culture vulture

The monsoon has ended and my east facing room in office is lit by natural light till about noon. I have direct natural morning light wafting through the window. I had a choice of rooms and I choose this one as it had natural light coming in directly. This enables me to keep my lights off while having enough light to work. In fact while I sit in light the rest of the room is in relative darkness. In fact yesterday when I first came decided to let my lights be off, a team member came in to ask if I was depressed. Some wanted to ask if anything was wrong. It’s funny how a simple thing can be so misinterpreted.


This firm where I work has its own conservative climate. The nail that stands out is quickly hammered down. It takes a lot of effort to remain standing. Also in my earlier firm I had spent 7 years. 7 years is enough to establish yourself and to stand out not being worried about being beaten. A swagger that is hard to put down. This thing is sometimes quite stifling. It is almost that it doesn’t want to move. It takes a lot of effort to push it but when it does move, much like a juggernaut, I guess it will be forceful and in some ways unstoppable.
Every family, office or any group of people have a set of unwritten rules that govern them. It’s called culture. Culture is not good nor bad. But resistance to change is probably bad. Culture by definition must move on. So many times I have seen people use culture as a reason to stop change. Culture is so funny. It is something that is constantly changing, it is something that is constantly resisting change. We don’t realize how much it has changed. Sometimes when we ask for people to be hanged and I ask the question – do we as a race have the right to take other people’s lives? Is it merely a cultural phenomenon. Possibly a few generations later out children will look upon us as barbaric. People look at me aghast. You mean to say that Kasab must not be hanged? I am not saying that. All I am saying is that ‘todays’ truth is that he must be hanged, but tomorrow’s truth could be that he must not be.
Quartering is today considered a barbaric act. In London convicts were fastened to a hurdle, or wooden panel, and drawn by horse to the place of execution, where they were hanged (almost to the point of death), emasculated, disembowelled, beheaded and quartered (chopped into four pieces). Their remains were often displayed in prominent places across the country, such as London Bridge. This is what Wikipedia says about it. Another book mentions, possibly apocryphal but not too hard to believe, that people used to take it as a picnic event, coming it with their kids and bread baskets to witness what would churn most stomachs today. I think even Newton in his avatar as the head of the British mint ordered the quartering of a person suspected of counterfeiting.
I find it futile to comment on culture is that sense. But one thing I must say, I think that while it may be right to preserve culture (people love monotony), it is stupid and I think down right suicidal to resist change. People who change bring in fresh ideas, new ideas, newer efficiencies and a chance to grow further. A climate of change is critical to the formation of strong societies. Another place I read that cities also need a balance in people who stay on rent versus people who own homes. The researcher, if I remember well, says that ratio must not exceed 55% of owned homes. Because as soon as you buy your house you are in many ways not ready to take on risk. Similarly attracting a bohemian culture that is responsive and possibly aggressively embracing change as a part of your ecosystem will probably help in taking your society forward.
Mumbai has this very big risk as I see it. Our rentals are rising rapidly. The housing prices are going up. Everywhere it is becoming almost impossible to own or even rent a home. This is wrong for a city. A city needs to attract young people with lower salaries but a high desire to make it big. It must allow them to intermingle and work alongside well. The best ideas will come in from the immigrants. I look around me in office, how many of us are third generation Mumbai residents. Most of us can’t trace our roots in Mumbai beyond our parents or grandparents. My worry is that high property prices and subsequent high rentals will soon drive people out of Mumbai. Today we are unable to see this but this will happen. All it requires is one big guy to move out and start another hub. Mumbai lost the software hub to Bangalore and other cities. Today talks are that all mobile apps are being made out of Chennai. Similarly, cultural hubs will also move out.
Interesting things can only happen to cities which allow for interesting people to come and settle. Right winged groups scaring immigrants can’t help. Insular societies building high boundaries and stopping free entry and exit of players, through restrictions or scaring them away or even economic restrictions will only doom themselves.
The challenge is to remain what you believe in while being open to have dissenters in place. Whether we allow them to shout out loud, or we allow them to come in cheap, or we allow them to fail. We must tolerate, no we must encourage change. A change that is challenges the basis of what we stand for. I hope my daughter grows up and shows me this blog when I stand in her way. It is so difficult when we don’t see it. We are so used to it, but we must. I must. Not all must change. It could be too disruptive , emotionally; but a lot can, slowly, surely. As long as we accept that it must, that’s a good step forward.
My job here – I see it as a change agent. It’s tough and irritating. But I must get down, and change something. Slowly. One starfish at a time. That’s what keeps me going. Some days are bad and some days are good. But I must try and change and I must be open to forces changing me. Now its beginning to sound like a prayer…. Amen.

wake up ball

It’s always a struggle to wake Jispa in the morning. Not because she is reluctant to wake up, that is definitely the case, but more so as she is a nice warm cuddly that I want to cuddle along and use to wake me up. It’s such a sin to wake up someone so beautifully asleep. Which heartless creature would want to disturb an angel, warm and asleep?
But on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, when you have to wake up at 5 and leave home at 5.30 am, all the warm fluffy feelings go for a toss. You just literally drag her from the bed. HI Jispa wake up time and pop, I have to pick her up. This is something that Jasmine invented. It takes a mother to invent something like this. Before jispa knows what is happening she is half way to the bathroom. And while she opens her eyes, she is in front of her mirror ready to brush. There is little time or scope for negotiation. I found it cruel at first but it is the right way. If I allow her to gain senses, she starts negotiating. And when she negotiates with her arm around you and says, “Dad one minute please. It won’t make a difference”, then I just melt and it’s time for us to get scolding form mom. GET UP NOW. YOU ARE GETTING LATE!
So it’s a yank and pull wake up three days of the week. No fluffy teddy for me. But on Tuesdays and Thursdays it’s the return of the teddy! I max these two days. I get into her bed and then cuddle up and then begin the process of waking her up. So I have to hunt for new things to wake her up. Because merely cuddling is not enough. She can then sleep for hours like that. And while the pressure is lower, it is still not absent. I still have to get her up and ready in time. So I start talking to her. Start asking her questions and other stuff. That lasted a couple of times till one day she said, ‘dad, don’t irritate me and ask me questions nah. Don’t do that in the morning”. So now that is effectively ruled out as an option. Her highness the teddy refuses to talk rubbish in the morning.
A few days back I hit on a new thing. I get into her warm mattress and start talking about my life. Nothing big or dramatic but simple stories that I find most amusing or talkable at 6 am. The last story I told her was about the games we played during the break at school. I was in Dubai till the third grade and moved into the fourth grade here. My first memory of the first break is when my new found friends said, ‘chal, join in, we all play aaba-dubee. What you mean Abu Dhabi, I corrected him. You see I was fresh from Dubai and the capital city for UAE is Abu Dhabi. No no. It’s not Abu Dhabi, its aaba-dubee.
This conversation today reminds me of the little prince where everyone told him, it’s a hat and he corrected them.. no no it’s a boa constrictor who swallowed an elephant.
Forget that. So my friend, if I am not mistaken Amardeep it was, says, its aaba-dubee we are playing. he had a rubber ball in his hand so I figured that’s got something to do with it. It was the first time I had seen a rubber ball, popularly called rubdy ball in Mumbai. In Dubai a ball was always a tennis ball. I soon learnt that tennis balls were really expensive– pre reform era, remember? – and this ball at 2.5 bucks was IT. So how do we play the game. We take this ball and hit other people with it. Ok. I was waiting. It sounds like kings. We used to play kings where in, there is the denner and his job is to hit someone with the ball, then they both together get the third one and so on till we are all out. You can’t run with the ball. That’s the only other rule in kings.Amardeep then explain aba-dubee to me. You only hit anyone else with the ball. And yes you can’t run with the ball. So, ‘who is the denner’ I asked. There is no denner in aba-dubee. You just throw the ball high in the air to start it. Then whoever gets the ball has can throw it to hit someone and then whoever picks it then throws it at someone with an aim to hit him and so on. It’s not a sport; it’s not a game, its mindless action. It has no end. You just keep throwing the ball. The playground has no boundaries, no one to judge, nothing. IT WAS AWESOME.i remember playing it forever. You rush out at the bell and throw the ball into the air and you start and continue till the bell rings to get us back in. short break, long break, you just play like crazy.
i never understood we boys would just rush in and try our hand at getting the ball. That is always a high risk high reward strategy. To get the ball you always compete with one or two other guys and then if you get it first then you have two really close targets. If not, then you are one of the two really close targets. Also the trick if you miss it is to get really really close to the guy with the ball. He can’t really throw a hard ball at you if you are an inch away. At around three to four feet distance, you are a sitting duck. So it’s a stick or run early strategy. So in a game where there are 20 to 30 kids playing you are not likely to get hit more than twice. Aim has to be right and you have to be stupid. I remember only once a guy called Ashish Kaul got hit five times in one session. I remember singing happy birthday along with the others. It was his aba-dubee birthday.
So I explained the brain dead game to Jispa one morning while waking her up. She found it most amusing. A game with no real point and that doesn’t end. She soon woke up. Now to think of more stories from my life to tell her. Some from college, some from school, some from Dubai, and possibly some stories will be hers, things that she would have done as a younger kid. It’s like a talking blog every morning. A Tog?

