whose world is it really?

These days I have been dropping Jispa to school by car. This is because her swim schedule leaves us no option but to drop her directly. It’s just not possible to go via the school bus. So I try and pick her from the pool and drop her as the school in some obtuse way in in the direction of my office. Over the years I think more and more kids are getting dropped off to school by car then by the school bus. I don’t have exact statistics but I definitely see a larger number of cars doing so than before.

While Jispa was growing up, one trend was definitely there – the maid culture. I have blogged about this before. More and more families with kids would employ a full time maid to take care of the kid. Ensuring the kid has food all the time and is dressed up, bathed etc. This leaves the parents to focus on other things as well as have a social life. We actively decided never to have one. We didn’t believe we needed one and we were sure that we could manage Jispa without one. It was fun in any case. It was my job to wake baby Jispa up in the morning and take her to the bathroom for brushing and bathing. One of my fondest memories is brushing Jispa’s teeth while she sits on my lap. “now do eeeeeeeeee”. Now days once in a while for old times sake I try and brush her teeth, just so that she knows how stupid my life was.

This maid culture was so bad that kids grew up expecting that the maid would do almost everything. All they needed was to open their mouth to be fed or just walk around and their bag would be carried. I don’t think kids who grew up like this would have the ability to handle situations on their own. I do think they will grow up with a heightened sense of entitlement as they grow up.

Over the last few months, this servant trend has gone crazy. Now when I drop Jispa to school, we keep a watch out for the comic show. Once we spot it we nudge  each other and laugh like crazy. The routine is straight forward. The car, typically a van or an SUV with the driver will come and stop as close to the school gate as possible. Then from the front a guy will step out and go to the back door and open it. He then will take out the school bag and lunch bag. This is handed over to him by the maid waiting inside. Then he will … mind you… pull the kid out from the car and place the kid on the floor. Then the kid will take a few steps forward and then the guy will then hold the bag out in order to help the kid wear it and off the kid goes to school. A variation of the above is the maid getting out from the front and helping the kid off the car. This is wild. The kid looks like a helpless paraplegic as he is literally pulled out from the car to the floor. What crap is this? Cant the kid just open the door on his own and get out taking the bag and the lunch box? Why is this such a tough thing to do? This is such a stupid thing to do. Today we saw a kid who Jispa says is from the third standard as she was helped off the car. I think I am going to sell tickets for people to stand as they watch this circus unfold every day.

Once when I had reached to pick up Jispa from school, the maids rush to the gate and pick up the bags of the kids as they come out. I remember when I was new to Mumbai and in the fourth standard, we were staying temporarily at my granny’s house, a stone’s throw away from school. My mom tried sending the maid my granny had along with us to school. She was worried that her kids, so used to Dubai would be unable to navigate the 200 meters to reach school. I remember the maid asking us to let her carry our bags and I remember my brother and me clearly saying no. Of course not. That’s not happening.

Jispa’s school is pretty laa-di-da with some celeb kids coming in as well. Once I saw a Mercedes pull up to school. In front of the Mercedes was an SUV from where three men jumped out taking all the corners of the car. Then one guy opens the door and out comes  maid with the bags and then she pulls out the kid who is escorted by the maid and the man and then as the kid goes inside the gate, the men get into the SUV and both the cars speed off. Wow. Money is good but it also comes with its fair set of issues. The father and the child probably need the security.

Yesterday Jispa came home wondering how dumb could King Louis be. This is the joker from the French Revolution. In the uprising he tried to escape and he was so dumb that he got caught again. He tried escaping in a heavy carriage with his men still in uniform and he carried less papers than the entourage and off all things he tried to escape to Paris where the revolution was at its maximum strength. Jispa said “in class we were wondering if this idiot was actually trying to escape or trying to get caught? Why would he do so many stupid things”.

I explained to her that if you are seriously rich and a king, it is quite possible that you are completely out of touch with reality. I spoke about the kids in my class and how South Mumbai residents (posh people) typically are not worldly wise and are just have lower IQ’s. They just don’t get it most of the time. Their projects are from their narrow and entitled world view. In fact in her school itself there would be so many kids who would have practically no idea about anything from reality. And then we turned on her. She too had very little idea about real life. So we started quizzing her – what’s the price of an idli. 10 / 15 bucks she said (reality 40). What’s the price of bread – 21 (reality 33). What’s the price of petrol or a bus ride or anything else? Jispa – you too lead a charmed life. You too won’t be able to escape so fast so soon.

