing a blog. They have helped me trwemendously. While I started this blog and largely continue it as a legacy for my daughter, the fact is that I get great joy in writing and that it hashelped me be a better boss, captain, worker, parent and a better person overall. I also think it has helped me reinforce my ethics.
For such humble beginnings the blog has achieved quite a bit. Thank you for those reading it. When my google analytics shows visitors from across the world, somewhere it’s heartening. Someone is sharing my story now while I try and pour some of me into this. It is a different kind of feeling. Sigh…
Question: You’ve said that the act of writing transforms you into the best version of yourself; is it inspiration?Salman Rushdie: It’s not inspiration. It’s concentration more and it is to do with developing skills of concentration and I think that is something which, well a few things I think about being a writer that you get better at with time. There are things that you perhaps don’t get better at. Energy is something which maybe declines, but I think concentration, focus, the ability to shut out the extraneous and focus on what you’re doing. I think the more you do it the better you get at it. I think that is true and I think it’s also true that… and I think I've heard other writers say it too, that when you write you in a way write out of what you think of as your best self, the part of you that is lacking in foibles and weaknesses and egotism and vanities and so on. You’re just trying to really say something as truthful as you can out of the best that you have in you. And so somehow the physical act of doing it is the only way you have of having access to that self. I mean when you’re not physically writing you don’t have the key to that door and but when you get into—and certainly speaking for me—when I get into a state of properly concentrated attention then I do think that that is... I think of that as my best self, the self that does that. And I wish I had access to it the rest of time, but at least I can find my way to it through that. It’s not inspiration. I think inspiration is nonsense, actually. Every so often I mean like one day in 20 or something, you will have a day when the work seems to just flow out of you and you feel lucky. I mean you feel and often surprised and you don’t quite know why it is working like that. And on days like that it’s easy to believe in a kind of inspiration, but most of the time it’s not like that. Most of the time it’s... I mean I wish there were more of those days, but most of the time it’s a lot slower and more exploratory and it’s more a process of discovering what you have to do than just simply have it arrive like a flame over your head. So I do think it’s to do with concentration, not inspiration. It’s to do with paying attention and I think the business of writing a great deal of it is the business of paying attention to your characters, to the world they live in, to the story you have to tell, but just a kind of deep attention and out of that if you pay attention properly the story will tell you what it needs.
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
change
Typically so far in my career I have been a set up specialist. I have gone and set up systyms for marketing / sales. I have so far not worked on an inherited structure. The only one exception has been my first job where I inherited a structure in sales and I was a miserable failure. But that was twelve years ago when I was a novice and anyone would be able to walk over me.
This time in my new role I have inherited a team and lots of structures and complexities. A lot that I don’t like and lot that don’t really need changing. One of the greatest revelations had come to me around 8 years ago. This when I was inheriting a very small and tiny customer service team. Coming from sales I thought the team was a bunch of dumbos and that nothing could be achieved or got through them. I wasn’t looking forward to this assignment. Nopes. Then when the handover happened, I looked at the girl who was the customer service head and told myself, let’s make it work. I have no clue why I did that. I just suddenly resolved that no matter what I will think of her as a good resource and that we will make her work well. She is a good person unless I am proved otherwise. Magic happened from then on. She started doing much better. She immediately responded positively to me and me to her. We set up processes and procedures that improved and gave teeth to customer service. We started bashing back the sales guys who had made it a habit of bashing service people. Service was bad, not doing their job, a piece of cake etc etc. The sales system got it back this time. Lacunas in the system were identified and ironed. Issues with sales were highlighted. Woes of the service team were stated before the bosses and a voice was created that would be heard. The service head, who was denied a promotion was given one next year. I thought it was a magical transformation. Not of her... but of me. I keep that incident as a guiding light for a lot of my interaction with the team.
It’s always easy to rubbish people and especially if you are inheriting a team. You can always rubbish eth procedures followed and the decisions taken. But to my mind if you believe that everything had a reason and that reason was to the best of that person’s thinking, then you might start seeing merit in it. The fine line between changing things and letting tem remain constant. This is the constant tug of war. Every day I come in to office thinking of what I must change and what I must let remain. Some things I must change right away. Some cultures must be removed from the roots and thrown away and some part of culture must be nurtured. But the most important of all is the people involved. What is going on in their mind. Are they free to speak up and oppose the new boss and new fangled ideas? Every day I see shit and see gems of brilliance together in the same room. The mindset I have is always that the people are good and that they will achieve what they are capable of. If the mindset remains that people will remain the same and that achievement is required irrespective then the actions I take change accordingly. Instead of getting angry or dissatisfied, one becomes the agent of change. Change that is softer on people. Change that is lasting and causes lesser stress. I have had a boss who believed that he had to bring about change. But that change he brought about was at great cost to people. He created a stressful environment and believed that he was an antibiotic (his own words). By that logic I assume he thought that we were bacteria. Then he will treat us as that.
The last few years my epiphany has been that people are the most important thing in the world. Not brands, not customers, not profits. They are all there but they finally stem from the people that you work for, who work with you and those who work for you. Happy people produce beautiful results. I remain guided by one single objective – do what is right for the person. The company, brand and culture will automatically get aligned. Many times what is right for the person is not what is right for the company and then the incongruence of goals results in stress. Sometimes one can change the company’s policies and thought process, if not then the person might need to change. If neither is willing to budge then the company loses the individual. I have never bothered to retain people.
People will stay with you if you have been fair to them. If you have been unfair then you deserve that they go and if you have been fair and they still want to go, that’s cool as well. We just get the guys on board who want a fair deal. A fair wage and a fair environment for a fair day’s work. Good people will see the light of the day for sure. They realise what is fair and what is not. Too clever practices or HR initiatives will only piss people off in the long run. It will only come back to bite you in the butt. If morale is low or energy is missing, turning outwards towards HR may be a bad idea. Responding by gifts, incentives and other means would only delay the inevitable. Like a child who responds to a shiny new toy to stop wailing for a few minutes will only learn to wail after the boredom sets in.
Fun comes from a purpose or a pride that one gets from doing good work. In that sense I am quite happy to be a part of the marketing process rather than the sales process. In sales I have seen too many people sell too much of their soul. Then the company has no other means to reward them than give them shiny new toys again and again. The boss is a barracuda hell bent on achieving targets and he just misses the point of people being there.
So here I am. Every day trying to effect a cultural revolution. Trying to change culture within the organisation. It is not easy. These are not pawns but real people with real feelings. How do I change what must be, retain what is good and have the good sense to distinguish the two. Uff. Everyday and every moment. It takes a lot out of me. I see the incredulous faces when I propose something, when I stop something. ‘but that’s how it’s always been here’. Sure thing dude, but we will change that. Do you believe it must change. ‘yes it must’. Do believe that this change will be good for you? “yes we do.... but?” go ahead then. Go on. GO.
What’s my job then? Backing them in the change that believe in. In the change that will improve their lives and give it purpose. It tougher than what is anticipated. But it will bring about greater joy in their lives. As I was telling one of them. Everyday what makes me go home happy. That we will do marketing history here? That we will do great work? That I will earn lots of money and incentive. NO. The bets feeling I go back with is that somehow I have impacted people’s mind in a positive way. That they will think better, that they will act better and that their careers will improve. They will learn to be better marketing chaps and have better careers than if I was not there.
Like my brother once reminded me of the parable of the boy who kept throwing back into the ocean, the starfish washed ashore. A passerby explained the futility of making a difference to the world by such small acts. To which the boy merely threw one more starfish and said – made a difference to that one.
I AM CHANGING THE WORLD. ONE AT A TIME. IN WHATEVER LIMITED ACOPE I HAVE. IN MY LIMITED CIRCLE. BUT I AM IMPACTING LIVES WHO IMPACT OTHERS. I sure hope he gives me strength and brains.
Today morning itself I read – man’s moral strength is far more than his physical limitations.
This time in my new role I have inherited a team and lots of structures and complexities. A lot that I don’t like and lot that don’t really need changing. One of the greatest revelations had come to me around 8 years ago. This when I was inheriting a very small and tiny customer service team. Coming from sales I thought the team was a bunch of dumbos and that nothing could be achieved or got through them. I wasn’t looking forward to this assignment. Nopes. Then when the handover happened, I looked at the girl who was the customer service head and told myself, let’s make it work. I have no clue why I did that. I just suddenly resolved that no matter what I will think of her as a good resource and that we will make her work well. She is a good person unless I am proved otherwise. Magic happened from then on. She started doing much better. She immediately responded positively to me and me to her. We set up processes and procedures that improved and gave teeth to customer service. We started bashing back the sales guys who had made it a habit of bashing service people. Service was bad, not doing their job, a piece of cake etc etc. The sales system got it back this time. Lacunas in the system were identified and ironed. Issues with sales were highlighted. Woes of the service team were stated before the bosses and a voice was created that would be heard. The service head, who was denied a promotion was given one next year. I thought it was a magical transformation. Not of her... but of me. I keep that incident as a guiding light for a lot of my interaction with the team.
It’s always easy to rubbish people and especially if you are inheriting a team. You can always rubbish eth procedures followed and the decisions taken. But to my mind if you believe that everything had a reason and that reason was to the best of that person’s thinking, then you might start seeing merit in it. The fine line between changing things and letting tem remain constant. This is the constant tug of war. Every day I come in to office thinking of what I must change and what I must let remain. Some things I must change right away. Some cultures must be removed from the roots and thrown away and some part of culture must be nurtured. But the most important of all is the people involved. What is going on in their mind. Are they free to speak up and oppose the new boss and new fangled ideas? Every day I see shit and see gems of brilliance together in the same room. The mindset I have is always that the people are good and that they will achieve what they are capable of. If the mindset remains that people will remain the same and that achievement is required irrespective then the actions I take change accordingly. Instead of getting angry or dissatisfied, one becomes the agent of change. Change that is softer on people. Change that is lasting and causes lesser stress. I have had a boss who believed that he had to bring about change. But that change he brought about was at great cost to people. He created a stressful environment and believed that he was an antibiotic (his own words). By that logic I assume he thought that we were bacteria. Then he will treat us as that.
The last few years my epiphany has been that people are the most important thing in the world. Not brands, not customers, not profits. They are all there but they finally stem from the people that you work for, who work with you and those who work for you. Happy people produce beautiful results. I remain guided by one single objective – do what is right for the person. The company, brand and culture will automatically get aligned. Many times what is right for the person is not what is right for the company and then the incongruence of goals results in stress. Sometimes one can change the company’s policies and thought process, if not then the person might need to change. If neither is willing to budge then the company loses the individual. I have never bothered to retain people.
People will stay with you if you have been fair to them. If you have been unfair then you deserve that they go and if you have been fair and they still want to go, that’s cool as well. We just get the guys on board who want a fair deal. A fair wage and a fair environment for a fair day’s work. Good people will see the light of the day for sure. They realise what is fair and what is not. Too clever practices or HR initiatives will only piss people off in the long run. It will only come back to bite you in the butt. If morale is low or energy is missing, turning outwards towards HR may be a bad idea. Responding by gifts, incentives and other means would only delay the inevitable. Like a child who responds to a shiny new toy to stop wailing for a few minutes will only learn to wail after the boredom sets in.
Fun comes from a purpose or a pride that one gets from doing good work. In that sense I am quite happy to be a part of the marketing process rather than the sales process. In sales I have seen too many people sell too much of their soul. Then the company has no other means to reward them than give them shiny new toys again and again. The boss is a barracuda hell bent on achieving targets and he just misses the point of people being there.
So here I am. Every day trying to effect a cultural revolution. Trying to change culture within the organisation. It is not easy. These are not pawns but real people with real feelings. How do I change what must be, retain what is good and have the good sense to distinguish the two. Uff. Everyday and every moment. It takes a lot out of me. I see the incredulous faces when I propose something, when I stop something. ‘but that’s how it’s always been here’. Sure thing dude, but we will change that. Do you believe it must change. ‘yes it must’. Do believe that this change will be good for you? “yes we do.... but?” go ahead then. Go on. GO.
What’s my job then? Backing them in the change that believe in. In the change that will improve their lives and give it purpose. It tougher than what is anticipated. But it will bring about greater joy in their lives. As I was telling one of them. Everyday what makes me go home happy. That we will do marketing history here? That we will do great work? That I will earn lots of money and incentive. NO. The bets feeling I go back with is that somehow I have impacted people’s mind in a positive way. That they will think better, that they will act better and that their careers will improve. They will learn to be better marketing chaps and have better careers than if I was not there.
Like my brother once reminded me of the parable of the boy who kept throwing back into the ocean, the starfish washed ashore. A passerby explained the futility of making a difference to the world by such small acts. To which the boy merely threw one more starfish and said – made a difference to that one.
I AM CHANGING THE WORLD. ONE AT A TIME. IN WHATEVER LIMITED ACOPE I HAVE. IN MY LIMITED CIRCLE. BUT I AM IMPACTING LIVES WHO IMPACT OTHERS. I sure hope he gives me strength and brains.
Today morning itself I read – man’s moral strength is far more than his physical limitations.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
the truth will set you free
This is an eternal fight. Mommy versus Jispa and I am stuck in between. It’s a part of parenting that they don’t tell you about, or it’s a part of ‘husbanding’ they don’t tell you about. There is an obvious need to keep a united face in front of your child. That’s what the text book on parenting says. So that you don’t show confusing signals and make the kid play one parent against the other.