laments of a generation

Her first swim medal. Ok, she has won before but this is her first real medal. Yesterday we were at one hastily organized swim meet. This was a state level meet but the under 10’s were there as fillers for the real champions. In any case the competition wasn’t too much. Quite a few swimmers stayed away. She clocked 41 for the freestyle 50 meter bronze. So technically she is the third fastest swimmer in the state as of the last held state meet.
Jispa has been improving her swimming every day. Serious swimmers have a language and a body language of their own. They are talking seconds. She comes in one day and tells me I hit19, then the other day she says “dad, today I hit 18”. She is talking about 25 meters freestyle. Then some more number about butterfly, or 50 meters or something or the other. It’s a completely different thing that turns them on. Also when you see the swimmers at a contest also, they are a different breed. Their bodies are al tanned and skin is burnt to a crisp toast. The hair is short or tied tightly. The abs is ripped and lean muscular frame is everywhere. The champs have a v structure that is hard to miss and the shoulders are strong and neck is tough. It’s a perfect body structure. It’s pretty much a reality check for me. In office I would just need to look around to feel superior. Everyone (almost everyone ) is pretty much unfit. The tummies are out and the flexibility is missing. Some guys seem to be naturally fit and can manage their bodies but for the vast majority, a 100 meter dash would be a herculean task. And I am not joking or being smug about it. This is the truth. That is the reason why at 36 my corporate cricket is still alive. I was never too good at cricket. The others deteriorated much faster than me. That’s enough to keep me going. And I don’t know if this is just the things that people lament without a real basis but I do feel that the younger ones coming out right now are much less fitter than we were. Somehow they can’t run or play as much. I don’t even see enough of these guys playing cricket like we used to.
Vacation time meant a kick ass killer schedule. We woke up at 7 to play badminton or something. That lasted till around 10. Then we went home and ate and then met at a friend’s place to play a few board games from 1 till 4. And then from 4 till bad light was cricket. And I even remember playing cricket clustered around a single building light. Enough to play high intensity low level touch cricket. You could barely survive a few balls with five fielders hounding you. Full action.Also there were no computer games and only 60 minutes of programming that you could really watch on TV. And that too was at around 8 pm.
Now the new thing is the iPad or the iTouch. I didn’t want the device till when someone gifted the iTouch to me. It is fun downloading the games and playing but we saw one interesting side effect. Jispa now gets bored far more often than before. Our routines are the same. We roam around as much, go out as much. But now whenever there is any waiting time, out comes the phrase “I am bored”. It basically means “please give me the ipod”. Oh come off it. It irks me no end. Waiting at a dinner table “I am bored”, at a clinic “I am bored”, at the swim meet between events “I am bored”. Arrgghhh. I have warned Jispa now, quite seriously – “IF I LISTEN TO THE STATEMENT, I AM BORED EVEN ONCE MORE, THEN I WILL THROW THE IPOD OUT OF THE WINDOW. YOU ARE NOT GOING TO GET IT, IF YOU ARE BORED. IF YOU WANT IT ASK. WE WILL THINK ABOUT IT. BUT NO MORE – I AM BORED”. iPod and the iPads are gaming devices that look like computers. The killer app is the games you put in. One friend was telling us that there are nice games in the iPad that are good and intellectually stimulating for the child. Ya sure. And what are they likely to play – a ninja that jumps from building to building. Its much like what a friend once told me – you need cable TV at home. There are interesting channels like discovery and national geographic. Ya sure. But what are they likely to consume – cartoon network!
The kid with the device assumes control over the others. He or she plays the games first and sets the rules for the others. It reminded me of the days when we played cricket. The kid with the bat or the ball couldn’t be given out easily. He was always the guy who made the rules, or influenced them to a large extent. His mother basically set the timings for all of us. If he was called in to do homework, there goes our game. He would be protected by us all. Only joint contributions for the ball and bat brought a semblance of control to the equation. In our time pocket money was really scarce and bats and balls and other equipment was not really something that all parents bought.
I think over time the incomes rose to include these expenses and slowly there were enough of them roaming around. Today’s royalty are ones with the iPads. I guess things change. No I guess nothing really changes.
The more things change the more the same they are.

its bakshish time

Diwali season is coming. This is the time when everyone who is any one greets in anticipation of a bakshish or tip. One has to pay the watchman, the cleaners, the maid, the postman, the garbage guy, the pantry guy, the guard, everyone who is anyone. Nowadays even the courier guy comes in for his piece of the pie. I had once seen the telegraph guys come and ask for their share. God knows who even saw them ever.
But Diwali is the season of fun and merriment, which I have missed consistently for many years now. I don’t remember the last Diwali I spent in Mumbai. We just run away from the fire crackers and the noise and air pollution. But that does not mean the tip seekers don’t find us. They work as organized gangs. The watch men in the building typically form a union and go about extorting their bakshish. They approach and ask brazenly. Then they write down the contributions in a small notebook and divide the same internally.
I normally never gave any money to these characters around office. Though around home, it’s a done thing and considered a part of the expense. At my last office building I never gave anything to the guards as well. I then shifted office but I had to keep going there to meet some of the senior bosses. Parking is a mess in the area and one is left to the guards mercy to get a parking. There I was pretty much stuck. “sir” he said when I was trying to maneuver my car into an unauthorized parking slot, “last year’s Diwali is pending”. Ok sure. They sure know when to strike. I loosened the purse strings a little and voila, parking was available magically every time I went.
I learned the quiet benefits of Diwali bakshish. Loosen it and get magical service. I guess it’s a form of extortion or black mail or bribe. Soft power. But when you give them a bit, magic seems to open up doors and crucially parking slots.
My maid servant who is pretty friendly with us asked me generally the other day. “you too must be getting Diwali in office”. The Diwali tip is most often referred to simply as ‘diwali’. So “you too must be getting Diwali in office”.
Well. When I first started my career, I realized that what they said in the interview as CTC – or cost to company, is a magically large figure. What comes in hand is pretty less per month. What gets cut – first the provident fund contribution, then the company’s contribution to the fund (so much for forcing companies to contribute), then some professional tax, then some gratuity, then the tax that is deducted at source and then finally – bonus. The bonus deducted is around 8%, which is basically deducted so that during Diwali they give you a month’s salary as bonus. So they basically take your money and give it back to you later during the year as ‘Diwali Bonus’. Funny.
That practice carried on in a few companies for a few years, but my present company doesn’t do any of that. They don’t give you a Diwali bonus with your own money. You CTC has the normal deductions but no bonus deduction… which means more money in your hands every month.
But – you know I kind of miss the Bonus. Diwali is a season to spend and feel rich. It is a season to give others ‘bakshish’, celebrate, buy stuff and enjoy. We are a broking firm, a banking firm and more importantly an investment firm. We know what the shopping season does to the economy. People must feel rich during Diwali. They must spend. Spending kick starts the economy that spread cheer all around.
Most of economics is in the head. It’s what you feel. Recession happens because you don’t feel like spending, and economists do everything in their power to make you feel like spending or investing. If we are a financial service organization that believes in spreading joy within the economy and especially during the main season, then we must give this bonus. Cut it form the salary if you must but make people feel rich when they are likely to enjoy being rich the most!
I think I loved the bonus. I felt nice when I first got it. It was a week before Diwali and it felt nice being rich. I got a cheque. Those days’ people still got cheques! Now a days you get an email saying your monies are in. I remember feeling nice and happy. Pleasurable. I don’t know why we discontinued the box of sweetmeats as well. We used to give these out to all employees. It’s nice to take a box of sweets home from office. It’s a gesture to share joy and affection.
Economic sensibility wise I think it’s important to do something like this. If we as a bank player refuse to understand this, what hope we have from the lesser mortals who live in this big bad ugly world.
So “no devki, I don’t get any bonus from office during Diwali. It doesn’t work like that” I answered my maid servant. I guess she was disappointed. She probably had a point to state to which my organization probably helped in stealing the thunder away. Well. I guess there are some positive takeaways of not receiving a Diwali bonus after all.

cold, bare and ...