Jispa – He was a king. He was brought to a reality that was his alone and not in touch with the rest of the country. “But he had the best tutors” she said. Of course. The way in your class you have the best tutors but you are probably different than some real entitled dumbos in your class, the same way, tutors don’t matter. What you learn is completely different.

The richer you are the more charmed your life will be. This is the truth and as your family becomes richer and your generations benefit from what you have set up from them, it becomes near impossible to break through the shackles of money to some out smarter.

Jispa too is today richer than what I was. She runs the risk of being dumb. We try and mitigate it. We try and expose her to stuff, but something will just remain tough. Some things will such that she will never be exposed to.

Jasmine spoke about our servant and her grand child. She said, the other day our servant borrowed a little money as while she was leaving, she felt that her grandchild was a bit warm and could be ill. So she took money in case she had to buy medicines for her. This child (possibly with fever) was left alone at home with no one to take care of her all day. This is the harsh reality of life that our kids are (thankfully) saved from and not exposed to.

This is the life of millions of Indians and its not that these are far away from our contact. These are people we touch daily in our lives. Its tough for us to understand them and for them to understand us. If they knew the cost of our shoes alone, they will throw a fit. I don’t think they will believe that the shoes we wear are worth 4 to five times their monthly salary. Now they will call us really really dumb.

King Louis was born into luxury and was not trained to escape. In fact the people revolted because in many ways he wasn’t connect to reality. And because he wasn’t connected to reality, he made a hash out of running away. What’s so surprising. Its not easy being rich in a poor man’s world, is it?

kya relevance hai!

Today on a happy day, my phone was getting a reboot and I switched on the radio. I have a love hate relationship with the radio. The dumb RJs with dumb programming and irritating advertising that doesn’t connect with anything. Luckily for the new retro channels which play some good (my age) music and thanks to the lack of advertising, have some interesting programming. They are getting some good guys to come in and chat with on the radio channels who are talking about the music they created or the movies they were in with some real life insights and anecdotes. This makes the programming so rich. Like today some lady (I did not catch the name) was talking about RD Burman (always) and Asha Bhosle (again almost always) and the song Jaan – e – jaaa… oh meri jaane jaaa…. Nisha aaa aaa aa

It was a song that I was listened to as a kid. It was a fun song in which I think as kids we used to cream aloud and dance. It was released in 1982 – when I was about 7, which is an impressionable age. It was an awesome song then and is an awesome sing now, but what a singer who has worked with the music director RD Burman said, made me hear the song in a new light. She said that RD tried to get Asha to sing like a musical instrument in the song. She was talking of some musical instrument (she was also not sure) in which there is pedal or something and the noise oscillates in waves. I did not understand what she said till she sang the song on radio. I came to office and I played it and now that I understand it a little better, I have come to appreciate it a lot more. In the song Asha sings – Jaan e jaaaaaaaaaaaa, oh meri jaan e jaaaaaaaaa. As kids we would scream out this aaaaaaaaaaa in a single tone. Its only today I understood that this aaaaaaaaaa sounds awesome because it is here that RD made Asha sing the aaaaaaaaaa part in a wave like oscillation. That is the genius of this song which is so easy to miss the nuance while so easy to love the whole. Which is so impossible to bring out for an untrained singer. At least while I was singing to myself, I could clearly hear myself make a complete hash out of it.

Here listen to the song and pay attention. Of course, forgive the poor Kamal Hasan dancing like a twerp in the song and the stupid bike entry, largely forgiven purely by Reena Roy’s awesome smile and oh so lovely long hair with the stylish fringe. It’s like a complete reconciliation of the traditional beauty and a touch of modernity. And of course do not miss the scene in which she dreams about kissing him all over with him being left with lipstick marks all over his face, but no marks on the oh so sensitive lips! The confusion of 1982 India is to be seen to be believed in this movie song.

Over a period of time I have learnt to respect the Bollywood film industry as the best marketing brains in the country. It is not possible to deliver a hit without really identifying with the core audience and having a pulse on their attitudes and dreams and desires. Movies that become hits are the ones that connect with the audience, without which the audience is very clear – he is not going to part with his money and time.