But that goes against the principle of duality of opinion. I have always believed that the opinion may not necessarily be clear. Jasmine and I can have a difference of opinion. Views may be extremely polarised and the truth is not known. In fact there can be no truth but only opinion. I have written about the time spent while having a bath. I believe there is no such thing as time spent. It is time invested, and Jasmine can finish her bath in the time it takes me to merely get wet. Jispa is a dreamer. She too can have an infinite bath time.
Let’s take another example. Poor Jasmine is trying to get Jispa to remember her stuff to do. Like put the snack box and water bottle in her bag. Now that’s a real tiring thing to do. I was much like that with my mom completely at odds to get me to do stuff. It was not intention that was the issue, there would be genuine intention. Sometimes the malaise was procrastination and sometimes the problem was simply dreams. Lost in thought. I can still go to the place where I am supposed to pick the item and completely forget what I am supposed to do. It would just pop out and I would end up doing pretty much something else. Over the years life in the professional world will not let you remain forgetful as such. I got my arse whipped, smartened up and started keeping a mental checklist and even writing down things to do during the day. But that took me 30 years. So when Jasmine and Jispa are having a run in, I am completely clueless. I want to be sweeter and take on the responsibility myself. I prefer reminding Jispa again and again and even putting the dam thing in.
So this creates chaos in the morning. Jasmine has had many calls right in the past and I don’t really doubt her instinct but the problem is that unlike her, I remember my childhood vividly and distinctly. A lot of things had left a deep and lasting impact on me. I clearly remember getting scolded for forgetting stuff. I have forgotten to do things; I have left stuff around at school and other such silly stuff. But I always used to think, why my parents scolded me for it. It’s not that I was intentionally careless. I also remember thinking that I was only a kid and that I should be given some leeway. Also not that being scolded helped me remember anything more. So that’s been on my mind a lot. I can keep telling Jispa that remember, do things right away, do not procrastinate, but I can’t really scold her too much. A sharp scold and immediately out.
I also sympathise with Jispa when she gets jammed for sharpening her pencils too much. I too remember sharpening pencils like crazy and my mom losing it saying that “I gave you new pencils just today”. By the time I got home they were a pale shadow of their original size.
This topic can go on with no real solution in sight. Jasmine can find 20 more faults in my thinking. Like the other day when she and Jispa were havinga fight over the pony tail, Jispa came ot me and out of serious frustration I just suggested that she just right now listen to mom and that she could always do whatever she wanted outside the home, when mom is not looking. Jasmine was mighty pissed. What on earth was I teaching her. Hmmm.. ya that was silly I guess. So when I got a book Delhi Calm (on the emergency), to read and on the first page the following lines had deeper meaning. “There no distinctions between what is real and unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.”- Harold pinter - art truth and politics.
What is true in politics is true in parenting. Sab saala maya hai. The challenge is in admitting it and more importantly handling it without conflict. So while I understand the need to put up a united front in front of the child, my bigger motive is that she knows and understands this conflict. I think every day that she must understand that there is no one view to the equation. There could be multiple points of view and that we are only taking the point of view that we believe is the best one at the point of time. Both mommy and daddy need not always agree on everything. Debate and then resolution is healthy and allowed. The last thing I want her to think is that daddy or mommy knows everything. WE DONT. We don’t even pretend to. We are only attempting the best, to the best of our ability, keeping her best interest in mind. Nothing more and nothing less.
The faster she realises this, the better an individual she will be. I love for her to see the other side of the equation at all points of time. Today morning I was googling images of Nehru for her. She needed on with kids, one with Gandhi and one alone. I came across one of him smoking. I asked her if she wanted it. She was quite surprised to know that he smokes. But I guess the ‘kida’ in her liked the thought and then she wanted that pic as well. So I promptly printed it and sent it along with the rest of the pics. It’s not necessary for her to learn that Nehru was a guy with no fallibility. Learn the truth that you can best digest! The truth will set you free. Now who said that?
But that goes against the principle of duality of opinion. I have always believed that the opinion may not necessarily be clear. Jasmine and I can have a difference of opinion. Views may be extremely polarised and the truth is not known. In fact there can be no truth but only opinion. I have written about the time spent while having a bath. I believe there is no such thing as time spent. It is time invested, and Jasmine can finish her bath in the time it takes me to merely get wet. Jispa is a dreamer. She too can have an infinite bath time.
Let’s take another example. Poor Jasmine is trying to get Jispa to remember her stuff to do. Like put the snack box and water bottle in her bag. Now that’s a real tiring thing to do. I was much like that with my mom completely at odds to get me to do stuff. It was not intention that was the issue, there would be genuine intention. Sometimes the malaise was procrastination and sometimes the problem was simply dreams. Lost in thought. I can still go to the place where I am supposed to pick the item and completely forget what I am supposed to do. It would just pop out and I would end up doing pretty much something else. Over the years life in the professional world will not let you remain forgetful as such. I got my arse whipped, smartened up and started keeping a mental checklist and even writing down things to do during the day. But that took me 30 years. So when Jasmine and Jispa are having a run in, I am completely clueless. I want to be sweeter and take on the responsibility myself. I prefer reminding Jispa again and again and even putting the dam thing in.
So this creates chaos in the morning. Jasmine has had many calls right in the past and I don’t really doubt her instinct but the problem is that unlike her, I remember my childhood vividly and distinctly. A lot of things had left a deep and lasting impact on me. I clearly remember getting scolded for forgetting stuff. I have forgotten to do things; I have left stuff around at school and other such silly stuff. But I always used to think, why my parents scolded me for it. It’s not that I was intentionally careless. I also remember thinking that I was only a kid and that I should be given some leeway. Also not that being scolded helped me remember anything more. So that’s been on my mind a lot. I can keep telling Jispa that remember, do things right away, do not procrastinate, but I can’t really scold her too much. A sharp scold and immediately out.
I also sympathise with Jispa when she gets jammed for sharpening her pencils too much. I too remember sharpening pencils like crazy and my mom losing it saying that “I gave you new pencils just today”. By the time I got home they were a pale shadow of their original size.
This topic can go on with no real solution in sight. Jasmine can find 20 more faults in my thinking. Like the other day when she and Jispa were havinga fight over the pony tail, Jispa came ot me and out of serious frustration I just suggested that she just right now listen to mom and that she could always do whatever she wanted outside the home, when mom is not looking. Jasmine was mighty pissed. What on earth was I teaching her. Hmmm.. ya that was silly I guess. So when I got a book Delhi Calm (on the emergency), to read and on the first page the following lines had deeper meaning. “There no distinctions between what is real and unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.”- Harold pinter - art truth and politics.
What is true in politics is true in parenting. Sab saala maya hai. The challenge is in admitting it and more importantly handling it without conflict. So while I understand the need to put up a united front in front of the child, my bigger motive is that she knows and understands this conflict. I think every day that she must understand that there is no one view to the equation. There could be multiple points of view and that we are only taking the point of view that we believe is the best one at the point of time. Both mommy and daddy need not always agree on everything. Debate and then resolution is healthy and allowed. The last thing I want her to think is that daddy or mommy knows everything. WE DONT. We don’t even pretend to. We are only attempting the best, to the best of our ability, keeping her best interest in mind. Nothing more and nothing less.
The faster she realises this, the better an individual she will be. I love for her to see the other side of the equation at all points of time. Today morning I was googling images of Nehru for her. She needed on with kids, one with Gandhi and one alone. I came across one of him smoking. I asked her if she wanted it. She was quite surprised to know that he smokes. But I guess the ‘kida’ in her liked the thought and then she wanted that pic as well. So I promptly printed it and sent it along with the rest of the pics. It’s not necessary for her to learn that Nehru was a guy with no fallibility. Learn the truth that you can best digest! The truth will set you free. Now who said that?
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
a lovely mind, a simple talk
Jispa had a good lesson in competition. She is amongst the decent swimmers in her age category in her gymkhana. I think she comes in at second place. Ditto for her school. This week end she was taking part in an inter club competition at the CCI. Since there are quite a few kids, they simply take a time trial and take the timings to announce the winners. Her coach had warned us that Jispa is an eight year old in an under-nine age group. That means basically she has a one year disadvantage, which is large for her age. We were obviously expecting nothing much from her. Hopefully it might teach her a thing or two about competing. We saw the elder kids swim very well, and it was a joy for me to watch them swim real fast. It was time for Jispa’s time trial. She shot off the blocks and swam fast. I thought she swam well and quite fast. Pretty cool. She swam like she never had. But when she attempts to go fast she screws up on the technique. The hands don’t stretch as they must in their effort to go fast. But a few furious strokes later she was in the lead. She hit the other side, turned, glanced to see competition and started swimming again. Jasmine and I get tired of telling her that she need not look at competition. She has to learn to swim well and that’s more than enough. If her strokes are great and she tries her best, that’s all that matters. At her level, we don’t want her to win; we want her to get her strokes right.
Jispa’s problem is that she ends up using her over sized brain a bit too much. When I coach her, I am delighted that she listens, unlike other kids who don’t want to, but the problem is that her brain starts listening too much. She over compensates. It’s difficult coaching her then. Her technique then goes all awry. I remember last year, I was trying to get her to run correctly. Some cousin told her to get long strides in. That’s a good thing, but she ended up taking so long strides that she started jumping as opposed to running. It was like a series of long jumps. She will have this problem of brain and body not being entirely coordinated. Her super brain will take too many demands on her body. Same problem when I start elocution with her. Too much use of the brain. Suddenly she will not decide to use certain tone, or give some explanation for changing it or something. ‘Gay abandon’ is not a term I would use for her. She surely benefits from using her brain. It helps her in creative writing and the sort but sometimes in sports it pays to have an uncomplicated approach. A simple approach that seeks to hone instinct and use it. So this time while I started talking to her on running, Jasmine was pretty scared. When I was explain that in a sprint, you don’t use your heel too much and run almost on your toes, Jasmine was wondering and so was I, that she will end up looking like a bouncing ballerina. I think I too will learn about teaching her stuff. I guess I will learn to tell her to keep things simple. Just run fast and will correct a few simple things I see wrong. It’s stupid for me to mess with a good mind. I am simply not qualified enough to do that. What I can do is drill the tables in her head. Today morning I was trying to get her to write a Hindi composition that she was making a complete mess of. I tried to help her think of the essay visually. Almost like a mind map. That would help her structure it I guess. Then we went through the words, the sentences, the closing, the drama required. When she finally writes it today evening we will know if we got it anyway near right. Personally I myself do not know enough Hindi to teach her. I get it mixed up with urdu, and don’t even know the difference. But I guess today I did not do that bad.
So coming back to the swim meet, Jispa swam like she never had. She did her 50 yards in 44 seconds. I think it was her personal best. Dam cool. She also came in first within her immediate time trial. She came panting and exhausted. A dam god effort. I had o be somewhere else so I left by the time she had to compete in the medley relay. Since there weren’t enough girls from her age group for her gymkhana she was given the responsibility of the butterfly. A stroke she barely knows. I was told she did pretty bad. She swallowed water, went slow, almost did not complete. But she pushed herself to complete the race. In the freestyle time trial, while she managed 44 seconds, the first place was at around 34 seconds. Whoa, a full ten seconds. She was pretty dejected. I only met her the next day morning. Jasmine told me that she was felling down.
To my mind I told her that I think she did a swell job finishing the medley. She did not know the stroke, she swallowed water, she felt like shit but she hung on and finished the race. I told her of the time when I was in I think third standard. I barely knew how to swim and could just about manage to swim one length. Just about. That too with the support of the side wall. I still took part in the competition in school. When we were to start I ran and took the side lane. We started and I started swimming furiously. Half way through I don’t know, but I swallowed water and was coughing when the life guard thought I was drowning and pulled me out. Hah. She definitely did better than that!
I am reminded of Thomas Friedman who wrote that in places like India and China, competition is so tough that even if you are 1 in a million, there are a thousand of you. He is right. There are so many good guys around. If you want to be the best you have to train harder. I was thinking if its right for her to compete. One way is that let her see how good she is the hard way. Let her face dejection and loss. She can’t swim in her well and think that she is good. She has to see the world outside. For me. I think I will keep things simple. I will stop trying to coach her too much. I will have to stick to the philosophy part of the game. Hopefully a few years from now, she will coach me. Then she can talk technique and I can talk life. A conversation can sometimes be more than enough. A simple conversation. I can remember some of the best conversations I have had. But then that is another story.
Jispa’s problem is that she ends up using her over sized brain a bit too much. When I coach her, I am delighted that she listens, unlike other kids who don’t want to, but the problem is that her brain starts listening too much. She over compensates. It’s difficult coaching her then. Her technique then goes all awry. I remember last year, I was trying to get her to run correctly. Some cousin told her to get long strides in. That’s a good thing, but she ended up taking so long strides that she started jumping as opposed to running. It was like a series of long jumps. She will have this problem of brain and body not being entirely coordinated. Her super brain will take too many demands on her body. Same problem when I start elocution with her. Too much use of the brain. Suddenly she will not decide to use certain tone, or give some explanation for changing it or something. ‘Gay abandon’ is not a term I would use for her. She surely benefits from using her brain. It helps her in creative writing and the sort but sometimes in sports it pays to have an uncomplicated approach. A simple approach that seeks to hone instinct and use it. So this time while I started talking to her on running, Jasmine was pretty scared. When I was explain that in a sprint, you don’t use your heel too much and run almost on your toes, Jasmine was wondering and so was I, that she will end up looking like a bouncing ballerina. I think I too will learn about teaching her stuff. I guess I will learn to tell her to keep things simple. Just run fast and will correct a few simple things I see wrong. It’s stupid for me to mess with a good mind. I am simply not qualified enough to do that. What I can do is drill the tables in her head. Today morning I was trying to get her to write a Hindi composition that she was making a complete mess of. I tried to help her think of the essay visually. Almost like a mind map. That would help her structure it I guess. Then we went through the words, the sentences, the closing, the drama required. When she finally writes it today evening we will know if we got it anyway near right. Personally I myself do not know enough Hindi to teach her. I get it mixed up with urdu, and don’t even know the difference. But I guess today I did not do that bad.