Another weekend just comes and goes. Sometimes life moves on so fast, one is unaware of what hits where. Jasmine and me just look at each other as one weekend after the other passes us by. But I look at it with rose tinted glasses. One more weekend gone means one more week of pay in the bank. Wow.
I have always had this notion that I was overpaid. Sure I bring in tons of value to the firm and I ensure that enough value is always there on the table, but to be grounded and live life on a floor and not in the air, I keep this as a mental attitude. One month at a time. One week at a time and one day at a time.
I have never really had an issue with my salary. I have always taken salaries as a byproduct of the work that I have put in. of course I have changed job thanks to a better salary but more importantly the factor for me was always the role. A chance to do better, a chance to prove what I am capable of and a chance to learn more. Over the years salary has surely kept pace. Could I have earned more? Ya sure. But the answer remains the same to the question, could I have earned less? I also have never failed to admit this in public. The game is pretty simple. You are not going to pay me basis what I feel. You are going to pay me at only the minimum level that you think that if I don’t get, I would be tempted to move on. Market forces decide my pay, not my sentiment.
Hence I find it very funny when people crib about their salary. If you so smart then why aren’t you moving to something that pays you more. Something that pays you better. Don’t crib; just get on with the grind and work. Go for good work. Work that possibly gives you greater learning.
I have in life consistently though not consciously taken such calls. When I came back from Gujarat, working in Balasara, I joined Thakral at a lower pay. Then I rejected a few offers to join C tech at an even lower pay but to work on web technology. This helped me immensely. Then I refused offers somewhere else to work with something I liked. Then I took another pay cut to work at Momentum consulting. Then I moved to the broking division within the firm at same costs. All these calls have been from a growth and work perspective. I might be one of hard bargainers for cash and I constantly tell my friends to pitch higher. But the real reason to switch can’t be cash. It must be work and role. Cash follows work and role. All privileges follow work and role.
So when someone asks me for a recommendation on how much salary to ask for. Ask for the moon. The guy on the other side is only going to pay you what bets he can. No harm in asking for anything you want. That makes me sound cold and heartless. But I dint say join the place due the salary. Join for other things in life. Like my colleague once put it very nicely – we work for money but we turn up to work every day for something else.
Money can’t push me to do things that I do. I am not a rabbit that a carrot must be dangled in front of. We somehow have lost the art of respecting individuals. In sales to we think that carrot or stick would only work. Consistently people believe that their subordinates work only for money. But when asked about themselves they have loftier reasons to work. I hate bonus season. Managers tend to give bonus as a big reward and then expect employees to be grateful. He is not going to be grateful. Why should he be? It is a cold transaction. It’s not that the firm is giving out of goodwill. It only gives to those it deems suitable thanks to the effort and time put in by the employee. Employee sees it as money earned for effort spent.
I always turn these things around. Here is the money you made, but forget it. Let’s talk about the work you want to do. That’s important. Let’s get ground rules, work and culture right. Rest – jump around. If you like it, thank the MD - if you don’t like it, walk around. I am ok.
I like the example of zappos.com. The famous online show retailer. It famously offers a reward for all trainees if they want to quit at the end of a definite period. I thought that was cool. If you don’t like the culture – walk out fast. In fact all efforts must be made to ease the release of a player who wants out. Recently I closed a card with American Express. I thought it was the best experience possible. They were polite courteous and persuasive, but only to the right level. No extra pushing, no begging. They even refused to reverse a fee but were ok to close the account. They threw in a sweetener in terms of points but – no – sorry there is no reversal of fees. That’s a spine. I respect having a spine. I too refused on principal grounds – I don’t pay for cards – charge cards or credit cards. My usage and spending potential itself should warrant a free card. So we agreed to disagree and the parting was sweet. I hope someday I will use an American Express card again. And this time I plan to use it regularly. I have great faith in the service.
Coming back to zappos. Exiting must be easy and pain free. One of my old broking franchisees once told me that he always tells his customers – that many people give you service to open an account, but he will give you the same service and commitment when you want to close an account. Closing an account is not personal and when you close a relationship, the true value of the company comes to fore. But it also seems that the zappos offer is also an interesting psychological ploy. In one freakonomics podcast (highly recommended) that talks about quitting, they talk about the zappos example. Dan Ariely, a social scientist says that since the offer is a limited period offer, post the offer lapsing, cognitive dissonance kicks in and people justify their reason to stay on. They have just paid a premium (in effect by refusing the cash deal) and hence will look for justification in terms of culture etc. ok – now I not sure if that was the necessary objective when zappos started the offer, but I think it works well. By publically stating within my team that I would be more than happy to let people leave and will not hold them back, especially when it comes to salary, I end up having conversations that really matter. Work, growth, learnings, enrichment etc. What’s the point of having conversations that you can’t really do much about? And that will always remain cold and heartless. We have that as a cold and heartless conversation, wherein I am not expecting gratitude and the employee isn’t expecting benevolence.

used to being a dad

Activity wise things couldn’t have been better. The cricket season has started. The last season saw me so out of form I refused to pick up the bat anymore. I wanted to go and hide. I even dropped myself and didn’t play the last few games. I couldn’t justify my place in the team. Yesterday was the first nets of the season. I went along but I did not want to bat. When satish, who is the captain of the A team asked to pad up, I said yes but I was pretty apprehensive. The first ball I played hit the middle of the bat and sounded good. There, that’s not so bad is that? My feet were moving my head was ok, and the arms were coming in nice. A few balls lifted higher than I wanted them to. The next few were driven and I was on a roll. A few cuts, drives and straight hits behind the bowler. Nice. On Dushhera, I burnt the Raavan inside of me. I could bat again!
Speaking of which, I fulfilled another childhood dream. I always loved seeing the burning Raavan. There is something interesting about seeing a Raavan burn away. Especially the one you have built yourself. Last year too we built a Raavan to be burnt. But that was a ready kit with a printed head and cut outs. See here http://jaimit.blogspot.com/2010/10/burn-negatives-from-your-heart.html
This time around I asked Jasmine if she was keen to build a Raavan to burn. Jasmine has always been an art and craft person. She would be the one to put it all together. The one with all the implements and the vision to create something. A lot like her dad. These days though motherhood seems to have gotten the better of her and she doesn’t use her craft skills as much. I always remember when she and I had to do something; we would always team up and do very well. We had a lot of complimentary skill sets. She would be able to translate my dream into possibilities. Then I would be able to put some structure around it and then we would do it together. Of all the fights we have had, I can’t recall a single fight, disagreement or anything of the sort when we are working together on a project. We would talk to each other and explain our theories, listen and get moving. So I was pretty excited when she said yes. I don’t need anything more.
I asked her if we could invite friends and she said only if I coordinate. I called up the moms and two out of four agreed to come. So yesterday we met at the garden behind our house and started building the Raavan at around 4. Two and a half hours later – it was ready. The parents loved it, the kids loved it. We really had no plan how we were going to make the Raavan. We decided to get as many craft materials we could get our hands on, get old newspapers and then we were to build form there. The previous day I got some five strips of plywood, thinking we would figure from there.
Jasmine came up with the idea of building a structure like a Red Indian teepee with three wooden strips. Then we set about building the Raavan. Awesome fun. The mothers had coordinated to ensure that sandwiches and juice was always around. So was fevicol, wrapping paper, cardboard and other paraphernalia.
Here is the photo of the work in progress. I will upload more as soon Jasmine is able to download and mail them form her camera. It was pretty cool thing.

Jispa loved the process and the other kids also enjoyed it. It’s a good thing spending time doing things with your kids. The friends loved it as well and thanked us. I always maintained that more than kids playing by themselves they love doing things with their parents. Sure they want time on their own but more importantly they want to have fun doing things that they too can contribute equally with their parents. Out of the four sets of kids that were there, the two sets that had both parents working worked harder and enjoyed working on the ‘craft project’. I don’t think its mere coincidence. I think it’s another case of monkey see monkey do. They have their heroes very clear in their heads. That’s whom they like to emulate.
The Raavan was complete. Snacks followed and then we were ready to burn the fella. Such small pleasures in life. Jispa enjoyed the day and was saying ‘I am little sad to see this one burn’ :)
We burst a few crackers, lots of sparklers and wound for the day. As usual, when I am home in time to see her sleep I have to get into her bed and lie down alongside till she sleeps. This makes her sleep much faster. These days I normally get sleep alongside her before she does. Then I wake up and get into my bed. Yesterday after I went into my bed, she came by and said, she still isn’t getting sleep. Jasmine told her to sleep alongside me and that she would put her in her bad later in the night. I was completely tired but I love my teddy bear next to me. I too sleep much better holding a teddy I guess. So as she came in and lied down next to me, I told her “Now I too get sleep only if you are lying down next to me “. She replied “Dad, I think you have now become too used to being a Dad”

code decode

One of our family friend’s sister recently passed away due to a road accident. Our friend’s daughter and Jispa are also close friends. So generally I was asking Jispa, do you know what happened to your friend’s maasi (aunt). She said “ya, she had a terrible accident”. “yes and you are aware what happened then”. “Yes dad, she … err… she went …”, Jispa pointed upwards. She obviously was flustered and didn’t know how to say it. “Yes, she passed away” I added.
“You know dad. Now I can understand this better. It is all thanks to Calvin and Hobbes”. “Calvin and Hobbes?” I asked “how did that help?”. “earlier I used to panic or my breathing would get … but after I read Calvin and Hobbes story of the raccoon, I understood about death”. “Is that so?” I asked faintly remembering the story. I remember, Calvin finding the raccoon and then him getting upset about the raccoon dying. “yes dad, in that the raccoon dies and then Calvin is all upset. His mother then tells him, there is birth and death, everything that is born must die. But what is more important is that the raccoon was warm and safe”. I guess that explained to her the inevitability of death.
The magic of Calvin and Hobbes is that it works at multiple levels. It explains some serious philosophy for the evolved reader as well as appeals and explains simple philosophy for the young reader. It’s magical how it connects to both. Its so beautiful. Reading is important. Reading anything is important. Fiction, non-fiction, comics, cartoons, anything. Who would have thought that reading a comic strip would help a 9 year deal with a serious issue like death. The inevitability of it and the life that precedes it.
Here is the series in which the episode pans out. It’s lovely yet poignant.