In fact, while I teach marketing, my favorite lecture is in which I explain how movies and heroes have gotten their marketing right to become super stars. They connect with the screen personas with carefully nurtured off screen personas. This is the example I use to explain how super stars like brands have to mean one and only one thing to the people and the closer they are to one thing the closer they are to real meaning.

Another song that played on the radio was from Arjun. A movie released in 1985. This was when I was ten years old and I remember that era of India when there was NO hope. None what so ever. You could only get rich if you were corrupt or tyrannical or a goon or all of the above. You could get educated but there was nowhere to go once you got educated. There weren’t enough jobs and whatever jobs were there were gone to people with some influence or some friend to recommend them. It was a complete wasted generation in many ways. This movie reflected the anger of the youth. These young guys were obviously educated and were looking for jobs. The main hero leads a gang of young men, all in formal dressing, as they are all looking for jobs and want to be employed. What I remember of the movie is that they don’t get any employment and are just hanging around the neighborhood. It captures multiple emotions. The movie touches a raw nerve – that your youth is good and powerful. They study and they are unemployed because of society and not because they want to remain so. They have an energy that must be harnessed. The youth in the movie at first are seen as a nuisance as they roam around unemployed and then as the villains strike, the same youth use the only the only thing that god has given them (their youth) and fight back. Now the transformation from young, lost and unemployed to young, hailed and purposeful is complete.

At the end even the father comes and tells his child that he was right. It sent a signal to the young and unemployed that they were not wasted but were a being wasted thanks to the system. The feeling was universal and as I saw up on Wikipedia the movie was then translated into multiple languages showing how the issues were widespread across India.

Here is the song – mamaiyo kero kero kero mama

Mamaiya Kero Kero Kero Mama - Arjun (1985... by TalishaHatcher

The entire song is set in  public spaces with the gang bordering on lawlessness and at the end you also see the hero riding a Pitch roller which is being pulled by his team, in the middle of the Mumbai roads – How’s that for complete cock a  snook at the system.

Its funny why this clip is on daily motion and not on youtube. Must be some royalty quirk. A movie like this, no matter how well made would just have no relevance today. Kids find their love soon enough and get drafted into the system that is giving them some jobs, mobile phones and T shirts to order and wear. They don’t need to use violence to save the society. They probably just need a cell phone camera, or a tweet then and then some social shares.

Check this

An exam is not an exam, Jispa!

I almost forgot to write this story down, but it deserves being there for posterity. It is something that Jispa will probably laugh over when she grows up and this one is seriously good.

One evening I come home and see Jispa having her dinner on the dining table. Jasmine was sitting on the sofa. I have no idea why Jasmine doesn’t like sitting for food with the entire family. I have spent the last 16 years coaxing her to do it, but she just doesn’t like it, or values it. I hate this aspect of her, but that is another story for another day. Bah!

So I come home and watch Jispa eating her dinner alone. I ask her whats up, how was her day. “bad” she replies. OK… now I am listening. So what happened, I asked her. “you finish and come here, I will tell you”. OK. I wash my hands and come to sit on the table and I am ready for dinner. “what happened today sweetheart?”. “I want mommy over here as well” she insists. Ok mom, you sit here and we all sit around the table for a chat. It was pretty serious, I assume. We all wait as the big thing is about to revealed. The she says “I will tell you but you will nottell me anything immediately afterwards. You can tell me later, but can’t get upset at me or tell me anything now.” “ok” what choice do we parents have in this case. Of course I agreed and gave her the freedom to talk freely without any repercussions. Then she starts “today was math test. It was horrible. The teacher gave us the papers ten minutes late and we were solving it and I couldn’t finish the paper on time”. “ok” I urged her one as I saw one tear coming down her cheek. “I think I am going to get a C”. “ok – how do you know you are getting a C” I enquired. “I calculated the marks. I know. This is bad.”