So coming back to the swim meet, Jispa swam like she never had. She did her 50 yards in 44 seconds. I think it was her personal best. Dam cool. She also came in first within her immediate time trial. She came panting and exhausted. A dam god effort. I had o be somewhere else so I left by the time she had to compete in the medley relay. Since there weren’t enough girls from her age group for her gymkhana she was given the responsibility of the butterfly. A stroke she barely knows. I was told she did pretty bad. She swallowed water, went slow, almost did not complete. But she pushed herself to complete the race. In the freestyle time trial, while she managed 44 seconds, the first place was at around 34 seconds. Whoa, a full ten seconds. She was pretty dejected. I only met her the next day morning. Jasmine told me that she was felling down.
To my mind I told her that I think she did a swell job finishing the medley. She did not know the stroke, she swallowed water, she felt like shit but she hung on and finished the race. I told her of the time when I was in I think third standard. I barely knew how to swim and could just about manage to swim one length. Just about. That too with the support of the side wall. I still took part in the competition in school. When we were to start I ran and took the side lane. We started and I started swimming furiously. Half way through I don’t know, but I swallowed water and was coughing when the life guard thought I was drowning and pulled me out. Hah. She definitely did better than that!
I am reminded of Thomas Friedman who wrote that in places like India and China, competition is so tough that even if you are 1 in a million, there are a thousand of you. He is right. There are so many good guys around. If you want to be the best you have to train harder. I was thinking if its right for her to compete. One way is that let her see how good she is the hard way. Let her face dejection and loss. She can’t swim in her well and think that she is good. She has to see the world outside. For me. I think I will keep things simple. I will stop trying to coach her too much. I will have to stick to the philosophy part of the game. Hopefully a few years from now, she will coach me. Then she can talk technique and I can talk life. A conversation can sometimes be more than enough. A simple conversation. I can remember some of the best conversations I have had. But then that is another story.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
has de... (laugh it)
I just got back from Chennai. I was organising an employee cricket event. It was pretty much good fun. It was a chance to get back to Chennai after a long time. In my earlier role I had the chance to travel much more often and I squandered it away by being largely insular to the stimuli around me. I would sit at the hotel, sleep or watch TV in my free time. I hardly spent any time exploring the place and roaming around. For a traveller like me, it was pretty uncharacteristic. Probably it was so because I have always been a depressed business traveller. I hate travelling alone on work and without family, it’s always been a situation wherein I feel sad, depressed and lonely. Eating alone, sleeping alone etc is not exactly the stuff that I look up to.
Staying in posh hotels, the best I did was order food in the room, watch TV and take a long time in the shower. If there was a tub, I would fill it and relax. I really miss the small town small hotel which I used to stay in while i was much younger, while i completed my stint in Gujarat. During the recession when it all went away, it struck me... that i travelled and was an ostrich. Completely insulated and anal. I promised to improve my record.
So last week while I was getting my bag ready to leave, I remembered to pack in my lonely planet. Even a Chennai would have interesting places to see and surely I would be able to remove a few hours in the evening or in between. The one I honed in on was the Chennai museum. I fiddled with my schedule this time around to visit the place.
It is a little tough funding your way around Chennai. Nobody speaks your language and they exclusively talk in Tamil. Now I know what Nehru would have been through while he was trying his best to integrate the nation. Now I understand how anal the Tamils would have been while we were trying to manage the country through a common language. While this nationalistic and regional pride is ok to a point. But keeping it fiercely centric to one language is a complete waste. You alienate your own countrymen. Why would you want to do that? Can any state be completely insular to those around it. Can it safely say that Tamil belongs only to Tamilians. The irony is that it was the Tamilians who got up in arms against the Sri Lankan government decision to force Sinhalese down their throats in Sri Lanka. While they sympathised with their kin across the strait they did little to implement in their own homeland. Why? It is so difficult to speak to anyone in Chennai. Even in my own office beyond a certain level, the guys don’t even speak proper English and are completely impervious to hindi. Talking to my driver is a real difficult job.
But I guess I am unfairingly singling the Tamilians. All of us in India have retained the pride in our linguistic roots. We have consistently responded to linguistic fervour. We insist on local language signboards and even shop names. Here I can think of Singapore as one example which had successfully integrated three language identities into its fold, and adapting English as well. I remember a chapter in Lee Kwan book wherein he persuades the local language schools to move to a standardised English medium. As an individual I have faced the real sad situation of being unable to think, read proficiently or converse well in any language other than English. I think many beautiful pieces of writing will be forever lost on me thanks to my limitations. I would loved to have been taught a second language. Of course I was taught a second and a third and then a fourth language in school and we spoke a fifth one at home, but I ended up linguistically challenged. Never good enough to read litreture and understand its subtle nuance.
But then at least I can go around most of India and still feel at home. Chennai is alien to me. It seems hostile and unwelcoming. Why ...
So getting my way around the museum was a pain. Getting my around?? No I thinking reaching the door of the museum was also a pain. But I reached the museum door only to find it closed on Fridays. Dam! WTF. I hung around the campus and as I was ready to leave I chanced upon a ‘permanent book exhibition’. Not expecting too much I was suitably not disappointed. Metal racks with one side full of tamil books and the other full of English books, arranged in some apparent logic. Making my way through them I came across a set of really old books. Not that the books were old, but they were written at the time of eth raj. They came in the old style binding with golden embossed lettering. A type face font and image pages being called colour plates. There was nothing for me except one book on Tipu Sultan and his dad. Being fresh from a vacation in mysore, it caught my attention. As I began reading it, I leaned one side against the rack. Soon enough I was lost in the book. In some time a petite lady came up to me and said “hsdfksdhgcfwgwhjfghjdfghjfdfhgaxhjgf”. Arghhh. Dam you. It was Tamil and I couldn’t understand a dam thing. Then started all over again. This time with a lot of actions. I figured she did not want me to read the book too much and she did not want me to lean against the rack. Sure. I went about browsing again. This time I chanced upon glimpses of world history. A book containing the letters that Nehru had written to his daughter while in prison. Interesting. It felt a lot like this blog of mine. Posts written to my daughter while at work. I was reading it standing when another older lady came in and started in Tamil all over again. She too did not want me to read too much. Buy what you want and walk out dude. I don’t think this India has really understood what a book lover relationship is with his books. They don’t get it at all. While I did not want to court any fight I also wanted to read a bit. I read a bit more, bought the Nehru book and walked out.
I bear them no ill will. I just think to myself... how can we get our kids to love books when the whole job of many such people around book shelves is just to shoo people away. I remember my school librarian. A complete ass of a guy who had control to a large amount of resources (read: books) we had a massive library and a well stocked collection. But I don’t remember having spent any time there. I must have been there a few times. We even had a library period, but the only thing I remember was being told to be silent. Ssshhh. Some guys would get a bit interested in national geographic and show each other some pictures of Amazonian tribes, obviously naked. Once he caught them snigger and he called them and asked them what was in the magazine that they found funny. That put me off the magazines for sure. I did not to be caught doing anything with them. Even a more than a curious interest would have found me pulled up. We just don’t know how to inculcate a love for books, do we? The problem is not resources, the problem is the attitude. Love!
Just the day before yesterday I realised during a sufi music show that my religious leanings can be best positioned as similar to Sufi. A belief in love, humanity and simplicity of life. It must be so simple. It must be the truth. I think it would be the true way to solve every conceivable issue in life. I can surely think of it solving all my marketing issues. I am looking forward to the Sufi music festival this Sunday, which I hope to get a few passes for. It’s also an interesting thing that these days Hindi movies seem to be embracing sufi music and getting atleast one if not a few more songs into the movies. Reminds me of the old days where every Hindi movie definitely needed on qawalli song. Sufi music is designed with so much love that it can be used to show your love for god or to show your love for your beau. Love is at its essence pure, isn’t it? Whoever it is targeted at.
This one is obviously an abashed love for the mystic
This one is the one that can be for far a more earthy love. But isn’t that a mystic as well?
Even the whacko hit Dabangg carried a few songs which somehow when played on the radio I can’t get it off my head. I love them. What is it about being soulful, that I can’t them off. It seems to affect my heart in some way.
And then here is one of my favourites. A lifting one.
Two other links
http://dunkdaft.blogspot.com/2010/01/favorite-sufi-songs.html
http://entertainment.in.msn.com/bollywood/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3407582
Staying in posh hotels, the best I did was order food in the room, watch TV and take a long time in the shower. If there was a tub, I would fill it and relax. I really miss the small town small hotel which I used to stay in while i was much younger, while i completed my stint in Gujarat. During the recession when it all went away, it struck me... that i travelled and was an ostrich. Completely insulated and anal. I promised to improve my record.
So last week while I was getting my bag ready to leave, I remembered to pack in my lonely planet. Even a Chennai would have interesting places to see and surely I would be able to remove a few hours in the evening or in between. The one I honed in on was the Chennai museum. I fiddled with my schedule this time around to visit the place.
It is a little tough funding your way around Chennai. Nobody speaks your language and they exclusively talk in Tamil. Now I know what Nehru would have been through while he was trying his best to integrate the nation. Now I understand how anal the Tamils would have been while we were trying to manage the country through a common language. While this nationalistic and regional pride is ok to a point. But keeping it fiercely centric to one language is a complete waste. You alienate your own countrymen. Why would you want to do that? Can any state be completely insular to those around it. Can it safely say that Tamil belongs only to Tamilians. The irony is that it was the Tamilians who got up in arms against the Sri Lankan government decision to force Sinhalese down their throats in Sri Lanka. While they sympathised with their kin across the strait they did little to implement in their own homeland. Why? It is so difficult to speak to anyone in Chennai. Even in my own office beyond a certain level, the guys don’t even speak proper English and are completely impervious to hindi. Talking to my driver is a real difficult job.
But I guess I am unfairingly singling the Tamilians. All of us in India have retained the pride in our linguistic roots. We have consistently responded to linguistic fervour. We insist on local language signboards and even shop names. Here I can think of Singapore as one example which had successfully integrated three language identities into its fold, and adapting English as well. I remember a chapter in Lee Kwan book wherein he persuades the local language schools to move to a standardised English medium. As an individual I have faced the real sad situation of being unable to think, read proficiently or converse well in any language other than English. I think many beautiful pieces of writing will be forever lost on me thanks to my limitations. I would loved to have been taught a second language. Of course I was taught a second and a third and then a fourth language in school and we spoke a fifth one at home, but I ended up linguistically challenged. Never good enough to read litreture and understand its subtle nuance.
But then at least I can go around most of India and still feel at home. Chennai is alien to me. It seems hostile and unwelcoming. Why ...
So getting my way around the museum was a pain. Getting my around?? No I thinking reaching the door of the museum was also a pain. But I reached the museum door only to find it closed on Fridays. Dam! WTF. I hung around the campus and as I was ready to leave I chanced upon a ‘permanent book exhibition’. Not expecting too much I was suitably not disappointed. Metal racks with one side full of tamil books and the other full of English books, arranged in some apparent logic. Making my way through them I came across a set of really old books. Not that the books were old, but they were written at the time of eth raj. They came in the old style binding with golden embossed lettering. A type face font and image pages being called colour plates. There was nothing for me except one book on Tipu Sultan and his dad. Being fresh from a vacation in mysore, it caught my attention. As I began reading it, I leaned one side against the rack. Soon enough I was lost in the book. In some time a petite lady came up to me and said “hsdfksdhgcfwgwhjfghjdfghjfdfhgaxhjgf”. Arghhh. Dam you. It was Tamil and I couldn’t understand a dam thing. Then started all over again. This time with a lot of actions. I figured she did not want me to read the book too much and she did not want me to lean against the rack. Sure. I went about browsing again. This time I chanced upon glimpses of world history. A book containing the letters that Nehru had written to his daughter while in prison. Interesting. It felt a lot like this blog of mine. Posts written to my daughter while at work. I was reading it standing when another older lady came in and started in Tamil all over again. She too did not want me to read too much. Buy what you want and walk out dude. I don’t think this India has really understood what a book lover relationship is with his books. They don’t get it at all. While I did not want to court any fight I also wanted to read a bit. I read a bit more, bought the Nehru book and walked out.
I bear them no ill will. I just think to myself... how can we get our kids to love books when the whole job of many such people around book shelves is just to shoo people away. I remember my school librarian. A complete ass of a guy who had control to a large amount of resources (read: books) we had a massive library and a well stocked collection. But I don’t remember having spent any time there. I must have been there a few times. We even had a library period, but the only thing I remember was being told to be silent. Ssshhh. Some guys would get a bit interested in national geographic and show each other some pictures of Amazonian tribes, obviously naked. Once he caught them snigger and he called them and asked them what was in the magazine that they found funny. That put me off the magazines for sure. I did not to be caught doing anything with them. Even a more than a curious interest would have found me pulled up. We just don’t know how to inculcate a love for books, do we? The problem is not resources, the problem is the attitude. Love!
Just the day before yesterday I realised during a sufi music show that my religious leanings can be best positioned as similar to Sufi. A belief in love, humanity and simplicity of life. It must be so simple. It must be the truth. I think it would be the true way to solve every conceivable issue in life. I can surely think of it solving all my marketing issues. I am looking forward to the Sufi music festival this Sunday, which I hope to get a few passes for. It’s also an interesting thing that these days Hindi movies seem to be embracing sufi music and getting atleast one if not a few more songs into the movies. Reminds me of the old days where every Hindi movie definitely needed on qawalli song. Sufi music is designed with so much love that it can be used to show your love for god or to show your love for your beau. Love is at its essence pure, isn’t it? Whoever it is targeted at.