(footnote - Jispa remembers the mom explaining death but its actually the dad.... Sighhhhh)

Kids understand much more and take in much more when aided with the power of a story possibly seen through another 8 year old. I remember when Jispa would sometimes be a little misbehaved on certain issues and we found it difficult to control her, I would dream of a story where there was papaya papa and musambi mummy, along with a little girl and somehow the moral of the story would bring alive the situation to her and she would then understand. Stories are so powerful.
I read somewhere that Hinduism was under grave threat thanks to the spread of Buddhism and the Brahmins brought it back by retelling the tale of Ramayana and Mahabharata to extoll the glory of Hindu deities. In fact they even conveniently got Balaram out of the Dus Avatars and brought in Buddha as a reincarnation. Funny, for a religion born in some ways against the practice of Hinduism, they incorporated it back into Hinduism. It’s like making the naughtiest guy in class the Monitor of the class. A story well told has many a reaching impact – much more than what we can imagine.
I have been generally been teaching Jispa banking and interest through her pocket money. The other day her monthly 10% interest came up to 140 bucks. I told her that I am reducing her interest rate to 5% per month. That is because she is isn’t spending anything much and I want her to spend so reducing the interest rate gives her a little less incentive to save. A ha. It’s like I am playing central bank. Reducing interest rate to increase money flow in the economy. So she I think now is planning to spend a little more. I think this game is getting far more fun. She earns money by playing the guitar, then spends a little on bubble gum, then she gets interest by saving it and then the central bank is reducing nd increasing the interest rate to control money supply. Let’s see if I can introduce more complexities like tax or something else. It has to get interesting yet simple. Haha.
I think this money thing is also making her a little bit of an economist. Today morning we were talking money and she was wondering how money gets printed. I was telling her that it is a difficult process and that only the government is allowed to print money. If everybody would print money then everybody would get rich. “yes” she added “and then if everybody had lots of money, all the prices of everything would rise”. What on earth. “who taught you that. Did I tell you that” I don’t remember teaching her that. “no, not you dad. My brain told me”. Wow. Old Chinese and European monarchs refused to understand the simple relationship between money supply and inflation. My nine old got it. Pretty cool nah. “yes Jispa that is bang on. It’s called inflation. When prices of things rise, its inflation”.
I am pretty surprised that she got that relation bang on. It is a pretty abstract relationship. It happens due to people behavior and not due to a mathematical formula. It is derived.
I guess having fun and intelligent conversations impact thought process in ways we can’t imagine. Kids learn from anything and make their minds work. We possibly underestimate their ability to sum total entire stimuli and form their own judgments, values and decoding formulas. Be very careful when you answer innocuous sounding questions or expose them to stimuli. You have no clue on the way a kid’s mind works.

have you made an investment today?

Activity wise yesterday as pretty cool. In the morning I managed to hit the tread mill, then a game of squash, followed by swimming. It’s been a dream of mine to play as much sport as possible. Sports club have always meant something for me. When we were in Dubai, growing up and having fun meant visiting the club. Dad was an active sports person, always looking to play sports. We took membership of the Dubai sports club. This club shared a common wall with the school we went to. Many times we would just hop across to the club after school. Swimming and playing and running about. I even remember my dad buying me a tennis racket. I was about to start learning the game but Ithen we left Dubai and came to India for good. I always loved sports, the club culture and learning sports. Going to a gymkhana and playing like crazy and then having French fries are the memories that remained with me. Also those days’ aerated drinks weren’t the monster they turned out to be. So a round of swimming was followed by a can of Dixi. Dixi was a local home bred Dubai cola. Pull open the can and guzzle the soda. I remember it coming in two three variants – orange, cola, lime… we sometimes had Rani Orange juice. It was a big hit as it contained real orange pulp. So when the gymkhana at Matunga was getting renovated around 7-8 years ago, my sister was telling me to become a member. I always wanted to become a member there. I wanted the active sport life for my kid. At the time the membership was 75,000 bucks. Oops, I did not have that kind of cash. Then it became a 1,00,000 bucks. Oops no money, then it went to 2 and then 3 and then 4. Always my saving would lag the amount required. It was a dam pain. I always thought this would never happen. And then at 4,00,000 the amount was very steep. A couple of good bonus years later we were left with a large bonus and no real place to spend it. We had a car, we had a house, and we had decent savings. Let’s check if the membership is open. It was around the 4.5 lakh figure. Wow. That’s high we thought. Jasmine was really reluctant. I could only remember my memories of the club at Dubai. I always wanted membership. I could only think about playing, swimming and spending quality time with family and sports. Oh come on, Jasmine. It’s worth it and it’s not that you really need the money elsewhere. Let’s go for it. Not too many people would have approved. You have a gym in the building nah? Yes but that’s not the point. Your building has a swimming pool, nah? Yes but that’s a waddle pool; it’s a pond that’s 10 meters long! That’s no club. Plus you need games, coaching, a restaurant, hang out places etc etc…. Finally I insisted and Jasmine agreed. We put the money down and became members. Today membership is closed. And we use the club everyday. Jispa is a fish in the water. She learns swimming for around 12 hours in a week. She keeps track of her timing in different styles. I jog, play squash and learn to swim. Jasmine is too trying to figure her sport. She isn’t too much of the sporty types but she is active enough to like the gymkhana. It’s become such an integral part of our life and given us so much happiness. I suspect it has also given us a lot of health and I reckon a few years of life extra. I am so happy that Jispa is learning a sport that would help her for years to come. Whenever she hits a water body she will be comfortable in the knowledge that she can swim well and she can talk about it for years to come. Sport teaches many things about life. Only we care enough to learn from it, only we if care enough to practice it. Like a few years ago when the markets were doing good and my friend asked me – “what are you investing in, these days?” – My reply was – “I am investing in myself. Care for a game of squash today?”

its fun growing up with her

Recently Jispa again had an elocution competition in school. This time too we searched for poems and one we specially loved was on Television by Roald Dahl. It was quite a nice one with scope for interesting tones to be used. You can access the poem here. http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/television/ So well in time we normally get her to learn the poem by heart. This time it was even more important as the poem was longer than your usual poem. So Jispa took a copy of the poem and submitted it for the competition. She was even shortlisted for the contest basis the poem. After which her teacher asked her to change the poem. Too many kids say Roald Dahl poems and this one is possibly common. So please get something new. So we began our search or another interesting poem. We sent ‘oh captain my captain’ to school along with my favorite Psalm of Life. The first was too common and the second was too high for the kids to understand. OK. In the meanwhile the dates for the final shortlist was coming up and we desperately needed a poem. Vinu tried to help and shortlist a few. Jasmine and I frenetically started searching the Shel Silberstein books again. We found one – The Nap Taker. That was also an interesting poem with plenty of fun stuff in it. But we hardly had enough time to prepare it. Just enough to learn it by heart and then a few days to put all the tone and correction in it. Jispa is now much older and wiser then from when I first taught her elocution around three years ago. Now she understands the poems and the fun she can have with it. Also I think I have grown as well in the few years. I have learnt to be a little more patient and have a little less drive. To sit behind and say its ok. Let it be. Some of the tones may not be completely right and the pitch may have been a bit low but I guess I have learnt to be a bit detached. I think this realization first came to me when a friend asked me to just get her kid to emote right for her elocution. Since I couldn’t really scold her, it taught me tons of pateience, and then I realized how demanding I have been on Jispa when she was learning her poem. What an ass I was. So this time around I scolded less. Far less. Only when we argued and especially when she argued needlessly or gave some random excuse did I shout. But all in all it was a slightly more relaxed experience. Easy does it. She knows she has to be clear, she knows she must give out emotions, she knows it’s important to change voices. She also has now seen enough elocution competitions herself to figure this. In the run up to the contest she was making a mess of her poem. Jasmine and I wanted to hit our head against the wall and cry. But we both decided to have an attitude that said ‘to hell with it’. When the date was nearing, we gave it a few corrections and told Jispa where she was going wrong. We had to lean on each other quite a bit for support, to prevent us from tearing out hair apart. When Jispa has something in her head it’s very difficult to get it out. She can think of many reasons why it must be in a particular way. And when we have just a day to go before the contest – there is normally no reasoning to be done. PLEASE JUST FOLLOW AS I HAVE TOLD YOU. The contest was done – Jispa won the second place. We always take this thing as a badge of achievement. Most other competitors got o speech and drama class. They are trained in this regularly. I for one hated this concept. You don’t need classes to teach you to act. I learnt that on my own. I think overacting and theatrics was something I was born with. And I am not spending money on someone trying to teach my daughter the same. In any case this one was especially special – as I see as an award that Jispa won more than us. As I have explained, her own role and her own thought process was much larger. We only gave direction this time around. The last few years we rehearsed and fine-tuned the delivery a lot. Now we are only, what… the facilitators? It’s nice to see Jispa grow up and manage a lot of these things. She is a smart kid. She looks around and learns. Like one cousin of mine said – there is one thing I told him and he never forgets as regards parenting “monkey sees, monkey does”. Jispa not only learns from us but from everyone. She has ears and eyes that senses cues and picks up signals. This cuts both ways. Like she learnt begging from a cousin – when she begs for something – like playing time on the itouch, and good things, like how she must be loud and clear on elocution. To end – not that it’s a complain – in fact I love training her – but in my times the school teacher used to take a lot of interest in elocution and the parents hardly knew of it. These days, it seems, that its parents all the way. Or possibly it’s the role of the special coaching classes.