Now what to do with this. Math is important. Tests are important. Scoring is important, but crying over a test – that’s shit. I remember my childhood. School and studies were bad enough but this, this exam shit was way too bad. For many years after, I still got nightmares about not being prepared for exams. About going to exams late, about failing, about being blank… many such things. I think once I turned up late for one paper, once I studied the wrong paper and things like that as well. It was crazy growing up and managing exams. It was so stressful. One thing that I wanted in education for my child was – absence of fear from an exam. Everything else can be managed. Everything else is a function of the stress the kids put on themselves. Their hair is not ok, they have pimples on their faces, they like other boys, everything else – I really don’t care… that stuff is self-imposed. But exams – that’s one thing that is imposed by the parents on the kids in connivance with the teachers and the whole freaking education system. Exams are designed to kill you and make your life shorter in the long run but stretch it for eternity in the short run.

So what advice should I now give her? I start:

Ok. I hear you but if you give me permission to say one thing, may I say it. (she gives me permission) Cool. Thanks. First – I don’t care about your exam grades. That’s ok. More so – I don’t care about exams in general. I think they are too measly a thing to be upset about. So that’s my point of view, but if you now allow me to talk completely and freely, I can explain further. ( I get permission again).

So you couldn’t complete it, because you did not understand it or you did not have time? (it was time she said). Well then that’s ok. Math is all about speed and practice. They purposely are now raising the bar for you and getting you to know that now you area bug girl who needs to solve math fast. That’s important now going forward. The only way to get it right is to keep solving the papers, again and again. Chat with your teacher, tell her you want to improve and ask her how. Tell her you are not used to this and that you don’t have tuitions and you want to go beyond. So that’s about the paper in question.

As regards exams, come on kid. It never the exam. It’s the preparation. I have always pushed you to prepare right for the exams and not bother about the results. Results are important but only as an indicator of the preparations you put in. Exams are over rated. Don’t push yourself on this. I have always had a hate hate relationship with exams. They never did do well for me. You have to figure a way to attack the question papers and game the system. In eight grade, I once failed a Hindi paper. Mom flunked a year in 4^th or 5^th grade when her mom was in US. That too in History or something. Its ok. It doesn’t matter. In my final year in economics, I just about passed. I got a 36 on 100. Today I teach economic concepts to people. When I first saw the paper, I distinctly remember, that I thought I was going to fail. I had obviously underprepared myself for the exam and I was shit scared. I remember then gathering myself and telling myself, if I fail this paper then 90% of Maharashtra will fail. I am better than 90% of my peers. So I spent 30 minutes just thinking of how to attack this paper.  Which questions can I write the most without even knowing anything. I will attempt and attempt well. I will write and write long. I will not give up. I then remember for writing non-stop for the next two hours. I wrote so much that my hands got tired. I wrote so much rubbish and about anything and everything I could write about. I wrote. If today, I see that paper I will probably die of laughter. But I wrote. No exam could get the better of me. And I passed! I was so excited about passing. It was such a relief. My other scores ensured that my aggregate went up beyond 60 (62%) and I got first class. Mom managed a 35 in the same paper and Vinu managed a 26 and got 9 marks grace. It was an epic paper.

So Jispa – exams are a piece of shit. Don’t give it more importance than they deserve. Go ahead, study for a paper. Give it your best, but please, please don’t cry after the paper is done. It’s over, enjoy, have fun. Learn from there on. Exams are bad things. Don’t give them importance in your life. Study. Study hard but learn more. Have fun giving exams. Write whatever you think is right, write anything, have a blast and come out happy. Whatever you do, don’t get stressed by an exam. Kick its butt, but don’t get stressed by it.

I work hard and try and build a career with pays decently well and I save money. I try to read and teach. I do everything so that some of the basic stuff that I hated while growing up is avoided in your life. The scare of exams rank up there amongst the top things to hate and remove from your life.

Jasmine thinks I am a bit too lenient on this. But I really don’t care. When we conceived Jispa, I was clear. I was going to love my child and have a few things that I will dream for them. I wanted a healthy child, a child that could do good in some sports, a child with insatiable curiosity and a child with little stress to perform – at least little or no stress from me. AND definitely – NO EXAM STRESS.

Now that I think about it, my dad was pretty advanced in his thinking. He told me that till the tenth standard, it is my job to push you to study. After that it’s your problem. True to his word, he never did give me any grief on it afterwards. The least I can do is advance that by two years. Now Jispa is in 8^th. It’s time to back off and to let her pursue what she wants to do and how she wants to do. Basically – let’s not see the grades and stress out.

Enjoy! This is the age to enjoy life and studies not loathe it.