This one is obviously an abashed love for the mystic
This one is the one that can be for far a more earthy love. But isn’t that a mystic as well?
Even the whacko hit Dabangg carried a few songs which somehow when played on the radio I can’t get it off my head. I love them. What is it about being soulful, that I can’t them off. It seems to affect my heart in some way.
And then here is one of my favourites. A lifting one.
Two other links
http://dunkdaft.blogspot.com/2010/01/favorite-sufi-songs.html
http://entertainment.in.msn.com/bollywood/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3407582
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
how much?
What’s the cost of time in Mumbai? If one completely ignores the convenience and the hassle angle but solely focuses on the cost versus time angle, then yesterday and today morning was one such experiment.
I have shifted to a new division within the broad conglomerate that I work in. the excitement on working on new stuff and a broader canvass is amazing. The amount of work that there is over here … sigh… I don’t think I would have the time to really write as much I would want to. The pressure will be relentless. Which makes me think on the tone of the blog from here on. If I want this blog as a legacy for my daughter, then I don’t think she would be too bothered with what my day to day life would have been. Leave her, I wouldn’t be too bothered with what I do day on day. I would rather focus this blog on issues that I believe I want to talk to her on. Some gyan and some interesting titbits on her growing up. That is what will matter in long run, or so I think. I would like this to be a place where I can clarify my thoughts and my actions and leave something for her to ponder about.
Ever since we moved to Bhakti Park four years ago, we had no option but to go in for two cars. The dam place is in the middle of nowhere. All my life I have travelled to work in public transport and I resisted having to use the car. So while my office was in town I used my second car to get to the nearest rail head and then travel onwards. When it moved to kalina, I had no option but to use the c or risk a really lengthy, painful commute. My car has gone in for servicing which forced me to use alternate transport since yesterday.
Yesterday I came in a cab. I left at 8 am and reached my office at 8.15 am. 15 minutes dot and it cost me 102 ruppes. Today I decided to take the public transport. I left at 8 am again. I took one bus from under the house. That took me to Dadar plaza. That cost me 8 bucks. At Dadar I alighted to take another bus to my office. That cost me another 7 bucks. Totally 15 rupees. The time taken this around was totally 45 minutes. That’s 30 minutes more than the taxi. I got to sit in the first bus and I had to stand but comfortably ok with no real squeeze hour massage. So as I said if I look at a time versus cost alone, 30 minutes for a Mumbai dweller would cost 87 rupees. That’s about 174 bucks an hour. How expensive or cheap is that?
Lets take the case of the maid who comes home everyday. She works for around two hours everyday. That’s about 60 hours. And she takes home around 900 rupees. Of course there are hidden costs as well, such as a Diwali bonus and the fact that she gets interest free loans when ever she wants to home and build a house or attend a marriage. These loans are not so small an amount. And the interest arbitrage on that is large. The money lender who would lent her money would have charged a princely 30 percent at the minimum. That too if she is lucky. Otherwise they can get into debt traps that would never get repaid with the principal always outstanding. But forget that for a minute. So she gets on an average 15 to 20 rupees an hour. Hmmm. Obviously all the maids use the public transport.
What about the lowly paid clerk. He gets around 10,000 rupees a month. For eight hours a day and 24 day month. That’s about 52 bucks an hour. No can take taxi.
So the break even point for a taxi for a single passenger is if the poor fellow earns around 33,000 rupees a month, or around 4 lakhs per annum. So if you see any one travelling via taxi to office everyday he should be earning at least that much. That’s of course the mathematics of it all. The economics would differ. The cost of reaching on time. The mental peace, the pride of finally chucking the public transport… etc etc. also this is a Wadala to Worli experiment. In many instances in Mumbai, if you don’t use the public transport such as trains and travel via taxi to your office it would take you twice as much time and ten times as expensive. There the cost implication is not time but the opportunity to not get massaged all around by the rush hour jam in a train.
So how is this all important from Jispa’s point of view when she grows up. I don’t know but I had fun thinking about it.
I have shifted to a new division within the broad conglomerate that I work in. the excitement on working on new stuff and a broader canvass is amazing. The amount of work that there is over here … sigh… I don’t think I would have the time to really write as much I would want to. The pressure will be relentless. Which makes me think on the tone of the blog from here on. If I want this blog as a legacy for my daughter, then I don’t think she would be too bothered with what my day to day life would have been. Leave her, I wouldn’t be too bothered with what I do day on day. I would rather focus this blog on issues that I believe I want to talk to her on. Some gyan and some interesting titbits on her growing up. That is what will matter in long run, or so I think. I would like this to be a place where I can clarify my thoughts and my actions and leave something for her to ponder about.
Ever since we moved to Bhakti Park four years ago, we had no option but to go in for two cars. The dam place is in the middle of nowhere. All my life I have travelled to work in public transport and I resisted having to use the car. So while my office was in town I used my second car to get to the nearest rail head and then travel onwards. When it moved to kalina, I had no option but to use the c or risk a really lengthy, painful commute. My car has gone in for servicing which forced me to use alternate transport since yesterday.
Yesterday I came in a cab. I left at 8 am and reached my office at 8.15 am. 15 minutes dot and it cost me 102 ruppes. Today I decided to take the public transport. I left at 8 am again. I took one bus from under the house. That took me to Dadar plaza. That cost me 8 bucks. At Dadar I alighted to take another bus to my office. That cost me another 7 bucks. Totally 15 rupees. The time taken this around was totally 45 minutes. That’s 30 minutes more than the taxi. I got to sit in the first bus and I had to stand but comfortably ok with no real squeeze hour massage. So as I said if I look at a time versus cost alone, 30 minutes for a Mumbai dweller would cost 87 rupees. That’s about 174 bucks an hour. How expensive or cheap is that?
Lets take the case of the maid who comes home everyday. She works for around two hours everyday. That’s about 60 hours. And she takes home around 900 rupees. Of course there are hidden costs as well, such as a Diwali bonus and the fact that she gets interest free loans when ever she wants to home and build a house or attend a marriage. These loans are not so small an amount. And the interest arbitrage on that is large. The money lender who would lent her money would have charged a princely 30 percent at the minimum. That too if she is lucky. Otherwise they can get into debt traps that would never get repaid with the principal always outstanding. But forget that for a minute. So she gets on an average 15 to 20 rupees an hour. Hmmm. Obviously all the maids use the public transport.
What about the lowly paid clerk. He gets around 10,000 rupees a month. For eight hours a day and 24 day month. That’s about 52 bucks an hour. No can take taxi.
So the break even point for a taxi for a single passenger is if the poor fellow earns around 33,000 rupees a month, or around 4 lakhs per annum. So if you see any one travelling via taxi to office everyday he should be earning at least that much. That’s of course the mathematics of it all. The economics would differ. The cost of reaching on time. The mental peace, the pride of finally chucking the public transport… etc etc. also this is a Wadala to Worli experiment. In many instances in Mumbai, if you don’t use the public transport such as trains and travel via taxi to your office it would take you twice as much time and ten times as expensive. There the cost implication is not time but the opportunity to not get massaged all around by the rush hour jam in a train.
So how is this all important from Jispa’s point of view when she grows up. I don’t know but I had fun thinking about it.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
imagine...
V-inu got Jispa a Rubik’s snake from his recent overseas trip. Quite a cute thing. I remember it being the rage while I was a kid. And obviously the first thing I ended up making with it was – you guessed right – the ball (or the truncated octahedron if you want to be scientific). It is impossible, not to make it once you lay your hands on it. And then onto hours and hours of pure pleasure. Making all sorts of funny stuff.
Should be fun for Jispa as well. Yesterday morning while she was it she made this.
Now you have to tell me what this is. You are obviously disqualified if you have read the little prince. Jispa hasn’t read it yet. Which makes me think that it is time for me to dig it out of somewhere from my pile. I clearly remember buying it and reading it around five years ago. It was truly quite a lovely story. It’s worth buying it as a spare copy even if I can’t find it within my pile. I was only introduced to the first chapter as a kid when I read it in my school English text book. I remember being completely fascinated with his drawing and his meeting of with the Prince.
This image will forever stick in my mind.
I can still feel the excitement that I felt when I first read that there something much more to the image. I think it made me think that all adults are stupid and they really can’t see what’s completely obvious. And that it need not be obvious for it to be pretty. Now that I think about, somewhere from the deep recess of my memory, a speck is standing out. I think I remember a time when I had gone to Ahmedabad to visit a cousin’s place. Somehow I remember raiding the bookshelf and reading the little prince there. I think I might have been in fourth or fifth standard or possibly younger. It’s all fuzzy now. But it’s funny how I remember the pleasure in reading it. Come to think of it, it’s made quite an impact on me.
So coming back to the answer to the drawing from little prince…
Now you will get the answer to Jispa’s creation. Only just.
It is a snake who has swallowed a tree stump.
The next one is my creation as an answer to Jispa’s creation.
As Jispa says, it is a snake that has a stone dropped on it. Here the inspiration as she says is Tom and Jerry. Well, from my little prince to her tom and jerry, life follows pop... pop??… pop… art?
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Burn the negatives from your heart
I was in Dubai till the third standard and we moved into India when I came into the fourth. One of the fun things that we could do in India that we couldn’t do there was burst crackers. I remember mom and dad taking us to the main market for crackers in Mumbai, the Mohamed Ali Street. It had so many shops that convert themselves into cracker wholesalers for the Diwali season. Mom and Dad realised that we were in this respect at least pretty deprived. We hardly saw crackers and hardly ever got to burst anything more than the basic sparklers that some Indians had smuggled into Dubai. I wonder why someone would smuggle something that is essentially a fun thing at such bug risk into Dubai. I wonder. But did and we used to use them with great care and caution. Take the case of cracker loom (tadaphadi is another desi word). It is basically the cracker that makes a noise like a 1944 WW2 machine gun. Not that I have heard one, but from all the research that I have done watching those movies, I can tell you for sure. I set would have around 40 small crackers. We would dismantle them and use them one tick at a time. That really time consuming and fun.
So in Mumbai, we went berserk and I credit my parents for allowing us to go berserk at the cracker store. We bought sparklers, atom bombs (loud raasi bomb), tadaphadi, flower pots, and what not. My brother’s favourite was the snake. It was nothing but a small black pill on which you put your sparkler or matchstick. From it a long black ‘snake’ would come out. It would emit a horrible smoke and would forever scar the tiles. You could see tiles on the staircase of many buildings scarred thus. One black round mark, where the snake once burned. It was fun and still is but I have no clue why.
Soon we graduated to getting a diwali allowance to buy our fire crackers ourselves. We spent wisely on bombs, rockets and the lot. Carefully avoiding girlie stuff like sparklers and zammen chakris. Though my eternal favourite has always been the flower pot. I have no clue what fascination I have for it. But I remember it being the cracker of choice for me and I would spend a little more on buying the big special flower pot. I would keep it safely and preserve it. The Diwali bursting starts a week before Diwali and we would conserve our crackers to last the whole week. The piece d renaissance would be lit by me at the special moment at the peak of the diwali night. My night / festival was made.
The next day after Diwali was the traditional New Year’s day for us gujjus. And that meant going from cousin’s place to another wishing and greeting each other. It went on for a few years till some politics developed between cousins. One side of the cousins was a squabble over property which gave rise to sub texts in relationships and on the other side was a struggle for dominance. All in all it made for a bitter after taste. Soon enough, the family Diwali tradition changed to getting out of Mumbai during Diwali. If you are not there is no reason to visit them, wot say?
Now many years since … there is no tradition in our family to visit relatives on Diwali or new year day. So we too have followed the tradition of getting out of Mumbai for diwali. This is something that seems to have worked in our favour. Get out of this place. The noise and the pollution has significantly increased over the years making the space completely inhabitable. The one year I was year many years ago made me make up my mind of celebrating Diwali out side in the peace and quiet. When a teeming metropolis like decides to celebrate noise and pollution the only choice you have is to run.
But contrast to that is the Dusherra celebration that happens 20 days prior to Diwali. I love the focal point of the day, which is to make a huge effigy of thr ten headed demon king ravana and burn the hell out of him. This to was something that we were first introduced to while in India. Till then it was just a chapter of our social science text book.
The first one I saw was a huge figure five seven stories tall and full of crackers inside. Bursting it would take all of 30 minutes or more and give a great thrill to many of us. It was clearly one of the high points of childhood celebrations.
Now that Jispa has grown up a bit we tried the last couple of years to take her to Chowpatty and witness the big celebration there also. That too was good fun. For 50 bucks we got the VIP tickets at the RamLeela that was being staged there. And then the end point was the big effigy being burnt.
This time around a couple of months before I saw this kit being retailed at the book store. “make your own ravanna”. A kit that had color drawings and instructions to make your own three dimensional effigy. That was cool I though and bought the kit. I promised myself to make it and figure out if we could burn this ourselves. I missed the Dusherra deadline but I saw and remembered it on the night we were to burn it.
I removed the covers expecting to simply punch out the perforated stuff and assemble it in 20 minutes. How tough could it get.