Food catharsis

What a gluttonous weekend we have had. We were invited to sample the newly furbished rooms at a five star in Juhu (JW). All meals included. ALL MEALS INCLUDED. Like a kid in a bikini shop, our brains just short circuited at the massive amounts of food at disposal.
We ate lunch, then we ate dinner, then we had breakfast and then lunch again. The thing is that Jasmine and I are normally smart eaters, we don’t go overboard, we ate simple food at simple restaurants and we definitely don’t do five star brunches. Spending 6K at one shot, just to eat is something we find criminal. Food can’t be entertainment. People enjoy their food and spend massive amounts of money to treat themselves and we just can’t ever do that. Eat less, eat sensibly and that’s it. Entertainment is watching a movie, a vacation or at a garden or even swimming at the club. Then you eat sensibly, treat yourself to a panner tikka or something and go home.
It’s a two pronged thing, (a) fundamentally food shouldn’t give you so much pleasure (b) you can’t be spending this kind f money on something as ephemeral as food. Now it’s in and in a few hours its out… how can I spend thousands of rupees on Food!
So this time FREE LAVISH FOOD and like prisoners released from prison we attacked. The buffet was huge with so much at your disposal. Pizzas, breads, salads, soups, what not… my strategy was simple. Eat very little of everything. One small serving of it all. And of course – if I can’t pronounce it, I eat it first. I was surprised how much I could eat. After you are thru with food, you hit the deserts and the ice cream. My colleagues with me were super surprised at my appetite. I could eat and how. I also dint realize how much I could stuff. After I had started swimming I felt the amount of food my stomach could take in at a time reduced. I actually gained a kilo or two and lost an inch or two. More lean muscle mass, I hoped. I kept telling Jasmine to reduce my lunch and breakfast portions. Can’t eat can’t eat, I cried. I thought it was a physiological thing, but in these few days I realized it’s all psychological.
I think food is a mental thing. If you want to eat and store, your stomach can take in much much more, if you believe that you don’t want to eat, you want to be fit and you want to take care, you stomach responds accordingly. It’s probably you telling yourself, that life is secure and relax. It’s almost many times I feel I can will myself to be fitter. So does that mean that insecure people end up eating more? Nah! That would be bull shit evolutionary mumbo jumbo. One thing I know now – it’s my mind that eats, not my stomach. Food is a mind set. And the more we understand that, the better we get at managing it.
One of things that I always felt while managing my diet was - no cravings. On the whole I avoid sweets, aerated drinks, fried food and other junk. But when my mind would feel punished and craved for it, I would just go ahead and have a few to satiate my mind more than my tongue. I guess that’s the thing with diet and food. If you don’t really will it, you will not succeed at it. And the success will be temporary at best. Over the years I have come to conclude that this is largely inbuilt. I dare say – you are born with it. It’s up to you to look in the mirror and say, nopes – that’s not prosperity – that’s a pot belly. And no one can say it for you.
My only comeback from the 24 hours of eating – I also swam around on both the days. That is so crucial. Learning any sport is so important. Before I started swimming coaching, I used to be a self taught swimmer and I was bad. Now I get the rhythm when I swim and I so enjoy it. I am seeing tiny bits of muscles growing and they seem to be the right swimming muscles. I feel that as long as I can burn these calories coming in, intake should not be a problem.
Speaking of which, on Friday I ran for around 50 minutes – just because I forgot to load my mp3 player with the latest podcasts. How are the two related? No podcast means watching TV. TV means another case of brains short circuiting. Since we don’t have cable at home, we tend to get excited with TV shows. And I watched of all things MasterChef Australia. I didn’t know I would watch a show where they show contestants cooking food, and that too non-veg stuff and I would find it interesting. Even the recipes are not shared. There is drama in cooking! So while food doesn’t make you lose calories, watching food being cooked can mean losing calories – there that’s a trivia question for you.
One thing is for sure – I am off food for some time. Especially the exotic fattening stuff. In fact I am skipping dinner. And this is not for any guilt alleviation; I just can’t get myself to eat more. A day speant eating felt like a really long vacation.

how we learn

What a wild four months I have had. The research is finally over and so is the presentation. These four months are much like the 10 months I spent in Momentum Consulting (2004) working on the cement ACC project. Working like mad and meeting tons of people, connecting with them, hearing their stories and understanding their relationship with the category its takes a lot of out you, both physically and mentally. In the run up to the presentation for at least ten odd days I couldn’t sleep properly. Not that was a stress of the bad type but more like Eustress. Stress that helps you perform helps you do better. One of the things in Momentum was a constant pressure. And I remember working till the last minute trying to get the presentation in order. We would think and work and sleep in front of the laptop and then get up and work again. I hardly saw my daughter or my family. This would be on till the actual presentation. We would also be working during the breaks, trying to improve the presentation. Obviously this gave us no time to improve the look and feel of a presentation. The presentation I remember making was black text on white background. In the super final presentation, I had some time to make a small ‘gussa meter’ where I showed the rising frustration of the home owner. But still nothing much.
This time I was determined not to repeat the mistake. The presentation was on Wednesday and I wanted to finish everything before the weekend. I sat late, pushed hard, pushed everyone and I finished the core of it well in time to give us two full days to work on the look. And then a Friday to just make small corrections or modifications. It was done well in time. I relaxed on the preceding weekend and was relaxed as to the presentation in the run up to the D day. The only thing was how to avoid a backlash. How I must not step on toes, how to get the point across without getting defensive walls up. What a challenge. I wanted to call my God Dharen Chadhha and take his blessings before, but somehow I couldn’t. But after the marathon meeting which I presented for 12 straight hours, I could only thank him. It’s not just the technical side of marketing that I learnt from him that I used in the presentation. The equally important bit was handling 25 people on the other side.
Research presentations are notorious for being potentially volatile and hostile. You typically encounter closed and hostile minds. I remember seeing Dharen in such meetings, addressing concerns, keeping research sacrosanct, agreeing and convincing, accepting and moving and guiding the group. Invaluable lessons in managing board rooms. If Dharen with his vast knowledge and experience could be so humble in a group, can listen to the real banal of all arguments without being dismissive, can have amazing patience and a keen ear, then who am I ?
He was the first guys I called back. Thank you for teaching me so much. Thanks a lot; I learnt so much from you. I am sure my experience with Dharen has made me a better manager, marketing person and more importantly a better parent. He wondered – a better parent – yes sir, you taught me to open my mind, to read books, to understand various versions of truth. You taught me to think. That has made me a better parent. I don’t know if it has made me a good parent but it definitely made a better one.
I was so dam emotional talking to him. I could only mutter thanks and appreciation. But what a learning experience for me this whole presentation was. I was in charge, leading the brigade and being a Dharen on my own for the first time. 26 heads in the room, luckily not hostile but one wrong foot and the hostilities would have broken through. It took me some time to recover from that effort. Yesterday I woke up late wound up at around 2 from office, relaxed and lazed around only to catch sleep at around 9 pm. That was the first decent sleep after a long time. No lucid dreaming about presentations or research. Uff… it was fun … hectic but fun.

I see you

All my life I wanted to have specs. I thought having specs was super cool. I thought it made me look intelligent. I must have got my eyes checked a few times and secretly hoped for a number. Once when I was in 10th or 11th or was it the summer vacation in between, I got my eyes checked again. The rascal at the optician said ‘ya, sure’. Its .25 in both the eyes. Point 25 is not even a number. You don’t have specs if you have point 25. But hell, I got the specs. So my dad who was with me got a pair ordered. They were a thick round frame with some golden embellishments. Pretty funny looking I can safely say now. Also needless to add, I hardly wore them. My poor dad got a scolding from mom when we returned home from the optician. Mom was adamant that these were not specs and that this was a needless waste of money on a teen fancy.
She was right but I still was happy to get my specs then. Once the novelty wore out for me they lied in wait for some time. Once in college we celebrated formal day or something. I wore formals to college along with specs. Pretty corporate looking. Then suddenly as I was taking them off, they broke into two. Just like that. Broke into two. Oh shit. I was screwed. Not that dad would know. But just in case if dad asked for the specs, then what. Jasmine offered to fix them. She used araldite and fixed them sure enough. Whew. Close shave. So they still lay in dust for a few years more, till my brother broke his specs. So my mother asked him to take mine and get the glasses changed. Well. The araldite was stuck in a manner that the glass was also frozen along with. Great. Luckily enough years had passed since we bought the specs for me to escape severe admonishment. That was my last tryst with prescription glasses.
About a month back Jasmine generally was checking Jispa’s worksheets and she felt that Jispa was copying the stuff wrong from the board at a school. A visit to the ophthalmologist confirmed a .75 number in both the eyes. Oops. We went to the local optician and he confirmed the same. Now with both parents with excellent eyesight, no TV at home and no real reason – we wondered if this would somehow go away. Why is that we were quite not at ease for such a simple thing such as ‘your daughter needs specs’. I didn’t like it. The optician told us to come back after a month and check again. We promptly did so and got the same results. No magic here.
So now Jasmine called me to be present when we choose the frame. It seemed like a family thing to do. I don’t know what value I could add but I wanted to be there as well. My daughter’s first specs. The optician assured us that it won’t be her last and if we are lucky we wouldn’t be back in a month. Darn. So started the process of choosing the right frame. Jispa was clear she wanted rectangle frames. Jasmine being a mother promptly asked “your friend said?”. Ya sure. Like she would answer that question. No one , including a kid, would pick a bomb that said ‘your friend asked you to?’. No came the reply. How on earth can you possibly ask a question to any child that insinuates the presence of peer pressure. All of them obviously believe in independent thought. In fact most the time you, even in adults, you can only hazard a guess. No one will really admit.
Jispa also did not want a pink frame. Nor a black one. She was clear about her choice. We finally narrowed down to two and then finally to one. Great – the deal is done.1200 rupees with the frame glasses, and some special anti-scratch coating. Ok. With some luck I wouldn’t be back in a month. Though I am not betting on it.

here is here choosing the frame--

There started Jispa’s tryst with spectacles. Hers was a little more genuine than mine. I also guess it will last a lot more than mine. I guess post 40 I might accompany her.
I think we bunked another hypothesis – that Tv gives you specs. Jispa’s TV viewing is negligible and must be a small single digit percentage of the nationwide average time spent. She only read a lot. So while I can eliminate TV viewing in her case, I can’t eliminate reading. Possibly, I think, she read too much and didn’t see enough TV. Too much short distance and too little long distance must spoilt the eyes. Who knows?


I like this photo as well -

principally, its the same thing dude

The Jain paryushan session is on. And as usual it means nothing for us born as Jains. As I get more away from religion, I have started answering questions about my religion as “to answer your question on my religion – let’s simply say – my dad was a jain”. Who knows what I am and what I believe in.
Belief is a moving target. My beliefs are constantly shaped and realigned. It happens every few years. Turmoil, internal or external reshapes them. My experiences are getting redefined every day. Sometimes I feel that the others who are religiously inclined are better off. At least they have an anchor in life. An anchor that they believe is thousands of years old and an anchor that has the benefit of thousands of smart people spending their lives trying to fine tune and configure. Compared to them I am starting from scratch. I will have to think for myself. I will have to configure myself. All those questions to which the answers are given by philosophers whom others call saints, I have to choose to answer them myself. I have to question the questions myself. And I have a house to run, a job to perform and a boss and a team to which I am answerable. Hehehe. No wonder these fellows all retired to the jungle to ponder and think. It’s not possible in the human zoo.
I have been thinking about this. Jispa gets the disadvantage of this here. If we had been more religious, possibly we would have been able to give Jispa an answer to a lot of her questions. But as we stand today she would have to set out to get her answers herself. It is purely her call. But the upside is that she wouldn’t have to do all these rituals as a child without really understanding the significance. The poor thing has to do a lot in any case as a child. And a lot of it I am sure is against her free will. We are glad we are not imposing religion on it.
Today is Jispa’s birthday and she had a few friends over for a party. One sweet girl was fasting through the week. Not the hard core water only fast but a simpler – eat only two square meals a day. The meals have additional restrictions on the type of food, but they can be engineered to be pretty fulfilling. While the kid was able to do it through the week, a party where the highlight is gorging while on the move, get a bit tough. The kid was crying. I realized the pressure she was up against. While I don’t endorse the fast per se, I had a smallish chat with her. I told her that you have been pretty successful fasting so far as the conditions were good and helpful. It’s like running a race against a first grader. Now you are running against kids elder to you and now to win is a great victory. Now is when you must show greater control.
At the same time I was wondering. Is fasting about victory? What are you winning against? Does the child understand that? Then is it right for them to fast? But this is a start. A culture that will help them later. A culture that will help them fast when they are older and hence help them ponder about the various answers in life. I am sure fasting is not purely about food. It must about the mind as well. So then is the child doing right or wrong. Two schools of thought.
Do it now. It’s a bad world there. Kids must be equipped to face the pressure. After all Indians do well abroad because they are used to the pressure. They know what it is to fight and win. Pray now. A habit is formed now. Win and try harder now.
On the other side. Hold on. Who says you need to push winning now. A time will come when they will realize what they have to do. Its ok to lose now. The big payoff comes when the child grows to be a healthy human. A balanced human who has seen life slightly easy. Not so competitive. Not so cut throat. A n adult who will grow to decide his own destiny. In case we don’t know what the world will be like. Junkies who watch movies all day long become creative directors and guys who play games make more money as game designers. It’s a different world out there.
What is the truth? I would like to believe in the latter. Easy does it. But these are so difficult calls. I used to have a point of view but now I only say – I don’t know. As of now I want her to enjoy her life. I think I must push her only enough to study as much as its required to be ok. Not too hard. Mathematics is good for you, as is literature or arts or swimming that she is doing. Who knows what I will think five years down the line. I believe in not pushing but will the peer environment make me what I don’t want to be. The atmosphere will push Jispa to succeed and she will want to and she will want me to push. Then will I push. What will I say?
Jispa swims because she enjoys swimming. I don’t push her. Jasmine does not. In fact we get really pained by ferrying her all over the place. It’s tough to wake up at 5 and get her to the pool. Really painfull. But we aren’t complaining. Every time I feel her tummy and feel those really hard abs I feel proud. She is getting fitter and stronger and she will have a sport with her for a lifetime. But thenshe knows she wants to do it and she would get really upset if we stop it, and at the same time, she is a really pain to wake up in the morning. One of the worst morning starters. I have to cuddle her and wake her. She begs for two minutes, she cribs and tries to get back. Every once in a while she will get a scolding and then it’s back again. Today she wanted to bunk swimming when she was half asleep but when we pushed her to get up she was keen enough. The same thing for guitar practice. She likes it it but needs to be pushed to start the practice.
I find myself no different than the girl who was fasting and her mother. The stand was clear. It was your choice to fast and if you want our opinion, you mustn’t eat now. Stay in there, it might hurt a bit but the final choice is yours. So in the morning while I might have not agreed with the fast, principally the position is the same as ours.
It’s so easy to pass moral judgment, isn’t it?
The same goes for our everyday life. We pass moral judgments everywhere. That is wrong and that is right. We are pretty sure about it but I guess most of the tie it does not even pass internal introspection. Funny nah?
But no, the situation is different and I am merely muddling issues. Am I? Am I not?

finally some entertainment

I read this line today - Time is misspent twice: we talk about life as thoughtlessly as we live it. (source http://nplusonemag.com/chathexis ). It’s quite an interesting perspective on gtalk and chatting online. I think he almost calls it a conversation renaissance and ends with the following lines – “the spoken word . . . is an instrument that is enjoyable to play,” then chat—these broken lines, these misspelled words, this transliterated laughter, this long, unpunctuated scroll—has tempted us to compare it, at times, to the musical language that is poetry. But what it is, of course, is conversation. And that is compliment enough.”
Conversations. I am ok with them but I hate them in the swimming pool. Between middle aged gentlemen talking on topics of national interest while relaxing in the cool waters of swimming pool. Why do they even bother changing into a costume and enter the pool. The conversation continues right till the showers.
Today at the showers the hot topic being discussed was – yes sir – the Jan Lokpal bill. Honestly the country’s political climate is to day charged with the issue and funnily enough I stand nowhere. I haven’t a clue. I don’t know what bill the government was proposing and what is the one demanded by civil society. Its about curbing, investigating and punishing corruption in India. The civil society is adding teeth to the bill the government is proposing. There have been enough intellectual debate of supporting or opposing the nature of the agitation. The theory being that you cant hold Government to ransom. Well you cant but this is a democracy and you elect the parliament. So if the parliament is feeling so righteous about itself it could choose to ignore the agitation. But at the same time, it knows that the more it ignores the civil society the more it will lose the support of the people.
So while the agitation is not strictly democratic, democracy in its own interests is ceding ground to it. Nice. I am ok with the play. Democratic countries have these plays built in. Because it’s a democracy you can’t send it the tanks for something you think is right. And where the movement doesn’t seem to have widespread support like the Maoists, you can send it the troops.
But that’s not my point. I am merely enjoying the attention that this agitation is gathering. It’s good. Lots of businessmen seem to have given their whole hearted support for this. I saw at the Mandi in Indore, some nationalists hoisting the national flag. Everybody is supporting Anna.
I couldn’t but see the irony here. The entire mandi trading was happening in cash. No official transactions, no tax and no contracts. The secrecy is amazing, where even the deals are done using handshakes under an opaque cloth. India would benefit more from transparent exchanges than anything else.
Then you have all these traders who would have these hordes of black money, pay low tax and then say – we should get the Jan Lokpal bill passed. Dam you. They want public trials and public punishments. I am sure they will also approve of flogging as a punishment. Stone throwing perhaps. But I wonder if they would be equally supportive if there was a bill on punishing black money by a public trail and hopefully medieval quatering.
But then I smiled. If this corruption thing is suitably sorted and we get rid of it to a large extent then, these guys wouldn’t be able to do much if the tax guy came knocking. Hopefully it would reduce corruption there as well and hence get them to pay more tax. Now that’s an interesting thing. I hope it passes before the businessmen get a chance to react. I am glad they are there. And I think one of the big differences in the govt stand versus civil stand is that the civil fellas want to include lower bureaucracy and that means the low end tax men. That’s possibly a good thing.
Great. So I finally did get entertained by shower conversations. Sometimes I think the guys who just come and sing merrily while showering are more entertainment.
Jai ho.