To my chagrin I saw large sheets with color prints on them. No perforations. I had to cut them all. The prints were nice and detailed which meant even more time in cutting them. The hair, the moustache and the head gear and to add to it, Ravanna has ten heads. What a pain. Some of the stuff was to be cut across circles, which meant plenty of small cuts on the paper so that thy fold in a circle and lots of irritation. The hands had to be stuck to the body using glue, his skirt to the legs, his head to the neck and what not. Very very painful. Jasmine had joined me soon enough and both of us were figuring this big mammoth task. Poor Jispa who I thought would love to do it was quickly sidelined. We had to give her simple cutting work. After some time we realised that the glue wouldn’t be enough and in came in the artillery. The humble scotch tape and the even humbler stapler came in. a stick there a tuck here and a punch in there somewhere.
We had to abandon the project for the night to catch it the next morning. Jispa was unwell and was at home. We tried to take it up again and try to get the pieces to all add up. It was so frustrating and tiring. Jasmine remarked that ‘she is going to love to see this guy burn’. I concurred. It was a real pain putting it all together. I guess we just don’t understand what it is to make life easy for the customers. I mean the least was that they could give was pre-cuts or perforations. I don’t visualise anyone less than a 14 year old managing this. In fact I am planning to give this project to my new team in order to help them get a hang of what it means to have bad design, bad instructions and bad user experience.
Five hours and 15 man hours later the Ravanna was up. Finally standing. The big boy with all his ten heads and a menacing smile with a sword and a shield. There boy. All that sweat was worth it. Here the BIG FELLA is in all his glory.
Since Jispa was a bit unwell, the week passed by with the man remaining on top of our book case. Today we got the opportunity to burn the fella. We called in Jispa’s friend, bought 100 bucks of sparklers, and set the fellow on fire. Like all dad occasions, this too passed by without me really sitting back and enjoying it. I was busy making it stand, then setting it alight and then managing the kids so that they don’t get burnt. But it was fun any ways.
Here is he just before he was burnt.
The last bit was the clincher – Jasmine said “not bad eh? Its worth doing it the next time as well. Lets buy one and keep right away. I don’t think it will be in stock.”
I agree. Haha. After all that work, it did turn out quite a nice experience in the end. A sweet ending is just so important. With the Ravanna, we burnt all the ill will we had towards the guys who sold the dam thing. At the end we were left with sweet memories. I was telling Jasmine that "these things are the best projects. You spend time to make them and then you just have to burn them. You enjoy the process and then the thing also does not take up any space in the house. "
So in Mumbai, we went berserk and I credit my parents for allowing us to go berserk at the cracker store. We bought sparklers, atom bombs (loud raasi bomb), tadaphadi, flower pots, and what not. My brother’s favourite was the snake. It was nothing but a small black pill on which you put your sparkler or matchstick. From it a long black ‘snake’ would come out. It would emit a horrible smoke and would forever scar the tiles. You could see tiles on the staircase of many buildings scarred thus. One black round mark, where the snake once burned. It was fun and still is but I have no clue why.
Soon we graduated to getting a diwali allowance to buy our fire crackers ourselves. We spent wisely on bombs, rockets and the lot. Carefully avoiding girlie stuff like sparklers and zammen chakris. Though my eternal favourite has always been the flower pot. I have no clue what fascination I have for it. But I remember it being the cracker of choice for me and I would spend a little more on buying the big special flower pot. I would keep it safely and preserve it. The Diwali bursting starts a week before Diwali and we would conserve our crackers to last the whole week. The piece d renaissance would be lit by me at the special moment at the peak of the diwali night. My night / festival was made.
The next day after Diwali was the traditional New Year’s day for us gujjus. And that meant going from cousin’s place to another wishing and greeting each other. It went on for a few years till some politics developed between cousins. One side of the cousins was a squabble over property which gave rise to sub texts in relationships and on the other side was a struggle for dominance. All in all it made for a bitter after taste. Soon enough, the family Diwali tradition changed to getting out of Mumbai during Diwali. If you are not there is no reason to visit them, wot say?
Now many years since … there is no tradition in our family to visit relatives on Diwali or new year day. So we too have followed the tradition of getting out of Mumbai for diwali. This is something that seems to have worked in our favour. Get out of this place. The noise and the pollution has significantly increased over the years making the space completely inhabitable. The one year I was year many years ago made me make up my mind of celebrating Diwali out side in the peace and quiet. When a teeming metropolis like decides to celebrate noise and pollution the only choice you have is to run.
But contrast to that is the Dusherra celebration that happens 20 days prior to Diwali. I love the focal point of the day, which is to make a huge effigy of thr ten headed demon king ravana and burn the hell out of him. This to was something that we were first introduced to while in India. Till then it was just a chapter of our social science text book.
The first one I saw was a huge figure five seven stories tall and full of crackers inside. Bursting it would take all of 30 minutes or more and give a great thrill to many of us. It was clearly one of the high points of childhood celebrations.
Now that Jispa has grown up a bit we tried the last couple of years to take her to Chowpatty and witness the big celebration there also. That too was good fun. For 50 bucks we got the VIP tickets at the RamLeela that was being staged there. And then the end point was the big effigy being burnt.
This time around a couple of months before I saw this kit being retailed at the book store. “make your own ravanna”. A kit that had color drawings and instructions to make your own three dimensional effigy. That was cool I though and bought the kit. I promised myself to make it and figure out if we could burn this ourselves. I missed the Dusherra deadline but I saw and remembered it on the night we were to burn it.
I removed the covers expecting to simply punch out the perforated stuff and assemble it in 20 minutes. How tough could it get.
To my chagrin I saw large sheets with color prints on them. No perforations. I had to cut them all. The prints were nice and detailed which meant even more time in cutting them. The hair, the moustache and the head gear and to add to it, Ravanna has ten heads. What a pain. Some of the stuff was to be cut across circles, which meant plenty of small cuts on the paper so that thy fold in a circle and lots of irritation. The hands had to be stuck to the body using glue, his skirt to the legs, his head to the neck and what not. Very very painful. Jasmine had joined me soon enough and both of us were figuring this big mammoth task. Poor Jispa who I thought would love to do it was quickly sidelined. We had to give her simple cutting work. After some time we realised that the glue wouldn’t be enough and in came in the artillery. The humble scotch tape and the even humbler stapler came in. a stick there a tuck here and a punch in there somewhere.
We had to abandon the project for the night to catch it the next morning. Jispa was unwell and was at home. We tried to take it up again and try to get the pieces to all add up. It was so frustrating and tiring. Jasmine remarked that ‘she is going to love to see this guy burn’. I concurred. It was a real pain putting it all together. I guess we just don’t understand what it is to make life easy for the customers. I mean the least was that they could give was pre-cuts or perforations. I don’t visualise anyone less than a 14 year old managing this. In fact I am planning to give this project to my new team in order to help them get a hang of what it means to have bad design, bad instructions and bad user experience.
Five hours and 15 man hours later the Ravanna was up. Finally standing. The big boy with all his ten heads and a menacing smile with a sword and a shield. There boy. All that sweat was worth it. Here the BIG FELLA is in all his glory.
Since Jispa was a bit unwell, the week passed by with the man remaining on top of our book case. Today we got the opportunity to burn the fella. We called in Jispa’s friend, bought 100 bucks of sparklers, and set the fellow on fire. Like all dad occasions, this too passed by without me really sitting back and enjoying it. I was busy making it stand, then setting it alight and then managing the kids so that they don’t get burnt. But it was fun any ways.
Here is he just before he was burnt.
The last bit was the clincher – Jasmine said “not bad eh? Its worth doing it the next time as well. Lets buy one and keep right away. I don’t think it will be in stock.”I agree. Haha. After all that work, it did turn out quite a nice experience in the end. A sweet ending is just so important. With the Ravanna, we burnt all the ill will we had towards the guys who sold the dam thing. At the end we were left with sweet memories. I was telling Jasmine that "these things are the best projects. You spend time to make them and then you just have to burn them. You enjoy the process and then the thing also does not take up any space in the house. "
Jai Lankesh!
Friday, October 15, 2010
butterflies
Change is a constant yet we are scared of it. In b school, we had an organisational behaviour professor – Deosthali. Over smart guy. He was a good guy but he tried be over smart. He taught the first lecture and then he told us to form groups and gave us all one chapter to make a presentation. That way the portion is done. Smart ass. He did some over smart for the exams. I don’t remember what, but something he announced and the students just lost it. We staged a revolt.
In class there were two natural hotheads with natural ‘leadership’ abilities. One was yours truly and the other was a guy called suraj. He was from Delhi and made a big noise about how he was a great gift as he was from Doon school. Not too popular but he had a tough streak in him. I too was an ass with a large ego. Naturally we both did not get along and rarely spoke to each other. I think it was as a result of a silly altercation which I don’t even remember.
So this time Suraj took on the mantle and revolted. He got the students all roused up. But there was one hitch. Would I support him? I was the second hot head and he needed me to be there. I could easily move opinion the other way and he revolt would not be unanimous. It would have been seen as a one faction tirade or something.
These developments happened over the evening and I came to know of it the next day morning. We did not have internet or mobiles you see.
The bets thing was that I did not know of anything. Anything as in – I did not know that students looked up to me. I was seen as some kind of leader, or that my opinion counted. I was possibly to busy preening my mane or something. I knew I was a good speaker and in B schools you are known by your presentation skills, which I had in plenty. So I walk in to college to see a bunch of students rushing to me to explain things. They spoke about how Suraj has led the revolt and how he met the dean and blah blah. And today the dean has called all the students along with the prof in question. Ok. So? So will you support Suraj? Will you be there? They wanted to know.
Ok I hated Suraj but the answer to me was simple. Sure I will be there. I might have been an egoistical maniac but I was definitely not political. Thank god for small things. Having ang an ego is enough. Having a political bone on top would be disaster. Everybody was relieved. So many came up and thanked me for supporting the cause. Everybody seemed to know I hated Suraj. And that he hated me. But that was all superficial hate. It’s not like he was sworn enemy. Silly people.
So we led a mass unified revolt. I helped him gather the crowd and got the prof kicked out. People kept thanking me and I heard stories of how Suraj orchestrated the whole thing and was worried that I would not support it and he would get victimised if the uprising failed. Hah! I couldn’t even think that far. It was only after the incident I realised that I had some influence on the batch. I might have been too busy fighting my own insecurities to even notice.
But whats that got to do with change. That prof had taken one lecture at the start. He spoke about change. He spoke about how change is something we are all scared of. How the fear of the unknown is greater than the fear of the known. How the greatest scare is when you don’t know how your dad will react, will he slap you or scold you. If you know you will get a scolding or a slap its easier, but anticipating the shit is the toughest.
In 8th standard I wanted a cycle and something led to something and I got promised a cycle if I crack a certain percentage in class. I think it was 75%. Wow. So I did not really end up studying anymore, but I ended up praying more. Like all good religious boys I guess. This was the second unit test and not the final exams. We kept getting the papers. In the hindi lecture the prof walked in and gave out the hindi papers. Out of a 40 mark paper I saw my scores and my heart jumped out. It was a 11. THAT WAS A FAIL. Forget the 75%. I failed in the unit test. The only time in my life. I failed a test. Man. That was the biggest disaster in my history as a student. I was so shit scared. I tried to explain to the teacher about something in the paper that could get me more marks. H brushed me aside and did not want to even consider. This was the male prof from the heartland. They were always more irritating than the sweeter Mumbai female teachers. I couldn’t believe that he did not even consider that how I, a normally bright student could fail. It did not matter to him.
I think I cried and I cant even describe what I felt. I knew what was shit I would get at home. I reached home and sat in one corner all quiet. I started to hit my desk and study. Now that was the most abnormal thing in the world to do. That was a give away. Dad was at home. In some time I gathered courage to tell him. I still remember the moment when I spoke to him. He got so pissed. One lesson I learnt that when shit happens to your kid, think a bit before you scold. The kid is feeling like real shit in any case. I probably needed a hug more than I needed a scolding. That would have been equally effective.
Needless to add my cycle dreams went poof for the time being. And my prof was right. Waiting for the reaction is worse than the reaction. I think he also said – change causes stress. Man will change when the stress associated with the status quo is greater than the stress associated with change. I have remembered his words though I have been instrumental in kicking him out. Only if he decided to use his brains to teach us properly instead taking the short cut. I have tried to think about it all the time. I try to change and accept it and even look for it. Change is a constant but it is also an essential for growth. Growth is a given.
Right now I am looking at change in the face. I am moving to a new role. It is something I have pushed for and lobbied for. Yet when it happens, the butterflies get activated. Slowly they pop out of the pupa and make their presence felt. Over time I have learnt enough to control them, to understand them and to tackle them. But have I managed to eliminate them. Not a chance.
In class there were two natural hotheads with natural ‘leadership’ abilities. One was yours truly and the other was a guy called suraj. He was from Delhi and made a big noise about how he was a great gift as he was from Doon school. Not too popular but he had a tough streak in him. I too was an ass with a large ego. Naturally we both did not get along and rarely spoke to each other. I think it was as a result of a silly altercation which I don’t even remember.
So this time Suraj took on the mantle and revolted. He got the students all roused up. But there was one hitch. Would I support him? I was the second hot head and he needed me to be there. I could easily move opinion the other way and he revolt would not be unanimous. It would have been seen as a one faction tirade or something.
These developments happened over the evening and I came to know of it the next day morning. We did not have internet or mobiles you see.
The bets thing was that I did not know of anything. Anything as in – I did not know that students looked up to me. I was seen as some kind of leader, or that my opinion counted. I was possibly to busy preening my mane or something. I knew I was a good speaker and in B schools you are known by your presentation skills, which I had in plenty. So I walk in to college to see a bunch of students rushing to me to explain things. They spoke about how Suraj has led the revolt and how he met the dean and blah blah. And today the dean has called all the students along with the prof in question. Ok. So? So will you support Suraj? Will you be there? They wanted to know.