risky business

Ok this one is funny. One team member came up to me today morning saying – I got to rush to the doctor. I have cotton stuck inside my ears. She had put in some small amount of cotton and it got lodged in way beyond where her finger would be able to pull it out. She spoke to another colleague who dad was a doctor and her dad promptly asked her to come over.
I was reminded of the first time I got cotton stuck in my ear. I remember being in school or college. I was fiddling with an ear bud. Those cheap Indian ear buds I guess, with cheap Indian gumming. A few seconds after I removed the ear bud form my ear, the plastic stick was left in my hand with the cotton missing. Oops. What do I do now? I couldn’t get it out. I remember going to my dad. I got cotton stuck in my ears. I think I visualized an emergency situation. Running to the doctor or something. My dad looked at it, then got his hands on a tweezers or something and pop in 5 seconds it was out. I felt my dad was genius.
After that I think I have the chance to do something like this again. Did I do it to myself or did I do it to Jispa or Jasmine, I don’t really remember. All I know is that I could do it easily. So I told my colleague, if you trust me I can do it in an instant. So we got her to sit down. I saw the ear, I could see the cotton, and it was just a little inside. I got another colleague to hold her ear open. Now for the tweezers. You can’t get these in office so I picked a scissor and pluck in 5 seconds the cotton was out. I felt like a proud dad. I lived my dad’s life. I could imagine the relief she felt. It was the same.
But scissors in the ear? Isn’t that dangerous? Who puts sharp instruments in the ear? Wouldn’t one put a tweezers in? As I was discussing with my colleague, I think tweezers are more dangerous than a scissor in the ear. Each of the hands of a tweezers has two edges that are sharp. Therefore you have four sharp edges capable of scratching the inside of your ear. The scissors on the other hand have a sharp side which is not exposed on the outside. It only has two pointy sides which you can direct very well. The sides of tweezers are more likely to be out of your control. So I slid the scissor with its mouth slightly open and plucked the cotton out. So in fact if I look back, the scissor was a far safer option than the tweezers. But who would have taken that call. I took the scissors only because the tweezers were missing.
Most of the time we take a call that we think is safe basis our notions of it. A scissor is definitely more likely to cut your finger than tweezers but given the circumstance and the problem that need solving, a deft scissor usage is the least risky bet. Of course going to a doctor would have the safest. But we do take risky calls all the time. But we get into office we want to be safe. We are constantly watching our backside. We are wondering what to do. I would have taken the same call with Jispa as I did today. But what do the unwritten office rules say? Don’t do this. It’s too risky. What would the consequences be? Sure the consequences are bad but the point is if I did what I did in good faith. In office we don’t really forgive mistakes. We want to take the right call every time and in order to be “not wrong’ the call we take is always the safe one. Sure – go to the doctor and get your ear operated, who knows how deep it is inside really.
Its amazing to see people in office sitting on the sidelines and giving ‘safe’ suggestions. Good ideas get smashed because someone or the other wants to look at the other side. The consequences. What we forget is to assign the probability to these consequences. Sure the whole thing can crash but how bad would it get if it really crashes? It’s only the section of the roof that crashed, and its summer time, we have enough time to repair it. And we know there is likelihood of a crash happening so let’s not put too many people under it and those under it will have hard hats on. Safety first is a good industrial factory concept but a horrible business concept.
I think we lose all risk taking ability as we grow bigger and stronger. The thinking changes. We look to conserve what we have as opposed to asking – what’s the max we can lose. As a parent I see that happening. Like another conversation I had over the week end, where a mother was not allowing he r15 yr old kid to watch Delhi Belly as it was ‘A’ rated and refused to let her access Facebook till she finished her critical tenth standard exams. I don’t the movie had anything that 15 years old did not already know or understand. Sure its protection but it also comes at a cost. The cost that your kid thinks that you are being over protective. She would listen to you now but she is likely to use this against you to rebel later. The cost tradeoff is too high.
I too am over protective about Jispa. Now slowly slowly I am beginning to loosen up a bit. Relax. Let her go. She would enjoy, she would be safe. She will go down with the kids and play and then come back on top. You don’t need to know where she would exactly be at every point of time. Now is time for her to be free. A- ha… writing this I figured. I must remember myself at her age level. I guess I was pretty much ok. Slightly more protective as I came in from Dubai, but my mental make-up was pretty ok. It’s funny how much I remember of those days. Shit Jispa is now at an age when her experiences are stuff that she will remember through her life. Now we will have to take care. I keep telling Jasmine, now start taking care. Things you say now will come back to haunt you in a few years. Hehehe. No wonder I am not in the mood for taking risk. Who wants risk? Live a nice peaceful risk less life. Go to your doctor when you get cotton stuck in your ears. Don’t come to me.

travel right

It’s pretty crazy. I haven’t been able to blog for quite some time. Sometimes I feel I am not just up to it. What do I write? My ‘profoundipity’ is at ebb and I am going through a physically demanding schedule. Mostly I think it’s just a matter of habit. Just when you break it, it’s difficult to get back. I guess if I start writing every day and force myself, it will be back. I will find something interesting to talk and something interesting to write about. Once I do find something interesting to write I hopefully will find it interesting to analyse and bring some seriousness to the issue… or whatever. It also doesn’t help that my blackberry is really really old and withered. I can’t even click any photos with it. Sometimes the photos used to help when everything failed. The best time for my blog when I wrote almost every day was during eth recession when there was precious little to do otherwise at office. With the markets right behaving badly, I guess these time might just make a comeback. But till then its time to push myself and write.
There I just thought of something. Last week I was doing research in Indore and Bhopal. I happened to catch up with a student a few weeks back on SMS and he happened to be in Indore. He is working as a sales manager there and has picked up an apartment where he stays alone. This was invitation enough. So I scheduled my trip accordingly and spent a couple of nights at his place. It was pretty cool to catch up with a student thus. His was a basic accommodation with him sleeping in the hall and he gave me a place in the bedroom. Nothing fancy, just a bed, a mattress, a blanket, a pillow and a fan. What more would I need? In the morning and evening to have bath, we would spend around 30 minutes getting the water hot. We would heat water on the stove and pour it into the bucket. To speeden things a bit we would heat some water in the electric kettle as well. Half to three fourth of a bucket was pretty good. Mix that with some cold water and you have enough for a bath. The biggest bug bear of travelling is having to be alone. I have stayed in five stars and in basic guesthouses but it’s always tough to stay alone for extended periods of time. Even if office colleagues are travelling with you, you sometimes yearn for some friends or family. So while Ronnie was pretty apologetic about the staying conditions, I had no complaints. Absolutely none. I was staying at my students place. What more joy could I ask for? My student was happy to have me over. We talked about life, a little guidance, a little career – some intelligent conversations about sales – done. I loved every moment of it.
We even went to the sarafa bazzar in Indore in the evening. Here the main street shops close to give way to the street food. Here sandwich stalls, pani puri stalls and every other local stall pops up, trying to sell you gastronomical delights. Nothing great to write about. If it is not hyped to you then you are not likely to be disappointed. One of the things recession taught me was to use every chance one gets to travel as an opportunity to soak in the local sights and tastes. I was normally very circumspect when it came to trying local cuisine. But now I have changed to go about and live and enjoy the tourist life. Eat the local food at the local street vendors. See what the romans do. So at one stall we asked the guy what else we could eat. We told him that we were not from here; hence he must guide us as to what the specialty was. Thus illuminated we ate the “corn kis” and the “fried kund”. Both were disasters but at least now I know that they are disasters. If I dint try them I would have never known. The good part of Indore is probably the poha that you get everywhere for breakfast. Compared to Gujarat where everything is fried, this breakfast comes as a delight. But eating it for three days in a row was a little too much. So now I have a story for Indore as well. Nice.
I was asking my host, Ronnie, on how much does he do the local thing. Does he roam out ion Sundays and holidays. Does he soak in the sights and sounds? Does he try to play with the locals, does he experiment with his food. How much of his territory besides the official stuff, does he know. I think I probably shamed him, by telling him some nuances about Indore that I picked up on the trip. I had been to the local mandi where farmers got their grain to be sold to the local dealer. Here the trading would be through the middle men who came in with plastic bags of the produce as samples. Here the trader would first inspect the plastic bag and would get an idea about the quality. Then they would shake hands and cover it with a cloth. In the absence of a cloth they would cover their hands under the kurta (long loose shirt) they were wearing. This is the deal making. A short fast series of finger touching would happen where they would decide on the price. This way they would reach agreement on the price in secret without the need for opening their mouth and disclosing the transaction in the mandi in front of everybody. So feverish trading would happen in relative silence. The only talk would be loose talk and casual conversation. It was an interesting immersive experience. I had seen these handshakes many years before but this was the first time I had seen these in full action on what was essentially a trading floor. High speed trading with no conversation.
So Ronnie is now suitably inspired to try new stuff within his territory. Good for him. What’s the point of being cooped up in your room whole day? Go out, walk a bit, eat a bit, get ill, get sunstroke. Anything goes. Sunstroke? Yup. In Delhi I lead my colleagues to Humayun’s tomb at noon only to find the three of us completely knocked out by sunstroke after the visit. I love the place and can go there again and again. Every time I get to see a new perspective. They have also improved the place and near the entrance is some sort of a display which explains some of the importance and the architecture of the place. The next time I am in Delhi on the must see list is – Safdarjung’s tomb which was the inspiration for Humayun’s tomb which in turn inspired the Taj Mahal. You can’t fully appreciate the Taj unless you see this in sequence. Also a must see will be the sound and light show at the red fort in the evening. I remember seeing it as a kid and I remember loving it and recollecting it for years to come. I can’t wait for Jispa to start learning Mughal history. I want to take her to all these places where she will see firsthand what she studies in her text books.
I have this plan of showing her the forts and the palaces of Rajasthan and Delhi over the weekends as she studies them. That is my dream of teaching her History. So that she gets a perspective from a guide, from Amar Chitra Katha, from visiting the place, museums and from the search on the internet. Perhaps a few documentaries downloaded might also help. I hated the dates that they made us learn in history. I never understood the importance of History and architecture and forts or anything. The way it was taught to us was boring, one sided and irritating. I want to teach her the exciting way. I hope I would be able to do so. I really hope. At least she will get a better perspective and she will be able to understand it better. At least she will not consider it the drab I thought it was. And hopefully she might be inspired to graduate in anything but the commerce and accounting ended up doing. Easily one of the most boring courses ever conceived. Debit and credit. Yuck. Ya ya… I do realize that smart alecs end up doing creative cooking up of accounts and seem to exercise their right brain in the field as well. But those rapists are the one that caused the recession! Too much creativity at the wrong place.

what a fun day!