Ok I hated Suraj but the answer to me was simple. Sure I will be there. I might have been an egoistical maniac but I was definitely not political. Thank god for small things. Having ang an ego is enough. Having a political bone on top would be disaster. Everybody was relieved. So many came up and thanked me for supporting the cause. Everybody seemed to know I hated Suraj. And that he hated me. But that was all superficial hate. It’s not like he was sworn enemy. Silly people.
So we led a mass unified revolt. I helped him gather the crowd and got the prof kicked out. People kept thanking me and I heard stories of how Suraj orchestrated the whole thing and was worried that I would not support it and he would get victimised if the uprising failed. Hah! I couldn’t even think that far. It was only after the incident I realised that I had some influence on the batch. I might have been too busy fighting my own insecurities to even notice.
But whats that got to do with change. That prof had taken one lecture at the start. He spoke about change. He spoke about how change is something we are all scared of. How the fear of the unknown is greater than the fear of the known. How the greatest scare is when you don’t know how your dad will react, will he slap you or scold you. If you know you will get a scolding or a slap its easier, but anticipating the shit is the toughest.
In 8th standard I wanted a cycle and something led to something and I got promised a cycle if I crack a certain percentage in class. I think it was 75%. Wow. So I did not really end up studying anymore, but I ended up praying more. Like all good religious boys I guess. This was the second unit test and not the final exams. We kept getting the papers. In the hindi lecture the prof walked in and gave out the hindi papers. Out of a 40 mark paper I saw my scores and my heart jumped out. It was a 11. THAT WAS A FAIL. Forget the 75%. I failed in the unit test. The only time in my life. I failed a test. Man. That was the biggest disaster in my history as a student. I was so shit scared. I tried to explain to the teacher about something in the paper that could get me more marks. H brushed me aside and did not want to even consider. This was the male prof from the heartland. They were always more irritating than the sweeter Mumbai female teachers. I couldn’t believe that he did not even consider that how I, a normally bright student could fail. It did not matter to him.
I think I cried and I cant even describe what I felt. I knew what was shit I would get at home. I reached home and sat in one corner all quiet. I started to hit my desk and study. Now that was the most abnormal thing in the world to do. That was a give away. Dad was at home. In some time I gathered courage to tell him. I still remember the moment when I spoke to him. He got so pissed. One lesson I learnt that when shit happens to your kid, think a bit before you scold. The kid is feeling like real shit in any case. I probably needed a hug more than I needed a scolding. That would have been equally effective.
Needless to add my cycle dreams went poof for the time being. And my prof was right. Waiting for the reaction is worse than the reaction. I think he also said – change causes stress. Man will change when the stress associated with the status quo is greater than the stress associated with change. I have remembered his words though I have been instrumental in kicking him out. Only if he decided to use his brains to teach us properly instead taking the short cut. I have tried to think about it all the time. I try to change and accept it and even look for it. Change is a constant but it is also an essential for growth. Growth is a given.
Right now I am looking at change in the face. I am moving to a new role. It is something I have pushed for and lobbied for. Yet when it happens, the butterflies get activated. Slowly they pop out of the pupa and make their presence felt. Over time I have learnt enough to control them, to understand them and to tackle them. But have I managed to eliminate them. Not a chance.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
give me more
When you are doing what you love doing or if it excites you, then you can work for long without complaining. Yesterday my day started at 7 am when I left for my teaching stint at Lonavala. It’s a nice location to have a campus. They also have a nice bunch of students. This is the second guest lecture I am taking there. But they have this really stupid habit. They have the course mentor or the dean sitting in your session. Oh shit man. I don’t need the pressure of a 55 year old veteran sitting in and listening while I am teaching. The last time around there was no dug dug from the dean. The mentor who sat in this time was a bit more active.
I don’t have the expertise of a veteran and I don’t claim to be. But you cant really teach and be as fun as you really want to be in this case. The best way to get your students attention and be one of them is to be anti establishment. What’s the point of being anti establishment when you have establishment sitting in your midst. The students will clearly peck you with him and that’s not a rub off I want if I want to connect to the students. Someone asked something and the bugga ticked her off for asking something silly. HEY IT’S MY CLASS. Let her ask. But I had to diplomatically ward off the pain.
But it is shit that I don’t necessarily need in the class. I need the class to break into chaos, infighting and arguments. I engineer them if they don’t happen, I challenge them, scream and shout. All this hits a subdued level with Mr Establishment. And then comes lunch which I have to eat with more Mr. Establishments as opposed to have some with the students. There is so much to learn from them. I look forward to interacting with them on a longer and informal setting. That’s how one learns. That is one of the important by products of teaching. I hate the Brahmin table for lunch concept.
Then post lunch I drove back to Mumbai and went to attend a meeting for some brand launch. The trepidation that I was feeling for this brand for the last few weeks gave to a good night’s sleep. The assurance that we could crack the ad and the proposition relaxed me a great deal. Over a period of time I have moved into a good work3ethic with my scores being low on the procrastination level and high on the planned level. This one was a brand within the group that required me more as a consultant than as a direct guy in charge. This created many layers of approvals, and a labyrinth that I was not totally in control of. That caused me great stress. Now that that is well out of the way and the focus is on execution, I can breathe.
Yesterday I reached back home at 12 midnight. So I totally drove around 200 kms (4 hours in total), taught for three and a half hours, attended meetings, solved a near crisis and cracked a campaign. All in a days work. But I loved it and at the end my adrenaline was flowing so much that I couldn’t help noticing that before going to bed I didn’t feel tired a bit. When there is a purpose to your day, fatigue stays at bay. There are days when I have got tired doing far less. Far far less.
I don’t have the expertise of a veteran and I don’t claim to be. But you cant really teach and be as fun as you really want to be in this case. The best way to get your students attention and be one of them is to be anti establishment. What’s the point of being anti establishment when you have establishment sitting in your midst. The students will clearly peck you with him and that’s not a rub off I want if I want to connect to the students. Someone asked something and the bugga ticked her off for asking something silly. HEY IT’S MY CLASS. Let her ask. But I had to diplomatically ward off the pain.
But it is shit that I don’t necessarily need in the class. I need the class to break into chaos, infighting and arguments. I engineer them if they don’t happen, I challenge them, scream and shout. All this hits a subdued level with Mr Establishment. And then comes lunch which I have to eat with more Mr. Establishments as opposed to have some with the students. There is so much to learn from them. I look forward to interacting with them on a longer and informal setting. That’s how one learns. That is one of the important by products of teaching. I hate the Brahmin table for lunch concept.
Then post lunch I drove back to Mumbai and went to attend a meeting for some brand launch. The trepidation that I was feeling for this brand for the last few weeks gave to a good night’s sleep. The assurance that we could crack the ad and the proposition relaxed me a great deal. Over a period of time I have moved into a good work3ethic with my scores being low on the procrastination level and high on the planned level. This one was a brand within the group that required me more as a consultant than as a direct guy in charge. This created many layers of approvals, and a labyrinth that I was not totally in control of. That caused me great stress. Now that that is well out of the way and the focus is on execution, I can breathe.
Yesterday I reached back home at 12 midnight. So I totally drove around 200 kms (4 hours in total), taught for three and a half hours, attended meetings, solved a near crisis and cracked a campaign. All in a days work. But I loved it and at the end my adrenaline was flowing so much that I couldn’t help noticing that before going to bed I didn’t feel tired a bit. When there is a purpose to your day, fatigue stays at bay. There are days when I have got tired doing far less. Far far less.
Thursday, October 07, 2010
Jispa and me
Imagination
Jispa loves her silly bands. Among the others, this one is her favourite. Why… it represents two animals
Did you get the two? One way is the rabbit; the second is a penguin/duck kind of a bird.
Competition
Jispa did well in her swimming. She now got into the advanced class. There was a big trial and 6 kids were selected to progress. I think Jasmine was tense, or should I say eager. I was eager but to a lower level. Probably I was fooling my self by pretending to not care. I wanted her to make it but I did not want any pressure from me wanting it. not on myself and not on her. But I am so happy. The competitive batch trains for competitions and demands focus and dedication. This is something that I want her to learn at an early enough age. To focus well and learn well.
Here are the anxious mothers at the selection
Did you get the two? One way is the rabbit; the second is a penguin/duck kind of a bird.Competition
Jispa did well in her swimming. She now got into the advanced class. There was a big trial and 6 kids were selected to progress. I think Jasmine was tense, or should I say eager. I was eager but to a lower level. Probably I was fooling my self by pretending to not care. I wanted her to make it but I did not want any pressure from me wanting it. not on myself and not on her. But I am so happy. The competitive batch trains for competitions and demands focus and dedication. This is something that I want her to learn at an early enough age. To focus well and learn well.
Here are the anxious mothers at the selection
Stunts
This is Jispa doing her stunts. She started climbing walls.
This is Jispa doing her stunts. She started climbing walls.
I clicked a snap and Jasmine got into the act to click from her camera. Very cool. I warned her that she would look silly if she got too excited. I know myself well enough to know that whenever I do something interesting and there is an audience watching, I invariably make a fool of myself. She started climbing and bang… she hit her nose against the pelmet of the door. Only now she is old enough to laugh at it. that’s my girl. She got hit hard but realised the fun of it!
Tables
I am taking this genetic thing too far. But I can’t but notice the similarities. Jispa now has math tables to do. So it’s me and her in the car learning tables. Four one sa four, four two sa eight.... I was really bad at it and I regretted it my whole life. But I only regretted it and did not do anything about it. for Jispa I am keen to get her to learn them. She got the 2,3,4 and 5 tables easy. Like me she got the 6 times table till 6X5 after which she fuddled. Same thing with 7. I still struggle with anything beyond 7X5. so with her I am learning them myself. Sure I can count fast enough to say them but the fact is that I count, while the magic is to know them by heart. She misses the identical ones that I miss 6X7, 6X9, 7X6, 7X8. These are the nasty ones. I don’t know why I miss them and why she misses them as well. Even what I struggle to a lesser extent – 6X3, she does the same. The only reason I know 6X3 is because I struggled with it and I have burned it into my head. I still need to think. It’s painful. Entrance exams later in life need one to get the tables right. I cant understand how I can get 99% in my math and still struggle with tables. Outside of tables math was my favourite table. Possible that was the only illogical thing that you have to learn by heart in an otherwise highly logical subject. But I keep at it everyday in the hope that it will make her do well. Its justa question of burning it in her head isn’t it
I am taking this genetic thing too far. But I can’t but notice the similarities. Jispa now has math tables to do. So it’s me and her in the car learning tables. Four one sa four, four two sa eight.... I was really bad at it and I regretted it my whole life. But I only regretted it and did not do anything about it. for Jispa I am keen to get her to learn them. She got the 2,3,4 and 5 tables easy. Like me she got the 6 times table till 6X5 after which she fuddled. Same thing with 7. I still struggle with anything beyond 7X5. so with her I am learning them myself. Sure I can count fast enough to say them but the fact is that I count, while the magic is to know them by heart. She misses the identical ones that I miss 6X7, 6X9, 7X6, 7X8. These are the nasty ones. I don’t know why I miss them and why she misses them as well. Even what I struggle to a lesser extent – 6X3, she does the same. The only reason I know 6X3 is because I struggled with it and I have burned it into my head. I still need to think. It’s painful. Entrance exams later in life need one to get the tables right. I cant understand how I can get 99% in my math and still struggle with tables. Outside of tables math was my favourite table. Possible that was the only illogical thing that you have to learn by heart in an otherwise highly logical subject. But I keep at it everyday in the hope that it will make her do well. Its justa question of burning it in her head isn’t itTuesday, October 05, 2010
true charade
Am I as good as possibly my blog makes me out to be? While some readers probably felt so but the truth is known to me. I know the size and the placement of my warts. I may not know the ones that are behind my face, the ones that are known to others. If Johari windows are right, as I believe them to be then, the following is probably true, which I believe to be. I agree with what is being said.
"So maybe we feel the need to perform ourselves in some other way. And if you think that what goes up on people’s blogs is really the full content of their lives, of course, you’re quite wrong. It’s what they’re doing in the spotlight. It’s their turn. And this spotlight they can shine it on themselves and they can go in there and sort of dance about and create a persona for themselves. Of course it’s not the whole story." - Margaret Atwood. you can see the video of what she is talking below. This quote comes towards the end.
This blog is a persona. It is what I want to write about. It is what I want to see. Even if it is truthfully and smattered with critical introspection, it is at the end that – a persona. I don’t believe it to be anything more. It would give an insight only to what I would want to reveal / say. Only one of the Johari windows.
Sigh…
"So maybe we feel the need to perform ourselves in some other way. And if you think that what goes up on people’s blogs is really the full content of their lives, of course, you’re quite wrong. It’s what they’re doing in the spotlight. It’s their turn. And this spotlight they can shine it on themselves and they can go in there and sort of dance about and create a persona for themselves. Of course it’s not the whole story." - Margaret Atwood. you can see the video of what she is talking below. This quote comes towards the end.
This blog is a persona. It is what I want to write about. It is what I want to see. Even if it is truthfully and smattered with critical introspection, it is at the end that – a persona. I don’t believe it to be anything more. It would give an insight only to what I would want to reveal / say. Only one of the Johari windows.
Sigh…
Thursday, September 30, 2010
the times, they are a ...runnning?
Meet Jispa’s nemesis. The deceptive looking hater of liberty, destroyer of creativity, sucker of imagination, the slave of time and the master of stress. It comes cloaked in a cute hard outer shell. It pretends to lie there fairly innocuous, but turns its sinister head to reveal a tell tale ticker. Akin to a 1980’s time bomb, it ticks ever so steadily, audible enough to create an aura of inevitability, and soft enough not to be threatened by it. Meet arch enemy number one – the kitchen timer.
I have always loved to have a bath. My bath times vary from 30 minutes to 60 minutes. I remember having long baths ever since I was a kid. Must be some fascination with water. I probably need to check if at the time of my birth if India was in the middle of a drought or something. Or possibly the reverse. Whatever. I love my bath now and I remember loving them as a kid. Every time I would on the shower and be permanently lost in the world of make believe. Sometimes I would be a singer, sometimes a scientist or sometimes a gun slinger. Whatever. But I remember that my thoughts would flow as rapidly as the water. I would always be the brunt of the mom’s ire, JAIMIT GET OUT. GET OUT NOW. With three kids in the house, there would always be someone wanting to get in. But it was mom and dad who would get really pissed with me in the shower forever. I would only get out when I would hear knocking. The softer knocking followed by the harsh screaming of mom or the hard knocking but no screaming of dad. It was clear that the latter was more scary and immediate. Mom would say – I want you out in 15 minutes. My sister and brother would poke fun at me – they would count and show me the time. 25 minutes, 45 minutes, etc. but if you thought that was a nightmare. You are mistaken. I couldn’t care less. I was enjoying my shower. A beautiful world where every other worry ceased to exist. Even today my shower is my last refuge. After a hot day’s cricket, a lot of exercise or even a long day, it is the wonderful world of shower that saves me and helps me retain my sanity. I think I have gone overboard here and been unnecessarily flowery, but I do enjoy it a whole lot.
Even today my best ideas come when I am in the shower. I feel like Archimedes, solving a vexing puzzle. My mind is relaxed and the water seems to perk up my brains into a creative stupor.
My poor kid has inherited some of my genetic make up. She is the shower girl as well. She too takes forever in the shower. Playing, dreaming, imagining god knows what. The other day jasmine was really pissed. How did you get the water onto the ceiling? I sniggered quietly. Spraying water on the walls and the ceilings was my speciality. It is fun to have bath with your shower faced up. The water comes down on you as a fountain. Hehehe. To put things in perspective Jasmine gets out of the bath in the time it takes for father and daughter to get wet. So its always a hard thing for others to see our side of the view. But that is being harsh on her. The enemy of imagination is time. Time to get up, time to have bath, time to get ready time to go to school, time for the bus, the next class, sleep, whatever. Jasmine has to manage her schedule and coordinate her time to ensure that Jispa gets to do all that Jispa wants to. it would be impossible for Jispa to do anything if she lets her imagination get hold of her. It was getting difficult for me too to manage this. I know the fun and the imagination that a bath brings, but I also know that necessity of finishing on time. How do I manage the expectations of both mother and daughter. Getting Jispa out was my role as a dad, but I so hated it. So one day in the middle of one of these outburst in popped the solution. The humble kitchen timer. I told jasmine to get one and use it everytime Jispa went for bath. We give her an adequate ten / twelve minutes, before we expect her to be out. The timer ticks on and gives a short ring at the end. Jispa sometimes has to run out or sometimes like today it is a smooth process. While Jispa obviously wants to throw that thing from the window and watch it fall in slow motion, it seems to have resolved some of the stress that time puts on the family. Jasmine also uses it while Jispa is eating. Jisap can dream on wven while eating. Again here I am theguy who hates telling Jispa to speed up. I rather tell her a story or something, while feeding her. Jasmine would get pissed as Jispa is old enough not to be fed by us. Jasmine is right, but I cant bring myself to shout at Jispa for something I think is perfectly right. Dreaming is good. Imagination is good. I am a fast eater and I gulp down my food, but I guess I have become like this after working. FAST FAST FAST. I think we need to slowdown. Relax, smell the …. GET OUT FAST, the bus will leave. Oh gaaawwdddd.
Somebody wisely said that nature invested time to stop all everything from happening all at once. Screw you. True story - Jispa’s read this quote on a Landmark paper bag attributed to John Lennon. It seems Jispa pointed to the bag and told this to Jasmine once when Jasmine found her wasting time “Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted”. Bah! Jasmine did not find it funny. I am still laughing.
I have always loved to have a bath. My bath times vary from 30 minutes to 60 minutes. I remember having long baths ever since I was a kid. Must be some fascination with water. I probably need to check if at the time of my birth if India was in the middle of a drought or something. Or possibly the reverse. Whatever. I love my bath now and I remember loving them as a kid. Every time I would on the shower and be permanently lost in the world of make believe. Sometimes I would be a singer, sometimes a scientist or sometimes a gun slinger. Whatever. But I remember that my thoughts would flow as rapidly as the water. I would always be the brunt of the mom’s ire, JAIMIT GET OUT. GET OUT NOW. With three kids in the house, there would always be someone wanting to get in. But it was mom and dad who would get really pissed with me in the shower forever. I would only get out when I would hear knocking. The softer knocking followed by the harsh screaming of mom or the hard knocking but no screaming of dad. It was clear that the latter was more scary and immediate. Mom would say – I want you out in 15 minutes. My sister and brother would poke fun at me – they would count and show me the time. 25 minutes, 45 minutes, etc. but if you thought that was a nightmare. You are mistaken. I couldn’t care less. I was enjoying my shower. A beautiful world where every other worry ceased to exist. Even today my shower is my last refuge. After a hot day’s cricket, a lot of exercise or even a long day, it is the wonderful world of shower that saves me and helps me retain my sanity. I think I have gone overboard here and been unnecessarily flowery, but I do enjoy it a whole lot.Even today my best ideas come when I am in the shower. I feel like Archimedes, solving a vexing puzzle. My mind is relaxed and the water seems to perk up my brains into a creative stupor.
My poor kid has inherited some of my genetic make up. She is the shower girl as well. She too takes forever in the shower. Playing, dreaming, imagining god knows what. The other day jasmine was really pissed. How did you get the water onto the ceiling? I sniggered quietly. Spraying water on the walls and the ceilings was my speciality. It is fun to have bath with your shower faced up. The water comes down on you as a fountain. Hehehe. To put things in perspective Jasmine gets out of the bath in the time it takes for father and daughter to get wet. So its always a hard thing for others to see our side of the view. But that is being harsh on her. The enemy of imagination is time. Time to get up, time to have bath, time to get ready time to go to school, time for the bus, the next class, sleep, whatever. Jasmine has to manage her schedule and coordinate her time to ensure that Jispa gets to do all that Jispa wants to. it would be impossible for Jispa to do anything if she lets her imagination get hold of her. It was getting difficult for me too to manage this. I know the fun and the imagination that a bath brings, but I also know that necessity of finishing on time. How do I manage the expectations of both mother and daughter. Getting Jispa out was my role as a dad, but I so hated it. So one day in the middle of one of these outburst in popped the solution. The humble kitchen timer. I told jasmine to get one and use it everytime Jispa went for bath. We give her an adequate ten / twelve minutes, before we expect her to be out. The timer ticks on and gives a short ring at the end. Jispa sometimes has to run out or sometimes like today it is a smooth process. While Jispa obviously wants to throw that thing from the window and watch it fall in slow motion, it seems to have resolved some of the stress that time puts on the family. Jasmine also uses it while Jispa is eating. Jisap can dream on wven while eating. Again here I am theguy who hates telling Jispa to speed up. I rather tell her a story or something, while feeding her. Jasmine would get pissed as Jispa is old enough not to be fed by us. Jasmine is right, but I cant bring myself to shout at Jispa for something I think is perfectly right. Dreaming is good. Imagination is good. I am a fast eater and I gulp down my food, but I guess I have become like this after working. FAST FAST FAST. I think we need to slowdown. Relax, smell the …. GET OUT FAST, the bus will leave. Oh gaaawwdddd.
Somebody wisely said that nature invested time to stop all everything from happening all at once. Screw you. True story - Jispa’s read this quote on a Landmark paper bag attributed to John Lennon. It seems Jispa pointed to the bag and told this to Jasmine once when Jasmine found her wasting time “Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted”. Bah! Jasmine did not find it funny. I am still laughing.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
its the pain
It’s always the classic. In the quest for finishing the urgent we often don’t have time for what is important. The last couple of years we have had a good slowdown and that meant poor marketing had very little to do. I think I was lucky to have a mind in those years. Those were the days of going home early and spending time with family and ofcourse writng the blogs. I managed to write one blog for every day I was in office. I think the writing made me a better person, in some obscure, self reflecting kind of way. Also I think it has made me a better parent by forcing me to think through my own principles and ideals. And I also managed to discover the power of using RSS. I have been through slowdowns before in my career. I know that the best way to use the slowdown is to really focus inward and try as hard as possible to keep learning and improving yourself. It worked for me in the last year or so. Now that the slowdown is easing off, the pressure on work has gone through the roof with tons of work hitting. Everyday I come in and think about putting in my blog entry and I tread back home unsuccessful. Sometimes I miss the blog writing bit so much. There is so much to write about and there are so many incidents that I wanted to save for later.
Jispa’s school elocution contest was one such incident. It was that time of the year again. We search Shel Silverstien for interesting poems that Jispa could learn and recite. Interesting ones that give adequate tone variation that allow for an interesting learning experience. A twist in the end is always welcome. This year we got her to learn the one titles ‘Sick’. As usual Jasmine’s job was to get her to learn it and my job was to infuse life in it. We worked with Jispa for around a month on this. We had to submit the poem well in advance to the school. On the Friday before the Thursday, on which she had to recite, the teacher told her to change her poem. She asked her to recite the one she had learnt for the interschool competition, last year. That one was Lester. Oh god. And this was when I was in an offsite to Bangalore. So I couldn’t really work with her on the poem as well. But we tried to do our best in the ensuing days and we got her to match readiness. Jasmine and I also decided to register our protest, so we decided to pick her on Thursday and talk to the teacher. We sent that day to realise that Jispa won the third prize. We still made our point to the class teacher and sent the message that we hold the elocution close to our hearts and we believe in taking active part in it. The teacher said that she realised as Jispa told her that we had been practicing for over a month :).
In evening I spoke to Jispa. Did she enjoy the contest? Ya. Did she enjoy learning and reciting the poem? Ya. And after the contest what did you do? “I went and congratulated all the other kids who took part. Especially those from my class.” “Hmm.. why did you do that?” I asked. “because I remembered what you said. to always tell others that they did well, whether I win or lose”. Wow. I felt good. That’s my girl. I must have drilled the sportsman’s anthem into her. It is the way you play your game. So we might have been happy that she won, I tried not to show too much elation. Only happiness. But I really was happy and I told her as much that that is more important than winning.
On teaching…and coaching… I have tried to teach her an interesting new concept that seems to have worked for me. Visualisation. She is learning her swimming well and this Saturday there are trials for the next level. Jasmine is quite irritated that she has progressed well but she seems to keep forgetting certain basics. Cup your hands, reach out and hear your biceps and breathe right. I learnt this stuff from this movie ‘Pride’ and it is similar to what her coach tells her as well. Reach out. Visualisation is something I have learnt in cricket and adapted to my swimming as well as squash. If you are able to think through the technique you can mentally tune yourself to play those shots and they are easy in real life. Same with swimming. I have learnt to swim better purely by thinking about it. So I tried to teach her to think about the swimming technique, cupping hands, reaching out, breathing well. It seems to be working but you never know. We are keen that Jispa takes up swimming well. That would improve her technique, stamina and strength. It also seems to be the thing that we have the right support system for.
She seems to be something of an athlete in the making for now. Its definitely early days and she hasn’t really met competition but I guess the discipline of serious practice and commitment will take her a long way. It is so important to take up any sport in a proper structured manner. I was talking to her on the value of pain and the fact that serious athletes feel pain and befriend it. I told her about a story about Ian Thorpe and that he said he missed pain the most, now that he wasn’t training professionally. The joy that pain gives is something else altogether. Many people ask me what I get standing in the sun for a cricket match and I am not even playing any where near professional. Well, it’s the joy of pain. You can only experience it to know what its like. I hope Jispa experiences it as well.
Jispa’s school elocution contest was one such incident. It was that time of the year again. We search Shel Silverstien for interesting poems that Jispa could learn and recite. Interesting ones that give adequate tone variation that allow for an interesting learning experience. A twist in the end is always welcome. This year we got her to learn the one titles ‘Sick’. As usual Jasmine’s job was to get her to learn it and my job was to infuse life in it. We worked with Jispa for around a month on this. We had to submit the poem well in advance to the school. On the Friday before the Thursday, on which she had to recite, the teacher told her to change her poem. She asked her to recite the one she had learnt for the interschool competition, last year. That one was Lester. Oh god. And this was when I was in an offsite to Bangalore. So I couldn’t really work with her on the poem as well. But we tried to do our best in the ensuing days and we got her to match readiness. Jasmine and I also decided to register our protest, so we decided to pick her on Thursday and talk to the teacher. We sent that day to realise that Jispa won the third prize. We still made our point to the class teacher and sent the message that we hold the elocution close to our hearts and we believe in taking active part in it. The teacher said that she realised as Jispa told her that we had been practicing for over a month :).
In evening I spoke to Jispa. Did she enjoy the contest? Ya. Did she enjoy learning and reciting the poem? Ya. And after the contest what did you do? “I went and congratulated all the other kids who took part. Especially those from my class.” “Hmm.. why did you do that?” I asked. “because I remembered what you said. to always tell others that they did well, whether I win or lose”. Wow. I felt good. That’s my girl. I must have drilled the sportsman’s anthem into her. It is the way you play your game. So we might have been happy that she won, I tried not to show too much elation. Only happiness. But I really was happy and I told her as much that that is more important than winning.