I hate these song and dance shows. They are such a pain to sit through. Whether it’s live or on TV. Same predictable routine and honestly bad scripts. I would much rather go for a play, preferably a light hearted play. Very few are able to deliver a really strong play with a serious message. So the worst form of torture is to go for a play where in you are there purely for reasons of friendship. I am acting in a play, can you please come. Oh man!
In the first few years Jispa’s school annual function were very interesting with me being mesmerised with the scale and the production. It was nowhere what I saw in my school. As the glitz wore off, I started getting bored thanks to the absence of a strong story or plot or anything except songs and dance. You wait eagerly till your own kid comes in and shows her face in a crowd for a 30 second insignificant role and then out. Then it’s back to boredom. I dunno how to wiggle out of this complete utter torture.
Then the next on my list of anathemas is religious propaganda and anything that comes close to sermon. It is dam painful. I am sure some of them are pretty smart people and I am sure one can learn from anything, but sitting through it is a bloody pain. So in spite of quite a few offers I have chosen to stay away from these. These offers are definitely well meaning but I think they are best avoided. Possibly my arrogance will not permit me to attend these sessions.
So I hate shows and I hate religious preaching.
Last Sunday I found myself stuck with the frying pot and the fire. Together. I was attending a song and dance show about Jainism. Aarghhh. How do I get myself stuck in these situations, I also don’t know. One of friends had produced and starred in this with her daughter. Great. They requested us all to come in. great. I said no and no one really expected me to say yes. Great. So till Saturday there wasn’t a ticket for me as well. I had happily wiggled out of this and was planning to spend the morning relaxed in my house reading a good book. The book I was reading “switch” was also quite interesting. Till one of jasmine’s friends backed out leaving jasmine with an extra ticket. NO NO. Are you comng? NO. You sure? YA! Come nah! Awww, no. please. Ok don’t come if you don’t want to. Shit… ok… I am coming. No it’s ok. I am coming. IT all right, don’t come if it’s too bad. I AM COMING!
So I land up at this hall where there is concert going on extolling the events that lead up to the birth of Bhagwan Shri Mahavir. Using song dance, drama and stage, props and stuff. What I realised that there is an interesting mix of Hinduism in the way we seem to be practising Jainism today. What I understand of Jainism is that the Gods aren’t the Gods of Hinduism. The 24 thirthankaras aren’t Gods in that sense. They are enlightened beings. We go to temples not to pray to them and ask for deliverance. We go to the temple (supposed to at least) to look at them and be inspired to let go / or modify behaviour. I once heard the dalai lama and he said, jokingly, that Jainism and Buddhism are forms of atheism. What I understand is that there are no gods in Jainism and there seems to be no point in praying to them and celebrating them as Hinduism does. I read somewhere that when Hinduism was threatened by Buddhism, they conveniently included Buddha as one of the dus avataars. In many murals I have seen Balram as one of the Avataars, who seems to have been unceremoniously dumped for reasons of politics in today’s top ten compilations. During some bits of the play I heard references to the Brahaminical order, with Kshatriyas and Brahamins making their appearances. Now that I look at it, a lot of Jainism rites that I look at today and the way I thought Jainism was and the way I see people practice it, it is actually a form of hindusim. We pray to these Gods, we celebrate them, we give them exalted powers and status. Al the pomp and glory of Hinduism is there. I find it funny when the God in question is who he is because, he gave up all this pomp and splendour, he extolled the virtues of less, of sacrifice, of giving up, of simplicity and virtue.
Hindusim has survived by adapting and managing smartly. By integrating everything into its fold. As a kid I always thought that Jainism is a form of Hinduism. I thought of us as Hindus. How could we be? It is as much a part of Hinduism as Islam is. At least to my mind. Hindusim managed to integrate tribal religion (Shiva), Jainism, Bhuddism and everything else at reached our shores except Islam and Christanity amongst the major religions. It also changed in the bargain from vedic worship to idol worship.
I am sure that there are many flaws in my argument that the critic can argue with. But the fundamental point was that, that day, Jainism was not being worshipped in its original form. But hey, I don’t care. Religions must change with the people. It is finally a product of people’s imagination. It is of the people, by the people and for the people. If it does not change and is held together by dogmas, it will cease to exist. It must bring a lot within its fold. The fun is when the right winged zealot thinks that it hasn’t, talks about coming to core and wants to oppose change, not knowing he is a product of change and adaptability. That’s when the fun starts.
It’s pretty foolish to air your views like these in public. They do not want to listen. They do not want to consider a possibility that the opposite exists. They think that what they know is the absolute truth. What little we understand of religion. What little we argue about it. How completely banal are our conversations about it.

I wanted to see it... and what I unexpectedly saw

Talking about experiences, I managed to see the famous sun temple at Konark last to last Sunday. I had to be in Bhubaneswar on Monday morning and the only flight into the place would have got me late in the day. Hence if I had to be there on Monday morning I needed to be there on Sunday. So might as well reach in time and catch some sights.
The Konark Sun temple always held a certain fascination for me while growing up. Our history text books always had the image of the wheel of the temple on its cover. The sun temple is designed like a chariot with horses at the front (now destroyed) and with exquisitely carved wheels at the base. It is quite an interesting temple.
I have over a period of time learnt the importance of having a guide at any historical place. It is impossible for the layman to understand the significance of the monument without having the services of a guide. And if you consider the cost associated with the travel, the cost of the guide is a mere blip. But the simple 100 bucks he charges makes the entire journey memorable.
Whenever we have travelled we ensure we take the guide and all these years, I have always been the translator for Jispa. She has been listening to guides since she was around 5 years old. It is my job to translate what eth guide says in a language they understand. While it is great fun learning from a guide it is the greatest fun to teach a child at the same time. So I listen to the guide and then talk to Jispa, explain further nuances from my understanding and further the thought process. In time I have also learnt that the guide is designed to play to the gallery. He has a well-rehearsed script that plays the jokes. And the big rule – the guide is not the final authority on anything. He is merely relaying his version of history. Everything is a version, an interpretation, a guide. It is up to us to believe / disbelieve and for us to think through. Villains need not be that bad and the heroes may have ugly feet or possibly may not be heroes at all. They could have died valiantly possibly because they were plain stupid yet brave. Anything goes! But nevertheless the guide is an interesting person and critical to your journey.
The Sun temple at konark is a comeplet waste without your guide, he will show you such intricacies that you might have missed otherwise, look a giraffe! Yup one carving has a giraffe in it. Also there are many sexually explicit carvings around the temple. The guide’s explanation was that due the wars the population had decreased and therefore to increase the population the kind made it quite clear what he wanted the kingdom to do. It’s funny. It’s almost like he said – let the games begin! There are many theories to Indian temples having erotic sculptures on the outside. I could think of a few, though I don’t claim originality for them – possibly to show that sex is important and have your fill outside and leave it there when you enter the temple, or possibly a kind of an advertisement for the mass to come in, or possibly pandering to the king’s extravagant bacchanalian tastes, or even the priests who possibly thought of it as divine fun, or possibly the guide was right. It was an economic decision. More sex, more population, better economy. Also there were multiple forms of sex and some were of foreigners have some desi fun, which also could mean that this was an old version of Amsterdam. A critical part of the tourist /business circuit. Like many years ago I read an article that said, that to attract foreign investment it’s critical to have some kind of a night life! And that’s possibly one reason that Ahmedabad, with its prohibition laws, can never be a foreign investment destination.
Whatever. The guide was obviously happy that a couple of Indians were listening and asking questions and were open enough to understand and ask straight questions without being coy about the issue. I have seen all guides like clients who are interested in what they are saying. Asking questions and not irritating them. I saw this in Turkey as well, where the guide was happy to lose a certain section of the tourists who were least interested in his talk and was happy to take us further after giving them a slip. Every man requires having pride at his job.
I couldn’t but help think, how I would react if I were to take Jispa to these places. I hope that when she is about 15 I would be able to fell ok visiting these places with her, but till she reaches that age, taking a guide to these explicit tourist interests with Jispa intently listening, can cause a bit of an … I don’t.. can cause some…something! She is at an age where she needs little translation of what the guide is talking and I don’t know if I want to translate polygamy for her, just yet.
But hell, the other thing that got me was, I want to see the history text book with the wheel on the cover again. Which wheel photo was it? Most of the wheels had explicit carvings on them. What the hell? We went through all those years of schooling without knowing that the konark wheel was a childhood fantasy come good. We were completely starved of anything explicit and we didn’t even have internet or foreign magazines. Seesh. What a waste. I am sure history would have been a favourite subject if only the significance of the wheel was better understood by us in school.

Here is one carving. Here you see a couple in the act of giving birth contrasted with the image of a cat chasing a mouse on top. A contrast that shows conception to death. Poetic.