On teaching…and coaching… I have tried to teach her an interesting new concept that seems to have worked for me. Visualisation. She is learning her swimming well and this Saturday there are trials for the next level. Jasmine is quite irritated that she has progressed well but she seems to keep forgetting certain basics. Cup your hands, reach out and hear your biceps and breathe right. I learnt this stuff from this movie ‘Pride’ and it is similar to what her coach tells her as well. Reach out. Visualisation is something I have learnt in cricket and adapted to my swimming as well as squash. If you are able to think through the technique you can mentally tune yourself to play those shots and they are easy in real life. Same with swimming. I have learnt to swim better purely by thinking about it. So I tried to teach her to think about the swimming technique, cupping hands, reaching out, breathing well. It seems to be working but you never know. We are keen that Jispa takes up swimming well. That would improve her technique, stamina and strength. It also seems to be the thing that we have the right support system for.
She seems to be something of an athlete in the making for now. Its definitely early days and she hasn’t really met competition but I guess the discipline of serious practice and commitment will take her a long way. It is so important to take up any sport in a proper structured manner. I was talking to her on the value of pain and the fact that serious athletes feel pain and befriend it. I told her about a story about Ian Thorpe and that he said he missed pain the most, now that he wasn’t training professionally. The joy that pain gives is something else altogether. Many people ask me what I get standing in the sun for a cricket match and I am not even playing any where near professional. Well, it’s the joy of pain. You can only experience it to know what its like. I hope Jispa experiences it as well.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
emptying shelves filling minds
I look forward to getting books that form some sort of series. When you get two or more that form a series in your head and you get to read them back to back, they make for an interesting argument in your mind. But that is not always possible. The next best thing is to get a series of unputdownable interesting books that one reads back to back. When I get these unputdownables, the reading progresses rapidly with the books rapidly flying off my table. I keep the to-read books on my table and the rest get pushed into the cupboards. And I also control myself and don’t buy books till I clear my backlog, else it will rapidly spin out of control with books filling up shelves but not filling minds. Hahaha. I liked that last bit of corn philosophy. Filling shelves without filling minds. I should put that up in the library that one day I will design. Hah!
The last few weeks I have got extremely lucky with my books. I first got the book ‘Born to run’ by Christopher McDougall followed by a book on the Taj Mahal, followed by ‘Employees first, Customers second’ by Vineet Nayyar followed by ‘Into Thin Air’ by Jon Krakauer. They were as disparate as they could get.
Born to Run (see link which also has an interesting video by the author) is about Ultra marathoners and an ancient tribe that loves to run really long distances. I loved it as according to me the marathon / ultra marathon is the greatest ever sport. In my pecking order it lies at the very top. While you compete with others you largely end up fighting with yourself. The ability to pound the ground every step, continuously for hours at a stretch is simply magical. The author also argues that perhaps we survived as a species largely thanks to our unique ability to run long, real long distances. It explains how humans probably survived by simply running down the animals. They would most certainly outrun in the short run, but if you understand them and are able to track them, then you can most certainly run them down by sheer determination and grit. The gazelle will simply run like hell till its body gets over heated and dies. Poop. That’s it. Of course there is a little more skill to it that the book describes in detail. It also talks about our running styles and how with the advent of padded shoes we have been susceptible to more and more running related injuries. And interspersed throughout the book are lovely descriptions of ultra marathon races. They keep you riveted to the book, waiting to see who wins. All in all an amazing book that has immediately moved to my top ten list.
It also makes a point that I completely agree with. It says that one of the most important things about an ultra marathoner is the mind and how ‘nice’ a person he is. The general sociable or amiability of a person is completely important in a long distance runner. This is a slightly less fleshed out point in the book but it makes enough references to keep my mind active to the concept. I think its worth having a look at in detail.
The next book was about the Taj. From when I remember I have always had a fascination for the Taj. I grew up thinking about it. When I first visited it I was a kid, I next visited it when I was 23. At 23 when I saw it I thought it was highly over rated. Over time I have come to think deeply about it. There has to be some mystery about it. What is it that makes the Taj, THE TAJ. Is it merely a makbara or does it have greater significance. Slowly I started understanding it a bit better. I started reading about it at every chance I got. Reading more and more gave me further insights and glimpses into the monument. I can safely say that today I understand it enough to know much more than the average guide who does not understand it nor it nuances. I understood the value of walking slowly from the front entrances and seeing the arches in line. Letting the Taj slowly emerge. Also one great insight to me is to slightly lower yourself and see the image from the pathways before the gate. Then you will realise the perfect form that architect is letting you see. It must emerge, slowly. There is a reason for it to have a gate that shields the monument from view. Else they would have just put it up without the surrounding walls. Why lower yourself. My theory is that over time we have rebuilt roads and pavement to a point higher than what was the original. If you lower yourself on the path towards the monument you will the perfect angle where all the gates come in a beautiful line of sight. But then that’s my theory. It worked for me. Another thing is to visualise the Taj with garden in front being full of fruit bearing trees a ala Eden. It would not look as naked as it is looking now. It was supposed to be full of fruit bearing trees that possibly even contributed to its upkeep. There are old paintings of the Taj that show it with trees in front. Imagine a beautiful white relief in contrast to the dense green eden. The Humayun tomb in Delhi also always held a strong fascination for me. The book also explains the taj in relation to eth tomb. I always suspected that you cannot fully appreciate the Taj without first appreciating the Humayun’s tomb. I was right there. I would like to again and again to Taj to understand it deeper and deeper. So many myths and so many explanations. It is a mystery that needs explanation and resolving.
Next in line was the book ‘Employees first, customer second’ by Vineet Nayyar. I have come to this conclusion since the lat six months that the key to happy customers is happy employees. Satisfied happy and motivated employees make for a great set of customers. Putting customers first takes the focus away from the enablers and is a recipe ripe for disaster. This book I picked up in crosswords and read it back to back, in two hours flat without leaving the shop. I simply placed it back on the shelf. No, I will not deny the author the royalty, but I promised my self that I will figure a way to buy not one but at least 200 books. And get him to speak to as many forums as possible. He has a very valid point of view. He is attempting to change the way we as companies think. I will do everything in power to ensure that the message is spread as far and wide as possible. Putting that one book down will ensure that I will remember to figure out a way to get my signed copy from the 200. How? Wait and watch. Things are already in motion. Vineet – if you are reading this. Trust me. I think I know what you are aiming for and I think I can deliver your objectives. Message will be received very very wide.
Then the next book was about the ill fated expedition on Mount Everest. Another very high endurance sport. A book that kept me awake at night and made me read like crazy. To give you an idea on how much I enjoyed this book – I woke up at 730 am when I was in Bangalore and I just picked it and continued reading it till I finished it at 830 am. I just wanted to complete it.
Now the book on hand is called ‘the human zoo’. I just started reading it. I have no clue how good it is but the opening two paras in the introduction is one of the most hard hitting ones I have ever read – I reproduce it here.
‘When the pressures of modern living become heavy, the harassed city dweller often refers to his teeming world as a concrete jungle. This is a colourful way of describing the pattern of life in a dense urban community, but it is also grossly inaccurate, as anyone who has studied a real jungle will confirm.
Under normal living conditions, in their natural habitants, wild animals do not mutilate themselves, masturbate, attack their offspring, develop stomach ulcers, become fetishists, suffer from obesity, form homosexual pair-bonds, or commit murder. Among human city dwellers, needless to say, all of these things occur. Does this, then, reveal a basic difference between the human species and other animals? At first glance it seems to do so. But this is deceptive. Other animals do behave in these ways under certain circumstances, namely when they are confined in the unnatural conditions of captivity. The zoo animal in a cage exhibits all these abnormalities that we know so well from our human companions. Clearly, then, the city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo.’
Very rare that a book’s opening paragraphs slap you so hard. Very rare. I am dying to read the book to find out how hard the slaps turn out to be.
The last few weeks I have got extremely lucky with my books. I first got the book ‘Born to run’ by Christopher McDougall followed by a book on the Taj Mahal, followed by ‘Employees first, Customers second’ by Vineet Nayyar followed by ‘Into Thin Air’ by Jon Krakauer. They were as disparate as they could get.
Born to Run (see link which also has an interesting video by the author) is about Ultra marathoners and an ancient tribe that loves to run really long distances. I loved it as according to me the marathon / ultra marathon is the greatest ever sport. In my pecking order it lies at the very top. While you compete with others you largely end up fighting with yourself. The ability to pound the ground every step, continuously for hours at a stretch is simply magical. The author also argues that perhaps we survived as a species largely thanks to our unique ability to run long, real long distances. It explains how humans probably survived by simply running down the animals. They would most certainly outrun in the short run, but if you understand them and are able to track them, then you can most certainly run them down by sheer determination and grit. The gazelle will simply run like hell till its body gets over heated and dies. Poop. That’s it. Of course there is a little more skill to it that the book describes in detail. It also talks about our running styles and how with the advent of padded shoes we have been susceptible to more and more running related injuries. And interspersed throughout the book are lovely descriptions of ultra marathon races. They keep you riveted to the book, waiting to see who wins. All in all an amazing book that has immediately moved to my top ten list.
It also makes a point that I completely agree with. It says that one of the most important things about an ultra marathoner is the mind and how ‘nice’ a person he is. The general sociable or amiability of a person is completely important in a long distance runner. This is a slightly less fleshed out point in the book but it makes enough references to keep my mind active to the concept. I think its worth having a look at in detail.
The next book was about the Taj. From when I remember I have always had a fascination for the Taj. I grew up thinking about it. When I first visited it I was a kid, I next visited it when I was 23. At 23 when I saw it I thought it was highly over rated. Over time I have come to think deeply about it. There has to be some mystery about it. What is it that makes the Taj, THE TAJ. Is it merely a makbara or does it have greater significance. Slowly I started understanding it a bit better. I started reading about it at every chance I got. Reading more and more gave me further insights and glimpses into the monument. I can safely say that today I understand it enough to know much more than the average guide who does not understand it nor it nuances. I understood the value of walking slowly from the front entrances and seeing the arches in line. Letting the Taj slowly emerge. Also one great insight to me is to slightly lower yourself and see the image from the pathways before the gate. Then you will realise the perfect form that architect is letting you see. It must emerge, slowly. There is a reason for it to have a gate that shields the monument from view. Else they would have just put it up without the surrounding walls. Why lower yourself. My theory is that over time we have rebuilt roads and pavement to a point higher than what was the original. If you lower yourself on the path towards the monument you will the perfect angle where all the gates come in a beautiful line of sight. But then that’s my theory. It worked for me. Another thing is to visualise the Taj with garden in front being full of fruit bearing trees a ala Eden. It would not look as naked as it is looking now. It was supposed to be full of fruit bearing trees that possibly even contributed to its upkeep. There are old paintings of the Taj that show it with trees in front. Imagine a beautiful white relief in contrast to the dense green eden. The Humayun tomb in Delhi also always held a strong fascination for me. The book also explains the taj in relation to eth tomb. I always suspected that you cannot fully appreciate the Taj without first appreciating the Humayun’s tomb. I was right there. I would like to again and again to Taj to understand it deeper and deeper. So many myths and so many explanations. It is a mystery that needs explanation and resolving.
Next in line was the book ‘Employees first, customer second’ by Vineet Nayyar. I have come to this conclusion since the lat six months that the key to happy customers is happy employees. Satisfied happy and motivated employees make for a great set of customers. Putting customers first takes the focus away from the enablers and is a recipe ripe for disaster. This book I picked up in crosswords and read it back to back, in two hours flat without leaving the shop. I simply placed it back on the shelf. No, I will not deny the author the royalty, but I promised my self that I will figure a way to buy not one but at least 200 books. And get him to speak to as many forums as possible. He has a very valid point of view. He is attempting to change the way we as companies think. I will do everything in power to ensure that the message is spread as far and wide as possible. Putting that one book down will ensure that I will remember to figure out a way to get my signed copy from the 200. How? Wait and watch. Things are already in motion. Vineet – if you are reading this. Trust me. I think I know what you are aiming for and I think I can deliver your objectives. Message will be received very very wide.
Then the next book was about the ill fated expedition on Mount Everest. Another very high endurance sport. A book that kept me awake at night and made me read like crazy. To give you an idea on how much I enjoyed this book – I woke up at 730 am when I was in Bangalore and I just picked it and continued reading it till I finished it at 830 am. I just wanted to complete it.
Now the book on hand is called ‘the human zoo’. I just started reading it. I have no clue how good it is but the opening two paras in the introduction is one of the most hard hitting ones I have ever read – I reproduce it here.
‘When the pressures of modern living become heavy, the harassed city dweller often refers to his teeming world as a concrete jungle. This is a colourful way of describing the pattern of life in a dense urban community, but it is also grossly inaccurate, as anyone who has studied a real jungle will confirm.
Under normal living conditions, in their natural habitants, wild animals do not mutilate themselves, masturbate, attack their offspring, develop stomach ulcers, become fetishists, suffer from obesity, form homosexual pair-bonds, or commit murder. Among human city dwellers, needless to say, all of these things occur. Does this, then, reveal a basic difference between the human species and other animals? At first glance it seems to do so. But this is deceptive. Other animals do behave in these ways under certain circumstances, namely when they are confined in the unnatural conditions of captivity. The zoo animal in a cage exhibits all these abnormalities that we know so well from our human companions. Clearly, then, the city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo.’
Very rare that a book’s opening paragraphs slap you so hard. Very rare. I am dying to read the book to find out how hard the slaps turn out to be.
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